BSM’s last post (regarding Winer’s admission that he did not create RSS) got two inbound links of note.

First, a link from ycombinator, which provided a modest flow (and screwed the scale on our stats graph all to hell). They decided, after reviewing the site as a whole, that the link posted was of no value. Now that’s some seriously Winer-esque, ad hominem reasoning that you really have to admire. They didn’t even bother trying to mask it. They did quote wikipedia randomly, though, so I’m sure they had a valid point.

Second, the post got a mention in the Angry Mac Bastards podcast. I had an hour to kill tonight so I decided to listen to what they had to say and kept listening because they are a) angry, b) informed, and c) funny. It also helps that they agree that Winer is a “new media douchebag”.

The first nine minutes of the podcast are about Dave’s “oh poor Scoble” post and is followed immediately by their talk about the site/that post. If you enjoy that, the rest of it should be right up your alley too. The show is mostly tech with a mac slant and not so much totally mac focused, so even we unhip PC users were able to follow along.

Yaggafla: Yeah, I think going after his personal life is a little lame. I think this blog works best when it critiques and pokes holes in his authoritative posts, but not when you go after his social life.

jay lerner: yeah, i kinda agree with yaggla on this one, eye. for the record, i think you do a swell job. but as dispicable as i find winer’s web bullying, let’s just leave the guy’s personal life out of it. if he wants to get down in the gutter and pick a fight, that’s on him.

I agree: “going after” Dave’s personal life would be lame. Fortunately, that’s not what we’ve done. The posts highlighted a facet of Dave’s personality by way of his interviews and his own writings. Nevertheless, at the urging of another blogger here at EOW, I’m going to try to clear up why Eye On Winer exists:

As has been noted here on countless occasions, Dave does not tolerate honest criticism. He can barely stomach disagreement. He squelches and censors what he can and when someone says something he can’t keep quiet, he berates them, ridicules them, and tacitly encourages his supporters to teach the person some manners.

People keep their criticisms of Dave to themselves because they don’t have a forum, because they’re afraid of what he’ll do to their reputation, or because they just don’t want to deal with the hassle.

Eye On Winer began as a platform from which to criticize and disagree with Dave without being subjected to personal retaliation. Since that time, it’s turned into something a little more. All of the original elements still remain, but there are a few more now.

EOW has grown into something of a character study. We try to figure out what makes Dave tick. Not satisfied with simply pointing out Dave’s hypocrisies and logical missteps, we’ve started trying to figure out why he makes them. What motivates him? What’s he really thinking? To answer these questions it is necessary that we take a look at Dave’s comments in the context of who he is as a person. Sometimes that requires discussions about Dave as a person, and Dave’s thoughts about himself (and the ways he advertises those to prospective mates) are certainly relevant.

There’s also some general commentary on different technologies that Dave is actively involved in, but that’s not only much less common but also much less controversial.

Unlike Dave, however, we still welcome your comments, suggestions, and criticisms. We all need some checks and balances, and responding to your critiques allows us to refine our focus and ensure that we’re headed in the direction we want to be heading, even if it’s not the one that some of our readers would choose.

There are a number of sites that appear to have been hacked, and their bodies replaced with spam for various spiders. You might want to check to see if your site (or any that you frequent) are on that list.

I have to believe that Calacanis’s mention of O’Reilly’s statements from several years ago was enabled by wikipedia – a site jealously guarded by betsythedevine. I also have to believe that most people see these as isolated incidents and perhaps reflecting badly on both parties. It is only when the totality is made readily accessible that people will be able to see the things as they really are.

Indeed. This idea especially appeals to me because I keep up with the goings on on Dave’s wikipedia page, and while Betsy Devine stays, ostensibly, away from editing the actual page, she does protect Dave from the less rosy neutral viewpoints as an editor, something I don’t think Wikipedia has quite figured out how to control yet.

So… well… here it is. I’m going to try to let it grow organically, but please try to stay as objective and grounded in reality as possible. References are greatly appreciated and, though I shouldn’t have to say so, if you don’t want Winer poking around and figuring out your IP address, register for an account.

I imagine that there will be entries for things like Gnomedex 2007, and Adam Curry.

This note also underscores the fact that any of you who wish to blog about Dave’s antics are welcome to do so here. To do so, create an account. You will be able to write posts but not publish them initially. Send me an email (address is in the sidebar) and let me know that you’d like posting privileges, and I’ll be happy to set them up.

Anonymous Posting
The above works for bloggers with pseudonyms. If you wish to blog anonymously, register, write a post, and send me an email asking that it be published anonymously. I’ll switch the author to “Anonymous” and post it up. Your identity will not be revealed except by court order.

I’m sure most of you read both EOW and Dave in your newsreader, and so do I… but sometimes I will visit Scripting.com just to see the little green EyeOnWiner boxes. I just made a quick update to the EyeOnWiner greasemonkey script. The GM script puts links to the EOW rebuttal right on Scripting.com. I updated it to also work with the Scripting Annex at wordpress.com. If you don’t feel like downloading a new version, it works prefectly well to just add “http://scripting.wordpress.com/*” to the list of domains in your greasemonkey admin.

If you’re not sure what on earth ‘greasemonkey‘ is, you are missing out. Here is the script. Alternately, you can always find the most recent version on th esidebar.

I also upgraded WordPress and changed the header color back to a more traditional EOW green. Haven’t quite gotten around to mucking with the CSS colors yet, though. Oh well.

So once a post has been around for more than 10 days, you will not be able to comment on it. This shouldn’t really bother anyone, but if you have something you’d like to add to an old post, shoot me an email and I’ll put it up myself.

Here’s some random notes worth noting:

GreaseMonkey Script — It came to my attention that the greasemonkey script had ceased working, so there is now a new version linked on the sidebar which seems to be working for me.

Guest Posters – I have opened up registration to any and all who wish to contribute. The process will go like this:

1. Register – you must use a real email address and please choose a username that means something — it will not be seen by anyone but me if that’s what you want.
2. Log in using the password that is emailed to you.
3. Write a new post. It will be saved as draft until I approve it. (I am not going to exert much editorial control here, but I need to keep Dave himself from posting a lengthy screed about how great he is)
4. If you want to remain anonymous, PLEASE INDICATE THIS AT THE TOP OF YOUR POST in some obvious way.
5. When I approve your post, if you have asked to remain anonymous, I will transfer ownership of your post to this new “anonymous” user so it will not be linked to you.
6. Once all that is taken care of, I’ll publish your post.

As usual, you can always just email me posts and I’ll publish them as Anon, as above.

Main Bloggers — I’ve sent out a few emails to other anti-Dave bloggers inviting them to merge and work here instead of their random blogspot places — that is an open invitation. If you want to sign on as a main blogger, go ahead and register and then shoot me an email and we can chat. The hybrid option is to register and just post things without asking to be anonymous… and then when I approve them they’ll show up under whatever settings you dictate for yourself in the wordpress options. The only difference between being a “main” blogger versus a “guest” blogger is whether or not your posts have to be approved before they go live.

Comments from Blogspot — I’m leaving the blogspot blog up because even though I did import the posts to wordpress, I did not import the comments… so comments on older posts are over on blogspot still.