Marc Scaurus Is Wrong

So, the other day I defended Marc Scaurus. Today, I apparently need to balance the books.

On his blog Malefactor he wrote a post called The Alexiasphere. I'm not going to go into that main subject but I do take particular exception with one small part of his post:

Now, some people believe that I handled this incorrectly. Okay, well, Ripard Teg does anyways. In his post, A right way and a wrong way, Ripard commends Seismic Stan for his handover of the Blog Banter to Kirith Kodachi, then condemns the handover of Evebloggers and the Pack.

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Of course, this wouldn’t be the first or last time Ripard speaks out on things without talking to anyone, doing basic fact checking, or generally behaving like anything but an EVE version of Rush Limbaugh. For someone who offers advice to others on how to behave with professionalism and grace, Ripard himself falls far short. But I digress.

No, Marc, you are wrong.

First off, when you put something out in public like in a blog post or a podcast, it is not the responsibility of the public to make sure you didn't leave any relevant facts out or clarify what you meant when you are speaking/writing clearly before they respond with an opinion or assessment. Most of the time in the environment that is the internet people can only judge you by what you say and do, not what you meant and secretly did. It is the speaker's / writer's responsibility to get everything on the table and coming back after the fact and saying "well, there's all these things you didn't know and I didn't allude to that explain it" is fine, but then complaining that people misunderstood you or your motivations due to this missing information is not.

Secondly, bloggers are not journalists. Full stop. We are not beholden to get to the bottom of a story and get all the facts. That's why we don't get E3 press passes. Sure, there may be some bloggers on the whole internet that cross that magical line but there is not a single Eve blog near that threshold. To hold us to some "journalistic integrity" standard is unfair and unrealistic when I don't know of a single blog that claims to be anything but a personal space open to the public.

Thirdly, your original post about EveBloggers.com did come off as full of attitude and dismissive. It was completely fair for someone to compare and contrast your post with Seismic Stan's about the exact same topic but different community initiative. With a slightly different tone your post could have been less contentious and still accomplished the same thing. Don't get me wrong; I understand and agree with your motivations for wanting the EveBloggers.com to move forwards instead of backwards, but its not fair to blame Ripard for noting that your approach and tone was not ideal.

Let's get one thing straight: I'm not saying that your original post should be withdrawn or rewritten. Its your blog and you can write pretty much anything you want to in any style. But don't blame others when they comment on your actions and miss your intentions.