I’ve just returned from a hike that was harder than anticipated, though incredible for all of that. Unfortunately, when I turned on my computer to upload photos, I received several emails, all related to an email I had sent out earlier to Marc Canter and three other people.
An email where Canter completely discounted what I wrote in favor of someone who was ‘higher profile’ who had responded to it. An email that was forwarded on to several other people, and used to create a ‘backchannel email list’. An email that was ended with:
By the way, this is NOT for publication in your weblog. Or distribution outside of this tiny group.
I guess that within certain weblogging circles, and with certain webloggers, confidences are not respected. It’s my fault, though; I should have known better than to expect courtesty or confidentiality from Marc Canter, because all Marc Canter respects is Marc Canter.
What did surprise me was that no one else on this list took Marc to task, or even felt there was anything wrong with it. What the f**k is wrong with webloggers now?
The word ‘respect’ is being bandied about, primarily because of money and this whole ‘blogging for dollars’ crap. But respect is more than just money — it’s also how you treat people.
(By the way, if someone pays me to write about my hikes, that’s being paid to weblog; anything else is nothing more than product endorsement. We pride ourselves on our honesty, as compared to “Big Media”; yet in this first genuine test of blogging commercialization, we won’t even call an endorsement, an endorsement. )
