Monday, April 13, 2009

As long as you spell my name right (and include that link-back)...

Yesterday, I blogged about the inappropriateness and intrusiveness of groups that think they are somehow entitled to a voice in the Obama family's selection of their family pet. And a couple of days ago, I blogged about an anti-pet-owner no-tail-docking NY state assembly amendment to the Agriculture and Markets bill called A07218.

Since those blog posts, five or six suspiciously animal-rights extremist profiles have shown up among my Twitter followers. I'm not trying to build a ginormous Twitter following out of everyone who clicks 'follow' on my account; I'm interested in content and good conversations--not sheer numbers. Often, I'll follow back--for awhile. But people whose tweets have a high noise -> signal ratio get unfollowed pretty quickly. And those who follow but don't have much of a profile or a website or any followers or updates of their own will get blocked. And for the record, animal rights activists will also get blocked from following me.

Then today, my blog about the new 1st puppy was quoted (and decried) by another blogger who calls himself AnimalRighter. By the goddess, I even got a blog link out of the man (for the record--never heard of him until his link-back showed up in my Google analytics summary.) Maybe he, too, is following Problogger's April exercise, "31 Days to a Better Blog." Darren Rouse, the author at Problogger.com, just included a blog improvement exercise that had participants link-back to another blog writing in their category.

So hey--as long as the blog spelled my name correctly ('Gaelen' is tough) AND it included a link back to my blog (which improves my online visibility) -- well, high-five, man! I'm not going to follow you on Twitter, nor let you follow me, and I'm for sure not going to subscribe to your blog--but I'm more than willing to be grateful for the extra boost to my site traffic.

Oh...and thanks for pointing out (by quoting it) the typo in my original upload. That's fixed now. ;)

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous9:35 AM

    Well, as they say, no such thing as bad publicity.

    Though you're not doing the extremist nut-cases any favours, I'm happy to note.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Favors back only to them whose cause is worth advancing--that's my motto!
    I've been a dog trainer way too long to toss out haphazard or inappropriate reinforcement. ;O

    ReplyDelete
  3. What is the opposite to "animal rights" or "do-gooders"?

    There is confusion as to animal rights extremists and those who consider the welfare and care of animals.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi, ADA. Others may indeed be confused between people who profess to be animal rights activists and people who work for the welfare of animals. I don't share their confusion; I know the difference quite well. I advocate for responsible and humane treatment for animals--I do *not* advocate for 'animal rights,' nor am I a do-gooder as those who might belong to PETA or ALF or the HSUS would charaterize themselves.

    Hope that clears up any confusion you may have.

    ReplyDelete

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