Jack Yan’s articles at Jack Yan: the Persuader Blog

The logical consequence of Semrush and its users’ misinformation: personal attacks

Posted on 23.04.2024 (23.04.2024)

This is the natural consequence of all the misinformation that Semrush encouraged its users to post through the crap generated by its Keyword Magic Tool: people attacking me on Reddit. And who can blame them? It could well look like I was behind this spam campaign, instead of being the victim. The deleted comment […]

WordPerfect for Linux and Unix character terminals

Posted on 21.04.2024

Huge thanks to Paul Kater in the Netherlands for finding these: WordPerfect for Unix character terminals and WordPerfect for Linux. These are classic WordPerfect, without the WYSIWYG UI, but given that WordPerfect was the gold standard in word processors, I’ve no doubt that it’ll beat many of its newer rivals for power and functionality. […]

For the sake of our city, it’s important to take the opportunities to move forward

Posted on 20.04.2024 (21.04.2024)

The late 1990s were a heady time here in Aotearoa. The web—pre-Google, pre-monopolies—was indeed the great leveller: anyone with the right skills could create something online that competed at a global level. Aotearoa, which had for years felt a little backward in time—TV shows would arrive here two to three years after they aired in […]

Healthy jumps on Autocade

Posted on 20.04.2024 (20.04.2024)

I’m happy to note that Autocade has had a few high-traffic days again, the first time the daily rate has exceeded 30,000 page views since we put the site behind Cloudflare. After the site was reinstalled in 2022 and the counter reset, Autocade’s Mediawiki totals only update once a day. April 18: 8,633,966 total […]

Do you really want a Nazi brand association?

Posted on 17.04.2024 (17.04.2024)

Dan Gillmor wrote: I share Dan’s view. Not only that, why would anyone want their brand—corporate or personal—to be tarnished by Musk and his simplified swastika? Yes, my account is still there, inactive (and locked), making sure no one takes the handle. That’s just prudent, because the one thing worse than having your […]

LLMs and Google could destroy the internet

Posted on 15.04.2024 (23.04.2024)

Leigh Harrison sent me this blog post by Evan Boehs, which reflects my earlier ones about the web being rendered useless by Google et al. I never intended this blog to be about tech, but there’s so much to chart, and so much dishonesty to get on the record, lest someone else finds themselves in […]

Nexorank: stay well away from this ‘international SEO agency’

Posted on 14.04.2024 (14.04.2024)

Just doing a little experiment with SEO. Nexorank has a couple dozen entries in Google for a search for its name. They say on Linkedin: Exciting news for businesses striving to boost their online presence! 🚀 We’re thrilled to announce our partnership with SEO expert Jack Yan. 🔍 With his proven track record of […]

Online reviews: no safeguard against piling

Posted on 12.04.2024

There is a certain satisfaction in reading statuses like this: But at the same time it confirms what I said years ago about Google My Business and its ilk. There are no safeguards for piling. Thanks to Google’s bugs, I believe my business has a listing but it’s been nicely messed up so […]

Getting to each 1,000th model on Autocade—so far

Posted on 11.04.2024

The Tofaş Doğan, the 1,000th model entered into Autocade in 2009. A very quick look at how long it took us to get each 1,000 models on Autocade. 0: March 8, 2008 1,000: December 21, 2009 (1 year, 9 months for first 1,000—Tofaş Doğan was the 1,000th) 2,000: December 30, 2012 (3 years […]

You can post misinformation on Linkedin, and there are no consequences

Posted on 11.04.2024 (14.04.2024)

It’s official: unlike Medium, Linkedin has confirmed that it will not remove posts that misuse my name under the grounds of misinformation. After the initial report, and a request for a review, Linkedin determined ‘After reviewing the content, we didn’t find any violations of our policies.’ Summary: I reported the misinformation as misinformation to Linkedin. […]

Author: Jack Yan

Posts by Jack Yan