For readers of FmH — unless you read the comments under the post to which this link points on my weblog Follow Me Here, you would probably not know that FmH is syndicated at medlogs.com.
For readers via Medlogs — I am posting this largely for you. Recently, an anonymous Medlogs reader, in the midst of a mutually rather acrimonious exchange with me in the comments section of FmH, let me know on FmH that s/he has complained to the sysop of Medlogs about my posts syndicated there. She/he claimed that the problem was the volume of posts with non-medical content originating from FmH; I think the issue is really that s/he does not like my political position. Her/his original derogatory comment on FmH did not even mention any supposed concern about medlogs.com:
Only when s/he became defensive after pressed about her/his demeanor did the commenter mention that s/he felt I was hogging the bandwidth at Medlogs:
But, more important, why in the world are you reading FmH? I’d suggest you stop, for your own welfare! Otherwise, what does it say about your life that you visit a site that is “idiotic”, “garbage”, “not fun”, “not interesting”, “not original”, “not touching”, not worthwhile?
Sorry you do not seem receptive to what is offered here. Ah, maybe I understand what FmH does for you! You need a place to vent your spleen! …in which case you are welcome to get yer rocks off by coming here. And, in the process, thanks for being a perfect illustration of the futility of dialogue with rightward-twisted wingnuts whose discourse consists only of namecalling.
(Anon): “I don’t read your idiotic rants. Unfortunately, this garbage overwhelms Medlogs.com with asinine political content of yours. And you betcha, I did complain about it to Jacob Reider. On some days, Medlogs.com looks like left-idiot’s-rants.com. I would suggest that for the sake of respecting other people’s work (in this case, Jacob’s), you delist your garbage off Medlogs.com. Then, some of us will ever (sic) see it again.”
You can read the rest of the exchange by scrolling down from here. (Not me at my best…)
(Ironically, this complaint about the volume of my posts and the offensiveness of my politics was in response to an item I had put up on FmH considering the decreasing volume of my posts at this point in my weblogging career. In particular, I am posting less political material, as I explain in the post in terms of “Bush fatigue.”)
But back to the issue at hand. My impression is that medlogs.com is not a weblog for medical posts but rather a weblog syndicating medical webloggers’ posts; as you can see, an important distinction. To my way of thinking, it is a dull medical professional who is interested in nothing but medical content, and most medical professionals I know are interested in a broader range of their colleagues’ thoughts. That’s my notion of the medical community crystallized by medlogs.com. FmH represents a cross-section of the thoughts and interests of a psychiatrist (albeit a leftwing antiwar anti-Bush one); seemed to have a place on Medlogs.
I would imagine that if I was offbase in that respect I would have long since heard from Jacob Reider or other Medlogs readers. The page to add a site to Medlogs says, “We will get to feed requests ASAP.” I take that to mean that Reider reviews sites applying for admission to medlogs.com to see if they are appropriate; for just this reason, it would be a great gamble not to do so. In that case, my content was deemed to be in the acceptable ballpark. In any case, I wrote to Reider about this difference of opinion and asked him to clarify. I told him that, although he might be reluctant to kick me off in response to concerns about my content because the action might have the appearance of political censorship, I offered that I would voluntarily withdraw FmH from Medlogs syndication if he thought it would be the right thing to do . I have yet to hear back from Reider.
I am posting this now because I think it would be responsible of me to solicit other Medlogs’ readers opinions about whether I am sullying their reading experience and whether I should leave Medlogs. Do you share the concerns of the scurrilous, anonymous complainant? Do you find my posts on Medlogs out of place or is the content I add acceptable in light of what you understand Medlog’s raison d’etre to be? I know there is some selection bias in phrasing a question in this manner; I ask sympathetic readers to consider replying as readily as others might do it in antipathy. You can let me know by going to the copy of this post on FmH and entering a comment. Please identify yourself as a Medlogs reader (and don’t share the complainant’s cowardice by remaining anonymous, please). Thank you for your input, and I would be happy to leave Medlogs if the preponderance of opinion supports that. I would be happy to see Anon. eat crow if the preponderance of the evidence supported that outcome… (but I will not hold my breath).
