Does your browser just have the "referrer" environment variable permanently set to your own homepage?

Because that's the only explanation that I can come up with for the false referrer entries to your site that show up in my blog counter. :-)

I have mine set to "Whatever domain I'm on" so if you get some "how could he have first clicked in to my site FROM my site?" logs, it's probably me.

Damn right, baby!

It's log spamming, but I find it kinda funny how it snares in the ego bloggers — The one's, like me and you, who anxiously watch their referrals and go check-up on everyone to see what the peeps are saying about them.

http://www.stardrifter.org/refcontrol/

Referrals are such a privacy issue anyways, and I really think most of the public has no idea what they're revealing. I've had people link to yafla from hidden, secret "my data" pages, apparently not realizing I now know its location. I constantly see search engine hilarity like "How to jerk off" (which goes to a "Hey Jerk! Get off my computer!" page on yafla).

Eh, I don't see it as so much of a privacy issue unless, like you mentioned, you click on something from a lewd search.

Who cares if anyone knows I read digg, or gawker, or whatever?

Lame, dennis :)

I don't think it's indicative of a huge ego that I'm interested in what people might be saying about my site. It's ordinary curiosity.

Checking up on what people are saying about you is a lot of fun. But you should resist the temptation to create an account & join in on the conversation, unless you can parlay your site into minor celebrity status at XYZ forum.

Mark -

It depends on the site. It may be worth your while.

Of course, my novel is most often linked from non-English speaking sites, so I don't join in much. :)

"Eh, I don't see it as so much of a privacy issue unless, like you mentioned, you click on something from a lewd search."

Of course all privacy issues are shades of gray.

It doesn't have to be a "lewd" search, but rather could simply be a search for medical information that someone would rather keep private, or interaction on a support group for alcoholism: The person clicks on a link to go to an image filtering utility, they come to yafla, they leave a comment with their real details, and I conceivably know that blah blah participates on an alcholic's board. Sometimes people link from URLs that contain user-identifying information, so now I know that Bob47 from FastRocketz was the one that linked over and left the pissy comment.

"Lame, dennis :)"

Not at all. I don't owe anyone referral data, and I'll put whatever I want in there.

Lame, Dennis.

Anyhow I don't even have a clue how to change my referrer variable in Firefox, and don't care enough to find out. :)

Perhaps. I'm speaking from experience, of course.

After my "graphs of the US economy" articles, I get a lot of people linking my images, unattributed, of course. While it's nice to know my work is getting around, and people are using stuff I did to try to win mindless flame wars, those thread were never worth joining in on. Anyone who linked to my "here's some good info on how to build a home recording studio" articles were worth joining.

I know, next time I find my site linked to from a mindless flame war, I'll post it here so we can all register and join in!

Oooh, here's one:
http://forums.gametrack.org/viewtopic.php?t=5044

It's got it all - politics, musical tastes.... Sure it's a month or more old, but I don't check my referrer logs obsessively. Sorry.

"Anyhow I don't even have a clue how to change my referrer variable in Firefox, and don't care enough to find out. :)"

Um...good for you? Ignorance is power...

I've rallied against referral tags for years, and the only ones who notice my substitution are anxious bloggers.

Here's one on global warming.

http://www.virtual-browser.com/index.php?q=aHR0cDovL3d3dy5mcmFnbWUub3JnL2N0Zm9ydW0vVmlld1Bvc3RzLnBocD9maWQ9MyZ0aWQ9MTgzJkZvcnVtTmFtZT1EZWJhdGVzKyYrRmxhbWVzJlRocmVhZE5hbWU9R2xvYmFsK1dhcm1pbmc-&hl=1111101001

Oops, that should be

http://www.fragme.org/ctforum/ViewPosts.php?fid=3&tid=183&ForumName=Debates+&+Flames&ThreadName=Global+Warming

But for some reason it wasn't working for me, so I tried it through a proxy and it worked.

Rallied against referral tags for years?

Dennis, get a life, dude.

>Damn right

Fair enough.

>baby!

Creepy.