The Hunting of the Snark

Following Mr Arrington's spitter spat, which we condemn, he has gone on the warpath and no longer blames it on disgruntled startups that he has panned, but on other bloggers who criticise him.

Mr. Arrington downplayed any connection between the role his site has taken on — giving buzz to tech startups — and the emotional responses he gets from unhappy readers. Rather, he contends that unfounded allegations from his peers that TechCrunch accepts payment or other favors for stories make him a target.

His PR people have clearly told him to stop biting the hand that feeds him and bite those who hand it to him instead . At the same time, Paul Carr, arch webscene commentator for the Grauniad, has argued that we all need to be nicer to each other.

Look at your blog posts, your Twitter updates and anything else you post publicly. Even if you're as big a cynic as me, if the ratio of mean to nice/neutral is much worse than 3:1 then you're part of the problem.

Well, yessss....but!

The 3:1 ratio seems reasonable, the "but" is that the Web/IT Tech scene delivers so much hype and puff on a daily basis (of which Mr Arrington is often a willing and deliberately pugnacious contributor, so there is a bit of a do unto others issue here) that there is a place for people who would prick that balloon - in fact some of the hypesters are so bad that in some cases that merely holding a different view (based on - gasp - the facts) can be seen as being wildly snarky.

As anyone who writes a blog knows, there are always "drive by" shooters who post unpleasant stuff and/or are just plain ornery. Also, as anyone knows, the higher you are in the pecking order, the more people peck at your feet. Removing anonymity from discussion fora is usually a good way to foster better behaviour - doesn't stop flame wars, but does ameliorate them - on our blog for example we don't let anonymous unpleasant comments onto the board, but the honourable tradition of the "anonymous coward" is upheld.