Blogs
Reminder: Think before you blog
I guess it wouldn’t be a weekend in the blogosphere without a little drama of some kind, and this weekend it was Mike Arrington’s no-show at BlogWorld Expo. The soap opera apparently began with a comment from Leo “TWiT” Laporte at the conference about how Mike didn’t come because he “forgot” (something I can only assume was Leo’s idea of a joke).
It quickly escalated into a full-on Arrington hate-a-thon, in which people used Mike’s absence from the conference as a jumping-off point for all kinds of ad hominem attacks (like the ones in Tony’s comment section at Deep Jive Interests) and conspiracy theories about link-bait. In the end, conference organizer Rick Calvert set the story straight by explaining how confusion over dates and a lack of communication helped lead to Mike not being there, and I think a lot of people who piled on the Mike-bashing bandwagon might be feeling a little sheepish now.
I have some personal experience with Mike and conferences, since he keynoted at the last mesh conference I helped organize in Toronto in May, and I can say that while he was occasionally difficult to reach via email (not surprising, really, with the volume of email he probably gets), he went out of his way to stay in touch, showed up on time and took part in all of the events without a word of complaint despite being severely jet-lagged. He even stayed longer than he had originally planned.
If there’s one thing that events like this weekend’s hate-a-thon reinforce, it’s that rushing to judgment in a blog post (or a comment on a post) without having all the facts is rarely — if ever — a smart thing to do. More often than not it’s better to wait.
license
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Canada License.
subscribe
grazr
TwitterCount
busted tees
Discussion
Comments are disallowed for this post.
Add New Comment
Viewing 9 Comments
Thanks. Your comment is awaiting approval by a moderator.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
TechCrunch is a wildly successful site and that makes it and Mike a huge target. I am the one to blame here and feel terrible about giving people the ammo to bash him.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
I still need to link through to Rick's post, but then that contradicts what Mike has written in many ways.
I linked through to all my research sources, and the links represented both sides of the discussion.
The conclusions I made were my personal opinion based on the information available.I was really looking forward to the New Media Fundraising presentation, albeit from a writeup from a 3rd party, but that has yet to materialize.
Mike himself is a proponent of link early, link often
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Luckily, in this case, the questions *did* get answered fairly quick.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
If they were, then Michael should apologize to the organizer. Pretending that this was lost in the shuffle doesn't quite wash when you have people making travel arrangements, or sending tickets.
If tickets were not purchased, travel arrangements not made, hotels not booked, then obviously this wasn't a real commitment, and yes, people should lay off. Additionally, the conference organizer should, next time, hire someone more capable of managing speaker confirmations and travel arrangements.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Add New Comment
Trackbacks