“You! Yes, you behind the bikesheds, stand still laddy!”

4 April 2006


The census is coming, and people are up in arms[1] about Question 14, which asks about “cultural and ethnic backgrounds” and whether a person is White Irish, Black Irish, Asian, Traveller etc etc. Well, not really etc, because there are only a few options, but there is the catch-all other. So what I want to know is, do the Central Statistics Office really think that the Others have come all the way from an island that looks suspiciously like Hawai’i just to fill in the census?

But anyways, the campaign to not answer Question 14 is sweeping across the blogverse[2] But that’s not what I mean to blog about, what I meant to blog about was the hassle that commenting is becoming.

At first you could just leave a comment anywhere you went. Then you had to make sure you had an email address. Then some blogspot accounts want you to be a blogger member. Now that isn’t enough, you have to have a blogger account and fill in those verification details. And with msn.spaces you have to have a passport identity thing.

Bloody spammers. Ruining the world so they are. I have a blogger account, and visit plenty of blogspot blogs, so I’ve gotten used to that. But having to sign up for other accounts, which I’ll then have to remember passwords for? Nah, I’ve had enough of random accounts all over the shop.

Hassle = me not commenting

Linknotes:

  1. well, moaning and bitching
  2. I’ve decided I prefer this term to blogosphere, I may even shorten it to b’verse, although then there may be confusion over the Buffy-verse.

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15 Responses

  1. anne says:

    You tell 'em! I've decided that same thing, let's form a club.
    Members-and-8-alphanumerical-character-passwords only goes without saying.

  2. I agree MSN take the fun out of commenting and those verification words are getting longer wasting my time in work.

    Also the comments that require e-mails whats that all about for later spamming..

  3. kyknoord says:

    Can I join, too? Huh?

  4. Fence says:

    Anne, can we have those verification thingies that ask you to do sums too?

    MacDara, I'm currently harvesting all emails, and soon shall make my fortune by selling them on. Mwahaha :evil:

    Kyknoord, that depends type in the following image 50 times, and then sign up over here and we'll see:

    adfkadflkajflk ajd flkdjfa lksdfjkl fjyeyeyeyuohioh ioahdfk nadfkandfkladfkdj fl;adfkja;ldkfj kladjflkjf lakdfjakldfj lkadfjasl;dfj

  5. Kelly says:

    B'verse? Good idea, though I think I prefer Per'verse. Hey, can you create a new category called American Irish Wannabes? Thanks. =o)

    I was SO put out when you were having trouble with your comments; not seeing my wonderful output immediately was very hard for me. I'm glad all is fixed, now. As for all the falderal on other sites, if I'm not connected with the person, I just read and go away.

  6. Alan says:

    Some people are having fun with the word verification though, by leaving a definition for the word you have to verify such as

    myxwjjv – a small rodent like creature native to Tunbridge Wells

  7. sally says:

    I understand why Blogspot uses the verification thingy for comments, other services have them too; but, half of the time the letter and numbers are barely legible. You end up not typing it in correctly and doing the verfication thing again! It really makes it hard to leave comments. The hassle and all.

  8. anne says:

    You're on.

  9. Fence says:

    Kelly, maybe we'll shorten it to b'erse? And really confuse people.

    Alan, I used to do that. But it got old :) Or maybe I got lazy.

    Sally, I get the reasons behind it, I just wish that one log in would work for everything. Like the whole Open ID thing that seems to be in the works.

  10. Simon McGarr says:

    I was a bit surprised the census form didn't have any sexuality questions. Don't ask, don't tell Irish Style?

  11. NineMoons says:

    That would be a bit too hard to draft. I don't think it would give any concrete data – far too many people still feel the need to hide it and it's not exactly an a or b question anyway.

  12. Mal says:

    Who was it who described himself as being like the census; broken down by age, sex and religion? I can't remember.

  13. Fence says:

    Simon, maybe they see race as impacting more than sexuality? I dunno.

    Not an a or b question, but an a,b, or c question NM; are you straight, gay or a combination? and of course a box for "non of the above"

    Mal, google is your friend :) as reported in a letter to the examiner, that would have been Sean Mac Reamoinn

  14. Mal says:

    Yeah, but it's classy to be vague, it gives an impression of lazy and blasé knowingness.

    I think it was Stephen Fry who quoted someone saying something in an article once and then wrote: "That quotation could be wrong, but checking it would mean going upstairs and I couldn't be bothered". Nice.

  15. Mal says:

    Come to Samizdisandat. Come. Come.