"I am not a god..."

Seeing the Real Winer at Last...

...while Marking the Pilgrim's Progress


'I'm not a god.'

"On my weblog no one can change what I wrote. ... Weblogs are unique in that only a weblog gives you a publication where your ideas can stand alone without interference. It gives the public writer a kind of relaxation not available in other forms. That might mean that in some sense the "quality" of the writing is different, but I would not say lower, assuming the purpose of writing is to inform, not to impress."

Dave Winer | What makes a weblog a weblog?

The Cardinal Oligarch is set to crash and burn like a foam-fucked space shuttle. No-one's wishing his demise or volunteering to take on the job of being his judge, jury and willing executioner. Luckily, the self-styled inventor of blogging is doing the job himself.

Winer has steered his business into the iceberg of self-aggrandizement and reinvented himself as a New England college professor, flogging blogging to rich people who cannot read. It comes as no surprise that he treats, and probably views, the bloodied trail of transgressions left on the road to Harvard as proud markers along a dark highway leading to an ivory tower befitting the lord, master and creator of this corner of the cyberverse.

Dave has a long history of clashing with high-flying personalities in the blogging and tech communities. He does not like competition. A pocket Bill Gates with a chip or a different type on his shoulder, Winer can be viciously vindictive. His ugly side has never bugged or phased me. We all have one. Besides, to me, Dave Winer is nobody. His over-inflated ego and singular lack of talent for anything but opinionated self-interest rendered him uninteresting long before he set about actively destroying himself.

Winer appears incapable of seeing in himself a self-crowned emperor in dire need of raiment. He is too proud to subject himself to such humiliating scrutiny. Yes, it's probably tough when you think you're at the top. Those occupying such precariously unstable heights generally feel they have more important things to do than wallow in a poor man's notion of 'accountability'.

Leaders, whether paperclip despots or natural-born visionaries, are subject to the vicissitudes of their constituencies and the whims of fate. Dave probably knows this and probably realises his run is coming to an end. The fate that befalls all gods, self-proclaimed or disclaimed, is headed his way. He will be turfed, unlamented, into history's unforgiving dustbin.

Trouble is, the longer it takes, the more likely we are to find people becoming disillusioned with weblogging. The backhanded viciousness of people like Winer spoil my blogging, make me decidedly leery of so-called 'communities', and generate entries like this one. Until I get it off my chest though, Winer's recent prognostications and attacks on other bloggers will continue to retard my propensity to shoot from the heart and the hip.

Such is the nature of personal blogging.


’I think Sam did something very eloquent.’

"On the other hand, they are writing about their own experience. And if there's editing it hasn't interfered with the style of the writing. The personalities of the writers come through. That is the essential element of weblog writing, and almost all the other elements can be missing, and the rules can be violated, imho, as long as the voice of a person comes through, it's a weblog."

Dave Winer | What makes a weblog a weblog?

In the run up to Shelley Powers writing Editing Others Comments at the beginning of June, she appended comments to a post on Sam Ruby's site. Sam took them to be offensive, and edited them by subjecting text to strikethroughs. Shelley took offence at Sam's action, blogged the issue and watched her comment box become a sewer filled to flooding.

Of the editing of Shelley's comments, Winer had this to say:

"I think Sam did something very eloquent. Your words are still there for everyone to see, and so is your shame for trying to drag the discussion into the mud. ... You should thank Sam for crossing out your ad hominems because I never would have responded until he did. Your method serves to shut people up, because if I get embroiled with you, people blame me for your nasty words. A strategy that used to work until Sam innovated. I can see why you're upset, you had a trick that kept me from speaking. Now the trick doesn't work anymore, you're going to actually have to say something intelligent and respectful, or else YOU become the issue, not the person you're flaming."

Winer, accorded much respect on this blog and elsewhere, commenting on the editing of Shelley's words or distortion of her voice, finds such editing eloquent, sees it as a tool for upsetting people or inflicting shame, and is all for using it. His later language suggests power play, the scent of victory, and carries a demand for respect. It ends with the triumphal pronouncement "...Now the trick doesn't work anymore, you're going to actually have to say something intelligent and respectful, or else YOU become the issue..."

When you lack the humour to appreciate or value a title born of the Harvard site, i.e. "crimson oligarch" [I'd use 'cardinal' myself, but there you go], you've travelled a long way from your roots as a blogger and are very much an arrogant businessman using a tertiary institution as a storefront of convenience. Your public persona's travelled a long way from being able to profess your weblog to be the unedited voice of a person.

Shelley subsequently ran a story on July 17, On Identity and Edits. It revisits Mark Pilgrim's aborted Winer Watcher, a monitor of Dave's proclivity for saying vile things of people, having them snapped up by the news aggregators and, shortly thereafter, pulling them or editing them to innocuous innocence. The practice is so well known, it's called Doing a Dave. Pilgrim's venture, which monitored Winer's edits in a manner similar to the 'eloquent' method employed by Sam Ruby, caused a hell of a stir, much debate, and generated umbrage from Winer. However, as Shelley points out, the issue is not Winer or Pilgrim.

"A far more critical issue is that of weblog writers pulling material or substantially editing it after publication, and the writers so-called 'contract of accountability' with their readership."

The nut of it is that Pilgrim and Shelley, in their own ways, tried to hold Winer accountable for his heinously duplicitous practices. They were slammed for doing so. Shelley, on the principle of accountability, Pilgrim for reasons that seem clear to me because he's as guilty of manipulating others' text as Winer.

Who is Pilgrim? Apparently a Winer-wannabe, he's a blogger who edits the comments posted to his blog, marring others' opinions with flaming red strikethroughs. If ever you need an example of someone needing to exercise [and be seen to be exercising] unfettered personal power, check out Pilgrim's site. If Dave Winer is a pocket Bill Gates, Mark Pilgrim is a pocket Dave Winer.


’Yeah, well, there's people starving in Africa, too.’

On Value Judgments, we have Shelley body-checking Pilgrim [not named] for censoring comments made by her on his blog entry Dive into accountability. Pilgrim answers the criticism:

"You *know* my moderation policy, and yet you come around and post completely irrelevant flames that you *know* will get moderated. And then you complain when... [drum roll please]... they get moderated! Boy, who couldn't see that coming?"

Pilgrim then sets out the editorial policy of many bloggers.

"Yeah, well, there's people starving in Africa, too. What are you doing sitting around here weblogging? How selfish! How hypocritical! ... Er, whatever. ... And if you can't figure out the difference between [a] writing something on your own site, and [b] writing something on someone else's site—to see why different rules apply, well, I don't know how else to explain it to you. The ability of other people to put content on my site is a privilege, not a right—a privilege subject to rules that I have the sole right to determine and which I have clearly and publicly stated. Don't like it? You're free not to comment."

Ugly stuff, eh? Noone holds sole rights to hypocrisy. So much for community. So much for accountability. So much for Winer and Pilgrim.

Shelley's comment hardly warranted 'flame' status. Pilgrim should quote her in full. She is, as ever, confrontational, her statements demanding answers. Instead of answering her, Pilgrim wields his red pen as readily and willingly as a practiced little commissar. Mindless automation appears to be not in the software of our small Napoleons, but in their minds and make-ups. Shelley has good reason to criticise Pilgrim and hold him accountable for his censorship. Pilgrim defends the indefensible as does Winer and George W. Bush, his president, by [ab]using it.

The point needs to be stressed. Editing the work of others on our blogs is censorship. It is insulting. It is defacement. It shows an unhealthy disrespect for others' views [and probably one's self]. Ultimately, censorship is the death of voice.

However, in Dave Winer and Mark Pilgrim's cases, I suspect the voices to die will be theirs. Accountability comes in many forms, often without the trappings of legislated rules and regulations. It tends to be about 'swings and roundabouts' or 'What goes around, comes around'. That said, Winer and Pilgrim give blogging a bad name and a bad taste. Those unable to see that these ethically malnourished deviants diminish the medium are plain dumb.

Do I want to see Dave Winer go down? No. I do not want to see the self-styled blogfather enter terminal self-destruct mode. A person with a mind larger than he is presently able to control, he has contributed greatly to that which we have today. Like it or not, the past always forms an essential part of the whole. Dave Winer cannot, therefore, be a bad guy. But I do not know him.

How can I? Dave uses blogging to project that which he wishes us to see better than most of us are able to. I don't find Dave Winer at www.scripting.com, a one-man, two-line link farm. Nor do I find him at the Harvard Law School's Berkman Center, the origin of material at odds with what I so often read. I find scraps of Dave Winer, the person and blogger [who supports censorship], fulminating in the comments boxes of other people.

Bearing his comments in mind, I would not want anyone to alter a word he says. It is through his unguarded words that I come to know him best.

"I'm not a god, or the final arbiter of goodness."

Dave Winer