The thread “Bain says parents made him strong” has set a record in terms of number of comments. It was around 500 or so on a Destiny Church thread, but the Bain thread is now 1,016 comments.
And no I haven’t read all of them, or even most of them!
Tags: KiwiblogAll stats from Google Analytics for 2011 calendar year.
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Also currently Kiwiblog has had:
For those who missed it, the post before this one was by Jadis, one of my guest editors. As it happens I disagree with Jadis on this, and think Shearer will lead Labour into the 2014 election. Hell if Labour didn’t roll Phil Goff for non-performance, then Shearer has nothing to worry about.
I actually think he has a very decent chance of becoming Prime Minister.
I’m on holiday until early January so Jadis will be doing the odd guest post, as well as possibly other guest editors.
I’ll still do a bit of blogging, but will be less regular.
Tags: Kiwiblog, Labour LeadershipFrom Google Analytics.
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Tags: blog stats, Kiwiblog
The Electoral Act states in Paragraph (g) of Section 197(1) that it an offence at any time on polling day (before 7 pm) to publish any statement advising or intended or likely to influence any elector as to the candidate or party for whom the elector should or should not vote, or any statement advising or intended or likely to influence any elector to abstain from voting.
This means I will not be posting any material after midnight that could be seen as influencing any elector as to how to vote, or not to vote. I am asking all those who comment to do the same. The law should be interpreted broadly, so do not post comments tomorrow on any candidate, MP or party, current issues or policy.
It is not my intention to disable commenting, just as I don’t expect Trade Me will close down their forums for the day. If any commenter does post a comment that could be considered in breach, I will be happy to supply their e-mail address and IP address to the Electoral Commission. I will also delete the comment and suspend the account.
If a number of people act retarded and post stuff they should not, them I may stick moderation on for comments so they do not appear automatically. I’d rather not do that, unless necessary.
I’ve already voted. I voted today for National, for Paul Foster-Bell, for change, and for STV. Whether or not you vote the same as me, make sure you vote before 7 pm tomorrow.
Tags: Election 2011, KiwiblogMassive dos attack is why we were down from around 6 pm yesterday. Some people are not so much into this free speech concept.
Tags: KiwiblogA lengthy article in Stuff on bloggers. A good read. They profile Whale Oil, myself, Public Address, Dim Post and Robyn Gallagher.
Tags: Blogosphere, Kiwiblog
Thanks to John Stringer for this crossword. It is intended to be a weekly feature.
Tags: crossword, John Stringer, KiwiblogKiwiblog will be off air this Sunday between 6 am and midday approx. The server it is on is being cleaned and moved.
Tags: KiwiblogAm very amused by this story on Stuff:
In the spotlight over whether the taxpayer has funded Labour’s party activities, deputy leader Annette King has taken a pot shot at right-wing Stuff blogger David Farrar. …
King said Labour was very careful about what its staff did during paid time at Parliament.
”We have looked at it and we have made sure they are doing what is appropriate for them to do.”
Other parties should also check their staff, she said.
”Because I have no doubt that in the past someone like David Farrar setting up his blog, a lot of it was done within Parliament.
”I’m not accusing him of using Parliamentary time but every party has to be careful of what they do in their own time, in their own equipment and in Parliamentary equipment.”
Farrar admits he was working at Parliament when he set up the blog in 2003, and over the nine months he spent working in the National Party’s leader’s office he occasionally blogged from Parliament.
”But the blog was hosted on the NZ Pundit server in Dunedin. No Parliamentary resources were used.
”I worked an 80 hour week, they were getting free time from me, so the taxpayer didn’t pay for my time.”
I literally laughed out loud when I heard Annette was talking about eight years ago in 2003. And as I told Danya, my blog was never hosted on servers paid for by Parliament. Gordon King from NZ Pundit hosted it back then.
I definitely did blog from Parliament during the nine months cross-over with working there, but did this openly and under my own name. I actually think parliamentary staff should be encouraged to blog – so long as they do it openly like with Frog Blog.
But with me, it was very much as an individual. I did not seek permision from, or even inform in advance, any MP or staffer that I was starting a blog. For me it was just continuing on the debates I had been having in Usenet since 1996.
Tags: Annette King, DPF, KiwiblogWith work so busy for me, plus the pressure of regular columns on other sites, I’m finding it difficult to do as much as I would like to on Kiwiblog. I’m not going to, and never would, do an Iain Dale and stop blogging – I enjoy it too much for that.
But what I am going to try, is to see if there are any readers interested in helping out with Kiwiblog. These are not paid roles, but volunteer roles. A chance to contribute, and if you really want have a fancy title 
These are the roles which I have identified as most useful to me for now.
Sub-Editor
Data Monkey
After someone who is a whiz on Excel. Don’t need to know all the fancy advanced features, but is good with data. I’d like to do more data analysis on Kiwiblog, but don’t have as much time to to do it all myself.
An example of what I am after is the planned series of posts on Electoral Reform. One of the posts will be on how porportional each of the five systems are. So what I am after is someone who can use the Gallagher Index to calculate the proportionality of the result for each election from 1996 to 2008, and the average over the five elections.
Then ideally to also model what the results of each election would have been under SM 90/30 and FPP, and to also calculate the Gallagher Index for each of those scenarios. Then one can compare the average proportionality (or not) of FPP, SM and MMP.
None of this is particularly difficult – it just takes time to enter in the data for 5 elections, create alternate results for 10 further scenarios, and then calculate the index for each.
Cartoonist
Kiwblog used to have a regular cartoonist. If you want to take up the spot, send me a couple of cartoons.
Photographer
We have the wonderful nature photos by Chtonoid every Friday. But what I am after is someone in Wellington and probably someone in Auckland who can attend significant political events (marches, rallies, demos etc) and take some photos for Kiwiblog.
So if you are interested in helping, e-mail me.
Tags: KiwiblogBack in 2009, I had what I thought was a great idea. To have a Kiwiblog charity voted on by blog readers, and that we could then use the blog to fundraise money for, and organise fundraising events around.
Readers voted and selected the Fred Hollows Foundation. That was great. I met with them, and with Give-a-little who kindly offered to be the donor system. I also had various readers offer to help.
And then I got busy, and remained busy. And months went by and I hadn’t had the time to properly organise online widgets for donating, arranging a schedule of events such as debates and quiz nights etc. So then I though maybe I’ll make them the 2011 charity instead of 2010. But I still never managed to find the time, and then the earthquakes struck and that wasn’t the time to try fundraising for another cause, and then we’re getting close to the election and I realised that realistically I had over-committed and couldn’t deliver what I wanted to.
Part of the plan was that I would donate 10% of the gross advertising income of Kiwiblog to Fred Hollows Foundation. Today I donated $10,000 to the Fred Hollows Foundation, as my contribution towards their wonderful live changing work. And for those mathematicians out there, no that isn’t 10% of the gross advertising income – it is a much much higher percentage. But I feel it is what I should do to make good on what I hoped we could achieve.
At some stage I would still like to try using this online community to organise fundraising events for charity, such as celebrtiy debates and the like. But realistically that would need a part-time organiser, not someone with around four jobs like I have.
Anyway the point of this post is not to highlight my donation, but to encourage yours. if you enjoy reading Kiwiblog every day, and appreciate the thousands of hours that has gone into doing 50+ posts a week, then you can show your appreciation by donating to the Fred Hollows Foundation. They are one of those charities where even a modest donations can make a huge difference, because in some of the countries they work, they can restore sight for just $25.
You can donate to them at this link, or by clicking on the widget at the top of the left sidebar. Please do so if you can.
Tags: charity, Fred Hollows Foundation, KiwiblogA commenter who just received enough demerits to get him a suspension, has taken to e-mailing his displeasure to me. His four e-mails in the last hour have said:
Very strange, my last post wasn’t even on politics, but on an upcoming film I want to see.
The scary thing is that he gets a vote.
Anyway if he keeps e-mailing me I’ll publish his name and e-mail address. And I think his temporary ban is very close to becoming a life-time ban.
Tags: KiwiblogThis blog runs on WordPress. It started life originally as a Movable Type blog, but a few years ago we migrated it to WordPress, and I have to say it made a huge difference. Not only was the blog heaps faster (as it did not rebuild the whole site after each post), but the functionality was greatly improved. And even better, one had thousands of WordPress plugins one could utilise to add on more features.
So being a big WordPress fan, I’m really looking forward to attending WordCamp NZ on Sat 19 and Sun 20 February. It is being held at Te Papa.
The guest speakers are a mixture of local and international, including John Ford from Automattic – the company behind WordPress. Local speakers include Julie Starr, Lance Wiggs and Richard McManus. I’m also talking for a bit about the challenges of a blog with over 600,000 comments on it. There’s also sessions commercially focused such as Search Engine Optimisation.
You can register to attend on the wordcamp website. Cost is only $85 for the weekend.
I’m hoping I’ll come out of it with some good ideas about ways I can make Kiwiblog better.
Tags: Kiwiblog, wordcamp, wordpressWas interested that the second most popular term for finding Kiwiblog (after Kiwiblog itself) is “Julian Assange”. I was surprised I would be on the first page of Google hits for his name, and even more surprised when I stuck his name in that Kiwiblog came up as the second hit after Wikipedia.
Someone is stalking Rex Widerstrom as his name is in 9th place for search terms and the NZEI death sqauds are hunting Peter McKeefry who is in 11th place.
Very amusing that we have a tie for 21st place with 179 hits each between “donkey sex” and “trevor mallard labour leader’. Is it 358 random searches or one person searching for both terms 179 times?
Iain Dale is the most widely read UK blogger. I read him and Guido almost every day.
He announced last week that he is going to stop blogging. This has made news not just in the blogosphere, but also in the mainstream media.
Looking at some of the reasons why Iain has quit, I can understand his decision. There are times when it does get pretty challenging.
Well, I am afraid this is the blogpost where I tell you that I am giving up blogging. This decision has been coming for some time and was nearly made a month ago, but I couldn’t quite bring myself to do it then. Well, today I can.
There’s no single reason, but let me try to explain as best I can why I can no longer blog in the way I have been doing over the last five years. First of all, let me say what it’s NOT about. It’s got nothing to do with the Conservatives being in power. There’s this myth that blogging in government is less interesting than in opposition. I’ve never bought that argument. I think I have been quite open in making clear when I think the coalition have got things wrong, but I accept that is not the perception, and probably never will be.
I agree it is not less fun in Government. I thought it would be, but I am finding no shortage of things to blog on – in fact my challenge is the topics I miss out due to lack of time or resource.
I’ve been thinking of going through the year’s posts and counting the number of times I have criticised or disagreed with the Government. It’s several score at least.
The truth is, I no longer enjoy blogging and I think that this has been evident for a few months now to my readers. I hate the backbiting that goes along with it. I hate the character assassination that is permanently present.
I’ve always said I’ll give up if I don’t enjoy it. But unlike Iain I don’t get too bothered by the haters out there. The more someone spews venom at me, the more I think that I must be doing a good job for them to feel so threatened. If someone I respect criticises me, I take that very seriously – but they tend to do so in non-personal terms.
So I can’t see myself ever giving up because of the haters. Quite the opposite – it encourages you even more.
I no longer enjoy the pressure of feeling I have to churn out four or five pieces every day. I used to enjoy sitting in front of the TV at home in the evenings and writing blogposts at the same time. I can’t do that any longer as I am on the radio every weekday evening. And when I am in the office during the day I have two companies to run. Something has to give.
This is where I can totally empathise with Iain. Once upon a time the blog was not an “obligation”, just fun. But I do feel a sense of (mainly self-imposed) obligation to try and do around 8 – 10 posts a day, to cover off major issues and to be topical.
There are days and weeks when I am exhausted from trying to manage the blog, actually earn money from Curia, contribute to InternetNZ’s activities, do various media obligations, and a near non stop range of meetings and speaking arrangements.
Even getting up at 5 am doesn’t leave enough time, and friends have to put up with me trying to catch up on a backlog of e-mails while watching DVDs on a Friday night.
To cope with what will be an even busier in 2011, I will be soliciting some volunteers to help with certain aspects of the blog. I’ll provide details in January. I’m also going to learn the value of the word “no” and start declining speaking requests – not all of them, but some of them.
And if I am honest, I now feel that my blogging is having a negative effect on various aspects of my business and broadcasting life.
I estimate I could probably double my income, if I gave up blogging. Partly due to the extra time I would have to do business development – in six years of business, I’ve never responded to an RFP or solicited a client. It has all been word of mouth. Also the blog makes me too risky a choice for many government sector clients.
I’m working 9am to 10pm five days a week. I enjoy it. I relish it. I thrive on it. I’m running a very successful publishing company which is, I believe, on the brink of great success. I’ve achieved a lifetime’s ambition of having my own daily radio talk show. I am not about to put either of those things at risk. And frankly, I’m not going to put my health at risk either. As I said above, something has to give in this life I am now leading, and I am afraid it is the blog.
The health factor is real also. I left Parliament, partly because of the insane hours. They’re not as bad as when I was at Parliament, but it is a long way from a 40 hour week.
But at the end of the day, my challenge is to get a better balance, not to give up blogging. I’ve actually been debating politics online since 1996, and blogging is just a continuation of that. If I can get the balance right, I hope to blog until I am happily (or grumpily) retired.
I have also decided to give up all party political activities, as they too have hampered aspects of my business and broadcasting career in the past. I am, and will remain, a Conservative supporter, but that’s as far as it goes.
I made that decision after the 2005 election, and it was the best thing I have ever done. I will attend the odd party conference if it is interesting, but have managed to avoid any roles or offices.
The only party role that might interest me in the future would be on the Board of Directors, but I suspect it would be incompatible with my blogging as you can’t really have a Party Director criticising a National-led Government, even mildly.
Finally, I’d like to thank all my readers for sticking with me through good times and bad over the last five years. To the many enemies I have made along the way, I’ll just say in a very Nixon-esque manner, just rejoice in the fact that you won’t have me to kick around any longer. For the moment, anyway. For the most part, I have enjoyed the blogging experience and made a lot of friends through it.
Iain’s departure is a real loss to the UK blogosphere. I always enjoyed his blog, as he was very reasonable and fair. And it was a great way to keep up with UK politics.
Tags: DPF, Iain Dale, KiwiblogOverheard at lunch a comment along the lines of:
“According to Kiwiblog and Whale Oil, the guy leading the charge is a Labour Party candidate”
It was a group having lunch. I resisted the urge to introduce me, and just kept the quiet satisfaction to myself.
Tags: Kiwiblog, national standards, Whale OilA reader asked me what the reader stats by country are. Google reports for the last month the following visits:
Also at 0.1% or more are France, Netherlands, South Korea, China, Thailand, UAE, Ireland, Indonesia and Switzerland.
Tags: KiwiblogAt Backbenchers last night there was a discussion on lifting the retirement age from 65 to 67. They asked one table how many years off retirement they are. One girl said 46 years so I guess she was 19. Then they asked the more elderly gentleman how many years from retirement he was, and he responded that as he was 89 I guess I am already retired.
A round of applause for him, as people impressed that at 89 years old you’re coming to the pub, having a beer and watching Backbenchers.
At the end of the night he came up to me when he left and said how much he enjoys the blog, and reads it pretty much every day. Pretty thrilled to get such cool feedback, and meet what may be KB’s oldest reader.
It got me wondering. Who is the oldest and the youngest reader of Kiwiblog? If you are over 89 or under 18 feel free to state your age – either in comments – or if you are shy, by e-mail.
Tags: Backbenches, KiwiblogOn Monday 20 September I blogged my views on the Wellington City Council elections.
Around 12 days later on 1 October, Eastern Ward Councillr Rob Goulden sent the following complaint to the WCC Returning Officer:
This email is in relation to information I sent to the Electoral Officer as a candidate profile.
My profile was sent for WCC to circulate on its website to the media, as general information as to who was standing, and for publication in the Candidates handbook.
I did not and have not given permission for my information to be published on the Kiwiblog website.
I am also required by the Electoral Act to authorise such publication. I have given no such authorisation to the Mr David Farrar the author and owner of the Kiwiblog website.
I believe his publication under the banner of Local Government Election 2010 on his website is a breach of the act. He tells people how to vote in numerical order, and whom they should vote for.
I do not see this as any different from circulating a leaflet doing the same thing, which was the subject of a recent complaint in Tawa.
I wish information about me to be removed from his website.
Can you please consider this matter as a formal complaint?
The first I knew of this complaint was today.
I should point out at this stage that in my blog post, I did not actually advocate a vote for or against Rob Goulden. I did endorse Simon “Swampy” Marsh and Amanda Nicolle for two of the three spots and said:
The three current Councillors are all quite well known. I’d keep at least one of them on – so people should also support their preferred incumbent.
Ironically several people wanted me to explicitly state that Rob should be ranked in an unwinnable spot. But because of some shared history I declined to do so, and did not state any preferences amongst the three incumbent Councillors. I won’t be as generous in future.
I also provided links to the official candidate supplied statements on the WCC site, allowing readers to make up their own minds on who to support.
Anyway back to the complaint, the Returning Officer responded the same day:
I acknowledge receipt of your complaint and, as required by section 138 of the Local Electoral Act 2001, your complaint will be referred to the Police for their investigation and appropriate action.
Oh what fun. I’ve been under Police investigation without knowing about it. The Police responded quickly:
Police response on Kiwiblog complaint
The Police very sensibly can tell the difference between an advertisement and a hyperlink.
Anyway I found out about all this today when Rob e-mailed me and said:
Please see the attached. I hope you will comply forthwith and remove my information from your website.
Now I am under no legal obligation to remove the link – it is to a public elections site. And I am bemused why Rob didn’t just e-mail me directly in the first place. But just so Rob doesn’t lose any more sleep about this, I have removed the hyperlink.
But perhaps I should replace that hyperlink, with another one. This hyperlink is to the WCC Watch Blog, specifically (by coincidence) to a blog post they did today on Cr Goulden.
UPDATE: A further e-mail from Cr Goulden:
I sent you an email tonight with the Police and Electoral Officers response attached.
I made a complaint to the Electoral Officer because that is the process I am required to follow.
You published my material without permission, which is why you have been asked to remove it.
For the record in 2007, you also published on your website defamatory material about me. You were told to remove and you subsequently did.
I note already a defamatory remark made in response to your latest post.
I am not going to be as lenient as I was last time and intend to do something about you and your posts.
I will give you until the morning to remove them and no longer.
I have responded:
I am disappointed you have not learnt anything from this. Polite requests go down better than threats and complaints.
You have not specified which of the comments you feel is defamatory. If you do so, I will consider your request.
I will continue to blog updates.
Tags: Kiwiblog, Police, Rob Goulden, Wellington City CouncilI’ve now got comparisons from Neilsen for NZers who read Kiwiblog vs all NZers who are online.
Through my advertising network, I am on Nielsen Net Ratings. Apart from the normal stuff on page impressions, visitors, I also get a demographic breakdown of visitors to Kiwiblog. I figured people may be interested in them also.
What would be interesting is to see how Kiwblog readers differ from the average online Kiwi.
Tags: KiwiblogI’ve been so busy the last couple of months that I’ve not had time to update the demerits table. This is actually a quite slow process as I was recording the date of every infringement etc.
To make it a more manageable job, I’ve set up a demerits spreadsheet, and will just copy and paste this to the demerits page.
The good news for those with a history of demerits, is I have wiped all current demerits, as I have been failing to keep the table up to date.
At of today, everyone is at zero demerits. However those who have previously has suspensions, still have that history – ie if they get suspended again, it will be for more than one week.
The bad news for those who become abusive or disruptive, is that it is going to be easier for people to report such behaviour:
If you see a comment that you think is highly abusive, then feel free to report it by sending an e-mail to kiwiblogabuse@gmail.com. The e-mail should include a link to the specific comment (if you click on the date/time of the comment, this will bring it up in the address bar).
I do not have time to read every thread, let alone every comment. So your help in maintaining standards is appreciated. I also do not have time to respond to every complaint – they will all be considered, and you’ll see below whether or not I decide demerits are warranted. Generally I won’t respond individually.
I am going to be putting a few minutes aside every evening to review any complaints, and decide if any action is required. The dedicated e-mail address will ensure they don’t disappear in the black hole that is my main inbox.
Tags: KiwiblogMobify empowers marketers and developers to create amazing mobile web experiences. Tap to learn more
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