Why I left RiotACT
February 6th, 2006 at 11:05am
Some of you may be aware of (or in some cases be an editor of) a website called The RiotACT. For those of you that aren’t, I will provide a brief description.
The RiotACT is a Canberra based news and opinion website which often looks at ACT politics and ACT events. In much the same way as Slashdot, readers are able to submit articles, and after review by an editor, the article may be published.
I first became aware of The RiotACT in April, when one of the editors, Johnboy, posted a review of Linux.conf.au 2005, I did much the same as a comment. After becoming aware of the main subject matter of the site, I decided to stick around, and became a regular commenter, and occasional article submitter. This went on for quite some time, and I found the debates to be quite interesting.
After a long while though, it became apparent that certain people either didn’t like me, or didn’t like my opinions, and took it upon themselves to take minute sections of my comments out of context, make a huge deal of it, and let everyone else tag along for the ride. The personal attacks didn’t bother me too much, you learn to deal with it after a while online, the constant being taken out of context didn’t overly bother me either as I would try and correct what was said. What bothered me was the way anything which was taken out of context became the subject of debate, and treated like some bigoted statement, which in turn resulted in constant “Samuel is an idiot” type posts.
After a while, it got worse, and became more consistent, with people starting to skip the “take Samuel out of context” stage, and just go straight to “Samuel is an idiot, yell at him”. This made it impossible for me to get my point across, and really hindered the ability of the site to remain on topic.
There were also some fundamental differences in opinion between myself and certain people, including an insistence that I live my life in a way which makes my opinions invalid. Apparently drinking to excess, getting into pointless fights or doing other things which I’m not interested in would turn me into a psuedo-fountain-of-wisdom. (Interestingly, there were some assumptions in the linked comment that I haven’t done certain things that I actually have done, which is why I linked to that comment. There are plenty of similar examples of pointless comments directed at me to be found if you browse through the archives of The RiotACT. There are also some interesting and factually incorrect generalisations about commercial talk radio in the linked comment.)
It was these fundamental differences and the inability of decent discussion whenever I made my views clear, which made me make the decision to leave The RiotACT. I have checked in on it a couple of times since taking that decision, and it seems to be functioning in a normal manner without me. On topic discussions seem to have returned, and the site seems to have some value again.
To summarise this, I made the decision to leave for two reasons:
- There was no point wasting my time making my opinions known on The RiotACT if people were going to take them out of context and spend their time telling me how worthless my opinions are. I have no problem with people telling me my opinions are wrong (if they have a good reason), but telling me that they are worthless is just fundamentally stupid.
- As long as I stayed there, The RiotACT was losing credibility due to constant flaming of me. The solution was simple, leave and focus on other things, it seems to have worked, RiotACT is better off without me and the pointless flaming directed at me.
The RiotACT has very noble intentions, and is a very interesting and useful website, it is just a pity that people felt a need to rubbish me, not because of my opinions, but because I am who I am. I wish The RiotACT success, and I didn’t want them to lose visitors because of constant junk. The people who run the site have worked hard to build it up over more than five years, I respect that, and felt that it was best for them if I left as it is the ultimate cure for the garbage directed at me, which ultimately lowered the standard of the website.
So there we go, for those who were wondering, that is why I left The RiotACT.
Entry Filed under: Bizarreness,Samuel News,Samuel's Editorials
10 Comments
1. Kooky_Pound_Puppy | February 6th, 2006 at 4:17 pm
“When you get your licence, people might start to value your opinions in these areas Sam. ”
Not nice comment atall
2. heatseeker | February 6th, 2006 at 6:04 pm
Yes, extremely negative … the sort of comment you’d expect from the Pompous Evil Loonie Woman or Needs to be Glassed … totally uncalled for!
3. flakey blondie samspam | February 6th, 2006 at 7:01 pm
To make fun of and gang up on somebody for their point of veiw is low. A pity because of the people that enjoyed your intelligent comments being ruined by a few certain haters.
By the way Glassed brought some of Sam’s greatest fans to this blog,be nice heatseeker!!!!
4. demented_cupcake | February 6th, 2006 at 9:30 pm
The sad part is, what’s so “expert” about drinking to excess and thinking they know everything?
Some people love to argue just for the sake of it and try to invalidate any intelligent opinion. I know the feeling, Sam.
They’re just jealous because you’ve got more braincells than they’ve drunk away.
Linux is a fun subject, though. I’ll have to see what you post regarding that.
5. Chuck Berry | February 6th, 2006 at 11:12 pm
Oh well. That is one less Christmas card you will have to send this year.
I am going to check out this so called ‘Riot Act’ and report back.
6. Chuck Berry | February 6th, 2006 at 11:59 pm
Snore. I find your blog much more intersting. You provide a much better insight into the inner goings on in Canberra. I hope that in the future you and The Riot Act can sort it out and have some interesting debates regarding open source projects.
7. The RiotACT » Saint&hellip | February 7th, 2006 at 7:28 am
[…] You can read all the sordid details here. Category: RiotACT and Nerderati Comments: […]
8. anonomie | February 7th, 2006 at 1:02 pm
Good on you, SGS. RiotAct had a certain amount of promise, but was ruined by the bullying culture, a sad reflection of the preponderance of posters who seemed to have something to do with the Defence Dep’t. If you didn’t fit the mindset (or the uniform), you weren’t going to be taken seriously. Sadly, the site has probably reached a level of terminal insider-ness, where the participation from those who are not of the rugger-bugger, drink-till-you-heave mentality is driven relentlessly out, by the time-honoured practice of bastardisation. This is what happens to natural-born followers when they’re not given an order to kill.
9. Samuel | February 7th, 2006 at 1:06 pm
Normally I wouldn’t let pingback comments through, but on this occasion it appears to be relevant. The RiotACT have responded. (The RiotACT appears to be having database issues at time of posting…yet again)
For those of you wondering what a pingback is, allow me to explain. Some blog software (such as WordPress) allow the use of pingbacks, what this means is that every link posted in an article will be followed by the blog software, when it follows the link, it will check the page for a specific pingback code (something along the lines of
), if it finds the code, then it leaves an extract of the article surrounding the link, as a pingback comment on the linked site.10. heatseeker | February 7th, 2006 at 4:36 pm
flakey blondie samspam, you are entitled to your opinion, but I’m with Sam this one, and I quote when I say the Needs to be Glassed is a “horrible, horrible” sight.
What they did to Samuel was demeaning and I’m very thankful they’ve decided to leave Nattie be.