Yesterday, Michael at Tame The Web pointed out my comments on not being able to find comments or an email address at Loriene Roy’s presidential bid blog, Loriene’s Campaign. [Oops, I just realized that I've been adding an extra letter in her name. Sorry Ma'am!]
Bill Drew took the effort to Google her and added a comment at Michael’s post and another at mine. Admittedly, I have taken a few cheap and easy shots here (this was not one of them in my mind though), but really Mr. Drew, why couldn’t you say what you did at Tame The Web on my blog? If I am the one making "snap judgments" then it seems I am the one to correct. But maybe it was easier to make the comment on a blog that has 25 times the number of readers that I do. Those figures are based on what Bloglines reports. I have no doubt that even more people read TTW in another manner than do my blog. I guess that was a Public Service Announcement on your part. In the interest of full disclosure, I also commented in response to Mr. Drew at Michael’s post.
A few minutes ago I sent Mr. Drew the following email regarding his comment at Michael’s blog:
Dear Mr. Drew,
I appreciate your concern over the amount of snap judgments being made by me on my blog. I made a "snap" response to your comment on Michael’s blog but, rest assured, it is one I will stick by for eternity.
The point I was trying to make about the lack of comments and an email address on Prof. Roy’s blog was that if she was serious about engaging with the constituency then we should not have to Google her to find out how to contact her. I am quite aware that Prof. Roy is a professor at UTA, and also of several ways to find contact information for her. My point, and several people so far seem to agree with me, is that it shouldn’t be required. If you want to call me lazy, fine, but I fail to see the snap judgement I made there.
I was not making a moral judgement about Prof. Roy, nor was I advocating that no one vote for her. Personally, I am still undecided as to which candidate I will vote for, and my laziness (or snap judgement) will not prevent me from seriously considering voting for Prof. Roy. The point was that to me (and others) it seems just like much of what many are currently complaining about regarding ALA. The Old Guard speaking at us instead of with us.
Now to your comment at TTW: "There are too many snap judgments being made in the Thoughts Are Broken blog."
We all make snap judgements every single day, hundreds, and possibly thousands of them. If you did not, you simply would not be alive. We are wired to do this. Also, some of us have spent long times in environments where such snap decisions are required on an even more frequent basis; for example, the military or other high pressure environments.
This does not mean that they are always required, nor that they are helpful or productive in all cases. In fact, I would certainly argue that they are not. I am also far from perfect. I am also trying to become educated and professionalized.
So my request to you is to ask you to please help me do both. I would appreciate any feedback that you are willing to provide to me about what you see as my "snap judgments." I have no doubt that I have made some. I also have no doubt that some things you see as my "snap judgments" are anything but.
I am posting this email to you on my blog. Please feel free to respond by email or on the blog. If you prefer to keep your reply between us, then feel free to reply via email and let me know that it is to be kept private. I will honor your feelings on the matter and the effort to communicate with me. If you think that others might benefit from your helping to educate me then reply on the blog, or reply by email but let me know it’s OK to use your comments publicly. For the record, I have no qualms about posting this email to my blog as you made your comment publicly.
Again, I sincerely appreciate your comment as I have no doubt that there is some truth in it. It does come at a difficult time for me, but many of our best lessons come at difficult times. I have no doubt that you are quite busy also, but I look forward to any feedback that you care to provide. In the meantime, without any examples of my making a "snap judgment," despite the inherent truth in your comment, I am considering your comment to be a "snap judgment" on your part.
Sincerely,
Mark Lindner
Despite my small amount of snark regarding the Public Service Announcement, I do sincerely want to hear from Mr. Drew about what he thinks are my "snap judgments." Again, I don’t doubt that I make them, as we all do. I also know that in many cases I fight them with all my strength. Most of you have no need to know any details of my mental state over the last 7 years, but I’ll leave it at if I routinely made snap judgements about important things I would be dead many times over by my own hand. The fact that I am sitting here typing this proves that I don’t succumb to all snap judgements.
Now on to another learning experience as I await the outcome of this one.
4 responses so far ↓
1 Angel // Mar 9, 2006 at 10:52 am
You are certainly braver than me, my friend. I did notice the lack of comments on Professor Roy’s blog, but since by now I pretty much learned to tune out when people have closed blogs, I did not give it much thought. Not that I do not read her blog. It’s on my reader, and she does put some interesting stuff now and then, but I tend to think a bit less of those who talk at me rather than engage me. If it offends those with closed blogs out there, so be it. Maybe they need to think if it is really a matter of design, or if there are other reasons. Given options like moderation of comments and captchas, saying it is to avoid spam or inappropriateness is not an excuse. However, that is my opinion. Overall, it is a personal choice whether to open comments or not, but one should keep in mind the lack of engagement if one goes for the closed option. Having said that, she is running for office, googling her to get contact information should not be a requirement. Imagine if anyone running for public office put up a website, then did not have anything anywhere on such site to contact them? Just a thought.
As for taking the ocassional cheap shot, hey, some people just deserve them (they are like people who walk into a bullfighting arena with a red cape. You know the bull is just going to aim for them). And if you look at the blogosphere, the librarian sector not being an exception, it is fairly packed with snap judgments. Mr. Drew would have to hang all of us on that basis then. My mother used to say, “el que tiene techo de cristal, no tira piedras” (“he who has a glass ceiling does not go around throwing rocks”). If Mr. Drew does reply, I will certainly look forward to it. As for him commenting someplace else, could be the cachet thing, who knows? Though, like you point out, telling you first would have been nice. Anyhow, if you ask me, I would rather have some thoughtful, even if at times, snappy reading than cachet.
By the way, been saving some of your recent posts to read later. I keep marking them as new to get to them, but things around here are busy for one. Two, the generational stuff is good (more than good), but to be honest, the whole ALA meme going around is sort of bumming me out. Hearing Steven Bell tell someone in a post “that if they don’t like it, they can leave” didn’t help matters either. I think Meredith Farka’s has the reference as part of her post that sparked a lot of this. At any rate, I am desperately wanting to say something (because I have thoughts about it and concerns), but also more desperately tempted to just not say anything. After all, I lack serious cachet for one, and the organization can certainly afford to lose me and those like me (if I get to making a post, this will make sense).
Anyways, you keep on blogging. There are plenty of us interested, snappy judgments and all (including the willingness to learn and listen). Best.
2 Faye // Mar 9, 2006 at 2:38 pm
Mark, I enjoy your blog and your “snap judgments” as well! It’s great to see a fellow library student engaging with all the things going on (libraries, life, school, life, etc etc).
I admire those of you getting out in the blogosphere. But, I am glad that you do, because it keeps me up-to-date with the library world (recent graduate, looking for a job) and the issues we all will be facing, as librarians and as humans, during this evolution of informational change.
Thanks again for making the effort.
3 Christina Pikas // Mar 9, 2006 at 9:57 pm
Let’s not get all excited about this. She’s obviously not old school if she even knows what a blog is. Drew has said nice things about your blog both places. I’ll bet Roy will add some way to contact her soon to hers, too.
I think everyone involved was a bit insensitive to the fact that these are all real, living people. It might have been better to find an e-mail and suggest to her that she should make contact information more apparent. Drew should have been more clear that it was the “old school” that he had a problem with…
(congrats on the acceptance letter)
Now back to my regularly scheduled ranting
4 Bill Drew // Mar 10, 2006 at 8:26 am
Here is the reply I sent to Mr. Lindner’s e-mail:
I will reply on your blog as well as here. I actually enjoy your writing. The snap judgment I referred to was thinking of her as old school. I wrote her and she said she talked over the design of the blog with one of her classes. They thought it best to not allow comments.
I thought I posted these comments here yesterday.