Author: Shelley Powers

Categories
Diversity Weblogging

Deference

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

In my last essay Erik wrote about the post that it …it takes the small and relates it to the large, takes the specific and relates it to the general. I appreciated his notice of this, which I had attempted to carefully craft. I wasn’t sure if it would be lost because I used certain keywords, such as “Dave Winer” and that tends to obfuscate the rest of what I’m saying.

The only reason I continue to discuss the incident with the weblogs being shut down and the subsequent behavior is because I am seeing, in a microcosm, much of what bothers me about weblogging; and since the American perspective dominates weblogging, I am seeing much that concerns me about the country as a whole. It’s not so much that I’m taking from the small and extrapolating to the large, as this small, focused, self-contained event helps me better refine and understand what I feel about the larger forces surrounding me. Us.

Winer writes today:

I’m a big, strong, intelligent, self-reliant male. Our culture acts as if such people never need help. “Be a man,” they say. Enough of that bullshit. Inside every strong self-reliant male is a scared kid, who doesn’t think he’s going to get out of this alive. The attackers are dispropotionately women. Do you think maybe they’re using me to get even for how someone treated them? A father, a brother, an uncle, an ex? Does our culture let them be abusers, assuming the man is always wrong, guilty until proven innocent? I’ve been in this big strong body for a long time, and I gotta tell you, it’s a rare thing when people consider your feelings in how they deal with you. I think some people take advantage of that too.

(Emphasis mine.)

(Of course, one could respond to this with, which is it to be, Dave? Camille? Or Hercules?)

Personally I believe that neither sex should be allowed to get away with abuse – mental or physical. But then, I don’t equate disagreement with abuse, either.

It does seem as if more women have been critical of Winer’s actions than supporting of them and him, and I’m including my writings, as well as those of: Jeneane Sessum, Halley Suitt, Dori Smith, Medley, Michele, Elisabeth, and others. But then, my own view is critical and my viewpoint of others will be biased because of it.

My reasons for being critical of Winer are more complicated than he gives me credit, and since, yes, I am a woman, this must be included in the equation. However, unlike Winer’s assertion that it must be because I’m trying to get back at some big, strong, intelligent, self-reliant male who he metaphorically represents, it has more to do with loss of self-determination, and watching people being forced into a role of helplessness.

When Winer pulled the weblogging pages, and gave those who were so affected no option other than to ask for them back, one by one, it forced these people into being deliberately dependent on him. He put them into a role, intentional or not, of having to be subservient to him in order to get their writing back. More than that, when he wrote in the very first comment to the thread attached to the post the following:

Groundrules: Personal comments, ad hominems, will be deleted. And no negotiating or whining. Just post the url of your site.

He established a implication, whether directly stated or not, that people would have to ask, pretty please, in order to be allowed to keep their writing.

For someone with a sense of fairplay and honoring one’s commitments, this act could be considered inappropriate; they might even think it would be ‘indefensible’. To anyone who has been bullied in the past, or put upon by those who have power over them, this action would be distasteful. But perhaps for women, many of us who have been told to ‘ask nicely’ when we want to be treated fairly and equitably, who have been put into positions of dependence and helplessness by culture, marriage, and even law–this act is all too familiar: the stronger holding that which is needed or wanted out of arm’s reach from the weaker.

In fact, it reminded me this week of some of the news stories circulating about lost prisoners from the early Iraqi fights, and how our own Justice Department has been ‘re-interpreting’ the rules of both national and internation law when it comes to the growingly tiresome ‘war against terror’. By any standards, even those who supported our entering Iraq, re-writing international law in how to deal with prisoners humanely has to give pause–but what is the world, or any of us to do?

After all, the US is the strongest country in the world. There is no one country, or even several combined countries that can militarily contain us. Even if they could, they wouldn’t; the world is too dependent on us economically. We literally hold all the cards.

In this country, we in the streets feel powerless to hold our government accountable to national and international law when it comes to the treatment of prisoners, and those being held on ’suspicion’. Back in a moment of outrage we passed laws that have given too much power to our current administration, and now we’re paying the price as we watch our own beliefs and integrity and justice subjugated to the twistings of a small group of people who genuinely think they are doing the right thing, but have lost much of their perspective about the true dangers facing us today.

All we can do now is stand on the ground and look at this thing towering above us holding that which we value, our sense of fairplay, dangling above our heads, just out of reach. It is frustrating. More, it makes one angry to be helpless and under someone else’s control.

But to return to this single incident in this small microcosm, I did not necessarily want to bring gender into this discussion because I had done so in the past to no real benefit. Several months ago I decided that I would do more for my sex by pointing out strong women than weak men.

But gender was introduced, and even though I had been counseled by some smart women that this latest from Winer was nothing more than a deliberate ploy to generate more attention –after all negative attention is better than no attention at all–it also highlighted something else I noticed yesterday that disturbed me more. Something that was only born out when I received an email related to it today from other weblogging women.

If it seems like more women are critical of Winer than supportive, we have also noticed that the most virulent attacks directed against those who have been critical about Dave Winer have been made by men against the women who have responded negatively.

This could be that there are a bunch of misogynist guys who use the cover of anonymity to take pot shots at any women who dare to question a male. It could also be because women have made the stronger statements, though I have seen some fairly strong statements made by men who have have had relatively mild responses in return.

I think, though, that this might be because this is one of those few blogging incidents that made it into the press that featured more statements by weblogging women than is usual. Consequently, these ladies attracted more of the gnats that frequent the Internet, landing to feed quickly when they scent blood, and just as quickly move on.

In fact, by precipitating this act as he did, Dave Winer has actually helped women in weblogging, even while he disparages our contribution. I just wish I could drop this sneaking suspician that aside from the obvious strength and passion and sincerity of many of the comments contributed by the ladies, the press also enjoyed tweaking the mighty utopian world of weblogging by subtly re-casting this into a battle of the sexes.

(In fact, I bet that’s why more than a few people would like this whole thing to just go away. How droll –airing our dirty laundry in public like this. Personally I think it’s good for the ‘mighty utopian weblogging world’ to get caught picking its nose in public.)

After all, Dave Winer has done so, saying in comments in another weblog:

Next time Powers or Suitt or Sessum try to insert hysterics, we can swarm them with love, ask them to stand back until the problem is clear, to stop meddling and when there’s an outage, please please don’t get us Slashdotted.

Curious – why no mention of any of the men who have been vocal and critical? By turning this into an issue of gender, does this somehow make what we say that much less credible? And swarm us with love, eh? That sounds remarkably like having your herd of followers overwhelm us to suppress any further outburts from the uppity ‘broads’ again.

(It reminds me of when I counseled women while working at the Women’s Center in my early 20’s and listening to the ladies talk about how their men would hold them down and beat them, but it was all done out of love, and all that.)

All I can say is, “Thank you Dave, not only for effectively demonstrating most of what I’ve been saying this week–scratch that, the last couple of years–but also for grouping me with such fine ladies as Halley and Jeneane.”

Categories
Political

America 101

I was in the midst of writing something on how to backup a database, export out of WordPress, and even how to do a direct database to database transform, but I wasn’t sure how to engineer a disaster first–to make my help seem like a miracle, and me a saint. What’s the fun of writing something helpful if all it does is, well, help people. After all, I am an American and this is a true American way of doing things.

I got to thinking, though, that perhaps those of you in other countries don’t know how all this works, and sit there in befuddlement and perhaps even a little outrage at all the daft things we do and say. In particular, it must seem at times as if we rush around breaking things and then, when we fix them later, call ourselves heros. So I thought a little cultural America 101 might be in order.

First of all, you need to be aware of our really fine use of semantics: whenever we make mistakes we never call them ‘a mistake’. In America, never call an apple an apple if by doing so you have to acknowledge that you picked the apple without permission. How can we forget that all important lesson: love means never having to say you’re sorry?

As an example at a very micro level, you don’t describe deliberately shutting down a server something like, “I’m deliberately shutting down the server where your material resides”. You call it an outage as in:

We now have a transition plan for the corner-turn, and have implemented most of it. The plan exceeds the commitment I made, by quite a bit; and will be implemented much sooner than promised. I’m writing the heads-up statement right now. The outage should be, Murphy-willing, completely cleared by the end of the weekend.

I had no idea that Boston was suffering a blackout. Or is it that a tree fell on someone’s head? Regardless, notice the small steps to redefine this event, until it morphs from a deliberate action into an act of accident or God? I am filled with admiration. Truly.

But this is small potatoes compared to others’ masterful use of semantics. Witness the invasion of Iraq: what started out as a move to ‘protect this country from weapons of mass destruction’ has now become a move to ’save the people of Iraq from a ruthless dictator and bring true freedom to the Middle East’.

This is truly brilliant. After all, no one can deny that Saddam Hussein wasn’t ruthless and violent to his own people; so how can anyone deny the rightness of our actions when someone like him is displaced? And if people continue to try to question our actions, the answer is ready made: you must want the people of Iraq to suffer.

I don’t care what anyone says: Japanese marketing might be more novel, European marketing more clever, and South American sexier, but no one knows how to position the opposition into a rhetorical corner better than we Americans.

Of course, if people still question specific actions, then you bring in the bigger guns: what do you know, and what does it have to do with you?

Returning to our micro example, the ‘what does it have to do with you’ is wonderfully illustrated with the following:

I’ve found the same thing most of the time—those seemingly the most offended by something like an outage were those who it didn’t effect. People are strange that way.

True we haven’t heard much negative commentary from those whose files haven’t quite been restored yet. I imagine they’re still overwhelmed by how grateful they are for the free hosting they’ve had, and the four years of writing they’ve created during this time.

Of course, the same could be said–who are we to talk when the natives are so content– about the situation in Iraq. After all, we see pictures of smiling, happy Iraqi standing next to a Marine carrying a big gun all the time. And then there’s all the polls in Iraq saying how grateful they are for being liberated. Now would the Americans please, pretty please, leave now?

See, they’re polite ladies and gentlemen, too.

As for the use of “what you don’t know”, insider versus outsider knowledge is one of the most powerful weapons ever used in this country–much more powerful than any atom bomb. It has a long history, but I believe it had its most proud moment when Senator McCarthy waved around a sheet of paper that he claimed had the names of communists serving in the government. Didn’t matter that he was waving about a shopping list–all that mattered is that he knew. If people asked to see the list, they were told they couldn’t “…in the interests of national security…”

People are being held in prisons here and abroad without due regard to either national or international law and we’re told it’s in the ‘interests of national security’. After all, if these people are allowed access to the outside, they can warn their compatriots of…what? That the US knows about plans that are now two years old?

And how often have you responded to an overt act with a negative reaction, only to be told, “You don’t have all the facts.” The end result of statements such as these is to make you slink away, being made to feel as if you’re tromping on the kittens or stealing candy from babies. A more legitimate response would be to say, “Well then, give us the facts.” But then, of course, you’re invading the other’s privacy with callous disregard to their troubles.

This whole approach is effective, not because we in this country are particularly sensitive to harming others, as much as none of us cares to look bad–to look like we’re tromping on kittens and stealing candy from babies et al.

Personally I’ve long felt that if a person’s actions impact only on themselves or a small circle around them, they have a right to privacy. But when they impact on others, they either have to take responsibility for the act, or expect to be questioned. But you know, I’m not all that good at America 101–raised too close to the Canadian border, I ’spect.

Of course, if these approaches don’t work, we then pull out the final weapon in our American arsenal – we bring out our metaphorical checkbooks.

We make amends with toys and shoes and TV equipment, or perhaps we generate a call out to others to help and they come forward with things like frisbees and server space, or even their own personal time, and the issue then becomes…complicated.

You see, Americans are also a very generous people, and we genuinely want to, and like to, help others–but that help can sometimes form a camouflage around the event that generated the need for help in the first place. If this is called into question, the response may be the same, but isn’t necessarily rhetorical: does it matter what caused the problem, as long as we fix it? And isn’t it better to focus on the positive than the negative.

How does one respond to this? This is not an issue that can be painted black & white, with clearly defined good guys, and bad.

If I break a vase in a store and pay for it, does it matter the reasons I broke it? As long as I make the results ‘all better’, does it matter why I did an act? I may have broke it by accidentally brushing up against it; I may have broke it because I was offended by its looks, and ‘accidentally’ dropped it. Does it matter, though, if I pay for it? Why would a store owner keep questioning my act, once I made good on my damage? Wouldn’t it be better to just focus on the positive outcome?

If in the end, a desired outcome is achieved, what matters the means to achieve it? And if our generosity has a price tag attached, whether it be a name on a building, or a flag around a box, or even an expectation of gratitude, what does it matter if good results?

(I am reminded of a story I heard once about an old man who always dropped gold coins into the church collection bag every Sunday. When questioned about using such an odd form of currency, he replied with, “I’ve lived a long life, and I’ve not always been above sinnin’ now an a’gin. If I’m gonna donate money every week to save my soul, I damn well want to make sure God can hear the coins when I drop them in the bag!”)

As I was writing this, a solution appeared to the little micro-example I used in ths writing, and alls well that ends well. Others have even commented about how useful this all is from a bitter herb get o’r yerselves’ metaphysical point of view; re-awakening the issue that it doesn’t matter if our writing disappears, none of us owns what we write anyway.

I’m trying to find the logic in this, and all I can find is: Writing is an action; none of us owns our actions; therefore, none of us owns our writing. The logic seems valid, but the arguments give me heartburn, and cause me to stumble in confusion–I feel as if I’m listening to the hollow echos of a language, and a culture, that has past me by.

So much to do over nothing. Why don’t you all tell me to stop thinking about these things so much, and to stop making such a to do over nothing? Oh, you have? Well, perhaps I’ll start listening to you more in the future. But it’s an addiction you know–thinking.

To return to the here and now, and the quandary that began this writing: how can I write a helpful essay without first generating a disaster to make it truly worthwhile?

I don’t suppose some of you would be willing to just blow away your weblogs, would you?

Categories
Weblogging

Tip of the iceberg

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I like to write on many things, including weblogging; but too much time spent on weblogging leaves me feeling as if I could have communicated better with my silence than my words. It’s like eating celery – you use more calories to eat the celery than you get from the plant, which is nothing more than fibrous flavored water.

Last night, I, and I’m sure many others, received an email from Mena Trott with an announcement that the new Movable Type pricing plan was to be put into place during the night. And so it was. My first reaction was, well that will take some of the heat off of Dave Winer. And that led me to realize that it was Blogger’s last unexpected release that took some of the heat off of Six Apart’s newly released pricing plan that caused so much agitation, and I wonder if all these meta-people plan this out accordingly.

“Ok, Ev, it’s your turn to muck with their heads tonight.”

“Righto! I was wondering when I get to play!”

However, I don’t think the Six Apart people will get flack this time because the pricing seems to be reasonable. Instead of paying $500.00 if I had continued with my previous installation, I’d only be paying $70.00 for unlimited weblogs, and that’s fair enough. I’m happy, though, with where I am–me with my fingers deep into the code creating a new database driven error log system, and wondering what I can break next.

What I’m using fits me now, and my quiet interest in tweaking. Movable Type just isn’t my tool anymore. But I wish Six Apart well with their newest price list, and I do hope they’ve dropped the Typekey requirement for downloading or buying the software.

Speaking of Typekey, I’ve noticed few sites have required it, even if they are running MT 3.x. I really don’t think most people want to require registration. I like how my comments are set up, with moderation on older posts, and on-demand moderation for posts that have degenerated into a slugfest. Though there is risk with anonmous posting, I still get too many thoughful posts from people who prefer not to identify themselves to think about requiring registration.

Yesterday, amidst the comments left from people I’ve come to know and appreciate, and even a couple of nice comments from old friends from the now gone co-op, I had a semi-anonymous writer drop a very compelling note into The Value of Free. This person, who goes by ‘J’ wrote:

Has anybody noticed the kind of “wait and see what I say next week” attitude Dave has? It’s almost as if he’s daring people to flame him so he can make them look like arseholes when he announces whatever it is.

J raises a good point, especially on days like yesterday when the natives are restless and the smell of blood is in the air. Will we or won’t we look like ‘arseholes’ if Dave Winer comes out with either a lovely humanitarian gesture next week, or a terrible illness.

I won’t feel any such regrets, or guilt about what I’ve written. I write from what I can see and what I know and, most importantly, what I honestly believe. I don’t write to be mean, though I may come across as mean. I don’t write to kick a person while they’re down, but they may be down and I don’t know it. If I’m critical, I hope it’s of actions or technology, not people. And I can only write on what I see at the time, not what lies hidden from view.

When we reference each other, we’re responding to what people want to put online about themselves, and it is only the tip of the iceberg.

Dave Rogers writes about the bashing of Dave Winer and compares it to a previous incident when he saw ‘mob mentality’:

The public bashing Dave Winer is taking for his handling of the weblogs.com hosting issue is vastly, yes, vastly, out of proportion to the surprise and inconvenience his action has imposed on others.

This is one of the worst features of weblogs, especially the comment facilities – a kind of emergent, “smart” mob mentality that enables people, even people who were in no way affected or inconvenienced by the move, to publicly dump on someone. It echoes of “the shaming of Marc Canter.”
…
He was under no real obligation to offer even as much as he did. There are a lot of people who are asserting all sorts of obligations, but again, what is their authority? Could he have handled things differently, perhaps better? Maybe so, but I think there’s more than a grain of truth to the idea that whatever he did would meet with criticism. Expressing disappointment or some form of unhappiness is appropriate. Making assertions regarding Mr. Winer’s health, his technical abilities, or his character is not.

Of course, we could say that Dave Rogers is holding all of us accountable, and what gives him the right? But this game can become a spiral with no end, and too much time has been spent on this incident as is.

Perhaps we have no rights to hold Dave Winer accountable for his actions, other than to express criticism that he’d yanked the weblogs for 3000who-the-hell-knows-how-many people with no prior warning and then put up a rather indifferent, some could say a callous note. (This was before some of us wrote about the incident and he then posted much more information in a ‘personal audioblog’– including a reference to his health, and the reasons for his actions.)

Perhaps I shouldn’t have been influenced by the fact that Dave Winer has spent the weekend trying to discredit Ben Hammersley or get him fired because Ben wrote an extremely mild essay about the Atom/RSS discussions for the Guardian and it didn’t meet Winer’s approval.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have let Mr. Winer’s comments about freeloaders in the past make a difference to me; nor his many attacks on Google or Six Apart for their support of Atom. And I would have to completely disregard the times when he’s called me sick and pathetic in my own comments, and in his weblog (always pulled), time and again, because I don’t agree with him.

I would even have to disregard my belief that those who hold themselves up as one of the leaders in the community in order to use their influence to take potshots at others, can’t bitch when they’re the recipients of shots themselves.

Past history and experience, in addition to what is not written, can also make up the body of the iceberg that lies beneath the waters. All of these events just given are separate from the event in question, and though they may influence response, should they be allowed to drive it?

Dave Rogers is responding to the tip of the iceberg when he writes about our reaction to Dave Winer’s actions. Which he then continues with a second essay, writing:

Some of us have, in our minds, a set of expectations regarding what a “better” choice would be. Implicit in those expectations, is the expectation that Dave Winer has that same knowledge. Does he? If he doesn’t, would he be required to agree? If so, why? When you receive a free service from someone, are you therefore entitled to burden that individual with your expectations? Did you afford that person prior notice that you were choosing to burden them with your expectations, and that furthermore, you would hold them “accountable” to your expectations? Could you have made a better choice? Who should hold you accountable for making a better choice? Me? Do you know how your mind works? Really? Why not?

Rogers could be right, and who are we to hold Winer accountable; to attack his character in addition to his action? But then again, maybe he’s wrong and all we’re doing is following a path laid out, stone by bloody damn stone, by Dave Winer himself. This may make us fools, for being pulled into the BS–again–but I don’t know if it makes us a ‘mob’.

Frankly, I don’t think Winer has been much harmed by the writings of the last few days; I don’t think he’s unhappy about how all of this has turned out. Not unhappy at all, but that’s me talking with the view of the entire iceberg in front of me, not just the tip.

Dave Winer writes today about why he didn’t give any kind of notice or won’t respond to people offering help if they don’t do Manila, exhorting Rogers Cadenhead to hurry up and deliver a transition server, when Rogers volunteered to help. He talks about other things on his mind:

All the time I spend addressing the needs of random people outside the community, is time I’m not spending helping people in the community. So I’m choosing not to spend time on these offers, when I get offers from people who understand what a Manila site is, I’ll pursue that. I’m still waiting for Rogers to get a very simple transition server up and running. Hurry up guys.
…
I remind people I’m just a person, and I have a complicated life already. Regardless what the press says, it’s still true. I had two doctor’s appts yesterday and one today. I may need surgery. This isn’t a life-threatening illness, but it’s not a fun thing either. Moving on June 30. So there are other things on my mind, believe it or not.

He also writes in response to our criticism, Shame on you, I say. Well, so does Dave Rogers.

Shame on us…but not for the reasons either Rogers or Winer give. Or should I say, shame on me.

If Dave is seriously ill, he’ll have my best wishes for a speedy recovery. If he’s broke, he’ll have my empathy…and a recommendation not to stay in 150.00 a night hotel rooms. If he dies I’ll regret the loss of a unique individual and the sadness others will experience–but I won’t regret what I write about his actions. Ever.

Unless the writing just feeds the beast.

This story is so one minute ago and I’ve spent enough time on it, to no great benefit of anyone, least of all myself. It really is time for me to move on. To something else. Anything else.

Categories
RDF Semantics Weblogging

Common interchange format

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

After sleeping too late this morning and then waking with a headache–a response to long hours this weekend, culminating with finding out late yesterday the work was for naught and has to be re-done–I didn’t have enough time or energy to go for a hike somewhere, so I started playing around with technology.

I know this doesn’t make sense: why would a person spend all weekend with code and then spend time coding during off-hours? It’s really a variation of setting your alarm for Saturday morning just so you can turn it off when you don’t have to get up on your day off.

What? You don’t do this?

Anyway, I’ve been playing around in the WordPress code because my outgoing trackbacks and pingbacks have stopped working. I’ve also been playing around with some new PHP toys that I’ll cover in an upcoming new LAMP essay. However, most of the day has been spent thinking about interoperability.

The biggest challenge to industries in the past has been to establish a data model for the industry that all the participants could agree on. Once agreed on, then the groups could generate a data format that allows companies to electronically transmit data back and forth without having to go through a lot of transforms.

Some people think XML has eliminated the data transform problem, but XML is nothing more than a structured syntax – there is no ‘data’ within the XML model. It’s the same as having an alphabet, but no common agreed on language. I can scribble letters and you can scribble letters but if we don’t agree on what those letters mean, all we’re doing is creating pretty pictures.

Even RDF isn’t data. It’s a step up from XML in that it provides a structure for how objects relate to each other, but you still have to define the ‘objects’.

Anyway, I was thinking of data interoperability today because of the recent closing of weblogs.com, not to mention other recent movements between Movable Type and WordPress, Movable Type and Textpattern, and so on. I was reminded that one of the original purposes behind the Atom project was to define a common interchange format between tools, so that people could easily move from one to another. With this, people wouldn’t be facing some of the difficulties the weblogs.com folks are now facing, trying to get their Manila based exports into a format usable by other weblogging tools – something I’ve heard is not trivial.

However, the Atom folks went the syndication and API route and put an interchange format on the back burner. Too bad, really, because something like that would be rather handy now.

As coincidence would have it, one of the architects of Atom, Sam Ruby, volunteered to help write a data transform for those who are currently impacted by the weblogs.com shut-down. He wrote:

However, this is not a time for religious debate or partisanship. It is a time for compassion and an opportunity to learn and improve. Enough so that I am willing to step forward and offer to help with writing of conversion and migration tools. Assuming that the input looks anything like this format, I am willing to write conversion tools to either a comparable format or to a blosxom’s directory layout.

As Sam mentions, escape sequences and odd characters will now take on special interest, because these usually cause problems when either exporting or importing data. As he also mentions, getting one’s own domain is also a good think to think about now, too.

It’s great that individuals are stepping up to help out during this ‘crises’, but the better environment in the long run is to agree to a common interchange format and have all tools support it. Then people could export their weblogs weekly, or even daily if they’re paranoid enough (and no one could blame people for being paranoid now); if something like this were to happen again, the impact would be minor at best.

We have to stop putting those who aren’t technical into the position of being dependent on the technically proficient to come riding in to save the day every time a new ‘business decision’ is made. I like riding white horses as much as the next person, but it’s hard to walk about when people are kissing the tops of your boots.

However, technology is easy, business agreements are hard–in this environment, business agreements are damn near impossible. So until utopia hits, I also volunteer my help for those displaced from weblogs.com who want to move to WordPress or Textpattern. You’ll have to find your own server space, but I can help you get the tool installed and get your data ported to this environment.

Categories
Weblogging

The value of free

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

There is much to be learned about the incident of Dave Winer shutting down the free weblogs on weblogs.com this weekend; much beyond the obvious of always having a backdoor for your weblog. The real heart of the matter has to do with free, and the value we place on things that are ‘free’.

It wasn’t long before folks started rolling out the fact that people were hosted for free, and therefore haven’t a right to complain once the ‘free’ ride was over.

Doc Searls writes:

Thousands of us got a free ride from Dave, and Userland, over the past five years. What we got was far more than we didn’t pay for. For many of us (certainly for me), the benefits have been incalculable.

Let’s keep that in mind as those of us involved try to make this transition over the next few weeks

Archipelago responds with:

How about the folks bellyachin’ that Docs’ site is still running. Sheesh. I understand how annoyed folks are locked away from their writing and cats… but I also know that a lot of folks were happy to not pay, and not worry, and feel free to complain now that gravy train is over. If you’ve ever hosted sites and had folks who are getting free service call to yell at you at some ungodly hour on weekend that the site is down (regardless of the actual condition of the site) then you can feel some of the pain on the other side. And if you never have, and just annoyed that you can’t get to your stuff, where was you’re backup? Where’s your responsibility?

Om Malik writes about the ease in which to export from Movable Type or Blogger compared to other tools, and problems he had this weekend:

In comparison, switching from Manilla, or Word Press is painful and hard for those who are not blogsavants. (You can export the database or import using a RSS feed, but that is tough for people who just want to write.) I tried to move hosts this weekend and man it was a problem. Had Matt not helped me out, I would have never been able to do it. I guess, that is the penalty of free.

Anyway, this rant has become too long – I am going to say this, sometimes free is not good, and can be a bit of a pain. Weblogs.com users are finding out.

The same Matt offered to help with redirection , which is generous, and ‘free’. But as I wrote in David Weinberger’s comments, if the resources to run redirection in Matt’s space are trivial, wouldn’t they also be trivial in weblogs.com?

Frank Paynter has been collecting links and had an interesting take on the sudden revelation that this was all about Dave’s health:

The part about “Dave can’t program because it’s a health risk” troubles me… does this mean Dave can’t think because it’s a health risk? Or Dave can’t use the keyboard because his fingers might fall off? What is it about Dave’s style of coding that’s unhealthy I wonder?

Nothing to do with ‘free’, but I was curious about this myself. Personally I find coding to be unhealthy for me because I can’t hike and code at the same time, and therefore gain weight because I’m sitting on my butt and someday I’m going to fall over dead because I provide helpful, and free, tips for all of you…and it will be all your fault. You free weblogging scum, you.

Now, where was I?

Jeneane, well, now that lady is on a mission, providing good commentary, pointers to new weblogs.com webloggers homes, and demonstrating that she’s the fastest damn typist by immediately transcribing Winer’s audioblog to text.

(I’ve been chatting with Jeneane in emails about the demographics of those rallying around in support of Dave Winer, and those criticizing him. Interesting patterns developing – where’s the social software folks?)

Ralph has my favorite quote from this whole mess:

So now 3000+ webloggers have been summarily evicted with no notice. Dave has perfectly reasonable excuses for his actions. But he has no excuse for the lack of action that led to this. And UserLand really screwed up as a company by surreptitiously abandoning a huge user base to the fortunes of one person with a bum ticker. I guess when you play with a cactus, you’re bound to get pricked.

I guess when you play with a cactus, you’re bound to get pricked.

Most of these discussions are strongly reminiscent of the same discussions when Movable Type went from free software to having a fairly hefty licensing fee – and without warning. There were those who were unhappy, and were vocal about it. And then there were those pointing fingers at the rest of us and calling us cheap bastards.

What we’re finding in weblogging is there is no such thing as free forever. The medium has grown up; it no longer has the feeling of being something self-contained and measured and people who were doing ‘free’ earlier are bailing from doing ‘free’ forever.

There’s nothing wrong with not doing the free thing. However, there’s also nothing wrong with the people who accepted the free thing, freely given. No one begged to be allowed to use Movable Type, it was provided for download; no one whined to be allowed to weblog on weblogs.com–they were invited to participate. Each person who accepted these free things also gave something back in return: whether it was bodies when webloggers were few, or grateful acknowledgement when webloggers were many. Though those who have benefited from these free services in the past should be grateful, they don’t deserve to be called ‘cheap’ or cut loose without warning. Free does not equate to no value.

I wonder how far this loss of weblogging ‘free’ will go? To weblog reading? We don’t charge people to read our weblogs, but does that make our readers cheap, and valueless? I don’t believe so, though I haven’t always acted so.

I believe we should value those who have so many weblogs to choose from now, but still take the time to read what we write. It’s true that we should write for ourselves, but that doesn’t make the value of what our readers contribute to this whole experience any less. I hope that none of us–no matter how erudite or eloquent, no matter how popular or successful–forget the value of our readers, as this medium continues to grow in respectability if not size.

All the more so because being able to read weblogs seems to be the last ‘free’ in weblogging.