Sting operation on MadMan shows he is a fraud
It seems I’m a cheat, folks. I supposedly pretend to be a “veteran blogger” when I’m not. Or at least so says Rohan Pinto in this brilliant piece of investigative journalism. (Read it at http://blog.rohanpinto.com/archives/2005/08/blogging_or_che.html – I’m not giving my Google juice away.)
Mr. Pinto is shocked and outraged, as he well should be, that I have posts dated five years back. How on earth could this be possible when this darn domain was only registered in 2003? What’s worse, people are commenting on articles three years after they were written!
I think there is no doubt, ladies and gentlemen, that I have been cheating you all by pretending to have a blog for longer than I actually have. You would do well to totally disregard anything I write from now on, because the evidence for that is clear. There can be no other explanation at all.
Or might there be one?
Could there be something so bewildering, so mind-blowingly improbable, that the brilliant mind of Mr. Pinto couldn’t have considered? For instance, could it be possible that I had a blog without my own domain at http://madman.weblogs.com that actually goes back many years? Heck, it might even be possible that I moved to my own domain after a while. But wait, Mr. Pinto might point out that http://madman.weblogs.com doesn’t exist any more! (Even though it now redirects to this site.) Unless of course Dave Winer shut down his service. And maybe, just maybe my article on junking mission statements was – gasp! – actually written on March 25, 2001 (scroll down). Or my article on getting rid of income taxes perhaps? Or the one on principles of my company (scroll again)? How could it be possible that my article on useful 404 error pages gets comments many years later (Mr. Pinto should be rightfully aghast at that) when it is only #1 on a Google search for “useful 404 pages” and other similar searches? Not even having the article published on a major web development site can be convincing enough, I say. Bloody hell, that article dates back to the year 2000! How it could migrate to a domain registered only in 2003 remains a mystery on par with the origins of Dark Matter in the universe. Therefore, I do not blame Mr. Pinto one bit for concluding I’m a cheat. Argumentum ad ignorantiam is certainly a valid way to prove something.
Oh no! You mean it could actually be true that I wrote these in the same year that I actually claim to have written them? That I actually did start a blog in October 2000? But my domain was only registered in 2003, so how did these articles get there by magic, Mr. Pinto would demand to know. I’ll admit: I’ve been using this top secret experimental technology that hasn’t been approved for use by you regular folks. It’s tentatively called “copy and paste” until we can find a catchy name for it. (I’m pitching for “Windows Reproduze ™”.) I hope I don’t lose my research grant for leaking details about this technology that allows me to copy text from one file and paste it anywhere else I please. The patent royalties itself could run into millions of dollars.
Perhaps you think the evidence I’ve provided is feeble and Mr. Pinto is right in asking “Blogging or cheating?”. You should all punish me for the cheat I have been exposed to be. Google bomb the heck away. And after you’ve done that, please head on over to Mr. Pinto’s site and tell him you’ve done so. Justice must be served!
(Lastly, there is also the more puzzling mystery of whether I’m the chef or the owner of Shiok or just pretending to be either. How could one person be both, eh? That’s just not possible.)
I’ll end the way Mr. Pinto begins his piece – with a quote from my father: “It is better to shut your mouth and be considered a fool, than to open it and remove all doubt.”
Years later, I found out my father actually got that quote from somewhere else. Darn it, being a fraud runs in my family. I can’t help it.
Excellent Madhu,
Your explanation is simply excellent. However I did not spend as much time to even investigate if there existed another domain prior to madmanweb.com
I did explain to you in my personal email that the probability of me being totally wrong in my assumption is way higher than me being close to right.
And hey ! never did I call you a fraud anywhere in my post, I did email you that I was blogging my thoughts on what I had just stumbled on. I didnt perform any deep ivestigation (further than just seeing that the dates were mis represented, nor was I sure if you were just a chef or a owner of shiok) as to the possibilities of the back-dates having a simple innocent explanation to it. I emailed you as soon as I posted it, and also offered to delete the entire post if you felt that it was totally inappropriate.
Well, ignorance is one thing, spending time to investigate background with intention of accusation is another.
There were no “accusation” made. I simply blogged my initial thoughts on it.
I commend your attitude towards it for taking it in such good or rather excellent stride.
PS: I am not shocked or outraged. words like that cause outrage amongst others. So as in the excellent stride you responded to me, I’d apreciate it if you were kind in the terminologies you use too. or maybe youre living upto your profile description on evolt.org for being a language nazi
Cheers
Rohan
Rohan Pinto
August 10, 2005 at 6:38 am
Blogging or Cheating – Madhu madman Menon ?
It’s extremely easy to point fingers at others, very very easy. I remember my mom telling me when I was a Kid, “When you point a finger at someone, you forget that you’ve got at least 3 other of your…
.: a scripted life :.
August 10, 2005 at 6:49 am
MadMan, my madhoo.com was registered possibly a year after I had been blogging too…or was I? :p
Shanti
August 10, 2005 at 8:54 am
Hi,
Commenting on your blog after a really long time. Excellent retort this.
Cheerio
silverine
August 10, 2005 at 9:00 am
Blogging Casualty
Do …I have to research everything I write before posting it like a journalist would do? Maybe, but I don’t think so. My purpose of having a blog is so that I can keep a living journal of things that…
.: a scripted life :.
August 10, 2005 at 9:34 am
Hilarious!
Karthik
August 10, 2005 at 9:45 am
And all the while when I thought you made kick ass food, how could you, you cheat? Blog indeed. Can I have my err… blogging trust points / faith / etc back?
And also some more recipies on the chef blog would go a long way to help healing me
(pah, comments on the rss feed dont count).
Madhu
August 10, 2005 at 10:23 am
What a way to start the morning?
Abolsutely Hilarious. This guys Pinto has a terrific sense of humor. He can make people laugh, without intending to:-)
F e r r a r i
August 10, 2005 at 11:14 am
You, you you…. conspiring, cheating, fraudster… how could you do this to me? waaaaaaaaaaahhh!
God that was a good laugh.
Suman
August 10, 2005 at 12:30 pm
Pardon me for I joined the party a little late but isn’t Rohan Pinto the same guy who was copying posts from other blogs (along with comments) and pasting them on his blog and claiming them to be his own.
Well Mr. Pinto I am another fraud. I have not posted a single entry on my site since saturday and will post four tommorow under the dates of 7′th, 8th, 9th, 10th.
Actually this brings me to another point. I own two blog sites (Mental Flossbeing the other one) and I don’t use any tool like Movable type or Grey matter and I manually create HTML pages for all my postes and sometime I post (as I will tomorrow) entries that were done on the dates mentioned but uploaded later. What do you call people like me?
Navin Harish
August 10, 2005 at 12:38 pm
All this is false. The real answer is that you have illegally developed a time machine, and you go back in time now and again to make blog posts.
You scoundrel, you!!! I am telling Manmohan.
Gaurav
August 10, 2005 at 12:58 pm
Glad to see Mr. Pinto is blogging (actually) now! No malice.
vijay
August 10, 2005 at 2:01 pm
Hah! Nice comeback!
)
Mikhail Esteves
August 10, 2005 at 2:26 pm
Pinto missed the real story — for some time now madmanweb.com has been written by a pair of trained lobsters from Shiok’s kitchen (this explains the infrequent posting). I challenge Madhu to rebut this. B^p
Prasenjeet
August 10, 2005 at 3:14 pm
And, isn’t it a ‘Sting operation’? Why call it string? Duh?
Suman
August 10, 2005 at 5:11 pm
It would have been aptly named “Sting” is I was on “India’s Most Wanted” list, i’m getting the hang of why madman is also called a linguistic nazi now.
Rohan
August 10, 2005 at 5:31 pm
–
And hey ! never did I call you a fraud anywhere in my post, I did email you that I was blogging my thoughts on what I had just stumbled on.
–
–
I simply blogged my initial thoughts on it.
–
‘A thought’ you say, Rohan you conjure up some pretty vicious thoughts. Not bad
You are trying to imply that your post was just friendly banter. There seems to be nothing good natured about it
And whats with the Language Nazi thing? Take it easy will ya?
Vulturo
August 10, 2005 at 6:51 pm
the term “linguistic nazi” is in madman’s profile on evolt.org I didnt come up with it. I believe that it’s his own (or maybe someone at evolt.org ) description of himself.
and i was not teasing him, I really thought that he postdated articles when i saw the dates and didnt verify anything further prior to blogging it.
Rohan Pinto
August 10, 2005 at 7:22 pm
This is another fine piece of blogging, courtesy of Rohan Pinto.
He takes an immature, useless blog which criticizes Amit Varma and says that it shows that Amit has “dual intent.” What exactly that means, I do not know.
Give it a break Rohan. You say you want to get past the plagiarism stuff that happened earlier in the year. When you make posts like these, it doesn’t really help anyone move forward.
Vikram
August 11, 2005 at 12:07 am
Madman,
the entire blogging community would be with you in this matter.
That *bl**dy* chap has not learnt a lesson.
Never seen such a shameless guy ever in my life.
Arjun
August 11, 2005 at 12:29 am
Oye Mr Pinto,
Can you do one on me too? Google me na, please
-Arnab
Arnab
August 11, 2005 at 1:34 am
All I can say is please stop ganging up on the mentally challenged.
-SPCMC
Hey Rohan,
It’s Ok fella, you are God’s gift! Just understand that they are making fun of you. It’ll do you good.
alpha
August 11, 2005 at 4:41 am
I am stunned by the depths to which some individuals plumb, just to defame someone they don’t like. F*ck! I think it is unfair and sad that we have to bear with folks (like Pinto and the other anonymous loser) that write offensive, illogical trash. Wow, the media world, to which Amit belongs, is a lousy place to be. So petty, I tell you.
suman
August 11, 2005 at 1:11 pm
Agree with Suman. But I think the anti-Amit Varma site is yet another brain dead idea of Rohan Pinto itself. I am sure blog providers log the IP address, so it is time for another “outing” of Rohan Pinto.
As someone said Pinto does seem to be immature or has perception problems. BTW he is now based at Canada. Was he not in San Jose? US Immigration deported Rohan Pinto or what?
Pinto stop these juvenile attempts to get back at those who proved you are a cheat! It is interesting you are going after the Google results of search “Rohan Pinto cheat” LOL
Rohan Pinto Is a cheater
August 11, 2005 at 9:52 pm
Unbelievable…..is he for *real* ??
Radhika
August 11, 2005 at 10:48 pm
I always knew there was something fishy about MadMan.
Chris McEvoy
August 13, 2005 at 4:28 pm
Hi … just commenting on this now so that I can find this entry again in 2009 when I’ll post a follow-up comment on a years-old entry of yours.
Dossy Shiobara
August 15, 2005 at 6:27 am
thats hilarious.
web designer
August 24, 2005 at 6:35 pm
Seriously, is this Pinto guy some kind of troll in the blog community? is he real?
Razoruser
August 25, 2005 at 4:26 pm
Good lord… guess he has lots of free time
Pallavi
August 30, 2005 at 7:23 pm
Funny
catch me at http://www.adarshkrishna@blogspot.com
Adarsh Krishna
September 2, 2005 at 3:28 pm
Pinto, M’Luv, Grow up sweetie pie!
You ain’t 7 years old any more. It is _NOT_ acceptable to malign people on the web, especially if you make contrived, shoddy, incoherent, attempts at it.
Soumya Chandrashekar
September 3, 2005 at 7:47 am
Is this the same “plagiarist” Rohan Pinto [1] ??
[1]: http://indiauncut.blogspot.com/2005/01/rohan-pintos-apology.html
Swaroop C H
September 6, 2005 at 6:02 pm
Is this the same “plagiarist” Rohan Pinto [1] ??
[1]: http://indiauncut.blogspot.com/2005/01/rohan-pintos-apology.html
Swaroop C H
September 6, 2005 at 6:03 pm
Aa Bail Mujhe Maar, Pinto style
I just couldn’t think of any other category than “Humour” to classify this post. Rohan Pinto has given us an example of how old proverbs can be still relevant in…
TriNetre - The Third Eye
September 11, 2005 at 1:55 pm
*rotfl*
well, it takes all kinds to make the world, my man pinto just made my day.
vasanth
October 6, 2005 at 12:25 am
Nice one, MadMan! Could I borrow the time machine for a bit?
Ron Zeno
October 11, 2005 at 8:57 am
Hi…came here through kerala blog roll.
Didnt know you were the shiok guy! Although I had met you briefly once…
Love the food there though! Been there a couple of times
Arun
arun
October 14, 2005 at 4:48 am
Nice of you to say so. Does not affect me as i am new. Hope the others forgive you unless you are saying all this in a lighter vien.
Hiren Shah
October 19, 2005 at 4:43 pm
your post proves one thing, mr. pinto is no expert in the web business.
Abhishek
November 16, 2005 at 10:12 pm
Nice read after two years, same people same tactics & attitudes and new AVATARS
Gurmeet Dev
March 15, 2007 at 5:59 am