No-shit kinda guy...

I have read a lot, over the past few days, about the Ben and Mena affair.
I've made my opinion known in comments, but I have one addition, now that I watched the presentation, the Q&A session did go a bit West-Coast, so I can forgive Ben's outburst on the backchannel for that.

The thing is that Mena's speech, in my opinion, was about the fact that we can't undo the things that we put on the internet (in many cases, at least).
Every blog has it's readers, and the more readers, the bigger chance that the content will spread virally across the net. In many cases, retractions are like the newspapers printing a retraction on page 12; no-one reads it and the collective memory of the blogosphere is that the original comments stand. Searching the web may or may not direct the reader to the original piece, and regardless, there will likely be sufficient copies to diminish the retraction.

The Ben and Mena affair actually goes further to supporting Mena's speech than anything she could possibly have said. The only problem is that she and Ben are the victims of the ill-considered comments.
If someone introduces themselves to you on the web, what's the first thing you do? Google their name! In the case of Ben Metcalfe, what do we see? Out of the first 10 links, 4 of them (including the top 3) relate to the incident with Mena, and several others are not about the BBC Ben at all.
So people will think of Ben as the guy who called Mena's speech bullshit, even though that's not exactly what happened.

I don't think we can proscribe 'civility' on the blogs, but we do need to be more careful and consider ourselves more like journalists. We may not have a large readership, but a raging bushfire can start with a single match.

The thing that makes the blogosphere great; the interlinking of stories and opinion across the world, is also a weakness when misused. Lies, misinformation and personal attacks are propagated just as easily as truth, informed opinion and valid criticism.

People are afraid of that, and it prevents some people from stating opinions that are controversial.
Companies are afraid of blogs for the very same reason. A disgruntled customer or ex-employee can start bushfires that are hard for a company to put out, even if they are innocent of the charges.

If our 'airborne' conversations were recorded, and indexed by Google, would we be more careful what we said? Perhaps the CIA is listening in?

Here's perhaps the most telling example of why it's good to exercise restraint in blogging nasties; the last few IRC log lines from the Les Blogs conference (Ben Metcalfe is dotBen) (I tried to highlight the interesting conversation... :)

17:54 < tara> I've had several people tell me they have really enjoyed reading the back channel onscreen
17:54 < Salim> i think it's great onscreen....  parallel processing the backchannel and the panel is excellent
17:54 < dotBen> I think it was a mistake, to be honest
17:54 < NicoleSimon> nikolajn oh you already back in dk?
17:54 < factoryjoe> NicoleSimon: so... being two-faced?
17:54 < factoryjoe> Salim++
17:54 < dotBen> If I was a speaker, I wouldn't have wanted it projected.
17:55 < tara> dotben: seriously?
17:55 < peterkaminski> NicoleSimon++, for saying it the way she sees it
17:55 < peterkaminski> Mena++, too
17:55 < michel_v> chrisheuer++
17:55 < nikolajn> NicoleSimon: indeed. unfortuantly had to leave already this morning (a 7 am flight out)
17:55 < factoryjoe> totally
17:55 < dotBen> tara yes
17:55 < NicoleSimon> factoryjoe about being not truthful, about being not honest - but demanding it from others in massive amounts.
17:55 < KevinMarks> but as a non-speaker you took ad avantage of it ?
17:55 < Salim> we're all typing while we listen.... no reason not to add one more element...
17:55 < NicoleSimon> nikolajn i'll mail you, i need you ;)
17:55 < factoryjoe> NicoleSimon: that's bs no matter what
17:55 < chrisheuer> read about the impact of the backchannel at the AO Summitt - works for multi-taskers, but not for linear thinkers who get distracted from their linear thoughts
17:55 < chrisheuer> its hard
17:55 < Salim> CH: ++ great point
17:55 < factoryjoe> mm
17:55 < peterkaminski> chrisheuer++
17:56 < factoryjoe> yeah
17:56 < dglazkov> it's competition for the eyeballs
17:56 < factoryjoe> that's what me and peterkaminski were discussing yesterday
17:56 < factoryjoe> i dunno
17:56 < michel_v> chrisheuer: linear thinkers can choose to pay attention only to the presentation at hand, or am I being too naive? :)
17:56 < Salim> are linear thinkers allowed??  haven't the French banned that?
17:56 < cfd> speakers (I did) know about the backchannel.
17:56 < dglazkov> hard to compete with 67 witty jokes /sec
17:56 < factoryjoe> for me this is like listening to NPR and talking to friends about it
17:56 < KevinMarks> the first AO summit we used the backchannel to debunk a speaker who was bulshitting
17:56 < NicoleSimon> the thing at the moment is working because it is not very sharp an much more unnoticable.
17:56 < peterkaminski> there are different kinds of people, and some people it makes happy, and some get overwhelmed
17:56 < factoryjoe> i mean, i got like 3.5 hours of sleep last night
17:56 < surfnode> no the french inventend them
17:56 < factoryjoe> and i haven't napped all day
17:56 < NicoleSimon> peterkaminski everybody here has a laptop or reads over another ones shoulder - great!
17:56 < cfd> somebody logged the two days of backchannel?
17:56 < Salim> The best description I've ever heard of the French:
17:56 < factoryjoe> i can't say that for my backchannel-less college courses that followed a similar format
17:57 < jalonso> the future is here, its just not widely distributed
17:57 < chrisheuer> for a lot of people - we have enough trouble processing the thoughts in our own head, let alone that of the person we are listening to - add in the 67 other people at the same time and./....
17:57 < Salim> "It works in practice... but will it work in theory?"
17:57 < chrisheuer> different strokes for different folks
17:57 < tara> yep
17:57 < peterkaminski> Nicole, but projecting it makes it "official", and reminds people to stay with everybody else
17:57 < dglazkov> backchannel is graffitti
17:57 < factoryjoe> hmm
17:57 < dglazkov> it needs to be on the side screeen
17:57 < factoryjoe> but it also is like "showing our faces"
17:58 < tara> It's added many valuable layers and stories to the presenatations
17:58 < adecarvalho> photo-op
17:58 < chrisheuer> might be interesting to have the people who are multitaskers on one side of the room with the backchannel and others on the opposite side fo the room where they can not see it
17:58 < factoryjoe> flickrtime....go!
17:58 < jemstone> yay loic
17:58 < chrisheuer> but that would defeat the point of inclusiveness
17:58 < cfd> bravo.
17:58 < jemstone> and the team. ta
17:58 < factoryjoe> including the backchannel
17:58 < factoryjoe> oh yes
17:58 < Salim> oh shit...
17:58 < JeffClavier> Can we get the red badges ???
17:58 < peterkaminski> thanks loic! we all learned a lot, i think
17:58 < dotBen> oh shit
17:58 -!- neilmcintosh [n=neilmcin@195.68.195.29] has quit []
17:59 < maartens> I loved that last commetn
17:59 < factoryjoe> vive les blogs
17:59 < maartens> Next week :-)
17:59 < tara> Thanks Loic! Les Blogs rocked!
17:59 < maartens> Can we get an update on
17:59 -!- paolovalde [n=paoloval@81.80.55.12] has quit []
17:59 < maartens> * bandwidth per day
17:59 < maartens> * total storage used
...
17:59 < maartens> oops again
...
17:59 < cfd> who's publishing the log? where?
17:59 < JeffClavier> Loic++++++++++++++++++
...
17:59 < dltq> i will publish my parts of the log at dltq.org
17:59 -!- TonWes [n=chatzill@81.80.55.12] has quit ["of to holland"]
17:59 < dltq> but i miss parts
17:59 < rodrigo_> all sessions up on vpod.tv in multiformat early next week. take care !
...
18:00 < dotBen> I doubt I'll get allowed to come another SixApart event again - so so long!
18:00 < dotBen> :)(

They logged the backchannel?? Oh shit!