I can’t, won’t and wouldn’t be asked to justfy Ben Metcalfe’s using the word bullshit to describe the style of a speech given in Paris to a group af about 400 ‘infuential’ bloggers by Six Aparts Mena Trott.
Ben typed the comment on an IRC channel that came on at then end of Mena’s ill advised speech on how ‘bloggers should be nice to each other’. However I’m sure that if I’d been there I’d have typed something similar, Europe isn’t America and culture differences need to be taken into consideration. Europe is far less emotionally ‘touchy feely’ than California.
Mena’s response was rude and intimidating, asking the ‘asshole’ that typed that to stand up and identify themselves. She was on the podium with the authorty invested in that, Ben was in the audience, one of the 400. The positions are very different and Mena’s abuse of her position and direct personal attack on Ben are both unacceptable. Especially as her speech was about bloggers being nice to each other.
Here, have some waders for the volume of hypocracy suddenly sloshing about.
Also covered on the Register which sums up with:
For someone who demanded more civility, Trott somewhat blew it. Metcalfe at least concentrated on the content of the presentation. Trott went for a personal attack. At one point, she said “I don’t know who you are and what you’ve got against Six Apart.†The grand irony is that he is (was?) a Six Apart customer.
(Actually, like CR, he’s on WordPress).
It’s well worth reading Ben’s take on the whole lunacy, it seems like he handled it well if you ask me. Go little non podium dude.
Addendum: BTW, I think Mena is a nice person and that she is right, bloggers should be civil with each other. It was the presentation style that was ill concieved, not the content.
:Ben Metcalfe Blog » Blog Archive » Les Blogs: Me + Mena
2 responses so far ↓
1 Anil // Dec 8, 2005 at 7:00 PM
“speech on how ‘bloggers should be nice to each other’”
Are you deliberately misrepresenting what the speech was about, or do you genuinely not know?
2 Jackdaw // Dec 9, 2005 at 1:13 AM
I refer to The Registers piece above so I’ll refer to it again here — “The second LesBlogs geekfest in Paris saw Six Apart’s oh-so-nice president, Mena Trott, taking bloggers to task for incivility.” — http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/12/08/lesblogs_nice_call/
Ben, who was there and I’m sure you’ll agree that he seemed to be paying attention, said “she requested for more civility in the blogosphere. She appealed to bloggers to be kinder in their commenting, and think about the feelings of the person they are communicating with.†— http://benmetcalfe.com/blog/index.php/2005/12/07/les-blogs-me-mena/
Which seems to cover how it was reported on average. This average was summed up to the single quoted ‘bloggers should be nice to each other’, single quotes as it is not a quote and is a summation.
You think the reports were wrong? If wrong, why did the crowd not like the speech? Did Mena take into account the audience? Do you think this whole matter could have been handled better, if so, how?
Only have about a million questions on this, considering your position as a VP at Six Apart you’re uniquely qualified to answer.
Leave a Comment