As a Jewish man, he’s entitled to his opinion about the messiah in the same way my good friend in Japan has his belief in the teachings of the Buddah, my old colleague from India is Hindu, and another colleague is Muslim. Raised Catholic, I had one dogma that I’ve rejected as my knowledge grew but I don’t purport to have all the answers or I’d be glowing with enlightenment and floating above the world changing it!

Though this list (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religions) shows Christianity as the lion’s share of religious believers (no Rome pun intended!), there are roughly 6.6 billion people on earth meaning 4.5 billion hold a different religious view (or none at all) and I can’t sit silent with anyone intolerant or not open to other interpretations. More blood has been shed with religious intolerance and fundamentalism than any other motivator in human history.

Now if Mr. Winer had approached you with comments like that instead of his intolerant, snarky and a stiff-arm-to-the-face, Scott, I’ll bet you would’ve taken this better? I know I would’ve done so and never had written this post if Winer hadn’t been so childish as to run and hide from anything that doesn’t laud him or exhibit esteem.

You may have to go to http://twitter.com/BoogeyMan to see them, not sure. I guess you’ll be able to see Winer’s remarks at http://twitter.com/davewiner.

I doubt if he’s delete his own comments.

Sorry man, I gotta block you. Good luck to you and Jesus.

Dave Winer / davewiner

My comments can be found here:
http://twitter.com/favorites

What’s interesting are his stereotypical views and lack of tolerance for other’s opinions considering his political views. I thought Obama was all about uniting people, not blocking them??

My rule of thumb is not to exceed the Couthiness Or Lack Thereof of the site author, and I think that you performed admirably in that regard. This is a guy who just posted last month “If you’re scared to hear what people really think you’re not prepared for the world you live in.” Hm.

I can grok deleting spam, and deleting or obfuscating raw dumps of profanity and such, but I read your post; pretty carefully in fact. I see nothing there requiring Dave to defend himself as honest (his declared criteria for deletion)…heck, I don’t see much of anything out of line at all!

But whatever…I don’t expect you want to make this thread/blog into some sort of flamefest. Dave’s response Is What It Is, basically. Luckily, you’ve got the same soapbox he does, so everything’s even.

PS: I expect you’re probably right about getting along fine at a conference. We all know that Teh Tubes fan the flamewars.

PPS: I’ve been meaning to comment positively WRT the iPhone over on your “Crushing the iPhone ecosystem” post. Hopefully, next year’s development framework will re-open the iPhone up to exciting, paradigm-busting, uber-coolness! I’m crossing my fingers for you (as I ponder the clunky but open options I have for christmas, and figure out which to ask for…).

Ken: Thanks for the comment though a guy I respect was surprised by my posting and, I think, disappointed. He thought the screengrab showing my deleted comment (especially my question about struggling technically) he would’ve nixed and was “uncouth.”

I’ll bet my bottom dollar that should I have bumped into Winer at some conference, we’d have hit it off and had great conversations.

Same situation here. I think it’s smart of you to bring this up on your site, where you have an even footing. It’s not uber-huge news, b/c it’s hardly the first time Dave has been overbearing where he has control. But here YOU have control on your own blog and your comments so all sides of the discussion can be heard. That’s what I don’t like about deleting…one voice gets silenced.

I’ve never deleted comments other than spam, but admittedly, I have no traffic (LOL), and don’t attract controversy like Dave does. That being said, my most recent posting about him was POSITIVE…I’m by no means out to get him or anything. I like him…he’s just grouchy. But so am I, so I can’t say much.

In any case, I’m with you Steve. Why bother allowing comments if you’re going to delete dissenting ideas/opinions? I can see stopping vulgarity or spam, but otherwise, you might as well blog on Facebook.

P.S. Why no HTML?

If, for example, I were to delete all comments that didn’t make me look good or completely agree with me (like your mildly dissenting one), how am I better than a progagandist or censor? Truth comes from putting out perspectives under the light of scrutiny.

It’s one reason why I so enjoy memetrackers. I can pick a topic I care about, read multiple opinions, skim through commenters, and get a pretty good 360 degree sense of the issue.

So I won’t be deleting your comment though I disagree with your characterization that “There is nothing wrong with…” deleting comments in the same way that I abhor governmental propaganda or the sound-bite attacks primarily from our two party system.

If I don’t want someone’s comment to appear, then I will remove it. There is nothing wrong with that.

My comment was musing about how much trouble he has with both hardware and software, no matter what it is, Dave will have trouble. It’s almost guaranteed. And he’s never in love with something long. Everything sucks at some point. It’s Dave, I wouldn’t expect anything else
And no, it wasn’t a snaky comment.

When he deletes, he really should disclose that. If he moderates so some things never make it to his comments fine, but otherwise disclosure is the best policy.