If you can't stand the heat...
Volker Weber confuses me. One minute, he's making great contributions to the community like this effort to buy DominoWiki author Ben Poole a Mac Book, and the next (or the previous, technically) he's taking cheap shots at IBM about Ben Langhinrichs' Lotusphere sessions database. From vowe.net:
It never ceases to amaze me how Ben outpaces Lotus by providing a useful session reference
What really shocked me yesterday was when I replied to that thread, with full acknolwedgement of my own identity, as I do in every reply I post anywhere, Volker deleted my response. The exact words are now lost to the world of course, but I'd basically replied:
It "never ceases to amaze [you]" that a member of the community creates something useful faster than the giant software company!?
What industry do you work in again? *eye roll*
Now I'm quite aware that I can be inflammatory, but this hardly qualifies as an attack. What the heck warrants a delete about that reply? Is it just because I disagree? Is it the *eye roll*? Is it the calling out of the basic BS that Volker is "amazed" when he is obviously not surprised in the least (after all, Ben's been doing this for, what, 6 years now?)
Volker, it's your site. You are, naturally, free to run it as you wish. But I'm at a loss as to how you can portray yourself as any kind of technology author if your skin is that thin. Perhaps a career change is in order. May I suggest something philanthropic, given your phenomenal success in rewarding a member of the community that created something useful faster than the giant software company?
Comments
Posted by Charles Robinson At 04:40:57 PM On 12/04/2006 | - Website - |
I do not post there on certain topics and I think twice before posting. I think that is one of his intentions so his method works, at least for me.
Do I like it? No, I don't but it is his home and I am guest only.
Now it is up to you to decide if you feel gentled or pissed off.
Posted by Henning Heinz At 09:39:02 AM On 12/03/2006 | - Website - |
I have written an FAQ on my site which explains why this happens from time to time. I have learned that it is sometimes best to just ignore things that might bother me. Generally I get along with people quite well, but there are exceptions.
I have read your posts for many years, long before you ever heard of me. I respect your views, but I don't necessarily want them on my site. Maybe we can agree that not everything is as important as we sometimes want to believe.
Posted by Volker Weber At 10:18:42 PM On 12/01/2006 | - Website - |
Speak against him and expect the comments to be deleted. Do it too often and receive a full ban.
I used to respect vowe.net as I thought it was an open, unbiased site and not an editorial...how wrong I was.
If you want Vowe to say something nice, send him some free gear he can use...like a MacBook or Sat Nav device. Other than that, expect to get slated.
Nathan - You are far from alone in having posts deleted, you join a list of people I won't name but aren't too hard to guess. Vowe should be a politicies and, if he was, he'd have a W as a middle initial.
Posted by Ben Rose At 08:52:30 AM On 12/01/2006 | - Website - |
I have no problems with deleting comments when they are spam, anon, or just hateful. But not allowing the negative comments just makes a person lose credibility. Sad to see.
I guess I am part of that list Ben mentioned ... Volker has deleted my comments lately. Maybe it is just a total difference in approach ... I believe there are much better ways to get my point across to folks at IBM than using a blog. I use internal forums, emails, and IM. It keeps much of the muck under the covers. People doing a search do not need to see the 'friends' fighting.
Oh, and Ben, not everyone in America thinks "W" bad ... just most agree he isnt the swiftest person in the country
Posted by John Head At 06:26:17 PM On 12/01/2006 | - Website - |
Blogs should be about people being able to freely express their views in a public forum and are respectful enough to accept comments that both agree and disagree with those views. Having said that, I acknowledge that there are some circumstances where a blogger has the right to delete certain comments. I guess this will always be a grey area that not everyone will always agree on.
On the other hand, there are thin-skinned people like Rod Boothby who take this form of net censorship too the extreme by reviewing all comments before they allow them to be posted on their blog, modify the posts of others to put them in a bad light and even worse still, retrospectively modify their own posts to make subsequent comments seem unreasonable.
I am not suggesting that what Volker did was in the same league as Boothby, but any form of blog censorship is going to evoke a certain level of discomfort for the commenter and the other readers of the blog.
I guess we are all experimenting with the rules and etiquette of this social experiment called blogging.
Posted by Ian Randall At 06:52:25 PM On 12/03/2006 | - Website - |