Ted Leung on the air
Ted Leung on the air: Open Source, Java, Python, and ...
Ted Leung on the air: Open Source, Java, Python, and ...
Wed, 23 Apr 2003
Ouch.
I was excited when my e-mail reported a comment from Dave Winer. My excitement quickly turned to horror when I saw the content of the comment:
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1 Comments |
I bookmarked this post because I thought this was the cruelest of all the comments I saw, because I know you to be a thoughtful person, with an interesting weblog. Do you want to talk about technology, or what? Do you realize that you're part of a lynch mob? Maybe you can write about that. I used to read your weblog and I am subscribed to your RSS feed. But if your idea of blogging includes this kind of mob behavior, well, I don't know what to do -- maybe nothing -- but I find it very upsetting. I hope you come down from this, and decide to get serious about technology again. I am very involved in RSS, OPML, XML-RPC and SOAP, and I promise you I will not be run out of town by this stuff. Interested in hearing what you have to say.It was never my intention to be cruel or anything like that. So before any explanation of what I was thinking, let me say "Dave, I apologize". I regarded the whole Winer number thing as a tongue in cheek kind of honor, much like the "Big Screw" competition that we used to have when I was an undergrad at MIT. I have and have had a lot of respect for Dave and the contributions that he's made to the industry. I also know that people in our business have strong convictions that they hold tightly too. When that happens people disagree, and often times violently. I wish that wasn't the case, but it always seems to happen. I also know that some of those who have contributed the most have not always been the most popular or welcomed. So again, Dave, please accept my apology. I'm going to write about what interests me, not just technology. I'm not interested in being cruel, mean, or anything like that. I do believe that I'm entitled to my opinion on how RSS needs to evolve. I believe that RSS has been very successful -- already I cannot imagine a world without it. However, I don't believe that RSS and RSS using tools are on the radar of most people using the internet. But I believe that they are going to get there. So if there are any issues (even small ones) that we have with RSS, we ought to try to fix them now before all the rest of those people join in the fun. I know this will break software, which costs people time and money. But I think it will cost more time, money, and aggravation if we do it later rather than sooner.
Of course you're entitled to your opinion about RSS, and I want to hear what it is. But if I'm going to get attacked by a mob for expressing my point of view, I don't know how to do that. Go back and look at my comments about CSS, they were anecdotes from real work I was doing on the Harvard weblogs. It wasn't appropriate for that to be mocked by someone like Mark Pilgrim, who covers my work for a major publication. To mock me that way, and then to invite the kind of abuse he has is the worst example in recent memory of intimidation, not intelligence, in this space. If you want an idea of how this works read Sjoerd Visscher's comments, whcih I point to from Scripting News tonight, top item.
My theory is that I get singled out for this kind of treatment because I am earnest and I really want this stuff to work. Most of the people taking shots at me are at best part-time involved in RSS and the other formats and protocols. For me this is my professional work, and I take it seriously, and they know I won't go away no matter how personal their criticism is.
That Pilgrim led it this time is especially humiliating. He is not only a columnist at a respected publication, but he is also the author of the main RSS validator.
Anyway, thanks for your comments. I feel much better about this now. Please try to remember that when you tear someone apart, that's a person, not a symbol, and it's not generally a good thing to do.
Posted by Dave Winer at Wed Apr 23 19:04:23 2003
My theory is that I get singled out for this kind of treatment because I am earnest and I really want this stuff to work. Most of the people taking shots at me are at best part-time involved in RSS and the other formats and protocols. For me this is my professional work, and I take it seriously, and they know I won't go away no matter how personal their criticism is.
That Pilgrim led it this time is especially humiliating. He is not only a columnist at a respected publication, but he is also the author of the main RSS validator.
Anyway, thanks for your comments. I feel much better about this now. Please try to remember that when you tear someone apart, that's a person, not a symbol, and it's not generally a good thing to do.
Posted by Dave Winer at Wed Apr 23 19:04:23 2003
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