Robert Cox should be commended, and heeded, for posting this:
For the record, Dave did exactly what I had hoped when I invited him to lead the session. I expected that Dave would provoke the most exciting, memorable session of the entire weekend and he delivered - in spades.
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He was SUPPOSED to get folks riled up. That was the entire point of the session.
It may shock critics but I thought the session was brilliant - a home run. Those who are complaining should be THANKING Dave for bringing the topic to a boil and then stepping back and letting folks sort things out. That IS how this kind of event is supposed to work and no one knows that better than Dave because he is the person who developed the format. Unfortunately, many folks in the room chose to make Dave Winer the issue rather than discussing what had happened, why and how things might have gone differently. In other words to look at how disagreement takes place in the blogosphere, why it becomes heated so fast and what can be done to change that. I think folks are forgetting that Dave, very nicely, made this point in his opening remarks before he began stirring things up by picking fights.
Good job, Robert. You were not the problem. Alas, you are the solution.
