Do you link to your site to drive in traffic?
PrevNode LinkNextMany people whom I gave links to the various resources on my site, accused me of linking to them in order to drive in traffic for my site. First of all, I should note that it sounds like what I call a “conspiracy hypothesis” where one tries to formulate an ulterior motive explanation instead of assuming purity of intents.
That put aside - what will driving traffic to my site, buy me exactly? I don't get paid for each visitor or "unique hit" or whatever, and the Project Wonderful ads that used to be on my site were not pay-per-click, but rather pay-per-time (and now are no longer present after Project Wonderful announced that they will stop operating). While I admit I’d like my site to be as popular as possible, the real reason why I link to pages there is because they are relevant to the discussion at hand. If you’re too envious of me linking to my site, then please stop and get your own site which you can start populating with interesting content to your heart’s content. Moreover, you can use my site as a starting-point by forking its public version-control repository.
Why do you advertise/“spam”/“self-promote” pages from your sites?
Node LinkNextFirst of all note that it is "ableism" as I tend to link to my sites/blogs/domain a lot due to a combination of hypomania and slow typing due to hand paralysis. A lot of people think of blindness or deafness as the only disabilities, but there are many more, including bipolar disorder, Schizophrenia, and even lacking or non-native knowledge of English and other languages. Some Haredi Jews locally block YouTube, due to a Jewish Law prohibition on men hearing female vocalists.
I believe "anti-self-promotion" is a moral fashion popularised by reddit that was not present on Slashdot, or Freecode / Freshmeat, (and still isn't) and which I'll do as much as I can to kill:
Chuck Norris was challenged to fight the world, and accepted. He bet on himself, won, and collected the bet money.
Moreover, some subreddits do not enforce it either, and it makes even much less sense on interactive, real-time, chats.
Also note that the pages on my sites usually do not require registration or login, whitelisting client-side JavaScript or web ads, and they are friendly to lynx, and wget/etc. users. This tweet by me reads:
Dear Mr. Fear, go to hell! You have both crippled my body ( reference ) and made anti-"self-promotion" a trend to stifle my online forum presence. Well, I disbelieve all your lies and am not afraid of being banned.
The verb "to spam" has several meanings and many people equivocate them in order to censor me.
Furthermore, like Ayn Rand in The Fountainhead I believe in karma, and that being nasty, dishonest, unkind, and not generous, to people can bite you further down the road (while being kind, honest, respectful, and generous, returns seven folds). buu almost got himself killed due to frequent online chat hostility and use of IRC force (kicks, devoices, or bans). In addition, a former boss of mine who used to walk in the middle of the roads (hubris) in Gush Dan, got badly injured in a car accident.
(Note that I generally don't need the fear of retaliation to try to be honest and noble to my fellow men. This is because I enjoy being noble. )
Do you use your sites to collect IP addresses?
PrevNode LinkNextI rarely go over the monthly reports of the log analysers, to say nothing of looking at the raw web server logs. If you still don't believe me, you can try using Tor or similar, in order to browse them.
And frankly, these conspiracy hypotheses are ridiculous.
Do you use your sites to serve malware?
PrevNode LinkNextWorse: my pure-ASCII URLs consist of 100% magnetic monopoles! 😉
Seriously now: the pages on my sites usually do not require registration or login, whitelisting client-side JavaScript or web ads, and they are friendly to lynx, and wget/etc. users.
Why do you quote yourself e.g.: on IRC and on E-mail signatures?
PrevNode LinkWell, Peter Ustinov expresses having had a resistance to quote what he previously has uttered or wrote in the preface to a book where he compiled some of his favourite of himself and/or most memorable quotes. Many people think I'm narcisstic. I think I'm narcisstic. Even very narcissistic. I am trying to curb it, but there is a limit to what I can do.
While I agree that you should be critical of yours and other older works, often "old (for some value of old)", text [and source code] is still good enough. And then there are "retro" jokes/technologies that people can find funny again.