Pondering Dave Winer's early Jan 2016 posts

My current bookmarks page of sites that I visit or feeds that I consume includes a link to DW's feed near the top of the list. I access his feed multiple times per day to see what new insights he has posted. I'm mainly interested in his thoughts and projects regarding web publishing.

I agree and disagree with his tech posts. I don't care about the other topics. I don't access his Facebook or Twitter pages, except in extremely rare occasions. I read the RSS feed from his blog.

Here is how I read Dave Winer's writings: feed page.

I use my custom "feed" command that is included within my Junco code that powers this site. The feed command also exists in the Parula code that powers my message board at ToledoTalk.com.

Here's how it works. The feed= is surrounded by two curly braces at each end. The line must begin at the start of a new line in order for it to work.

Scripting News - 2025-10-22T17:39:01Z

- 2025-10-22T17:39:01Z
Still looking for more great WordPress news sites.

- 2025-10-22T13:50:38Z
Question came up on TPM as to whether the blogosphere might reboot in Substack. The author concluded it can't, and I agree. Here's why. "One thing the blogosphere had that Substack can’t have is all parts were replaceable. You could use any blogging tool, and any feed reader and still be part of the world. Substack is a single company that has raised VC money. Vastly different incentives." And this has been tested. You have to use their editor to publish in their enviroment. They're unable to let you see their product as part of a toolset, it has to be the whole thing.

- 2025-10-22T17:29:21Z
You know how the AI companies are all doing browsers. Why don't they have a local url that I could put into an <a> element that pops up the result of a question asked of the chatbot. Something like this. When you click on the link you find out what the Mets did.

- 2025-10-22T17:20:14Z
I'm okay with Trump destroying the White House step by step. We're going to need a lot of new things once he's done. There's going to be a lot of broken stuff that needs fixing. Feces covered monuments. Probably a new cemetary somewhere for his victims. But you know how when the Mets were defeated by the determined Yankees in Shea Stadium in 2000, we tore down the old stadium and built a new one. Same thing. The old White House will have served its purpose. We shouldn't even build a new White House on that location, just like we shouldn't have built a skyscraper in place of the World Trade Center. I wanted to see a mosque and a synagogue, a new football stadium, perhaps. A nice park. A place for a camp fire. Anything but an indestructable office building. We have so many of them. But where are the spaces for kids to play and learn and be friends. No, in place of the White House, I want to see a gorgeous public library. A place of learning. And a softball field and a nice swimming pool. We can tell the kids that once a bad old man lived here, and we decided it'd be more fun to have a big playground instead.

- 2025-10-21T17:46:06Z
Journalists report conventional wisdom thread on Bluesky.

Bingeworthy - 2025-10-21T17:24:00Z

This is a product i created a few years back but it went off the air when Twitter exploded for app devs, now it's back and still lovely.

- 2025-10-21T01:32:39Z
I wonder if any established open source projects are converting to having ChatGPT or other AI manage the process.

- 2025-10-21T01:34:46Z
On my drive to Ottawa and back, I never had to wait for a charger, and it never took more than 1/2 hour to fill the battery to 80%. The chargers are often in places with restaurants or supermarkets. And it's good for my legs to get out of the car and walk for a bit.

- 2025-10-20T14:20:14Z
Frontier's Simple Cross-Network Scripting is one of my favorite features ever. It made procedure calls over the internet almost as simple as procedure calls inside Frontier.

- 2025-10-20T13:41:02Z
I wish WordPress had a "home" social network. The community is all over the place, on Twitter, Slack, Masto, Bluesky, GitHub, and probably a few other places. I hope to have a social network that is built on WordPress and RSS. It would be open to the public, and anyone could start their own, by running an easy to install piece of software on a server.

- 2025-10-20T13:39:59Z
Took yesterday off, aside from a little blogging, which isn't work for me -- now on Monday, I'm going to do a few warmup projects, and figuring out which big item I should focus on in my post-WordCamp experience.

- 2025-10-19T14:04:56Z
I have to remember to use WordLand to post to Mastodon, because when I go in that way, I don't have a character limit and I can use styling. We were wrestling with this question at WC, how to market the feature in a way that would get people to go to WordPress to write for Mastodon. It would also be cool if you could turn on the ActivityPub connection in WordLand, without having to wade through all the menus and dialogs. Imagine if we had a confirmation dialog like this in WordLand.

- 2025-10-19T13:39:39Z
I have a really interesting idea for Netflix. Do a MCP so I can ask ChatGPT to find a show I'd probably like on Netflix. Then Hulu would have to hook up too, and HBO and Apple and everyone else. That would fix a big entertainment problem because I've already taught ChatGPT exactly what I like in movies and serials by giving it all my favorite shows and why I liked them so much. This was the idea of Bingeworthy, which I never seem to find time to work on. I really just want the freaking functionality. Someone should buy Metacritic btw, their process, however it works, is really good at finding the good stuff. But please someone who believes in open APIs, it totally needs to be in the Chativerse.

What I did on my trip to Canada, part 1 - 2025-10-19T13:29:11Z

I presented WordLand for the first time publicly, the new one with a timeline, so it more clearly shows how we can build a beautiful social network just from open formats and protocols.

No user lock-in, every part replaceable, and open to developers to add functionality without having to reimplement the whole thing. These are all the things I think that have stood in the way of innovation in the web for many years.

A social network that starts out with no centralization and open in every sense has a much better chance of being decentralized than one that starts out centralized and swears they're going to stop doing that -- someday, fingers crossed, etc.

- 2025-10-18T21:19:21Z
Back home from my trip to Ottawa. Took the scenic route through the Adirondacks. Had an unqualified great trip. Should've gone to a WordCamp a long time ago. It's totally my type of people. I have a long list of things to organize, but for now it's time to catch up on sleep and rest, MLB and NBA, and make plans for the future.

- 2025-10-18T21:57:09Z

- 2025-10-17T15:48:06Z
Evan Prodromou explains all that's happening in the WordPressOSphere in the realm of ActivityPub.

- 2025-10-17T15:50:50Z
Wouldn't it be great if there were a list of WordPress users who have turned on their ActivityPub plugin, so we know who to subscribe to on our favorite ActivityPub service.

- 2025-10-17T14:06:09Z
I'm back at WordCamp in a big room waiting for Matt Mullenweg to answer questions for the people here. Yesterday's presentation went really well, lots of smart people really interested, fantastic discussion after. A very nice web culture. I went with three slides to get started, and then talked, demo'd, answered questions, and listened to ideas. Told a few jokes. Got a few laughs. It got the job done, help feed the word of mouth on WordLand.

Good morning from Ottawa - 2025-10-16T12:30:53Z

Here's the link to the slides promised below.

I've been going back and forth on slides. I always do this. In the end I hate slides because I digress while going through them and skip ahead, end up wishing I hadn't used them. So I decided to compromise. I'll do the first three in some detail, and digress and go down tangents as I see fit.

The three main slides.

1. Accomplishments of WordPress.
2. Why podcasting retained its independence.
3. Demo of WordLand.

There were 20 or 30 more slides after that.

So what I'll do is this. Present the first two in some detail, then page through the rest quickly and come back and do the demo. Also publish a link to the deck on my blog so people can scroll through them at their leisure. And once the demo is done, I'll answer questions.

I have an idea that we can have a blogosphere that is as functional as podcasting. We just need users to get started, to get the idea off the ground. We don't have to accept the limits, we can have the full web if we want it.

The accomplishments of WordPress - 2025-10-15T12:07:30Z

One more slide from the presentation.

And with that I'm off to Ottawa, seeking fame and fortune. 😄

PS: One more slide for the road.

Times I've been ambushed at conferences - 2025-10-14T15:42:58Z

Well, I think I'm done. I've got the outline for the slides complete. I can't possibly talk about all the stuff that's in the slides. Once I leave tomorrow I think perhaps I'll post a link for the slides and maybe offer a place to comment. Maybe.

I get very nervous about these things and then remember when I've prepared as much as I have for this, the talk goes quickly and people generally are nice, though I've been ambushed a few memorable times. Let's see -- Austin, Cambridge, San Francisco and Nashville come to mind. ;-)

In Austin it was because I was privileged. I was being honored because it was the 25th year of my blog, and I was one of the keynoters. I told the promoter his people wouldn't like me, and then I forgot I said it when it happened. I was stuck, I didn't want to get into a public argument with anyone. (Had I wanted to rebut, I would have said everyone in this room is privileged, just look around at how well fed and educated everyone is. We all flew in here. We live in a rich country where we are the elite of the elite. Now STFU, in my dreams.)

There have been times when I welcomed an argument...

In San Francisco, I was invited to lead a panel from the music industry about how great Napster was. This was probably in 2000 or 2001 when Napster was at its peak. It was an ambush. All the panelists made me the issue, and then they voted to kick me off the stage. I stayed there and waited until they exhausted their rage, and then asked them a question about music and Napster. Acted like nothing had happened. I had earned my place there, I was a very early industry adopter of Napster. I loved what it did for us. Imagine until then you either had to buy an album to listen to music, build a collection, or wait until it was played on the radio. (What is radio? Kind of an early form of podcasting.) People were talking about music in supermarkets and airports. This could not be stopped, I was sure of it, and they were acting like babies. I stood up and prevailed.

In Nashville, I was invited to be a sort of keynoter for a conference that was patterned after BloggerCon. I did not organize it, but I led a session, which was attended by a famous right wing blogger who I had invited to the Harvard BloggerCon. He brought a bunch of his friends, and they each said no one was listening to them but we were listening to them. I eventually sat down and let them have a session dominated by a few people repeating themselves. It was boring.

Finally I was set up by the promoters of a CMS conference which Berkman hosted at Harvard. I was the master of ceremonies. No one told me that one of my most virulent trolls was there, and when he got up to rage at me I asked him to sit down, but Charlie Nesson who was the senior educator there, and kind of naive about internet trolls, said he should speak his mind. I should have walked out at that point. I knew what was coming. It really shook me.

In Nashville a columnist in a local paper who said I caused the riot, btw. I swear to god I always take my discussion leader role seriously. I gave them all a chance to talk and they all said the same thing, almost as if they had been told to say it.

The web crashes - 2025-10-13T15:35:14Z

Let's remember how the web could have worked.

The ideal is to write in our blog space, and publish everywhere.

That's what we have been trying to do since Twitter came along.

Write on your main blog, cross-post everywhere it belongs.

This could have worked, and it still can.

But it can't work until we get agreement on what text is. This will be much-discussed at WordCamp Canada this week, based on what WordPress is doing and what Evan Prodromou will speak about and of course what I am speaking about.

Getting back on track is as simple as agreeing what text is on the web. For that we have two very good models: HTML and Markdown.

- 2025-10-12T18:20:15Z
I'm getting ready for a trip. And part of that is getting my laptop set up so I can post to Scripting News. If you're reading this, it worked.

It's funny because it's true - 2025-10-12T18:21:08Z

Working on my slides for WordCamp Canada next week.

I don't think I'll actually use the F-word in the slide.

But it makes me laugh when I see it.

- 2025-10-11T15:06:46Z
I'm narrating development work on my Daveverse site. If you're interested, that's where I've been while I'm shaking out core bugs in the new WordLand. These are the things I want to stay fixed and never have to screw with again. It does actually work that way in products that go through a shake-out process. Drummer and FeedLand both work pretty well. Sure there are bugs and things I wish worked differently, but I and a few other people use them as everyday tools. I'm trying to get WordLand with its timeline function to be that way. A bunch of new hookups via HTTP and Websockets.

- 2025-10-10T13:59:04Z
Today's song: Oh My Love, by John Lennon. I was trying to remember this song. It kept eluding me. It's not one of his most famous. It's what you experience when you fall in love. Clarity. Endless possibility. At home in your life. For the first time.

- 2025-10-10T14:10:04Z
I know so many people around my age that were never told this simple truth that I heard Steve Jobs say in a video the other day. Paraphrasing -- the people who made the rules you think you have to live by weren't smarter than you. Once you accept this as fact, then if you can find the leading edge you can make it work the way you want it to. You can be one of those people.

The social network of the web - 2025-10-10T14:16:01Z

I was just catching up on tweets and saw an announcement earlier this week that Matt Mullenweg is going to lead a town hall discussion at WordCamp Canada next Friday in Ottawa. A week from today. I find that exciting. I'll in the room for sure, and blogging it. Why not? ;-)

I am presenting the day before, where I'll do a demo of the new WordLand, explaining how it's now twice the product it was last time you all saw it. It is still centered on WordPress as the place where all the user's writing is published. And somehow through the magic of software, we manage to make it into a social network. And the cool thing about the whole stack of software we build on, all of it is replaceable and of the web, in every sense.

There are things that Bluesky and Mastodon can do that WordLand can't. But there are also many many things we can do with the structure that WordLand creates that the others can't touch. There's a simple reason for that, if implementing something, no matter how attractive, without limiting the web-ness of the system, we didn't do it. This is the social network of the web. That means all the pieces connect with each other in fantastic unforeseeable ways. And anyone can discover these connections. That was the joy of the early web, the thought "Hey I think I can do that" and when you try, it works! We're back there again, if the people come. The technical challenge is still there but now is smaller. Getting people to look and fall in love (hopefully) is the big challenge.

After WordLand 0.8 is ready, real soon now, who knows what's next? That's the glory a bootstrap. Every step tells you where to go next. That's how you know you're hitting a target.

I don't know if Matt will be there for my demo, I hope he is. He and Automattic and the community have created a fantastic platform. Finding WordPress has a super powerful API that I didn't know about is like finding a new web. Let me know if you see it too. ;-)

So thanks Matt for your great contribution. I hope to be able to thank you for that personally in Ottawa next week. Perfect timing.

Cross-posted from the WordCamp Canada site.

Cute paste for WordLand - 2025-10-09T13:39:02Z

Note this is for the 0.8 release of WordLand coming soooon. Not in the current released product.

A friend asked for this feature a few months back, before we had a Markdown mode in WordLand.

As I'm reviewing the product for first beta I realized I could now implement the feature he asked for.

How to..

1. Copy a URL to the clipboard.
2. Open WordLand, bring it to the front.
3. Go into Markdown mode by clicking the M icon. It turns green.
4. Select the text you want to be a link.
5. Paste the URL copied in step 1.

It creates the link for you, in Markdown syntax of course.

To see it in HTML, just flip the Markdown button off.

I call this feature Cute Paste. :-)

A video demo.

- 2025-10-08T20:01:15Z
WordPress news via FeedLand.

- 2025-10-08T16:58:42Z
The same energy that forced Biden off the ticket should get Schumer and Jeffries out of the top seats. Replace with people who can speak plainly about what's actually happening.

- 2025-10-08T17:17:11Z
I stop reading every piece that begins by wondering if the Dems or Repubs are "winning" the shutdown. Anything the Dems can do that has anything to do with governing is a win for all of us, including the Repubs, but esp the Dems. This is a new world, the old one is gone. Every day is a new reality.

- 2025-10-08T14:16:46Z
Fellow humans. If we're competing with AI, and to some extent it seems we are, consider that they have much better writing tools than we do. If we are to put up some kind of resistance to our cyber-domination, shouldn't we invest in better writing tools for bodied-intellects like us?

- 2025-10-08T13:44:52Z
I try not to run away from controversy when conventional wisdom is in the way of progress.

- 2025-10-08T13:29:33Z
The big deal with WordPress, as outlined in the Think Different piece is that the strong API makes WP into something quite different from what most people think it is. I think of it as an OS for writing on the web. Very analogous to what we use(d) PCs and Macs for before networks were everywhere. This came up in a thread on Bluesky about MicroPub which appears to be a redo of Metaweblog, with better identity system.

- 2025-10-08T13:43:15Z
The ActivityPub world, which MicroPub is part of (I guess), could benefit from reading Joel Spolsky's piece about Architecture Astronauts.

- 2025-10-07T16:41:25Z
Why we all should love RSS. It makes the web higher level without taking anything away.

- 2025-10-07T19:38:47Z
Thanks to Tanya Weiman for observing that this blog started 31 years ago. Probably the longest-running blog on the internets. Still making trouble. And as they say, still diggin. You can always tell how long it's been by looking at the bottom of any archive page, where it's constantly calculating, down to the second, how long this blog has been running.

- 2025-10-07T16:06:46Z
Try as hard as I can I still have distinct flows and more than one place where I edit. I think that's a consequence of working on WordLand. I have to use it for serious writing, otherwise how would I know if it works. Maybe I can find a way to merge flows, but not at the moment. I still have to do some copy/pasting.

The antidote to Bigco dominance - 2025-10-07T16:09:50Z

Fascinating blog post from Jason Shellen, tech entrepreneur, formerly with Blogger and Google. Here’s my perspective on part of the story he tells about RSS and Google Reader.

Netscape gave us RSS 0.91 and it was good enough to create a new powerful layer on the web. Then Netscape blew up and a bunch of repeated efforts to kill it from big companies. I’ll leave it to others to say why, but they tried over and over to extinguish the spark. Independent developers were stubborn, we kept using the original format, and in the end the independents prevailed.

Don’t ever think bigco’s are the answer. They almost always suck the life out of open systems. If you have something good going: work together. It’s the antidote to bigco dominance.

If you suck up to the bigco thinking they’ll let you in, maybe they will for a short while. But what you’ll be left with may not be worth the cost.

And just because you have a job at a bigco doesn’t make you hot shit. Maybe for a moment.

This theory has a name, it’s described in the Prisoner’s Dilemma, and its lesson applies in tech and in the political disaster the US has become.

- 2025-10-06T21:06:32Z
I do all my shopping in ChatGPT. There must be a way to monetize that. For example, I want to buy a new backpack to carry my laptop and other mobile stuff. I should be able to set up anywhere there's wifi. I've got a modern MacBook Air, an iPad and two phones, one iOS and one Android. The main one is Android, I have to carry the iPhone because I use an Apple watch. I imagine there must be some improvements made in backpacks since I bought the last one, which was when I lived in Berkeley, in the late 00s.

- 2025-10-06T21:05:27Z
I've been evangelizing evangelism lately. Focus on goals and help others help us achieve them. It's a virtuous cycle, because once people figure out that they can get help by helping us, they will help us more. That is, when it works.

- 2025-10-06T14:15:25Z
Reason #29812 you know our current writing system is broken. When you want to post something that has more than the maximum characters they post an image instead of the text. I once wasted a few months making a writing tool for those kinds of posts, hoping that if it caught on we could have a shadow network that moved the actual text around the net between users.

- 2025-10-06T14:22:05Z
I did a video demo of pngWriter in Dec 2016.

- 2025-10-05T15:59:16Z
In 2014 I wrote a manifesto about web writing. A decade later later, I'm still trying to get writing on the web to work again. It was on a good track before the rude interruption.

Before we were so rudely interrupted - 2025-10-05T18:04:57Z

I've used this phrase a few times recently: "Before we were so rudely interrupted."

Or, "the big interruption."

I'm referring to 2006, when web writing was downgraded, to be 140 characters with no styling, no links, without the ability to edit.

That's when writing on the web started going in the toilet.

So when I say it again I may link to this post, because out here on the web, linking is always allowed.

Nightly email subs work again - 2025-10-05T15:15:42Z

Please try again if you've been waiting.

Report problems here.

It had been broken since Sept 14.

Still diggin! ;-)

- 2025-10-05T01:06:19Z
I test drove three different EVs today at an event at SUNY Ulster today. VW ID.Buzz, Rivian R1T, Kia EV9. I was surprised the one I liked best was the VW. It handled well, the others were sloppy, drive like the big cars they are. The Rivian had the best computer system, looked even nicer at first look than the Tesla. The Kia EV9 had a standard Kia computer system, far behind that of Rivian or Tesla. VW's computer was halfway between, it appeared they thought overall about the controls, but I was so impressed by the ride, and size, and the whole concept of it, and I always liked vans. I'm seriously thinking about swapping my Tesla for the VW. There are other disadvantages, I'm going to start reading up on it, until today I never gave it any thought, didn't think it would be a car for me. But I realllly liked it.

- 2025-10-05T01:24:18Z
Bluesky post: "The idea is to build a social network entirely out of replaceable parts. No silos, no centralization. Just the web."

I'd like to excerpt from and comment about three DW posts that he made over the past couple days.

• Jan 4, 2016 - Leave nothing but footprints
• Jan 4, 2016 - Why tech insiders must be on Facebook
• Jan 5, 2016 - Re Twitter easing the 140-char limit

Dave claims that he likes the open web, and he often rails against silos, such as Twitter and Facebook. In the summer of 2013, I discovered the #indieweb group via a poster mentioning the https://indiewebcamp.com in a comment to one of DW's posts. Maybe the word "silo" has been used for a long time to describe social media sites, but the term got popularized in my conscience by the Indieweb site.

I added #webmention support to my Junco code because of the Indieweb group. The Indieweb people "use" social media sites differently. They own their own domain names. They post articles and notes to their own blog sites. But rather than manually cross-posting their info their many social media presences, they use software that makes it appear that the Indieweb users are using Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. just like everyone else, but that's not the true.

Indieweb users may never log into their social media sites, but their content gets posted to those sites, and the comments, likes, shares, etc. at those other sites come back to their personal sites. It's interesting.

Since I don't "use" Twitter and Facebook, having my info posted automatically at those other sites is unnecessary. I use Instagram but mainly as a notetaking app and a place to store photos. But lately, I rely more on Flickr. Again. I've been using Flickr for many years. I don't use Flickr to network with others. I use it to store photos that I then embed into my own web publishing apps and sites.

This past summer, I created my Waxwing app to be a simple image uploader that speeds up the process of using images within my web publishing apps. But I still use Flickr too.

I'm not interested in networking with people beyond my own message board ToledoTalk.com that I started in January 2003.

I could be considered anti-social because I don't use the hot social media/social networking sites, and that's okay by me. I'm fine with being labeled and called names. I won't get offended.

I like message boards, wikis, and blogs. If that's old school or archaic, then that's okay too because I subscribe to the theory that every human being is unique. Why would zealot fans of social media sites assume that everyone should enjoy using those sites/apps? And why do these zealot fans get irritated that some people have the nerve not to use those sites?

I don't care if these social media sites exist. More amateur content gets created. That's a good thing. They all have pros and cons. But I'm simply not interested in them. And I'm not alone with this thinking.

I'm not going to get upset because people use Facebook, and I won't waste my time trying to convince people to stop using Facebook. I don't care if people use Facebook.

I enjoy building and using my own websites. That probably puts me into a minority of a minority. Many Indieweb users also build or install their own software to manage their personal sites. Different breed. What's wrong with diversity?

What's odd is when the zealot social media fans try to convince us that we need Facebook and we must post to Facebook, etc. I don't know why they seem to be upset when people decide to delete their Facebook accounts.

Again, what's wrong with diversity?

I have many interests. I post to my niche sites. I read the web in my own way. And I have been doing these activities for 15 years or more. I don't need help nor guidance from anyone in this area.

I wonder if the zealot fans of social media are creating a new form of acceptable intolerance that's directed at people who don't share their fandom of
the hot social media sites.

Excerpts from DW's post titled "Leave nothing but footprints":

The universe just laughs at your ambition. Hah! You're a mere speck of dust, says the universe, a speck that exists for an infinitesimally short period of time.

Don't try to change the world. Instead, try to work with other people.

Observe. Think. Share your experience, but strive to not change a thing.

That emphasized part seems like an odd thing for DW to suggest. I vehemently disagree with it.

My wife and I will continue to help change a small part of Toledo for the better by volunteering with an organization that helps parents to educate their children before they start school.

It's why I created the website http://babyutoledo.com/ for the non-profit. I'm better with technical functions, and my wife is better at interacting with people directly.

The goal of Baby U is to end generational poverty. That's a lofty goal, but if successful, it would be a positive change for the Old South End area of Toledo. How can that be bad?

DW ended that piece with:

It's better to just be kind to each other. Your name may not ring down through the ages, but at least you will have lived a good life that you can be proud of.

That's all good, but why can't changing something for the better and being kind to each other exist together?

It seems that DW contradicts himself a little with his next post titled "Why tech insiders must be on Facebook." Some excerpts:

I know a fair number of people who don't use Facebook or don't understand Facebook, and I think these people are hurting themselves, if they want to be part of tech as it goes forward, and in some sense they are hurting the web, by trying to be part of a network that does not involve Facebook.

My head hurts when I read his opening, authoritative statements.

Again, DW rails against silos, and he claims to support the open web, but in this post he believes that a tech person will miss out on future tech and hurt the open web if they don't use Facebook. That seems senseless to me.

And what about his previous post:

It's better to just be kind to each other. Your name may not ring down through the ages, but at least you will have lived a good life that you can be proud of.

Maybe people who want to live a good life are too busy to use the hot social media sites, or maybe they don't want to be a part of the vitriol that can exist with Facebook and Twitter.

It's possible that I don't use Facebook and Twitter because I've been running a message board for 13 years. In the past, I enjoyed using my own playground for heated debates. I've toned down my rhetoric over the years, which means the site's overall tone has softened too.

I'm no longer interested in flame-throwing with other message board users, and really don't want that kind of activity to occur on a site that I fund. And that's why I will never permit traditional comments to occur on my publishing apps Junco, Grebe, Scaup, and Veery. At most, I'll accept Webmentions.

I still occasionally write about my disdain toward local politicians, but even this activity has decreased significantly in recent years because it's so boring. I guess that I care less about what local officials do because nothing changes. It's better to attempt change by getting involved with other orgs.

But why does DW care if people don't use Facebook? Just move on. Don't worry about it. He added:

This morning Scoble got on the case of Bijan Sabet, out of the blue, as he often does, with a rant about how Facebook is the best place to be.

Scoble is the king of the zealot supporters of Facebook. Wow. I hope that it's okay to call him names.

Scoble said:

Deleting Facebook is idiotic.

Anyone who deletes Facebook is anti social. Best video distribution system. Best conversations. Best content.

Best conversations? No way. Not better than ToledoTalk.com FOR ME.

And selfishly, I'm more concerned about ME and not what others think, regarding the benefits of Facebook. I know that Facebook provides benefits, especially regarding updates from favorite small businesses, non-profits, and other orgs. Baby University maintains a Facebook page. I don't maintain it.

I was planning to delete my Facebook account this week because I don't use it. After reading Scoble's intolerance, I'm convinced even more that I don't need a Facebook account.

I'll gladly be an idiot and anti-social by not having a Facebook account. I won't lose sleep. I won't miss anything because the World Wide Web is still huge without Facebook. I know how to surf the web. I won't feel cheated or handicapped. I won't feel anything because I rarely logged into my Facebook account anyway. I don't have the Facebook app on my phone.

We are the new cool, hip people :)

Bijan Sabet ‏added common sense:

I'm not using these products for business. I want to use products that I love. And I don't love FB.

Simple explanation. And I don't understand why Facebook fans object to someone else's way of thinking. Intolerance?

DW wrote in his blog post:

I differ with Scoble on why you should be on Facebook, but not that you should be there.

DW rambles on for a while about the music industry 50 years ago or something. I didn't understand the relation. He finally got back on point.

If you want to be current with tech as it goes forward, you must be in the loop on what's happening on Facebook, if only because every person you hope to sell technology to in the future is using it. They will judge everything in relation to what they have experienced on Facebook.

Ah, okay. Well, since I don't personally sell technology, then I assume that it's okay for me not to use Facebook.

I can read about Facebook tech and their innovations by what shows up on Hacker News or Techmeme. I don't need to use Facebook to be aware of what the company is doing. I stay current with the tech that interests me.

DW concluded with:

So someday, if you withdraw from Facebook, you will face a competitor who embraced it, and you will lose. That's why you should be there.

Idiotic, anti-social, a loser, that's all fine with me because I'll continue to try to be kind to others and live a good life that I can be proud of.

And I don't need any of the social media sites to complete those tasks.

I could understand a small business owner needing a Facebook page along with a custom domain name that hosts at least a blog site. It infuriates me that some small businesses only have a Facebook page, and they don't maintain a site on their own domain name.

But hey, different strokes. Whatever works. It's fine with me.

Excerpts from DW's post titled "Re Twitter easing the 140-char limit":

This feature is good because people don't click links. It also brings Twitter to parity with Facebook, which means it can compete in the news distribution business that it pioneered.

Facebook needs competition, and we need Facebook to have competition.

Maybe DW needs Facebook to have competition, but I don't.

And I'll use links. I need links. Since I truly believe in the open web, then linking will always be a part of my web DNA posting. I'm fine with going against the crowd and being in a small minority.

It sounds like DW is an open web poser.

I'll adopt what I like, and if that's not part of the mainstream, I can decide on my own whether to continue down that path. And regarding the open web, I'm fine with being outside the mainstream. Maybe I'm more independent that way.

And I don't care about an audience or readership. I write because I enjoy writing. I like text. I build and use web publishing apps because those are activities that I enjoy.

I have enjoyed reading the play and watching the moving titled Glengarry Glen Ross. Great writing by Dave Mamet. Great acting by great actors.

Quote by the Ricky Roma character that was played by Al

I subscribe to the law of contrary public opinion: if everyone thinks one thing, then I say, bet the other way.