Policing the Internet

I’ve gotta rant –

I got a comment two weeks ago on a Photo Hunter post. Actually I got the same comment on two of my sites.

A likely well meaning person got it in their head to inform me of the rules of the Photo Hunter meme. Specifically, they copied and pasted the part of the rules which says that the photo I use must be my own.

Yes, I do know that that is one of the rules of the game. You don’t have to tell me. Most of the time I do in fact post my own photos. I am a photographer after all, why wouldn’t I want to show my own work whenever I can?

Unfortunately, I don’t always have photos that fit the theme. I don’t have furry pets or kids. It’s winter here. Plus I’m sick and stuck inside the house. I don’t get out much at all. Not even to shop these days. So yes, occasionally I’ll find a photo that fits the theme on a free site that I can download the photo from without causing any harm. For the last photo hunt I used a photo that a photographer friend had given me permission to use as I pleased.

It seems that I can’t win for losing these days.

I even get anonymous comments from people occasionally telling me that Wordless Wednesdays are supposed to be wordless. No way? I had no clue what Wordless Wednesday meant.

Yes I really do know, but I have a reason for writing in my Wordless Wednesday posts and I’ll probably keep doing it too.

I almost always play by the rules in everything that I do. Except it doesn’t pay since I still get told what to do, or that I did something wrong – even when I didn’t.

For example, two weeks ago I wrote a post for an advertiser. Four days later the same writing opportunity came up and my husband, who has a separate account of his own with a “blogging” company also took the writing opportunity on his site – which happens to be on a sub directory of this domain. The advertiser in question didn’t exclude any domains when he or she made their advertising opportunity. Turns out, after the fact, that the advertiser didn’t want two links from the same domain. Unfortunately the rules of the writing opportunity didn’t say that, and with my husband having his own account I can’t hang over his shoulder and tell him what he should or shouldn’t write. Somehow I was the one penalized for the action though. I followed the rules to a T and so did my husband, but guess what? It was still somehow our fault. I’m still waiting to find out how that whole saga will turn out. I was told to resubmit my rejected post a week and a half ago. I have a nagging feeling that they are going to let me leave it up for 30 days and then reject it again. Oh I’ll be so mad if they do that.

Next on the list … I’ve found three sites copying my whole posts onto their site. Giving no credit back to my site and claiming as their own. I complained to the authors and wrote about it on the blog that had the articles stolen yet I was told by at least one commenter that I didn’t have a right to be upset. Huh?

So to heck with it.

I do things right and things go wrong and I get told that I’m wrong. I do one little thing that isn’t right and never mind that a lot of people post photos that aren’t their own, or write in posts that are supposed to be wordless – I get the rules copied into my comment area. It wouldn’t bother me so much if it was the meme owner who wrote to me, but it was someone that took it upon themselves to police the internet.

After the way last month went I just feel like saying “Forget it”.

You know, I see people doing this all the time. Policing the internet I mean.

Telling people that they spelled words wrong in their posts on their blogs, mailing lists or in forums and just butting in where they have no business in the first place.

Those people just need to mind their own business. Keep it to yourself because I don’t want to hear it. If you see something on the internet that bugs you enough that you feel you must comment why not just blog about it on your own site?

Keep it off mine though.