Has Carter Ruck silenced Sidewiki?
The Mail has failed to shake off its Jan Moir Sidewikis by moving URL. But it seems that the power of Carter Ruck may prevail where the Mail cannot.
The error message for Carter Ruck's original homepage Sidewiki
I pointed out the other day that someone had Sidewikied the Carter Ruck homepage. But the original Carter Ruck Sidewiki has now vanished. Go to the homepage and it's not there. Try and read it directly and you get an error page. (Note to Google - work on your 404s).
It used to say this:
R.I.P Carter-Ruck In loving memory of the people that gagged the Guardian reporting on the British parliament. Was brought down by Twitter on the 13th October 2009.
It was up to 21 yeses last week - but it has now vanished.
Someone has now added another Sidewiki to the Carter Ruck homepage, that I'm not going to link to as (a) it's rude and (b) it references the Minton report which were not supposed to talk about beyond acknowledging its existence. I can't believe that it is going to stay up there for much longer ...
When are Sidewikis removed?
What reasons are there for a sidewiki vanishing?
The author may have removed it themselves. Or someone may have clicked 'report abuse', in which case Google lists the following ways a Sidewiki may violate its policies:
- Spam,
- illegal content,
- advocates hate or violence, or
- other.
Google goes on to say the following:
Our Comment posting policy is as follows:
- Don't spam or post fake reviews intended to boost or lower ratings.
- Don't post or link to content that is sexually explicit or contains profanity.
- Don't post or link to content that is abusive or hateful or threatens or harasses others.
- Don't post or or link to any file that contains viruses, corrupted files, "Trojan Horses," or any other contaminating or destructive features that may damage someone else's computer.
- Don't post any material that violates the copyrights or other intellectual property rights of others.
- Don't impersonate any person, or falsely state or otherwise misrepresent your affiliation with a person or entity.
- Don't violate any other applicable law or regulation.
- Don't use comments as a forum for advertisement.
You might also like to follow these guidelines and tips:
- Make your comments useful and informative.
- Post clear, valuable, and honest information specificic to the content which you are reviewing.
- Try to include both positives and drawbacks.
- Be nice to others; don't attack others.
- Keep it readable; don't use excessive capitalization and punctuation.
- Use good grammar and check your spelling.
Please note that we reserve the right to review and remove commentary that violates our policies.
Do you think any of those applied?
I surely understand why many webmasters don't like SideWiki and fear that competitors will use it to add comments to your site that will be as helpful as the comments that graffiti artists add to bathroom walls.
You should monitor the SideWiki comments on your own site(s) closely and act promptly on negative comments. There are now tools available that can monitor SideWiki comments for you, and alert you when new comments are posted.
http://www.updatepatrol.com/monitor-sidewiki-comments-and-sidewiki-alerts.html
Maybe on the tips and guidelines you could interpret it violating:
# Make your comments useful and informative.
# Try to include both positives and drawbacks.
# Be nice to others; don't attack others.
The initial sidewiki wasn't exactly informative unless you already knew what it was talking about, and even then, didn't add anything and only poked fun.
Could have been both more descriptive and biting, in a way that wouldn't justify removal.
Brian - thanks for that. I should point out you have to pay for Brian's service, whereas use of the API is free (if you can work it out - I can't!).
Phil - True. It's not very clear from the wording whether tips (which you "might like" to follow) have the status of policy (which you can violate). I had assumed not but who knows.