Maybe there's still hope for some stewardship of feeds. I have some ideas I'm playing with. I think the key is not leaving the past behind, but also not being limited by it.
You were really bad at handling the RSS spec. Your boundless ego got in everyone's way, and in the end you left everyone disappointed: the feed subscribers, the Web authors, the library implementers. Shame on you. It was so bad that people got together and made a whole new set of specs because it was literally impossible to salvage RSS.
Ah yes, blaming someone else, when we have have historic records that it was you who is responsible. Who do you hope to make an impression on with your lies? You haven't changed one bit.
I don't know what role you think I played in RSS, but I never had the power to change what people were doing. I could only do things in my own software and with publishing partners.
I had influence only because I had (at the time) popular products and some good ideas (like podcasting).
I actually know what this is like, somewhat -- I had a startup that IPO'd a long time ago, and my life had been defined by my struggle to be successful, which could no longer define my life.
Now you're going to have to get systematic about finding out what you like to do, and make a good list, and when you're feeling depressed, just do one of those things. It'll lift you out the funk. It really works.
What you should not do as view the money as buying you anything other than freedom. Sure buy yourself a nice TV, car, computer, take trips, etc. But don't overdo it, live a human-size life.
One other thing, do not hire a money manager. Just invest in the S&P 500. It's the best investment possible and requires no thought.
I've been writing about this for a while, I don't repeat everything in every post, which is probably why it was confusing.
Anyway, what Twitter did is repeat the body of the tweet in the title and description sub-elements of item.
The reason they did this is probably that the dominant reader of the day, Google Reader, pretty much required titles. So when you'd read a tweet in a feed reader you'd see the text of the tweet twice. Not a good user experience.
The problem isn't with RSS, because it allows for titleless items, rather with the reader.
And that problem is still with us today because there isn't much consistency among the readers other than the Google Reader model. They are all following GR, not RSS.
And that makes tweet-like-things-in-RSS pretty much a non-starter.
For examples, look at my blog on any given day most of what's there is too short to have a title, like a tweet.
Please don't feel bad. I was never trying to make a lot of money from the web. I had lots of opportunities to sell out. I did that once, in the 80s, and that has funded my creative work ever since. Money isn't that useful, I learned, pretty early-on. Here's a piece I wrote about that recently.
Thank you for the kind words. RSS is still a robust format with lots of news flowing through it, so we did accomplish something. And the pendulum is always swinging, so I think we may find the open web useful still, esp when the big tech companies like Google move on. ;-)
"Important: If you are looking at this profile because you thought something I posted was wrong, dismissive, disrespectful, douchebaggish, what have you, I would really like to hear from you so that I could understand how you got that impression. I won't get mad, I won't "retaliate" I just want to hear what you have to say. It is important to me to communicate clearly and if something I said struck you that way then I failed and I would like to correct it. (Borrowed from another profile)"
Yes I feel you are being all that in this post. At the end you apologize, that's nice, but before that you said some insulting personal things about me, that I'm sure aren't true. Take responsibility for what you did and said and leave it at that. Apologizing for nasty behavior and then saying yeah but the guy was a dick, that isn't apologizing.
Anyway this is par for the course of Hacker News. The troll post always is highest ranked.
> Anyway this is par for the course of Hacker News. The troll post always is highest ranked.
:( HN is the platform on the net where you will read "RSS should be used more" and "Thanks Dave Winer for this great tech" most often. And here you have a comment of someone with no history of trolling (according to his most recent posts at least) who made himself very small ("I was an idiot") and apologized to you, and you insult not only him, but the whole platform.
Dave, you don't know me, but a lot of people here read you. And so many of the developers here build software with technology you like (i.e. I implemented a RSS feed for my blog software, a feed reader [with opml import!], a rss polling and pushing infrastructure, and a RSS focused SaaS pipes revival site) and share some of your ideals. Is it really necessary to be antagonistic to all of us? How is this a winning strategy?
And assume for a moment latchkeys story is genuine. You don't remember it, but so what, it was 25 years ago and you said yourself you had lots of bad interactions at that time. I'd be very surprised if some idiot kid acting badly is something you would remember. Your reaction now to his public apology would be devastating.
From your second comment:
> His memory of me, a guy who he says created software that he used and liked, is the time he treated me like an object.
To me it reads like he treated you like one of his friends, which obviously was a bad idea if you have a different age and cultural background, besides not sharing this strange feeling of knowing someone because you read his blogs for years, who of course never realized you exist.
I stopped coming here a long time ago because trolls dominate. These days we understand why and how that happens, and HN is wide open to that kind of abuse, with no moderation tools.
So what changed, if it's true that now it's a place where people are respectful of other people? And where are those comments in this thread (spoiler: they're at the bottom of the list).
Anyway PLEASE let me know when the tech I have participated in is discussed here and if there's some way I can help.
For example, I'm getting a new version of the XML-RPC website ready, based on a new JavaScript implementation. A lot of people still use XML-RPC, after scripting.com it's my most popular site.
My email address is dave@scripting.com.
I'm always shipping new projects on GitHub. I have a new one I'm working on that I'm really excited about. ;-)
Oh, but there is not no moderation. There is a moderator team, a system for shadowbanning is in place, and posts get downvoted or flagged. We just still seem to disagree whether the comment here was disrespectful or not.
XML-RPC is indeed something used in the wild, and something I have contact with via blog software. In my case for remote editors and pingbacks basically.
Here's how this works. Imagine you don't recall this event. And then he says about you what he said about me (I don't remember the words, and I don't want to, but sounded like I blew my top). Now further imagine that having lived with yourself a long time, you know that isn't how you react to things like that. How would you feel?
You're only telling me how you feel. But you're forgetting that I am not you. And I got a lot of that kind of childish BS. You wouldn't believe how people project on you.
One time at a party in Menlo Park, I had to go take a leak. So I walked to the bathroom, relieved myself and went back to talking with my friends. Sounds pretty ordinary right?
The next day this guy blogged about how I WALKED RIGHT BY HIM without even looking at him. He got all kinds of empathy. I had no idea who he was. I guessed that I mustve walked by him on the way to piss.
It got to the point where people would video me in parties, conversing with me with a camera in their pocket. Or when I went to a meeting at Blogger, and they video'd that, live. We were there talking business. And I got visitors at my house, that was fun. Knocking on the door wanting to know if I lived there, saying shit like this guy was saying.
As a result I pulled back and traded my influence for a bit more normal life.
I haven't even told you the worst of it. It was pretty fucked up.
So this little story here is a reminder of how fucked up people are. His memory of me, a guy who he says created software that he used and liked, is the time he treated me like an object. Sad for him, and also sad for me. And sad for the world that there are limits on how much you can do before they start hurting you for it.
That's messed up. Nobody should have to put up with that. The only thing I knew about you before this was your history of outliners
http://davewiner.userland.com/outlinersProgramming
It was more interesting than it should have been.
> And then he says about you what he said about me (I don't remember the words, and I don't want to, but sounded like I blew my top). Now further imagine that having lived with yourself a long time, you know that isn't how you react to things like that.
Dude, that is definitely a common reaction on your part. You're famous for flipping out at people. Anyone who read your blog for any length of time saw it happen online a few times; anyone in the tech scene in the 2000s had you flip out at one or more of our friends in person. I'm sure you often don't react like that, but you do react like that enough for it to be very notable.
Moreover, your offended and condescending response makes it clear to anyone reading the thread that—unless there was some major provocation edited out of the original comment above, the way you used to do with your blog—you’re at least sometimes hypersensitive and prone to overreacting.
My story wasn't projecting at all. It was simply a story for background and an apology. But you seem to have turned it into more than that. Treating you like an object, what? I also used your software, I didn't say I liked it.
I'm really sorry, but I upvoted your comments, and his, because I thought they were interesting. And wow, Dave Winer is commenting, and a guy who has a story about you from the 90's.
And that pushes his comment to the top, and yeah, here we are.
But a lot of us are very happy about your 25 years. And we know you aren't a bad person, but a human who had a human reaction to an asshole comment in a bar.
I had a phone number hijacked a few years ago, and it took a lot of perseverance to retake control of the number. The phone company (AT&T) didn't know how to handle it. What they did understand is how to close an account. So one of the times I regained control (only to be sure I'd lose it again, soon) I quickly got them to delete the account. That did it.
Ever since that happened and I see a system for 2FA that is based on a phone number, I think it's just security theater, they must know there's nothing secure about it.
