A polite refusal

Sachin,

Sadly, we must decline your offer to write articles on our site in exchange for links back to some paying customer of yours for the following reasons

1. You have not spent enough time reading the articles, merely searched for driving school on blogspot, observed our pagerank and thought that you'd like some of it. If you had spent more time on our site, you would have realised that your underpaid copy-editors will not be up to the high standards maintained by our volunteers.
2. We have quite enough high quality content of our own, and more in the pipeline. The problem we have is not in getting photographs or videos, it is in coming up with prose that is entertaining enough to accompany it.
3. On our comments page, we explicitly say "No adverts, no spam, no requests for cross linking. We will only be rude." You have fallen foul of this clause, hence this online feedback session.
4. We like to consider Google and MSFT/Bing strategic partners, while also maintaining a good working relationship with Yahoo! and Facebook, with whom we share a common codebase for our data mining activities. Linking to tier-three Australian driving school web sites would damage these relationships.
5. Your SEO customer's web site -to which we graciously link to for free- appears to be smug bollocks. This gives us the impression that your driving instructors are the kind who witter on about he correct colour of driving gloves to wear, not today's problems of how to post a positive comment on Facebook from your phone about the woman on the crossing you nearly hit without crashing into the car in front of you in the traffic jam.

Rest assured, there is a special place for driving instructors on our site, and we look forward to the opportunity to cover your customers there at some point in the future. Perhaps one of our Australian readers can provide some photographs for the coverage.

Yours,

The Bristol Traffic Project

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Sachin sachin@webprofits.com.au
Date: 19 October 2010 08:33
Subject: We would like to write an article for your site
To: bristol.traffic at gmail dot com


Hey there,

We have been reading the articles on your website and are very impressed with the quality of your information.

We have a team of copywriters who specialize in writing articles on various topics and would like to write an original article for you to use on your website – this article will not be used anywhere else on the Internet.

In exchange all we ask is that we can have one or two links within the body of the article back to one of our sites. You can view a sample of the quality of our articles at

If you are interested in having us write an article for your website please just let me know and we would be more than happy to have one written for you within two weeks.

Kind regards,

Sachin

This site is not a spoof

Some of the cyclist groups have discovered us - CTC Forum , citycycling, and YACF, whoever they are, and have been viewing our site, apparently concluding that it is some kind of spoof, that the text is somehow satirical.

Not so. We document the transport options in an anti-car city. While some of it may appear satirical to tax-dodging cyclists, that is merely because their model of the world suffers from an invalid assumption: "bicycles are a rational form of transport for adults". This taints their entire view of the site -and of society as a whole.

If Bristol Traffic is a spoof, then, by inference, TopGear, Jeremy Clarkson, and indeed, the entire Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail newspapers, would have to be viewed as some kind of spoof journalism put together by an anti-car news media.

While we do consider the BBC to be anti-car, we do not consider the Daily Mail or Jeremy Clarkson to be fictional. Until such a time as their fictional nature can be proven, we wish to be referred to as Bristol's Pro-Car press. Of course, we are competing with the Bristol Evening Post for the honour of being the best traffic news outlet. Today we are at a disadvantage as they have discovered that Noel Edmonds drives a taxi down our bus lanes. We are very excited by this news and look forward to any photographs of Mr Edmonds learning a new career now that his TV career has collapsed.

However, the fact that we are not a spoof makes it hard to link to other sites. The Association of British Drivers, for example. We agree with their anti-bike, anti-bus lane, anti-pedestrian stance, but the entire layout of the site, including colour scheme and use of Comic Sans MS font, spells out "spoof". We are doing more research there before coming down one way or the other.

Another recent situation was a comment on our popular Fixed and Singlespeed in Bristol article, where some idiot asked for us to link to their site, despite the warning in our comments that anyone who attempts this will be ridiculed.

I found your site from a Google alert for "travel accessories". As myblog has content related to this term and some of your content, I was wondering if you'd be interested in a blogroll link exchange (I link toyour site and you link to mine).

Their web site is about cupholders. Now, how to view this?

1. It's a spoof as who in their right minds would run a web site advocating better cup holders for commuters? They have mistaken our site as some kind of spoof and want to join in.
   
2. They really are leading-edge advocates of superior in-vehicle cup-holding technology, and are trying to move up from being a bottom-tier player in google searches for cup holder by trying to get links from the planet's premier transport journalism sites -of which we are clearly one.

If situation (1) holds -they are a spoof-, we must turn them down because we are in fact serious journalists. Also, their site isn't very funny.

If situation (2) holds, they are serious, we have to turn them down for a separate reason, namely their site is shite and we understand how PageRank works.

Google does not give web pages high placement in search queries based on the number of web pages that link to you -quantity-, but based on the ranking of those pages themselves -quality. Only links from other premier web sites -such as the Bristol Blogger- matter; links from web sites that come in on page 17 for searches for cup holder do not, and by linking to them without the nofollow tag, would only devalue our own ranking, for no tangible benefit.

For people who want to know more about the problem of applying graph algorithms to internet-scale datasets can we recommend Graph Twiddling in a MapReduce World, by Jonathan Cohen, of the US National Security Agency. We are only prepared to discuss PageRank and hence web site linking with people who have read and understood this paper, as anything else would be a waste of our time.

Thank your for your co-operation. Your civil rights will be restored once The Emergency is deemed over.

Idiot comments

We currently run a wide-open comments policy, because it makes things more entertaining. But every so often we get comments by naive idiots, today's being "Peacy Combson" commenting on Lockleaze.

I have visited your beautiful and stylish website..And I can suggest,

The style is default and as for the photos, they tend to get not just the exposure wrong but even the horizon, so are not considered beautiful or stylish. Compliments like this just raise suspicion

Lets exchange the links between our websites..

In the absence of a reason, let's not

I couldn't find contact page, that's why I'm writing here:
My preferred link:
idiot who doesnt read the blog before commenting
Please put mine, and tell me your link(complete linking info), my e-mail is mceselko@gmail.com, I'll put it immediately...

Delete this comment afterwards...

Best Regards
Peacy Combson

The site we are requested to link to is some US-centric car web site that is currently comparing the Porche Cayenne with the BMW X6. Given that our only criteria for comparing them would be which has to park more on the pavement or how best for a passing cyclist to take down their wing mirror without damaging their forearm, linking to this site is not possible;. instead we 've just left the email address up for the spam harvesters to find. Sorry -but those who live by spam deserve to drown in it.

Some random car-loans site has also just tried to link to us, but it wasn't even funny enough to deserve criticism. Straight in the bin instead. We consider these feeble attempts to get lisnks from our site to be a metric of success. We only link to local web sites, journalism sites like Crap Cycling and Walking in Waltham Forest, or spoof sites like the Association of British Drivers.

We do regularly accept suitably entertaining photographs of Bristol streets, ideally with matching commentary, but not necessarily. Ideas from elsewhere that we can adopt are also welcome. The contribution policy is documented.

Back to school week

The schools start this week, so its time to see if we can effect change in how people park in front of schools.
When doing sprog dropoff or just going past schools, see if you can collect snaps of cars up on the pavement or parked on the don't park lines, and we'll start building up data on who parks where. We do have the email addresses of some of the safe-route-to-school people, so we can engage in discourse about the whole topic.

Try to avoid being mistaken for someone takeing photos of small kids, because you can be arrested for that.

And Remember: "Peidiwch codi braw - parciwch fan draw"

This is Welsh, but given how few people read the English equivalent, they may as well paint it outside our Bristol schools: show you care - park elsewhere

Datamining the audience

For the past couple of weeks this site has been running Google Analytics, where we past and batch process this through their MapReduce infrastructure to analyse the traffic. Here are the search terms that brought people to the site so far this month, in order of popularity (and then alphabetical).

bristol parking blog
bicycle parking bristol
bristol traffic blog
bristolcars.blogspot.com
reverse parking technique
bristol cars blog
bristol cotham brow
bristol rush hour traffic
cars blogspot
lower bristol road bus lanes
polo park disabled parking
17 freemantle square, cotham, bristol
2 cotham side bristol
9 trees hill bristol
annecy france pedestrian zone
art of reversing a car
back parking techniques
bedminster bus crash
bedminster bus to ny
bicycle bristol oxford
bristol cars blogsot
bristol gloucester road parking
bristol mixed race escort
bristol motorbike school
bristol motorcycle parking
bristol pa train traffic
bristol parking bri
bristol reversing police
bristol taxi school run
bristol traffic 19 august 2008
bristolcars blogspot
bus bristol bedminster
bus marketing
bus stop 9 bus cotham brow
buses from cotham bristol
buses from uwe to cotham
cars.blogspot
cars.blogspot.com
corner reversing parking technique
cotham brow bristol
free bristol sunday 17 august 2008
free bus to bri bristol
gloucester road parking bristol
how to do reverse corner parking
how to remove range rover bull bars
learning to park a car
like bristol traffic cameras
lower ashley road
montpelier residents,bristol
motorbike parking in vauxhall
oxford bikes
parked car is blocking pavement
parking for gloucester road bristol
parking on cotham street bristol
parking on crossing
parking on pavements taxis
parking on the pavement on narrow road in bristol
parking secrets at bristol
reverse around the corner technique
reverse corner park
reverse corner parking
reverse parking techniques
scooter parking bristol
the art of reversing a car
traffic bristol blog
traffic in bedminster

What's interesting is that many people seem to be searching for places to park in Bristol, or how to actually reverse park a car. The answer to the first question is: you park your car wherever there is room. Zebra crossings seem to work well.

To learn to reverse park a car, fit a tow bar so that you get warning of hitting another car before you do any damage to your own. Then reverse slowly but turning the wheel sharply. It's OK to end up on the pavement, better that than scratching your wheels on the kerb. Drive backwards until you touch the car behind, then straighten up, again going forward until you touch their tow bar. If you are too far away from the kerb, repeat. Be careful of parking into cars with alarms that go off when you bump them.

Finally, apologies to whoever was searching for a mixed-race escort in Bristol. No, that's not what gets covered here.

Police

The evening post has an article on someone in Bedminster arrested for photographing the police reversing up a one way street.. Given that our data shows driving and parking the wrong way down a one way street is somewhat common in some parts of the city, at least the police were being subtle in their parking.





That does not give them any rights to take the camera, delete the photographs or arrest the photographer. You are free to take a photo of pretty much anything and anyone in a public area -a street- and if anyone has an issue with that, that is their problem not yours. Here are the rights of a photographer in the UK. At least in theory. In practise, waving a camera in the face of a policeman, car driving down the pavement outside your house or a group of road builders digging a hole in the ground can create an fairly confrontational response, especially with a bigger camera. Holding up phone is more subtle.

Tips:

1. Be careful. We welcome photos of traffic situations, but there's no need to start arguments in the street in the process.
2. Be subtle. Take a photo from a distance, or hold a digital camera low when taking a picture. Wait until they have driven past before snap them, or act like you are photographing something nearby.
   
3. If someone does start arguing with you, and your camera does video as well as stills, go into video mode and start recording the conversation while pointing the camera down (get their feet in or something). That gives you evidence (and a video for our site) without letting them know what is going on

Sometimes people do come over and ask what you are doing when you have just photographed their parking or driving. In this situation, the best way to defuse seems is to avoid being negative about what they've done, but instead be grateful for their contribution, explain that we run a site vaguely affiliated the Bristol Cycling Campaign and all that will happen is that it will be up online; no formal consequences. And we are grateful. Without all the entertaining pictures we get every week, this site would be dull.

Call for Participation

This blog is a collaborative exercise by some members of the Bristol Cycling Campaign  mailing list. Its a way of removing stress related to biking round the city -instead of getting angy, get a picture and make fun of the situation later. It also exists to show that the authorities have effectively abandoned anything resembling parking rules outside the pay-to-park zone, so making the streets more dangerous for pedestrians, cyclists and schoolkids. Even car drivers get blocked in by the cars across corners, vans forcing buses out of their lanes, and taxis not being able to park in their waiting slots.

We allow all forms of humour: irony, sarcasm, satire and ridicule, provided the content is non-libellous. That's important. The site is meant to be a fun read, not somewhere to post abuse about someone or something. Rather than criticise people, we are trying to celebrate all forms of driving and parking that one sees in the city. Because you have to accept what goes on, or get out of the city. Maybe even move to Denmark. Or Geneva, where the armed MTB police keep the cars in check, but at the expense of a town where parties don't go on after midnight and the police raid you for using a washing machine out of hours.

Here's how you can help:

• Take a camera when you walk, cycle or even drive round town.
• Take photos of anything that is particularly funny or thought provoking.
  
• Avoid confontrations. Taking photos is alternative to getting upset, to as a starting gambit in a fight. 
• Post it to us with location (street, area), and any commentary that is funny enough. No commentary? Send us the slides and we'll make something up.
• Videos are good too. Stick them on youtube and send us the URL
  
• You'' get credit for your pics, unless you want to be anonymous.
  
• Don't be disappointed if your pics don't pop up for a while -or ever-, or we change/replace the commentary.

Although most of our pics are of parking, that's because its easiest to film. Anything of moving cars, buses, bikes, pedestrians and trains are welcome. Even police horses and ice-cream vans.

Every so often, we plan to place longer and more complex articles on the transport issues in Bristol. These postings will still need shallow and entertaining photos to go with them.

We strongly encourage reuse and linking.

• Link to the article, home page or tag topic of relevance. 
• If you want to use one of our photos in print, such as a school leaflet, just ask.
  

Email? Try traffic at railwaypath.org .