Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Jorn Barger's complaint

Author:Dave Winer
Posted:7/25/1999; 6:30:12 AM
Topic:Jorn Barger's complaint
Msg #:8727
Prev/Next:8726 / 8728

Jorn Barger runs the Robot Wisdom weblog, he also is a Frontier user (the free version), and he apparently reads Scripting News. The other night he posted a message here that asked how many people are using My.UserLand.Com. I saw it at the end of my day, I was feeling sick (this cold won't go away) and I just didn't answer the posting.

Later in a phone conversation (I paid for the call) he said he wanted to open a more general discussion on my abilities as a software designer. Another repeated message over quite a few months from Jorn, which he restated in the phone conversation is that he thinks that I don't read Robot Wisdom. I never said I did. The truth is that sometimes I do and other times I don't. I've added it to my rotation. I'm going to become more familiar with his site. I'm going to try to give him what he wants.

Now about the UI on My.UserLand.Com, I agree it sucks. I want to make it better. Every time I move a bunch of people vent, as Barger does, and this makes me freeze. I'm going to change the interface. What Barger and others don't acknowledge is that there is lots of contradictory advice coming at me. I'm going to do what I think is right, and if you don't like it, suggest something better, that's fine, but don't call me names, or say I'm stupid. That's not how you work with people. Thanks.

Another issue that Barger had is that I responded positively to Guido's suggestions a month or so ago. I liked his comments because they were presented by a developer in the form that developers like. A bulleted list of changes that would make him happy. No proclamations about how smart he is or how stupid or immoral I am. He stuck to criticizng the software. I can deal with that.

I admit people like Barger rub me the wrong way. He trashes me pretty regularly on his site. And when I don't respond, he comes here and trashes me. What does he want? I'll read it for a while, see what he's doing, and make my own decision about whether I should invest the time to learn what he's doing. I can tell you this much, I wish he would post his stories in separate files to avoid linkrot when and if I point to his stories. In other words, his act isn't that together. The people-in-glass-houses story.

BTW, I emailed a link to this posting to Barger, he's welcome to post one response to this. I chose this one case to try to work out a new way forward. I've made a pretty generous offer here, if he can't accept it, then let's just part ways. He can say whatever he wants in his space, but this DG is about working together. I get to make that rule because this is my server, it is not a public resource, as I have said many times before.

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