Robert Turner

Meet WordPress: The Free Engine That Drives 455 Million Websites

WordPress is possibly the best example of how businesses can thrive in an open source ecosystem. It’s a business that isn’t a business that generates billions of dollars in revenue every year. There is no CEO and the business or project is run by volunteers from across the globe. It is the engine that drives the Forbes blog, Sony Music and our personal blog sites. It’s this amazing versatility…

The Silencing Of the Dissenting Voice

Published on Medium

The politics of silencing the dissenting voice.

I’ve just finished writing an article for a publication that I wasn’t really comfortable writing. It’s about the LGBTQ movement and how it could potentially unravel in the coming years. I wasn’t comfortable with this for a number of reasons, a few of which I have outlined below

I know the backlash from these articles…

Published on Medium.

I’ve just finished reading an article by Malibongwe Sithelo entitled Life has no meaning. The article is a thought provoking window into a view on real life, real hardship and real suffering. Do give it a read.

We’ve gone soft in the West. This is not a questioning statement, it is fact. I have spent time in Africa and the Middle East, I have lived in Asia. I have seen…

Why the ongoing debate around free speech is so critical and how it endangers our right to choose.

You can view this article on Medium.

Of all the issues currently under serious online debate, the issue of free speech is possibly the most contentious as its practise encompasses a broad spectrum of deep, dark rabbit holes.

Racism, sexism, genderism (if that’s not a word yet, it will be soon) and pretty much any other ‘ism’ you care to mention fall under the broad umbrella of free speech.…

Why Wordpress is no longer suited to the open discussion of societal issues.

I loved WordPress. The interaction with readers who posted meaningful commentary and personal insights on thoughts and social opinions I posted offered a wide and varied sounding board for articles I would publish elsewhere.

No more. The platform has been hijacked by the Facebook and Twitter data cows seeking fresh grazing and they’ve targeted this meadow.

I was browsing older articles I…

Has the time come for regulation and the possible breakup of Facebook

I happened across an incredibly interesting article by Jordan Hall entitled What to do about Facebookwritten in 2018. I highly recommend reading the article in full. It is a thought provoking and well constructed argument for Facebook being placed under the same fiduciary constraints binding lawyers, doctors, financial institutions and other professions. I’ll expand on his argument a little later…

How to maximise your creativity and originality on the Wordpress platform and elsewhere.

The road to hell is paved with… (place your description of choice here). So you’ve chosen to use WordPress as a platform for airing your views, perhaps you want to test the waters as a writer or budding poet or it might be as simple as making a few new friends.

It’s hugely important that you understand the nature of the beast you have engaged with and how to avoid being consumed by it.

Wo…

The frustration of the Medium App. Functionality and user experience 1/10.

Why does a platform designed for people engrossed with their own opinions and intelligence fail to offer an intuitive interface or a simple edit button?

I am not sure how many of you use Medium as an additional platform for your writing. I had recently joined again after a long absence and very quickly rediscovered why I had abandoned the platform in the first place. The user experience is…

Fight for the right to insult, agitate, argue and spread your ideology, free from the fear of persecution. It’s your human right.

Has political correctness and pressure from groups that present themselves as marginalised or discriminated against, eroded our right to freedom of expression and free speech and should we be concerned?

Yes and most definitely yes. Free speech is the one non-negotiable aspect of democracies. It is the counter foil to corruption and the suppression of science and ideologies, both good and bad.…

I’ve noticed a trend with my recent posts. Doom, gloom and the road to hell. It’s so easy to get sucked into this view of the world, particularly if you spend a lot of time online as most of us do.

Academics claim the internet isn’t reflective of society. This would mean that the 12 monks stuck on a remote mountain in Tibet without any signal are actually the true representation of humanity.…

What awaits America after Trump and can the Democrats and Republicans repair damaged America.

Donald Trump is an easy target He is highly visible, outspoken and lacking in the normal social filters we associate with someone occupying the Oval Office. I’ve been watching the unfolding circus that is US politics with great interest.

I am not, as unbelievable as it may seem, interested in Mr Trumps daily exploits. I am more concerned with what comes next for America and the nagging fear…

Implementing Engagement to set yourself on a journey that will last a lifetime.

Engagement Part 2 – Grounds for divorce.

If you’ve followed the earlier advice about disconnecting from social media for 24 hours then you should be recovering from your digital withdrawal as you read this.

It’s a frightening realisation that the one thing you truly own, your life, can be hijacked without you realising it.

To reinforce the holiday analogy we used earlier, you should…

It’s time WordPress wakes up to this spam and removes symbols from post titles. The WordPress Reader is swamped with them and I am fairly certain that five minutes worth of coding would solve the problem.

To the idiots out there that do this, a little advice which will hopefully lead to enlightenment, although I have my doubts. There is an expression ‘less is more’. You may have heard of…

If you’re a little lost or your life feels out of control, please read this - Jordan Peterson

If you haven’t seen, watched or listened to Jordan Peterson, then your life and view of the world is the poorer for it. If you do just one thing today, do this. You can thank me later in the comments and you will. If you feel your life needs changing or you’re lost, this is your best starting point.

I have an intense dislike for academia and their cold emotionless spokespeople. Their use of…

Here’s how to start your digital divorce proceedings and take back control of your real life through Engagement.

So what is Engagement exactly? It may be easier to explain what Engagement isn’t. It is not a tool to cure your depression and anxiety. It is not the lost key to eternal happiness, nor will it instantaneously make you more popular, more loved or more grateful. It will however enable you to regain control of your time and real life. Why is that important, you may ask?

The vast majority of the…

Once you read this you will have no excuse to continue wasting your life or to allow your children down the same destructive path. Engage now.

To read the introduction to this piece, please follow this link. Engagement or how to plan your digital death

If you’ve been following this thread then you’d probably have worked out the title. If not, ‘here’ refers to your physical world, the space you occupy in it and how you affect others you come in contact with. ‘There’ encompasses your digital life online and everything associated with…

Take control of your life. Engagement provides a simple path to regaining your humanity.

Welcome to Engagement. What follows is incredibly simple, easy to follow and will, I promise you, radically alter your life for the better. There are no rules, no moral, ethical or religious steps or numbers to follow and best of all, it shouldn’t take you longer than twenty minutes to understand.

Before we get going I would like to spend a few minutes discussing you and why Engagement will…