The funny thing about the fallout over this blogger conference in Nashville this past weekend is who in their right mind would ask Dave Winer to moderate a panel on “Respectful Disagreement”. That’d be a bit like asking Don Rumsfeld to host a panel on alternatives to force in achieving diplomatic goals.
Anyway, apparently it was classic Dave. According to this report, Dave told those attending this civility panel that if they didn’t like the way he was moderating things, they could leave,
Example. Early on, Winer semi-admonished Robin Burk from Winds of Change when she casually mentioned posters and commentors in the course of her comment. Winer stopped her and said he didn’t believe in dividing people into posters and commentors because he doesn’t believe in hierarchies.
That was a feel-good groaner in and of itself, but he became a hypocrite once disagreement started by playing the speaker card, saying he was the leader today and that if John Cox didn’t like it he could leave. Winer made the classic passive-aggressive mistake of starting out pretending to be incredibly permissive and then being forced to turn into Attila the facilitator to regain control.
And then, of course, he bitches today because Glenn Reynolds and others apparently took him at his word,
Before the conference we should make sure that the most flamey left-wing bloggers are present, the people who posted in the comments on Dean For America, for example; and urge them to hurl insults at our southern brothers and sisters, while we sit back and enjoy the scene (and leave early because we have better things to do).
Winer’s a flamethrower — its both his gift and his curse. Askig him to host a panel on respectful disagreement is just silly (don’t these people read his blog?)
There’s a nice sketch here which I think does a good job of describing the dynamic of conversations involving Winer.