Why Poneke has decided to take down his very successful, highly entertaining, and extremely informative blog is a mystery to me.
I’ve read the Google Reader RSS but the site itself seems to have disappeared.
This is a real tragedy for the New Zealand blogsphere. While wideboys like Cameron Slater continue to throw their weight around and push rabid bullshit out into the interweb, people like Poneke bring their blogs down.
Now, is anyone else suspicious about the timing of Poneke’s criticism of Whale Oil Beef Hooked, and Poneke being taken down? Just seems strange to me.
Mostly because of a series of thinly veiled threats I was receiving here on Dart a year or so back. Things like threats to my employment. The emails and attempted comments were all lodged through anonymouse, a service you have to be a canny internet user to know about.
Very strange indeed.
16 May, 2008 at 9:35 am
What was strange was that last night there was a farewell post with lots of “don’t go” comments on it. Then that disappeared by this morning, which I thought might indicate a rethink and he would be staying. And now the rest of the blog has gone… However, may be an Occam’s Razor situation and he just decided it was too much work to fit alongside the day job.
16 May, 2008 at 9:54 am
“anonymouse, a service you have to be a canny internet user to know about”
You don’t have to be too savvy, maybe just techno-literate. I think they even listed a how-to on Lifehacker.
Meaning it could’ve been any old munter with access to the tubes.
16 May, 2008 at 9:54 am
@ Andrew: you think they might’ve threatened him with a razor!
16 May, 2008 at 9:57 am
here’s his last post
it was cached in my feed reader
it’s sad to see poneke go
Farewell, but hopefully, not goodbye. Ka kite ano
By poneke on Blogosphere
Blogging has been fun. I have really enjoyed writing this blog. But writing a blog, given my occupation and family circumstances, is hard to juggle with work and family commitments.
Election year makes it especially so. I am genuinely non-partisan, but the New Zealand blogsosphere is so partisan that to continue blogging would, I fear, eventually cause some other bloggers to accuse me of being partisan.
Therefore, it’s time to stop, at least for now. Thank you for reading, and especially, thank you for the huge number of comments you’ve posted in response to the articles posted here.
I have fabulously enjoyed being part of the New Zealand blogging community, especially the blogs written by such “ordinary” and erudite bloggers as Art and My Life, Ex-Expat, In a Strange Land, Sas, Stargazer, Rob Hosking, Che Tibby and Without Blame. I will continue to read you daily, for you are the real people I wish I could be.
Till we meet again. Ka kite ano.
16 May, 2008 at 10:07 am
I got there in time to post a farewell comment. But the blog has not been taken down – it has gone private. So hopefully that means it is still there; it just can’t be seen. Which is why he’s saying ‘Ka kite ano’ rather than goodbye.
Yes, I thought the timing was interesting too, Che. I had noticed that his posting frequency dropped just a little, and then the excellent post on the NZ blogosphere sewer disappeared, then the posting frequency dropped again…. If the gutter dwellers have been threatening him, then that says something incredibly vile about them.
I will miss Poneke’s work.
16 May, 2008 at 10:47 am
Sadly I missed this post on the blogosphere, which appears to have come and gone too quickly to have been cached by google. It seems to have a copy of the rest of the blog though.
16 May, 2008 at 11:14 am
Its awful that Poneke has stopped. Che – if what you say about threats is true then it sucks. If things just got too busy (and it is hard to blog everyday with life going on) why not leave the site up?
16 May, 2008 at 11:38 am
Yes, I’m very sad about this. I really hope Poneke makes some more detailed statement about the last few weeks – I want to respect his/her privacy, but I would like to be assured that bullying wasn’t the reason for this decision.
16 May, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Thanks a lot Che, for explaining the perplexing lack of Poneke.
I will miss his erudite musings, and fervently hope that this is only a temporary sojourn.
It is strange that the site has been removed. I would of assumed a farewell message (and the rest of the blog) would have remained if Poneke had decided to stop blogging. Not the complete disappearance of the entire blog history. (That’s got to break a lot of links).
16 May, 2008 at 12:53 pm
yeah, its the removal that surprises me. i should add that the threats i got disappeared eventually, and followed me running down a right-wing blogger (not cameron slater) on another blog. i did make sure that i warned my manager that these threats were occurring, so that if anything was sent into my work the damage was mitigated.
for starters, my internet activity is all above board!
ponekes a journalist. mayeb some of the stuff he was writing (for instance calling the herald a ‘provincial rag’) might have ruffled some feathers.
i dunno.
16 May, 2008 at 2:45 pm
I’m trying to figure this one out. It’s not unusual for someone to stop blogging, but it usually comes after a period of slowing down, loss of enthusiasm, fewer posts, less to say.
I’ve seen a few popular blogs stopped in their prime, but those tend to be semi-fake blogs, like Natalie Biz and Mrs Smith.
So it’s really strange that Poneke would decide to just suddenly stop his hugely popular and highly respected blog with all the drama of a 15-year-old journal girl, circa 1998.
It’s left me wondering why.
16 May, 2008 at 4:02 pm
I don’t think poneke is currently working as a journalist – I think he’s a press sec, possibly for a government department and if thats the case he’s vulnerable to charges that his public comments are not politically neutral.
16 May, 2008 at 4:19 pm
ouch. if that is the case then he should have stuck to talking about the buses…
16 May, 2008 at 4:24 pm
I missed that train wreck due to being in transit from China. Damn it.
16 May, 2008 at 6:06 pm
I’m guessing, but I suspect it became a victim of its success. If it had had a lower profile, it may not have been noticed.
But it went from nowhere to one of the post popular blogs in no time. And for good reasons – sometimes, just sometimes, quality will win out.
He does work for a govt agency, and there’s a real crackdown at the moment on being seen to be politically neutral. There’s very good reasons for that, but Poneke was never partisan.
It may though have run afoul of election year jitters in the public service. (I’m guessing here, I stress: no inside knowledge).
16 May, 2008 at 6:32 pm
Danyl: that changes things significantly. Public servants can’t really do anything other than lifestyle or food blogging.
16 May, 2008 at 8:03 pm
Well fuck, that makes it worse in a way. Because if that were true, it would imply that some waner said “ooh, you’re FAIR GAME mate and we’re going to OUT you and HOUND you and make you LOSE YOUR JOB”. Which I find repellent.
16 May, 2008 at 8:29 pm
Poneke’s the ‘blogosphere sewer’ post did suggest he was just getting sick of the general blogosphere nonsense.
Poneke’s real name had popped up in other media week or so ago and D4J and such like had started making appearances on the blog too. Maybe the simple explanation is he just decided the fun of blogging had been taken away by the consequent bullshit of being a top blogger.
16 May, 2008 at 8:35 pm
it could be a combination of that, and a threat to expose him.
before i started food blogging and reviews (sigh… ) people suggested i stick it out under a pseudonym. but the risk of some dickhead finding out was just too great.
and it’s a shame. but, trying to be objective, some of those posts were a little inflammatory, especially if he is as you say a public servant.
the val sim one for example?
16 May, 2008 at 9:08 pm
I have finally put 2 and 2 together. If I am correct, and I may not be, then Poneke was on the public payroll, but not in a department or a ministry or in any position that directly impacts on policy. Unless they have moved on to a more sensitive position since they last did something google-worthy, going after them for expressing a political opinion one way or another seems utterly vindictive to me.
I have written to P to suggest that a blog concentrating on pure Wellingtoniana could hardly attract blame. I loved the trolley stuff.
17 May, 2008 at 12:14 am
Stephen: The word you’re looking for is “Crown Entity”, and that means the normal public service rules don’t apply (however, such employers may set such standards themselves).
And yes, I too find the idea of a baying right-wing crowd declaring fatwas on people and trying to hound them from their work to be fairly repellent.
17 May, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Well, he got something sorted out, because Poneke is now back, and quoting Mark Twain with regards to much exaggeration and reports of demise etc etc etc….
17 May, 2008 at 5:16 pm
well.. this is all very confusing…
been good for my visits though! heh.
17 May, 2008 at 6:07 pm
Stephen: The word you’re looking for is “Crown Entity”, and that means the normal public service rules don’t apply (however, such employers may set such standards themselves).
The rules do apply. The difference is generally that you are excepted from the rules if it’s your job to critique or comment. http://www.ssc.govt.nz/display/document.asp?navid=215&docid=5110&pageno=6#P254_38188
18 May, 2008 at 12:59 am
Richard: point. I need to drag myself out of old PSCC thinking.
The agency in question is explicitly covered under the new Standards of Integrity and Conduct.
18 May, 2008 at 11:41 am
“he should have stuck to talking about the buses…”
And in my position I can’t even do that! Good to see him back, though (and Rusty).
18 May, 2008 at 6:09 pm
I’m just glad poneke is all back and online
the world of blogs, should not have to loose such a good and interesting voice.