Response to Linda Kay in OD

I’m writing this here because I don’t want to notebomb you.

I read the note you left on my diary and the recent entry you made. In said entry, you took pains to point out that you’re not a troublemaker.

And you’re absolutely right. you’re not a trouble maker. You’re a panicmonger. And that is far, far more dangerous.

Because, you see, you’re guilty of exactly what I talked about in my last entry. You take one or two pieces of information and put your own interpretation on it.

Which is understandable. Everyone does that.

But when you present your interpretation to other people, you don’t say that this is how you see things, you state that your interpretation is the facts. And that they are undisputed.

If someone does try to dispute what you’ve said, they are either nieve for not believing the truth (as you see it) or an apologist.

For example, you keep repeating the claim that the DM has stated that the site is not economically viable. However, reading his entry, what I saw was an admission that, while the site is making enough money to pay for itself, it’s not making enough for it to be his full time job.

Now, it may just be me, but if the site is covering it’s costs, that makes it economically viable. I’m not saying that’s the truth, just how I see it.

You then state that his attention is elsewhere. This is kinda true. It is true that his current job means he isn’t around as much as he would like. The last part of that is interesting, isn’t it?

As much as he would like.

That, to me, doesn’t suggest that his attention has wondered, merely that there are time constraints. Again, just my opinion.

you keep mentioning the fantastic job the admin staff do. and they do a brilliant job. But you then moan about the way the site is running (not smoothly, says you, which isn’t my experience at all, one outage last month notwithstanding) which isn’t just moaning about the DM but the admin staff as well.

Direct quote from your entry:

However, the “if” in “If Open Diary fails” is becoming more like a “when.”

Direct quote from your note:

Again, I hope you are right and I have to eat my words, but I don’t think you are.

Sadly, your actions betray you again. I get the feeling (and, again, just my interpretation) that you want the site to fail so you can run round saying “I told you so”.

If you kept your theories (sorry, “the truth”) to an entry on your diary I wouldn;t have a problem. Your diary, your rules.

But you’re not. You’re going from diary to diary espousing your theory and presenting it as fact.

And this is where you become a panicmonger rather than a troublemaker. And it’s this that makes you dangerous.

Because, you’re basing your theory (soory again, “the truth”) directly on the DM’s words. As am I with my interpretation. But how long does it take from you saying “this is based on what I read on the DM’s diary” to “this is what the DM actually said”?

I know for a fact, it won’t take long. And the reason I know this is cos it didn’t take long to go from “the DM changed his LinkedIn reference to OD” to “the DM has given up on OD and no-one is running the store”.

And what’ll kill OD quicker than anything is people leaving in droves because they’ve been told that the site is no longer financially viable, the lights are about to be turned off and the guy in charge is distracted and doesn’t know this is happening”.

As I said, in your diary, you can say what you want. But when leaving multiple notes all saying the same thing and stating that’s exactly what was said, I consider it to be irresponsible.

Two questions for you:

1) You say that the DM refuses to take the steps needed to make the site more profitable (The business model sucks, and the DM does not have the interest needed to change it.). Go for it. What are the steps needed to make the site more money?

2) You keep complaining about the customer service. If I go somewhere and get what I percieve to be bad customer service, I don’t go back there. So, if the customer service is so bad, why you still here?

Couple of other things.

To the person who left the anonymous note in my last entry: Huh? I have no idea what you’re on about. i would love to see someone argue in a court of law that a lifetime subscription to a website meant anything other than the lifetime of the site.

And finally, could people plase, please stop RCing entries about the OD Lifeboat? It’s getting to be more than a little spammy.

Will