An Exchange With John Katsantonis

So, last week I got yet another press releasey sort of email, which announced yet another lightweight online discussion forum, Our Convo. The email included a few hints about an odd positioning for the app, which I thought worthy of posting:

[email from John P. Katsantonis, PR Director of OurConvo.com]

What we don’t need, in theory, is yet another “online social media network.”

Having said that, please consider (if you will) OurConvo.com, which promises a “kinder, gentler” forum for anyone to express their views…without having to endure the negative, borderline (and sometimes over-the-border) abuses found online.

To which I replied (in the post):

I am not actually a fan of defanging discourse on the web. I am not in favor of the disruptive tactics that the GOP is using to mess with townhall gatherings all over America, but we don’t need some sort of obsequious grammar school niceness disguising groupthink, either.

End of story, until today when I get a follow on email from Katsantonis, which I reproduce here:

If it’s clever, okay. Too many purely mean-spirited morons out there, however. I’m sure you’ll agree. Debate and disagreement are the foundation of our democracy. Abuse is something else, again. Obviously, there’ s a difference…you know, those little punks who like to say “You’re full of sh*t. I AM GOD!!!!” etc., ad nothing. The bar gets lowered often enough, without encouraging low-mindedness.

Your style is more curmudgeon-traditional, even if you more easily dish it out than take it. Which is fine, if not a bit predictable. It’s really impossible to tell what you feel in your heart, because your online persona/character is professionally unimpressed, contrarian and thick-skinned.

It would be much more endearing if there was a bit of humor spun in there. “Snark for Snark’s Sake??”

I dunno. Maybe. Only you know that.

But, back to the fundamental issue at hand. There’s nothing wrong with forwarding an argument —— not just offhanded contradiction, but honest argument —— without having to foment an adversarial scenario.

That’s the point.

One who does not know the difference between Argument, Abuse, and Contrarianism needs to view this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQFKtI6gn9Y

H. L. Mencken? Not a problem.

Ambrose Bierce?? Bring him on.

Frank Zappa??? I wish!!!!

Jimmy Kimmel???? Who needs him?

As Adlai Stevenson said, “In America, anyone can be President. That’s part of the problem.” Multiply that by a million and we have the Internet, for better and worse.

In our great cyber-democracy, suddenly everyone’s a journalist. Wonderful. Great.

Is Stowe Boyd a failed Walt Mossberg??

I’d hate to think so.

The whole point of OurConvo.com truly IS free speech, but you’ve chosen to glom onto what you’ve identified as a Republicanism, i.e., “kinder, gentler.” Too bad Bushdaddy used that phrase. Too bad I repeated it!!

There are some bad pieces of Obama’s healthcare bill, but the paid town hall yellers and Sarah Palins make it SO dreadful and ridiculous in order to squelch debate.

Not cool.

But stop confusing us with them.

The idea = getting folks who don’t post because of online bullying —— whose existence certainly even you cannot deny, if only as the down-side of a free/open society ——- because there’s just too much of it. Why not behave?

Nobody’s asking you to change. ::)

Just live and let-live. Not let-die.

And why should I comment on OurConvo.com’s features, btw? That’s for you and others whose job it is. I already did mine, in the news release. And the developer did, in building the site. The idea is for folks to try it themselves. It’s easy enough. The rest of this is just nonsense, and I really don’t want to waste any more of either-of-our-time(s) on it.

If you want The Last Word, of course, fire away.

But one of these days, those who consider themselves to be The Grand Arbiters Of The Internet need to take a long, hard look at themselves, and why Michael Arrington received death threats, and Chris Anderson had to backpedal and own up, finally. I leave your place in all this to your own discretion, and your own sense of right and wrong. Or not.

thanks~Your Favorite Self-Condemning, Odd-Extolling Flack

Well, I hardly know where to begin.

First, about the tool: I know little about it, and posted a first look because I thought I might not get around to a deeper investigation until I heard other people talking about it. I admit it, there are so many things out there I kind of hang back until some buzz develops.

Second, about the positioning. Again, I am open to civil open discourse, but I am also fine with people stating that so-and-so is an idiot if he believes thus-and-so to be true. I don’t like the idea of people carrying firearms into town halls, and I disagree with the notion of shouting people down so that their ideas cannot be heard. That is a form of mob censorship, and I don’t abide it. But there is something jarring when I get an email like this from a guy who was advocating civil discourse on the web as some sort of public good we should aspire to.

Third, about me. I would have thought my positions on most things that are important to me are fairly obvious. When Katsantonis says “It’s really impossible to tell what you feel in your heart, because your online persona/character is professionally unimpressed, contrarian and thick-skinned” I am amazed. I am not a contrarian, I am a humanist. Yes, I am thick-skinned, and a good thing too. I am not ‘unimpressed’ — I am a strong advocate of the transformational power of social tools, which I have been championing for over 10 years. It’s just that not all tools are equally transformational, and some are decidedly tame.

Fourth, about the day of reckoning. I am perfectly happy to take a long hard look at myself. I can’t speak for Arrington or Mossberg, or anyone else really. I do work from deep principles, and I measure what I do and say against them.

And I will try to be funnier in the future, although it gets a bit old getting an unending torrent of press releases pushing tools that I don’t think people want or need.