I emailed Dave to ask him to comment on the propriety of his comments about Stowe Boyd. I expected no response, but I received one. I wrote:
Dave,
You spend a lot of time chastising others for attacking you instead discussing your ideas. Can you explain, in light of that, these two twitters from yesterday?Stowe Boyd is a creep. I’ve been wanting to say that for quite a long time. Now I have. Onward.
Stowe Boyd is just the kind of idiot who parades his idiocy around by saying other people “don’t get” something, when he “gets” nothing.
Specifically, how were those two updates any different from the kind of behavior you routinely rail against when you are the victim? Don’t you think you owe Mr. Boyd an apology? I look forward to reading your response on Scripting.com.
EOW
The following conversation of short emails followed:
Dave: I’ll answer your question, if you answer one of mine. Deal?
EOW: Anything but my identity.
Dave: You guessed the question.
EOW: Maybe if you treated people with some decency you wouldn’t have anonymous detractors. Some food for thought.
EOW: …that to say nothing of the fact that who I am has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not what I write is valid. The only thing you’d do with my identity is resort to insults and ad hominems… and then we’re right back to the first email.
So it turns out that Dave has slightly larger stones than I thought he did, but he still pretty clearly doesn’t want to face the simple fact that he’s hyper-sensitive and expects to be treated far better than he treats other people. If only we could all be so deluded.
I’m going to amend my initial refusal to reveal my identity, though. Because, as I’ve mentioned before, my anonymity is predicated on the fact that who I am is completely irrelevant to what’s being written here, it’s unfair not to consider that that assumption might not hold in all cases, so here’s the amended offer:
If Dave can find one post that I’ve written on this blog to which my identity is necessary in order to evaluate it’s veracity or accuracy*, I will post my CV here as well as a link to my personal and professional websites.
* – One exception: comments that I’ve made about myself are excluded.
Don’t play Dave’s game. He wants your identity so he can slander you on his blog, try to get you fired and do everything else he can to discourage you from taking him on. The issue has nothing to do with whether you’re believable or not. He just hates that he can’t find a way to bully you until he knows your name.
I wouldn’t have made the offer if I thought it was something he could actually do. If my assumption — that my identity is irrelevant — is valid, then I’ll remain anonymous. If it’s not, then I shouldn’t remain anonymous. This is a just and fair compromise.
Besides, the anonymity is more for my own convenience. I’m not worried about libel. That would be a mistake that Mr. Winer would only make once.
A reminder: do not post under a pseudonym on any blog or website comments that are under dave’s control. He has been known to track people down by their IP addresses. He also has been known to edit other peoples’ words to make them look bad. So don’t ever give dave control over your words, post here on EOW or anywhere else BUT a winer-controlled server.
I just wanted to say that a Live Eye On Winer Chat with Dave Winer would be the coolest thing EVER! That would make my decade.
Wow. I’d do a lot to get that setup. Unfortunately I don’t think there’s anything I could do that’d convince him to do that. He does too good of a job of avoiding people who ask him difficult questions to allow himself to be interviewed by someone who doesn’t worship him.
Wouldn’t it be too cool like some 80s scifi if EOW was actually Dave criticizing himself you know his alter ego that really does feel bad for flying off the handle so quickly on so many things.
Craig,
It would be nice to think that Dave has a severe case of multiple personality disorder and one of them is so logical, concise and articulate. I wouldn’t think of trying to argue with that Dave. I’d certainly loose to the superior intellect and his grasp of reasoned debate.
I think we need an Eye on Eye on Winer blog… maybe the real Dave will start one.