Hey Asshole!
I like to start the day by getting my full RDA of irony so I have to admit, the whole Mena Trott vs. Ben Metcalfe dust up at Les Blogs cracks me up.
On the one hand you have the American founder of the company hosting the event lecturing Europeans about civility (!!!) and on the other you have a Englishman with a reputation for saying what’s on his mind being called on the carpet for doing just that.
This is nothing new. I’ve been a member of online communities since we called them BBSs. In the mid-1990s I watched Mindvox* implode into a circus of personality conflicts and recrimination.
Pissfights and the Internet go hand in hand. It seems to be a function of not actually seeing the person you are pissing on.
*Disclaimer: I met my lovely wife Sue on Mindvox so it wasn’t all bad!
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Comments
Okay, just read the long thread over at Ben’s blog, and a few thoughts came up.
It’s over - you can stop defending KTA already. Geez.
And, does civility only go so far as blogs, and you can disregard the real world? I know I had that feeling at BlogOn.
But, the best comment about the situation was here:
Mena (and most of the other ‘heads’ of the industry) need some serious media training if they want the blogging industry to mature, because these sort of charades are extremely unprofessional.
Maybe KTA can take that up.
The most interesting thing about it is Dave Winer wading in on Ben’s blog and calling him a coward for not being civil. Oh the irony.
Hey! I remember you on Mindvox. You were that obnoxious foul-mouthed creep that called me a dirty cheating liar and said I would never be worth even a hillock of beans.
And you were right!
Or wait, was that the other David Parmet?
Anyway, you’re right. I watched the video of the big fight at Les Blogs and the whole thing constitutes the dullest dust up I’ve seen in years.
Somebody wake me up when it’s all over.
(funny though…)