July 18, 2003
Wisdom, the hard way
Well, well. It appear's Don Park is starting to learn some lessons. The comments are interesting.
The short story here is naive folks are often enamored of Winer. They're quite defensive of him. That is until they start seeing the horrendous way Winer operates using his hit-and-run, post-and-delete, abuse of people.
As I said to another naive winer fanboy, should we support wife-beating because it's a good way to support the makeup industry? How about child molestation? Should we support pedophiles because when the give sweets to little children it's supporting the candy industry? Plug that into the 'Uncle Dave' and 'vehicles with locked trunks' analogies and then factor in the 'abuses you because you dared speak out against him' tactics he employs. Yeah, it's a very ugly analogy but eerily similar.
At some point abusers realize their peers will no longer tolerate their behavior. They seek to reform their behavior or suffer from their peers rejecting them. In some cases they try blaming their peers. Or they try building a new audience of victims. The web, fortunately, routes around that manipulative tactic. Search engines and personal publishing.... the truth's best friend.
So how much longer are the peers going to turn a blind eye? At what point will they wise up and demand reform or reject the abuser? Sadly, it appears far too many people are willing to let it continue because they're not the targets of the abuse. Ask yourselves, would you rather see the abuse stop or wait until it comes looking for you?
Yes, I've seen plenty of posts from Winer that make me question his hold on reality. On the other hand, the people that react to him - Mark Pilgrim in particular - are at least as childish. There are few people who have covered themselves in glory in this spat. From the outside looking in, everyone involved ends up looking like a bunch of spoiled toddlers on a playground, fighting over the sandbox toys.
Posted by: James Robertson on July 18, 2003 11:42 AMI don't agree with characterizing Mark's actions that way. Mark's suffered a tremendous amount because of Dave's abuse. Mark did nothing to deserve it. That he reacted differently that others might is certainly possible. But considering the treatment given him by Dave it's no surprise. It's made even worse by the on-going bullying Dave applies and his twisting of perspectives to make his victims look like the guilty parties. It's Dave that's the trouble and the sooner more people get wise the less harm he'll continue to cause.
Posted by: Bill Kearney on July 18, 2003 04:50 PMRight on!! I really like the whole 'edit-highlight-thingy' that Mark has done. I think the WinerWatcher served its purpose. It served notice to an abuser that he's being watched. A lot of people have spent quite a bit of time on whether or not Mark should've done this, but no-one is ready to deal with the abuse perpetrated by prominent members of the so-called "community". This is not limited to people that disagree with DW, this probably stretches to different areas of his interactions. The John Robb incident has really focused my attention on the fact that this person does not deserve a leadership position in the blogging community. What has really bothered me is a lack of outcry from the scions of freedom and net liberty and yada yada yada. I guess this is now expected of Dw.
I've noticed two things. the left pane on his blog has shrunk considerably. Also, this is not a person that says things in anger. I have yet to see a post by him in someone else's comment box deriding him. If this was a hot-headed person blowing their top, they wouldn't be this controlled on other people's blogs. This is a person that knows what effect they're going to create by posting abusive comments and then deleting them (thereby causing emotional hurt to their intended and very pinpointed victim or a targetted group)
Unfortunately, I have to agree with your analogies, even though they might be on the harsher side, but I think they fit. In the old USENET days you could ignore an abuser. Here in the world of blogs, the hurt is revisited by the victims. I hope the new AOL/MS entries into the world of blogs will take away the exclusivity from this arena and we will get to a point where people can just express themselves and not have to follow these pseudo icons that might be abuser masquerading as BDFL wannabe's.
It seems lately, that whereever I go, people are talking about DW and his abusive practices.. this is like mass catharsis .. I can only imagine how many people this guy has rubbed the wrong way. Seems like quite a few.
Posted by: Amr E. Malik on July 18, 2003 08:48 PM
