3 ms·

the first time fair enough but I find it hard to believe after doing it the first time, and being called out on it, That they werent remotely aware of the timin

the first time fair enough but I find it hard to believe after doing it the first time, and being called out on it, That they werent remotely aware of the timing the second time round. even if they were completely oblivious, that doesnt make it right / fair. It follows my original point, techcrunch are wielding the ability to do serious damage to companies and the best last.fm can hope for is damage limitation, no matter if they are completely in the right.

tptacek 17y ago
I agree. It's a pretty weak argument to imply that Arrington forgot there was such a thing as a weekend. Graham's response also leaves hanging the assertion that TC is censoring unfavorable comments on their blog. If they're victims too, what are they hiding from?
- pg 17y ago
  You don't know Arrington. And how would TC benefit from Last.FM and/or CBS being delayed in answering them anyway? As for deleting comments, I don't know anything about that. I never read TC comment threads because they're generally overrun with trolls. Did they kill troll posts any more aggressively on this story than on others?
  - daleharvey 17y ago
    yes, they deleted basically anything in favour of last.fm, looking now they left a couple around, but deleted a lot of mostly quite reasonable comments. http://i41.tinypic.com/9ia3jo.jpg http://i41.tinypic.com/9ia3jo.jpg was the first screenshot I could find, the top comment defending arrington was the only one that survived, some of them are a bit confrontational, but I seen more reasonable ones deleted. all while comments calling for last.fm to "Let it burn" are fair play.
  - tptacek 17y ago
    You're right that I don't know Arrington. But I think you're wrong to suggest that knowing Arrington is germane to the discussion.
    - dcurtis 17y ago
      Externally, it feels like Arrington is Darth Vader when he makes mistakes like this Last.fm one. He has power. But in person, when you abstract away the manufactured opinions you have created based on his writing, you realize he's just another startup founder. A smart, interesting one. His startup just happens to be TechCrunch. I think lots of people, for some reason, forget that. I like Arrington a lot. He knows how to play the game in his industry, and that's why he's successful. You can't really blame him for that, from an entrepreneurial point of view (despite the moral implications). Every startup founder needs to know how to play their game. Plenty of YC companies have done questionably moral things to gain traffic/attention. That doesn't justify TechCrunch's gossip posts, but it provides me with a satisfactory rationalization for the behavior.
      - tptacek 17y ago
        I don't have an Arrington problem. I will probably never meet him. I could care less if he's a jerk. What I have is a future-of-trade-journalism problem. Specifically: * There's no apparent separation of editorial and reporting at TC. * There's no apparent rules about sourcing and attribution at TC. * There's no corrections policy at TC. Long story short, it's a blog. But people like us, acting en masse, have imbued it with many times the power of a real trade press outlet. Of course TC can get more done more cheaply than ZD. They don't play by the same rules.
    - pg 17y ago
      What I meant was, if you knew Arrington you'd realize it's all too believable that he'd forget there was such a thing as a weekend.
      - ubernostrum 17y ago
        Still problematic. If TC wants to be taken seriously as a source of information, then TC has to start getting the fundamentals of reporting. The Friday thing is one of these; requesting comment from the subject of your story is another. Without attention to these details, TC will be (and will deserve to be) seen as nothing more than a gossip rag. Of course, if that's what they want...

tptacek 17y ago

I agree. It's a pretty weak argument to imply that Arrington forgot there was such a thing as a weekend. Graham's response also leaves hanging the assertion that TC is censoring unfavorable comments on their blog. If they're victims too, what are they hiding from?

pg 17y ago
You don't know Arrington. And how would TC benefit from Last.FM and/or CBS being delayed in answering them anyway? As for deleting comments, I don't know anything about that. I never read TC comment threads because they're generally overrun with trolls. Did they kill troll posts any more aggressively on this story than on others?
- daleharvey 17y ago
  yes, they deleted basically anything in favour of last.fm, looking now they left a couple around, but deleted a lot of mostly quite reasonable comments. http://i41.tinypic.com/9ia3jo.jpg http://i41.tinypic.com/9ia3jo.jpg was the first screenshot I could find, the top comment defending arrington was the only one that survived, some of them are a bit confrontational, but I seen more reasonable ones deleted. all while comments calling for last.fm to "Let it burn" are fair play.
- tptacek 17y ago
  You're right that I don't know Arrington. But I think you're wrong to suggest that knowing Arrington is germane to the discussion.
  - dcurtis 17y ago
    Externally, it feels like Arrington is Darth Vader when he makes mistakes like this Last.fm one. He has power. But in person, when you abstract away the manufactured opinions you have created based on his writing, you realize he's just another startup founder. A smart, interesting one. His startup just happens to be TechCrunch. I think lots of people, for some reason, forget that. I like Arrington a lot. He knows how to play the game in his industry, and that's why he's successful. You can't really blame him for that, from an entrepreneurial point of view (despite the moral implications). Every startup founder needs to know how to play their game. Plenty of YC companies have done questionably moral things to gain traffic/attention. That doesn't justify TechCrunch's gossip posts, but it provides me with a satisfactory rationalization for the behavior.
    - tptacek 17y ago
      I don't have an Arrington problem. I will probably never meet him. I could care less if he's a jerk. What I have is a future-of-trade-journalism problem. Specifically: * There's no apparent separation of editorial and reporting at TC. * There's no apparent rules about sourcing and attribution at TC. * There's no corrections policy at TC. Long story short, it's a blog. But people like us, acting en masse, have imbued it with many times the power of a real trade press outlet. Of course TC can get more done more cheaply than ZD. They don't play by the same rules.
  - pg 17y ago
    What I meant was, if you knew Arrington you'd realize it's all too believable that he'd forget there was such a thing as a weekend.
    - ubernostrum 17y ago
      Still problematic. If TC wants to be taken seriously as a source of information, then TC has to start getting the fundamentals of reporting. The Friday thing is one of these; requesting comment from the subject of your story is another. Without attention to these details, TC will be (and will deserve to be) seen as nothing more than a gossip rag. Of course, if that's what they want...