02 March 2006

Open letter to Vito Delsante (incogvito)

[Since you have your comments screened, I'm guessing you probably won't release this one... UPDATE: He's since unscreened my comment.]

Dude, your violin really needs a tuneup. If I was stalking you, I wouldn't have friended you, I simply would have checked in periodically, or subscribed to your feed.

If you didn't want people reading your PUBLIC journal, you should have taken advantage of LJ's private posting feature BEFORE you started running around the internet denying the sky was blue a couple of months ago. I didn't know who the hell you were until you took on Speakeasy's PR, doing a lousy job of spin control while the company was circling the drain.

Maybe your first friends-only post should be one apologizing to any creators you may have misled about Speakeasy's health while Fortier was taking advantage of your eagerness to see your own project finally published.

He got it all. And made me look like an idiot in the process.

Actually, other than your retracted press release prematurely announcing your PR/editor duties and vague teases about upcoming "big" announcements, I didn't get anything from your journal. As for making you look like an idiot, that was all your and Fortier's doing. You want to get mad at someone, look north, and then look in the mirror.

9 comments:

Guy LeCharles Gonzalez said...

F'd up thing is we were emailing back and forth last night and I thought we had come to a relative understanding, if not agreement, but then I see that post this morning, and just a few minutes ago, found out he was bcc'ing at least one prominent comics blogger on the emails when she outed him to me and told him to stop. Tool!

Mark Fossen said...

I guess I'm stupid about this things, and livejournal confusus me more, but ...

Am I understanding this? He published comments in a public forum, and is upset you read them? A "cyber stalker" is someone who reads a blog?

Guy LeCharles Gonzalez said...

In Delsante's bizarro world, apparently.

Thing with LiveJournal is a lot of its users see it as a community as opposed to the open frontier of Blogger, et al. They take their "friends" lists literally, as opposed to the built-in blogroll it really is. ie: some people get offended when a "friending" isn't reciprocated.

LJ also offers the ability to post public or private entries, the latter of which you can dictate whom gets to view based on your setup of your own friends list, and that is what Delsante is referring to doing moving forward.

Anonymous said...

I've had the "that was on my Livejournal! And you are most definitely not a friend!" conversation before now...

I'm not a fan of e-mail war or words. Doing it publically gives you a much better perspective...

Guy LeCharles Gonzalez said...

Lord help me, but I'm agreeing with Rich Johnston?!?!

Anonymous said...

Maybe because we argue publically. Nothing like having the eyes of others on you to make sure that what you're saying makes sense, and stops you going all doolally. Most of the time.

Also brings your own biases into sharp relief.

I don't think we've got that many differences. On the Speakeasy thing, you're convinced I have an agenda that I don't, but aside from a mind meld, it would be hard to disprove. Aside from that, do we differ much?

Anonymous said...

>A "cyber stalker" is someone who reads a blog?

Bring back Fanboy Rampage...

Guy LeCharles Gonzalez said...

I'm less convinced that you have an agenda, per se -- beyond opportunism, which I applaud you for -- and have been more critical of your not seeing the potential conflict of interest inherent in your covering this story. Not unlike the criticism Heidi's received for her coverage of NYCC. It's a no-win situation that you either opt out of completely, or have to push that much harder on. Fortier basically used you as a megaphone, first to announce his new policy, then to bash the Grafiksismik crew.

Beyond that, though, from what I know of you, I agree, we are disturbingly similar in a lot of ways. When I described you to my wife, she was like, "Yeah, that sounds like you."

Maybe I need to reconsider my general lack of interest in writing comics?

Anonymous said...

Opportunism? Definitely!

Oh I'm sure there's a potential conflict of interest. There's always a potential conflict of interest in everything thing I write. I this case, ust not an actual one.

Fortier didn't use me to announce that policy. I got wind of it and dragged it out of him. He cooperated, most don't. As for the Grafiksismik piece, againb, I was running that with or without comment but, as with pretty much everyone, I gave Fortier to right to reply. Unlike pretty much everyone, he took it.

I guess I'd rather have a potential conflict of interest than a lack of interest.