Friday, November 19, 2004
BuzzMachine..Jeff pulls an "Okrent"
Jeff has been on target both with his defense of Howard Stern (though I'm not a Stern fan) and generally railing against censorship. I admire him for doing this. But in this post he kinda drops the ball; he gets venal and dilutes his intellectual integrity in typical blog fashion.
This is the setup: After an appearance on CNN arguing against censorship Jeff receives an e-mail that he described as evangelism from a church lady. Said lady tells him he is pathetic and without morals. With a "tsk, tsk" he narcs her out for using her work e-mail, Lilly.com, to send the message. Her message was shrill, stupid and a pretty good example of the contemptuous moral superiority that is the flip side to what we secularists feel for the evangelicals.
I'm not getting into a stringent consideration of misappropriation of company communications systems here. Just about everybody uses the phone or whatever for personal matters at some point. Within bounds, it is a pragmatic given. What Jeff did can only serve to stifle any conversation. Jeff obviously takes pride in the fact that it is a conversation between bloggers and their readers. Now, everyone that might want to engage with Jeff while at work will be running their desire through the filter "What happens if he doesn't like what I say?"
Someone takes him to task for outing her (so to speak) in the comments section and his reply is that they e-mailed a blogger and it is "fair game". I agree that there are circumstances when a company should be made aware of how an employee is using the systems. If they are spamming, threatening or such; this is fine. But to say that simply because you e-mailed a blogger all is fair is denying that any code of conduct can exist. I think quite a few in the blogging world would like to say that rules don't apply to us. Yes, we are making some new rules and this is good. But I think one of those rules should be that the conversation takes place without fear of this happening for a relatively minor infraction.
I won't say that Jeff owes this woman an apology, I find delicious irony in that kind of prig gettin' it for breaking the rules. But I think Jeff should explain to the community of his readers that he will not do this in the future unless it is absolutely necessary.
Jeff also quotes/links to Instaglenn's ("If you've got a modem, he's got an obfuscation")comments on his appearance. Instaweenie panders to his perceived audience(s) with remarks that, well, would probably take a lawyer to sort out the meaning:
"I saw the commercial for the first time in that broadcast, and I have to say that it was an absolute disgrace (obligatory concession to his conservative readers), and that it should not have been allowed to air. It didn't show nearly enough of Nicolette Sheridan to justify all the hoopla , and that's a tragedy because, despite her perhaps overdone plastic surgery, she's still hot (earns his props as a red blooded libertarian)."
Follow the link, as Jeff says, to find this:
"(The Sheridan spot, however, really did seem quite tame and I don't understand the fuss.)"
Where, exactly, does Instaweenie stand? And why would Jeff link to such a conflicted post?
Update: Duh, it struck me that this was on par with Okrent revealing an e-mail address. Let's see how the bloggers respond to one of their own doing this.
¶ 11/19/2004 10:03:00 PM
This is the setup: After an appearance on CNN arguing against censorship Jeff receives an e-mail that he described as evangelism from a church lady. Said lady tells him he is pathetic and without morals. With a "tsk, tsk" he narcs her out for using her work e-mail, Lilly.com, to send the message. Her message was shrill, stupid and a pretty good example of the contemptuous moral superiority that is the flip side to what we secularists feel for the evangelicals.
I'm not getting into a stringent consideration of misappropriation of company communications systems here. Just about everybody uses the phone or whatever for personal matters at some point. Within bounds, it is a pragmatic given. What Jeff did can only serve to stifle any conversation. Jeff obviously takes pride in the fact that it is a conversation between bloggers and their readers. Now, everyone that might want to engage with Jeff while at work will be running their desire through the filter "What happens if he doesn't like what I say?"
Someone takes him to task for outing her (so to speak) in the comments section and his reply is that they e-mailed a blogger and it is "fair game". I agree that there are circumstances when a company should be made aware of how an employee is using the systems. If they are spamming, threatening or such; this is fine. But to say that simply because you e-mailed a blogger all is fair is denying that any code of conduct can exist. I think quite a few in the blogging world would like to say that rules don't apply to us. Yes, we are making some new rules and this is good. But I think one of those rules should be that the conversation takes place without fear of this happening for a relatively minor infraction.
I won't say that Jeff owes this woman an apology, I find delicious irony in that kind of prig gettin' it for breaking the rules. But I think Jeff should explain to the community of his readers that he will not do this in the future unless it is absolutely necessary.
Jeff also quotes/links to Instaglenn's ("If you've got a modem, he's got an obfuscation")comments on his appearance. Instaweenie panders to his perceived audience(s) with remarks that, well, would probably take a lawyer to sort out the meaning:
"I saw the commercial for the first time in that broadcast, and I have to say that it was an absolute disgrace (obligatory concession to his conservative readers), and that it should not have been allowed to air. It didn't show nearly enough of Nicolette Sheridan to justify all the hoopla , and that's a tragedy because, despite her perhaps overdone plastic surgery, she's still hot (earns his props as a red blooded libertarian)."
Follow the link, as Jeff says, to find this:
"(The Sheridan spot, however, really did seem quite tame and I don't understand the fuss.)"
Where, exactly, does Instaweenie stand? And why would Jeff link to such a conflicted post?
Update: Duh, it struck me that this was on par with Okrent revealing an e-mail address. Let's see how the bloggers respond to one of their own doing this.
¶ 11/19/2004 10:03:00 PM
