Project Petaling Street

I have no problem with the "From the Street" section in PPS as they're among my favorite bloggers list. But, I can see Lionel's point. If PPS is ever to be seen in the same class as other blog directories, it has to be free from any indication of it being reserved for a certain group, not that I have anything against them.

We can see hundreds of blogs in GMBL but very few of them pinging to PPS. Whatever their reason is, I hope it is not because they think PPS is reserved for certain group, or a quiet protest of some kind.

Having been around when you started PPS, Aiz, I can full well appreciate the contributions of those whom you feature in the "From the Street" sidebar. Personally, I don't have anything against it - if it's there, makes bloghopping easier for me; if it isn't, well, they're in my favorites folder anyway.

But maybe others are not so clear about the role of these key players behind PPS - and why some of the core founders are listed there, others not. A general explanation somewhere might help reduce ambiguity. Also, if I recall correctly, the 'constituents' of this list has changed from before the crash - any reason why?

And perhaps, just to override the idea that the list is reserved for a certain group of people, why not add a 'Featured Blog of the Week / Month / Whatever' sidebar, with feeds from their blog? As the editors of PPS, you guys can choose who to promote, if you don't want to do a massive poll thing or a nominate a blog of the week thing - like you did in the Cakap2 Forums before.

well, since it seems that no one is going to voice the obvious, i'll be the one to do it. and i'll pull no punches too. ;)
i'll even distill it into one word - "attention".
and what better way to create traffic than controversy?
you're not fooling anyone, this isn't an unbiased analysis, this is blatent self-promotion too, and that, my friend, makes you a hypocrite.
you admit to pinging PPS, even going so far as to say that (quote) "I just hope that neither party will decide to strip me off their respective services for voicing this, nor do I hope to receive the likes of the aforementioned lashouts from anyone" (unquote)
now if this isn't someone who wants more visitors to his blog, i'll like to hear your defination of what this is. you obviously fail to appeal to the masses as can be seen by your comments (or the lack thereoft).
ask yourself what makes you special? what makes you different from the masses of generic blogs out there? you obviously want attention, but to get that, you have to create content that appeals to people.
you have been blogging for just a mere five months, and trust me when i say that your misguided attempt to generate visitors will only harm you in the long run.
i'm also aware that by voicing out here that i'll probably alienate some people too, who would think that i'm "arrogant" or somehow elite, but i do it anyway, just to state what probably more than a few feels.
for the record, i'm not arrogant or think of myself as some sort of elite blogger. i just run a blog and i like to write.
as aiz said, the sidebar is there just to be a list of "editors" of sorts. don't click on the links if you don't like them. you're contradicting yourself when you say that you don't click on them and is not interested and yet the bulk of your post questions why it's there, which is puzzling to me, since if you obviously notice it (nothing sharpens sight like envy, or so i'm told).
the human eye can be easily trained to dismiss the things they feel are unimportant or uninteresting and focus on the interesting bits in the visual field. you wouldn't have your panties or in a twist (or pretend to have your panties all in a twist to post something controversial that will attract traffic) if you really didn't care about it.
anyway, i've done my part in fuelling your attempts to generate traffic, but no thanks is necessary. :)

disclaimer: sixthseal.com is part of the sidebar and the author had to work till 6:30 PM today, sacrificing my personal time, which makes me quite disgruntled and not appreciative of desperate attempts at getting visitors in the guise of a dissection. ;)

I dont mind the side bar at all. I hope it stays.

I agree with sue, with almost a thousand listings on GMBL only a handful of those are actively pinging PPS. Perhaps Aiz, you could promote PPS by informing the people in GMBL about PPS?

My previous comment aside, I just realised another thing.

Lionel is hosted on blogs.com.my, which is Tim Yang's brainchild. This is not an indirect poke from what has been bygones, has it?

I like the side bar and hope it stays.

every one of the blogs listed in the sidebar has been required reading for me, long may it continue!
killuminati: kesian lah the guy, don't kutuk him too much lah? :)

Look Aiz, this topic has cropped up one too many times and we all know that TY has caused trouble in other circles (as I recall from our last episode, someone else remembered his little fiasco with WordUp).

The way I see it, half of PPS is an RSS feed page. I have my own - I created one in Kinja. If anyone wants their own side banner, go to Kinja, add their friends. Voila! You have a PPS-side banner and in colour too.

As for the pinging, there will be people who will want to ping and there will be people who won't. At one point, I didn't want to because there were just some posts that I didn't want too many people to read. But PPS is not a secret and to a certain extent, ppl like Aiz and Dinesh (and others) has made it even more accessible by coming up with instructions, code (for those on applications that can't run pings automatically) so on and so forth. Guess what, this eliminates elitisicm (??) by ensuring cross-platform compatibility.

And I really don't think PPS set out to rival anything out there. The main strength of PPS is its content - it pools a section of the Malaysian blogging public in one page. It's a fun thing to read and a fun thing to ping to, because of the people to meet and the stuff you get to read. Simple.

I agree with killuminati.

And I still don't understand what's with this "I had the idea first" mentality? No one is making money out of PPS (although it would be great lah!), maybe someone wants his day in the papers too?

Aiz, just move on. PPS works. And anyone can have ideas. But the ones who reap the rewards are the ones who put in the effort to materialise it.

Oh.. and if anyone out there wants to create a PPS of their own, you can:

1) go to Lunarpages for hosting (and give me affiliate commissions!)
2) buy a URL (there are those on offer for USD7.95)
3) get a whole bunch of friends who like to write to ping to it

Don't want to mess with code?

1) install MT or something, and don't ping. Do a group blog. e.g. http://www.makansakan.com

I wonder, if MakanSakan becomes as big as PPS, will there be scandal? will there be finger-pointing and accusations of eliticism (???is this a word)?

I hope so. Cheap publicity what? ;-)

'cause it's a lazy morning i can't form proper sentences:

1 - it's your website and you're entitled to do what you want with it - PPS, that is.

2 - it's the guy's blog and he's entitled to express his opinions and i personally don't care if it generates traffic to his site, or if it's a mere publicity stunt. gheez.

3 - sites like PPS, photoblogs.org and kinja are useful to someone like me who don't have a blog (or even if i do won't be bothered to have a links list) and keeps forgetting to bookmark stuff. terima kasih! although because i'm too lazy to even read that many blogs PPS is more useful as a page i sometimes scan through for something new.

oh boy, i don't even make sense :-P

*goes to make more coffee*

Haha, this topic really ruffled some feathers huh? Even Tim Yang himself commented on my recent entry (Itchy Hands: 'My Two Cents').

Lets just chill, everyone. And Aiz, maybe it is a good idea after all to have a 'Featured blogs of the month' to show good faith in proving that PPS is really egalitarian.

But whatever anyone says, kudos to Aiz and everyone behind PPS because the recent PPS crash has proved how much evreyone really loves PPS.

btw Najah, it's "elitism" ;)

David,

Thanks! =)

killuminati: "you have been blogging for just a mere five months"

i've been blogging on http://lionelsden.blogspot.com since 2002. before that, i even had a geocities-type homepage that used a manually-edited blog format since 1999. safe to say that i'm a veteran blogger.

i can see that i might've came off as a bit offensive in my blog. really sorry about that. :) in any case i wanted to open a worthwhile discussion.

Lionel: hello there, i've posted in your entry, but i felt that i should make an apology here too.
i'm sorry about the things i said. i have much respect towards you for taking things in stride and being civil and polite in your response. this shows much maturity on your part. my apologies for being an asshole.

by being an asshole, i meant that instead of just voicing my opinion, i made too many below the belt personal attacks, which wasn't warrented. :)

i've replied to you in my entry; it's fine.

btw, it'd be nice if my entry trackbacks to this page. doesn't this page ping, aiz?

The question that is raised here now is, who actually has ownership and accountability of PPS?

While we have Aiz around to slave over its maintenance and upkeep, and to renew the domain name every year, to manage the bugs and source for people and talent to fix the bugs, to facilitate the expansion of its functionality.. so on and so forth, how do we ensure its continuity post-Aiz (not that I'm wishing for you to drop off the face of the earth, but Aiz, your cigar thingy will take off one day, and you may not have the time nor the patience to want to deal with us lot anymore...)?

The core members role in PPS' infancy stages, in my observation, was to provide an anchor to the whole project to ensure a minimal level of traffic as to generate more interest in PPS. Imagine a small magnet that has to be there to attract more magnets to enable the entity to grow. And grow PPS has.

Back to the question of PPS administration, accountability and ownership.

Do we appoint a committee? (Which raises the question of eligibility, appointment process, etc..).

Or do we make PPS self-sustaining? (Minimal administration. Minimal user intervention.)

While there are a lot of things we'd all like to see in PPS, I do believe the best ideas are usually the simplest ones. Moving forward might mean adding new features, but there's a lot to be said for staying power as well. We can all bark our orders to Aiz and whomever he's got doing the codes and housekeeping with him, but none of these people are our slaves, and we should at the very least, deliver our suggestions with some semblance of manners (I am referring to the spate of accusations that were generated during this debacle).

I guess one day, PPS will be superceded by some fancy shmancy personalised community content aggregation portal with multimedia features. Maybe none of this will matter anymore.

In the meanwhile, like I mentioned in a comment on another blog's post on this matter, this episode has proven accusations once thrown at the blogging community, that we are in fact a bunch of attention whores who have nothing better to do than quibble over who's getting more hits and how...

i never meant to question the ownership of pps. pps is wonderful, and aiz its principal founder, and i totally tabik him for this.

i was just asking for the "editors' column" to be done away or less... er, decorated. a little thing, but i kinda had it overblown, yeah.

i have replied to all your comments on my entry. please, feedback welcomed.

Lionel,

I'm not saying that you are questioning the ownership of PPS, but the comments directed at its structure by virtue of your comments on the presence of the possibly prominent side bar raises some further questions on ownership in my mind. See my blog for further details.

I hope to get answers as it raises some very interesting questions on continuity...

You know, some pretty harsh words were said over what really amounts to fairly mild criticism over PPS.

Lionel has a point, actually — having the same people in the sidebar enforces the myth that there is a ‘Holy Circle of Exalted Malaysian Bloggers’. Not that that's wrong, but some people aren't going to like what they (don't really) see.

Of course, Aiz can listen and update his page accordingly, except that he doesn't have to. But that's his problem.

I believe in giving credit where credit is due. Those people on the sidebar have done their part in promoting the Malaysian blogging scene. They deserve at least some publicity in the site they are maintaining. Besides, this is a free country. If anybody who does not like how PPS is run, they are most welcome to go start their own blog portal and not give themselves credit there.

They deserve at least some publicity in the site they are maintaining.

I respect that view. But don't think I haven't considered it before.

I agree that the editors can choose to run PPS however they like, but the "go somewhere else if you don't like it here" rebuttal is one of the most useless, most passive things you can ever say.

I gave feedback, which is vital for anything that hopes to evolve. I care about PPS, and I like to see it improving; that's why I gave it, however much of a minority view mine might be.

I only saw an unspoken etiquette among international blog services in not promoting the founders themselves, and I just want to see PPS up to that standard too. Is that wrong, I ask?

Lionel, that might not be wrong but perhaps that is just not the way we do things here.

Lionel: Your suggestions are well received; i personally find it refreshing to know that people such as yourself care enough to take the time to make them. Don't stop.

There is still a number of things on the change list for v2.0 to do. Once they are done, all further suggestions will be revisited. This is not a promise that they will be implemented, but a guarantee that they will be considered.

good on you, aiz. i only read lionel's post as good feedback, and was quite amazed by the twists and turns it's taken. oh well.

keep up the wonderful work you've done to keep this going.

I must make it clear that no where in my comment did I ever said or implied anything that meant "go somewhere else if you don't like it here." What I said was "If anybody who does not like how PPS is run, they are most welcome to go start their own blog portal and not give themselves credit there." And that is exactly what I meant. Go start one and see how much work, time and money that you have to pour in and you will appreciate the effort these core members have contributed. Pinging PPS is a privilege, not a right. As guests here, we are each entitled to put forth our comments. You are entitled to yours and I mine. If we cannot meet halfway, oh well, point noted, we move on and let the Administrator act on these.

> I must make it clear that no where in my comment
> did I ever said or implied anything that meant
> "go somewhere else if you don't like it here."
> What I said was "If anybody who does not like
> how PPS is run, they are most welcome to go
> start their own blog portal and not give
> themselves credit there."

Not to be deliberately provocative, but the latter statement is a refinement of the former — they essentially say the same thing.

Lionel uses the service — that, as far as I'm concerned, shows that despite his criticism, he likes PPS and what it's supposed to stand for (at least, according to the documentation).

I personally think that a sidebar, badly managed and completely static, works against the community-oriented website by promoting, either consciously or unconsciously, the idea that the site is ‘elitist’.

That's my criticism of PPS. Does that mean I hate PPS or want to start my own portal, and blow my own horn? Not really. I assume that the developers want to see suggestions, and really, criticism is a form of suggestions.

Just because the site promotes the myth, mind you, doesn't mean that the site administrators set to do it that way, though.

You are entitled to interpret it anyway you want but the gist of that statement was never intended to imply asking Lionel to leave PPS. I am not in a position to do that. Asking someone to go start their own blog portal does NOT equal to asking him not to use PPS. Cannot one start his own blog portal and still continue pinging PPS?

> You are entitled to interpret it anyway you want
> but the gist of that statement was never
> intended to imply asking Lionel to leave PPS.

Oh, hell no. No, of course not. :D

> I am not in a position to do that. Asking
> someone to go start their own blog portal does
> NOT equal to asking him not to use PPS.

Oh, ha ha ha! Touché!

I don't have anything to say except I like the links in the sidebar and find it convenient (even if I didn't, wtf is the problem?), and that it's silly to tell the people who created the site that they can't do what they want with it.

So how come Aizuddin never tells the story with details and only one person has?

I frankly am fed up with the sore losers over a great project like this and i'd like to say please piss off. Nobody cares about the politics behind all this, and nobody will care. If you are upset, then by all means, please start your own PPS, and I'd ping to it too. Why? Because competition is always a good thing.

I usually won't bother posting for things like this, but i thought, what the hell. Let bygones be bygones and let's move forward.

Aiz, I've got a funding suggestion. Try google adsense. Doing wonders for funding my site and I'm sure you can benefit from it in some way or another. Give it a spin and try it. After all, if it can take care of itself, then you only need to fork out money for upgrades or buy me a cigar the next time you see me ;) .

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