FastCompany comments - personal attack, or no? You be the judge

OK, here's the latest tempest in a teapot, which I ran across in FriendFeed.

Let's start with Loren Feldman (as featured on KNBC):

“Fast Comapny taking down all the negative reviews on Scoble and Shel's show. I have never taken down a bad review. Go look at my site for chrissakes. No balls, no conversation, no nothing, the charade is ending for Scoble and his ilk.”

And yes, it's true. When you go to the Timothy Ferriss interview page, only one of the comments has a date earlier than July 9. At this point I have no idea how many comments were deleted, but no one denies that comments were removed. The page itself contains this statement as of today:

Posted by Fast Company staff (not verified) on July 9, 2008 6:28 PM
Hi,

Fast Company.TV welcomes comments, including criticisms of our content. However, we do not allow personal attacks against our staff, contributors or guests. Several very personal attacks against a contributor were removed yesterday. The primary purpose of our many open discussions (via comments, Meebo, Twitter, FriendFeed) is it to facilitate discussion and debate about the business ideas and information we present. Feel free to contact us at feedback@fastcompany.com with questions.

Incidentally, I'm not quite sure what all the "verified" stuff is in the comments area of the FastCompany website - especially when "Fast Company staff" can't be verified.

Here's a sample of some of what has been said about the comment removal:

some of the comments I saw before they got deleted were maybe harsh but they weren't personal attacks. they were about the quality of the show not about attacking you or shel. you just deleted every negative comment. - marcel weiss

Criticizing someone's interview skills or lack thereof, or quality of show or lack thereof are not personal attacks. - Tony Kanzia

To all the folks crying here -- Here is an idea. Create a better show you can. And please don't whine if your comments got deleted. Don't want to get your comments deleted - here is an idea - setup your blog, write a blog post on your blog criticizing to your hearts content. Nobody will delete that. - Vic Podcaster

This cottage industry that has formed around criticizing Robert and Shel is getting tired and worn. I think the people who are complaining are being disingenuous when they say they are just looking after SAP's money. No one seems to complain about the production quality of certain poorly lit loudmouths spewing in front of an isight. The censorship issue is clearly a red herring. I think someone is jealous of a couple of guys who actually have a sponsorship. - Jay Tannenbaum

The comments were attacks and were not constructive criticism. - Robert Scoble

That's simply not true. I read the comments myself. They were hardly personal attacks. - blackmailismylife

Since I never saw the comments in the first place (and, for the record, I haven't watched the video either), I began wondering what was actually said.

Via the wonders of caching, I was able to retrieve the FastCompany page as of July 6, 2008. At the time, there were only two comments. The first one was, as of late this morning, still on the FastCompany website.

Posted by Tom (not verified) on July 4, 2008 11:48 PM
Great interview. Learned of this site from my Fast Company mag subscription...I'll be a regular visitor.

At the time that Google cached the page, there was only one other comment. That comment, some time between July 5 and July 9, was removed. Here it is, in all of Google's preserved glory:

Posted by Anonymous (not verified) on July 5, 2008 8:07 PM

OMG, how embarrassing. "On our budget, we need free," says Shel. And, hey, here's an idea -- interview Tim Ferris. 2:27 in they still haven't even shown him. Crazy. WTF? Robert, you're doing well, super energy, but Shel...do yourself a favor and go away. You're making a fool of yourself.

Frankly, this comment can be read either way. Here's what some judicious editing can do to the comment.

Posted by Anonymous (not verified) on July 5, 2008 8:07 PM

Here's an idea -- interview Tim Ferris. 2:27 in they still haven't even shown him. Crazy.

On the other hand, here's what some injudicious editing can do to the comment.

Posted by Anonymous (not verified) on July 5, 2008 8:07 PM

OMG, how embarrassing. "On our budget, we need free," says Shel. Robert, you're doing well, super energy, but Shel...do yourself a favor and go away. You're making a fool of yourself.

Now I don't know what any of the other comments were like, but I personally would have left that comment up if I had been the interviewer. Heck, we've seen worse.

(Oops, it doesn't appear that I linked to the video that brought Loren Feldman shame and misfortune. I linked to something from Season 1 of "The Boondocks", as seen on Adult Swim. Dang terrorists.)

[12:55 PM - I WATCHED THE VIDEO...SORT OF...]

Sphere: Related Content