Now that I think about it, one difference between a blog discussion and a real-world conversation is that participants in a real-world conversation can and do walk away when they feel that other participants are beating a dead horse. A person who starts a real-world conversation is not obliged to stand there and wait until everyone with something to say in response says it over, and over, and over again. One can yell at them–\\\”Hey, come back here, I\\\’m not satisfied with your response to my response to your response to my…\\\”–but it generally doesn\\\’t work. For that matter, a blogger can (and some do) control the flow of conversation by judicious use of the Delete key, or by moderating all comments and somehow losing those that are disagreeable (yes, I\\\’ve had that happen–and no, it wasn\\\’t at Shifted Librarian).

I generally don\\\’t want to do that. I\\\’ve managed to avoid moderation so far. I do still check the spam logs for possible errors. And I generally don\\\’t delete except in cases of bad language, slander, libel, or personal attack where the person being attacked isn\\\’t me.
[I do make exceptions. I will delete--and have deleted--comments because they appear to come from outside the library field, are irrelevant to the discussion, or are deliberately hurtful/hateful. But I think the record of this blog will indicate that I\\\'m pretty slow on the Delete button.]

I believe in free speech. (Yes, I belong to the ACLU.) I believe in it even when it\\\’s abusive, although not when it\\\’s harassing. But at some point, this is my forum, not a public forum, and I exercise the right to at least suggest that a particular thread is becoming tired. And as you may notice, I didn\\\’t delete the comment that came after I suggested letting it be…

Hardly a fisking, but since you’re so concerned about word count (another historical predilection), I will indeed let it be. And here I thought blogs and comments were for conversation. My mistake. Direction duly noted.

In the hundred (roughly) speeches I’ve done, I’ve used PowerPoint maybe half a dozen times, and only when it’s necessary for the content of the talk (e.g., I’m talking about typography or I’m showing examples of OpenURL resolvers). Even then, I make sure there are notes as part of the PowerPoint presentation.

I think your point is an excellent one in general–although, frankly, I’d really like to see more speakers making eye contact and doing without the PPT crutch.

In this case, however, the fault was clearly mine. Phil Bradley did not (as far as I know) make his PowerPoint presentation available to stand on its own (and if he had, I think the sequence would have worked). I misinterpreted three words quoted out of context–not from a set of saved slides, but from a blog post.

I don”t believe I “jumped all over” Jessamyn West–certainly not to the extent that you delight in “jumping all over” me. If Jessamyn thinks so, I apologize to her as well–but I’ve never had a problem carrying on sometimes-vivid conversations with Jessamyn West, who is perfectly capable of defending herself.

I did not base my misinterpretation on your conference notes; the link and the quote are both to Michael Stephens’ report. [I find it difficult to read bullet-point conference reports, so I admittedly didn’t pay much attention to yours. Your notes would not, in fact, have led me to any such interpretation: Now that I look at them, they’re clear about the sequence, and of course they don’t quote the slide verbatim or make a big thing out of it.

I believe ILI is a big-name conference. I believe Phil Bradley is a big-name speaker within the library field. I’m not sure how you can read those as negative terms. I’ve been a reasonably big-name speaker (in library terms) in the past, and might be again in the future; I certainly don’t regard it as negative.

I’m really surprised that you feel the need to keep on posting such lengthy comments. Phil Bradley has made himself clear (in an eloquent post); I’ve apologized to him. I’ve fully agreed that I misunderstood what was going on. At this point, I believe you’re piling on.

The original 140-word post was mistaken, or rather the first 55 words were mistaken. (I should have based the heart of the post directly on Stephen Abram’s unmistakable dismissal, and I should have written it in January.)

There’s now been more than 6,000 words of commentary, with more than 1,500 of them coming from you: More than ten times the length of the original post, nearly 30 times the length of the mistaken portion. That goes way beyond fisking.

Let it be.

Not deliberate misstatements *or* misinterpretations but rather my reading of your attempts to question the very existence of the slide without having been there or seeing the slides for yourself:

“If Phil Bradley’s only implication was that he, personally, was not interested in issues of semantics and buzzwords, why bother with a slide at all?”

Then there was you jumping all over Jessamyn asking if she would really use a slide like that. Really:

“Jessamyn: So you’re saying that you’d explicitly use a slide saying ‘I don’t care’ about issues like whether ‘Library 2.0′ is a useful term or gets in the way of the notions themselves–but that in saying so you’d also be saying that this was a purely personal decision and shouldn’t carry any implications for members of the audience? That they should feel free to consider whether the terminology did matter, but that it didn’t to you? You would actually use a slide to convey that?

Really?”

That kind of adverserial language is just as good at precluding and shutting down discussion as the very rhetoric your original post railed against. That might not have been your intent, but it was still confrontational, which is quite possibly what surprised me the most given your past lamentations about Library 2.0 advocates regarding this issue.

Also, based on “updates” that are no longer part of this post, I will retract my accusation of bias in favor of your own language for a predilection to oversensitivity on this subject. And I’ll reiterate that I have my own predilections for certain oversensitivities, so I don’t mean it to be as negative as I think you have taken it. I apologize that the term “bias” upset you.

“For example, the post above does not say ‘someone at some conference in some speech attempted to preclude discussion of the language/term.’ ”

I think most folks would recognize that as a generous paraphrase, but I’m fine using your original quote so I’ll retract that statement, too, in favor of your own words. Call the “reporting” (my notes for myself about the session) “sketchy” if you want, but I still don’t think it was a fair basis for your original negative attack, even on a “big-name speaker” at a “big-name conference” (adjectives that might indicate a predilection for a wholly different oversensitivity…).

As for the basic courtesy–well, see the revised-and-restored post (which now includes the original post unaltered, preceded and followed by block-quote commentary), which among other things does not name you, deliberately.

It might be a better world if everyone who blogged or spoke or commented did not do any interpretation of other people’s words (direct or reported) without checking with them first. I’ve certainly rarely (almost never) been afforded that courtesy, whereas I’ve been personally attacked with gusto and no attempt at checking first, so maybe I’ve grown to assume that the courtesy will not take place.

Your commentary is thoughtful, lucid, and a model of writing that I could well aspire to. I can see why you’re in demand as a speaker.