Rodent Regatta

People are important. How we treat people is important. How we’re treated by other people is less important. That’s counter-intuitive. The fight-or-flight response kicks in. The adrenaline gets pumped through our system. Suddenly, the most important thing becomes ”sticking up for ourselves.”

Who loses when this happens? Well, we all do. Some of us are ”mere users” out here. We’re interested users, mind you. We’d learn fast if we could find the right primers for this stuff. But, nevertheless, we’re mere users. We’re not qualified to take in the rarefied air of the programmers.

It’s frustrating to see the tactics that get used, but it’s refreshing to discover the genuine article amongst the disingenuous.

I have categories set up in my news aggregator, SharpReader. One of the categories is called ”gossip.” It’s a term I use affectionately – not hatefully. In this category are RSS feeds from people who write weblogs about their lives. They’re unafraid to let you know about their drunkenness, their ailments, their pets, their kids or their feelings toward someone in traffic. A lot can be learned about weblogging from people who write this way.

Trust me when I say that they are one-and-all oblivious to the fight that has been raging. They simply tweak their weblog designs from time to time and keep right on going. So far, I’m able to read their weblogs in SharpReader. At least I can read those that provide full entries in their feeds. Others have a minimal feed; often only a few words, so I launch a browser and read their sites. They’re likely to change their RSS feeds only after one of the MAJOR weblog tools alters the standard syndication method.

So, while I’m promoting a couple of tools, let me suggest to those with influence that they immediately make a TypePad account available to Mr. John Robb, whom I suspect is looking for a way to get his weblog network off the ground now that he’s been cut off by UserLand.

• * * UPDATE * * * Trust me when I say that I had no idea Jeff Jarvis had said this yesterday, when I wrote this entry this morning!