The net.files: “I always come off as brash”
Today, I have seen just the latest example of a net.people phenomenon: “Everyone always tells me that I’m [brash|arrogant|a jerk], but I don’t think I’m like that at all.”.
I’ve been a part of online communities for a long time now; I started with Usenet back in 1996 [or so]. If you do the math, you’ll realize that such an era puts me in my latter teen years [17, to be exact]. That Google Groups exists does kinda scare me: if I ran for President in another thirty years, well, there’s a lot of dumb shit that I’ve said that can come back to haunt me. 
I’ve seen this net.people trend for some time; in fact, I was a part of it for a while. When I was younger, I never understood why people saw me as a brash, arrogant jerk. A few years and a lot of introspective navel gazing later, I understood. That’s not to say that I still can’t be a brash, arrogant jerk [I can be, and this entry kinda proves it, no?], but I would like to think that I’ve toned my rhetoric down significantly.
How did I learn to come off a bit more normal? I came to understand a few things: that people saw the world differently than I did, that my opinions were important but not paramount, and that there were things on which I was an expert [few] and other things on which I was a novice [many]. I try to reserve my authoritative tone for things on which I have a relative amount of experience.
Perhaps this “eris” does have a ton of experience in judging such competitions. But because I don’t know eris from Eve, (s)he comes off like a brash, arrogant jerk. If Dave Shea&emdash;whom I do know, at least in the “I know that he generally knows what the hell he’s talking about re: Web design” sense&emdash;had said the same thing, I probably wouldn’t be writing this entry.
There are all sorts of net.kooks out there, claiming to be experts … and some of them really are. The rest are arrogant punks. 
“(s)he comes off like a brash, arrogant jerk.”
its “she”.
February 11th, 2004 at 4:21 pmFirst of all, I have no clue how eris came off as a “brash, arrogant jerk.” I saw her comments as honest suggestions for future contests. She said that she agreed with the judging results, and was not even a participant herself. As such, her suggestions could only be just that, suggestions.
I never, ever, saw eris personally insult anyone in any of her comments. However, she got insulted herself. With this in mind, who was really being a “brash, arrogant jerk” ?
In addition, I would like to say that I do agree with eris in everything she said. Perhaps I wouldn’t have said it in the same way, but I do agree with them nevertheless.
Before you start bashing eris and her qualifications, I’d also recommend you check out her website, so you know what sort of a person you are talking about.
If you do, I’m sure you’ll realize that eris does know her stuff when it comes to design, and I think an apology to her is due.
February 11th, 2004 at 5:46 pmAn apology? I did go and check out her site, but while I did see a portfolio [of very nice work, I might add], I saw nothing about competition judging.
Eris went from: “i am just giving you my opinion because i think this is a good idea and i see room for improvement. and i say this as someone who has been organizing and participating in web design auctions and contests in the blogging community for almost three years now.”
to: “i have just been down this road before both as a participant and as a judge and i’m just trying to offer my opinion and perhaps help you jump over some future hurdles that you’re going to encounter.”
The first I don’t doubt. The second I see no evidence for in terms of “I’ve been a judge”.
Now, I have no reason to doubt that eris does better design work than I do; my designs aren’t that great. But it is EXTREMELY ARROGANT AND BRASH to come on and tell the people who ran a contest how they should have run it in your eyes. It smacks of sour grapes by someone whose designs weren’t picked.
I think the guidelines spoke for themselves: intentionally vague, open to ideas. Yes, there was cash money involved, and some of it was mine. Do I feel as if my dollars are ill-spent? No. Do you? Perhaps. But I ask: What damn business is that of yours? Even though Alex is a developer of WordPress, is any of this on the WordPress.org domain? Is it official in any way? If I wanted to give Alex $50 for just being a buddy and responding to my IM’s every once in a while, that’s my God-given right.
I owe no apology. And if eris wants to consider this “sophomoric character attack”, then fine. I find it amusing that someone who seems to hide their entire net.presence behind a net.handle would dare to do that. In this case, you know that Geoffrey F. Morris of Huntsville, AL, USA thinks that this situation is foolish and stupid and smacks of sour grapes. Want to talk to me about it personally? I work for Teledyne Brown Engineering [see the sidebar]. Call 256.726.1000 and ask to speak to me during business hours. Patty at the front desk will be happy to route your call to my extension.
February 11th, 2004 at 7:57 pmI find it quite ‘arrogant and brash’ to say that unless you have heard of someone their opinion has no merit, and that Dave Shea would have been entitled to comment but eris is not. By those criteria, since I’d never heard of you before today, you know nothing about webdesign or judging web design contests either. I do not assume that just because someone is unfamiliar to me they don’t know what they’re talking about.
February 11th, 2004 at 8:21 pmGeof: As I’m ‘hiding behind a net-handle’ my opinion is presumably invalid, but hopefully the facts aren’t. For the record, eris was part of a collective that set up a site auctioning diary designs for charity, over two years ago now. They invited submissions on a set topic and then selected the best — based on aesthetic appeal and technical merit. I wasn’t involved in the judging - I was only ever a contributor - but I never felt the requirements weren’t clear. Fact 2: eris withdrew her entry from the competition for technical reasons, so I’m unclear about why you say it ‘wasn’t picked’. Most contests wouldn’t judge an entry that had been withdrawn, though yours evidently had different rules.
I’m not saying that no one’s opinion has zero merit if I don’t know them. I’m just saying that their authority is questionable. If you can’t see the difference between “I don’t like how this was handled” and “I don’t like how this was handled because I’ve done other competitions”, well, I’ll go find a LART.
February 11th, 2004 at 8:26 pmI don’t understand how it is different. Eris didn’t like how it was handled, and Eris has experience handling competitions. Two facts, not opinions, facts.
Oh and on a side note, eris only pointed out that she had done other competitions after you started your eris-bashing fest at Alex’s blog. She came in with a nice suggestion, and the response was that she was “brash and arrogant.” How would you act in that situation? I think you’d try and defend yourself too!
February 11th, 2004 at 9:11 pmi think you have misunderstood my intentions with this entire issue. i’m not saying “I don’t like how this was handled because I’ve done other competitions” and i dont really understand how you reached that conclusion. but i am saying “I am wary of how this was handled and foresee some future problems that I would like to help you overcome before they overcome you. and I’m basing my opinion on the fact that I do have some experience in this kind of situation”. Would you rather someone say “I don’t like how this was handled” and yet be ignorant of how these kinds of situations are handled? if i’m going to be lauded for “hiding behind a net handle” as a reason for invalidating my argument, then how hard would you have attacked me if i’d just offered my opinion and not had any experience to back it up? i am in no way saying that the WP CSS competition should be done “my way” and i never said or meant to imply such a thing. I have also not personally attacked you or Alex and i’m sorry that you interpretted it that way.
February 11th, 2004 at 9:12 pm“Eris has experience handling competitions.” Got a cite for that? I couldn’t find one on her site. And I stand by my comment: claiming that you’re a pro from Dover is what set me off. Legitimate criticism is one thing; claiming expertise to buttress your criticism is quite another.
It’s simple pedagogy, people: if you have to qualify your criticism with “I’ve done this before”, it implies that you’re afraid of your criticism going unnoticed or unregarded. If it gets ignored … so? If Eris really has run other contests–and I have no reason to doubt that she might have, truthfully–she should run her own. There’s nothing stopping her.
Eris: in complaining, you are saying that you would have rather seen it done “your way”. If you can’t see that, you really need to be LART’d repeatedly. See my comments about the need to buttress your criticism. If you had relevant examples, cite them! The Internet loves links. I would dearly love to see an example cited.
February 11th, 2004 at 9:24 pmps: thank you for the compliment on my work
February 11th, 2004 at 9:24 pmMy main complaint is that calling someone a “brash, arrogant jerk” is a bit much. You wouldn’t call he rthat in person would you? Maybe you would, but I think most people wouldn’t. There are better ways to deal with disagreements than name-calling.
February 11th, 2004 at 9:43 pmIn person? I probably would. I think introspection is a good thing, and recognizing your faults and failings is important. The first use of “brash” in the comments to Alex’s entry was made by Eris, in reply to my saying that I didn’t like her attitude.
I’m also still waiting for some contest examples, so we can stop picking nits over semantics.
GFM <– “Arguing with an engineer is like mud-wrestling with a pig: you both get dirty, and after a while, you realize that the pig enjoys it.”
February 11th, 2004 at 9:56 pmhttp://web.archive.org/web/20011123044258/http://auctions.diaryland.com/
http://web.archive.org/web/20020120133717/http://auctions.diaryland.com/
http://web.archive.org/web/20020721161826/auctions.somegirlsdesign.com/
I especially like the ‘We’ve gone over the valuable input from everyone who submitted and learned quite a bit on how to make the Auctions better.’ bit in the last one. But the Wordpress community has a well-established tendency to jump down people’s throats if they dare to suggest that something isn’t already 100% perfect and could be improved. There’s no point even trying to contribute to a group with that kind of mindset, which is one of the reasons why I stopped posting on the forums, and why eris should have realised that her feedback would not be welcome.
February 12th, 2004 at 8:17 amHey, now, broadbrushing everyone in the WP community because of the attitude of some is pretty disingenuous.
The links you gave do provide some proof, and yeah, they reference some feedback. But that’s not exteremely extensive. That feedback seems to indicate more about the timing of the contests, not the actual setup of them. It does show that eris has BTDT.
February 12th, 2004 at 10:47 amBut you know what still amuses me? You’ve all lost sight as to why I wrote this in the first place. I’m closing comments/TB/PB on this entry after replying, purely because I do want the last word [and because it's my prerogative]. But if Eris has routinely had problems with people calling her brash and arrogant, then the problem isn’t us … it’s her.
That’s what you learn when you’ve been a brash, arrogant jerk on the Internet for a long enough period of time. Trust me. I know. I’ve been there, and if you want a cite … groups.google.com, alt.books.tom-clancy, morrisg@uah.edu between 1997 and 1999.
HTH. HAND. YMMV. YHBT.
February 12th, 2004 at 10:49 am