Here’s an interesting pattern, see if you can spot it:
As regards to the first Chris Lydon radio broadcast, Dave Rogers makes a comment that Mike Sanders really liked but which Doc Searls counters with more positive feedback. Dave then responded to Doc who responded back to Dave.
Dave writes more, and in the middle somewhere points to Jon Garfunkle’s *New GateKeepers –where Jon points to a lot of these same people (Doc, David, Dave, Jarvis, et al). Mike Sanders responds to Dave and Doc and Chris Lydon, and David Weinberger also responds to Dave (linking Doc and Mike) and Doc links everyone for good measure. So do I come to that, but that’s because I’m asking you all: do you see the pattern?
You might be tempted to say that it reminds you of a cat fight but that’s not it–terms like ‘cat fight’ are reserved for disagreements between women, as a way of poking gentle fun at the little ladies and our silly quarrels. It’s used so that people can then approach the discussion with the proper frame of mind.
No one would ever use ‘cat fight’ to describe a serious disagreement among serious participants.
No, the answer I’m looking for is an onion. This conversation reminds me of an onion, and each person contributing is one layer of that onion. Some of the layers are close to the core, others further out — but they’re all onion regardless of relative position, and just as pungent.
Poly saw the pattern. Perhaps we should use the term ‘bear fight’ from now on. A bull fight comes to mind, but that’s already been taken.
*Note that Jon did link to women in the article, and has always been scrupulous at pointing out inequities in the weblogging world. I pointed to his post primarily because it was referenced in this conversation, and I liked the ‘gatekeeper’ title–so he’s not an onion. He’s sort of a scallion.