What's the matter with Joe Wilcox?

His diatribe of last year challenging a recuperating Steve Jobs to return to work full time:

What has Apple done truly innovative in your absence? Not much… Of course, you don’t want to admit it. But, c’mon, Steve. Let’s be men discussing it.

His challenge to John Gruber five days ago to allow comments on Daring Fireball:

So I close with this challenge: Be a man, John Gruber, and allow comments at Daring Fireball.

Why the ridiculous “manly” posturing?

And then, after John responds, Joe turns around and removes comments from his blog.

The Macalope obviously enjoys a bit of posturing himself but — at least from where he’s sitting — the shtick only works when a) it’s funny and b) it’s coming from the floppy drive mouth of a mythical character.

Comments
  • Innocent Bystander:

    Lets be honest here, gruber IS a douchebag. Wilcox may be wrong about Apple. Dicknose may be right about Apple.

    But gruber exhibits all of the intellectual dishonesty, snottiness, smugness and downright dishonesty as any of the Windows shills.

    Worse, gruber is a political fascist who endorses the removal of free speech from private enterprises, while making his living via the ability to express his ignorant opinions to a wide audience. This makes dicknose a hypocrite of the highest order.

    It is, however, entertaining to read his site and watch him make an ass out of himself while being so clueless about reality that he never realizes it.

    Quite different from reading The Macalope, who may be a mythical ass, but is genuinely entertaining. Further, whatever party the macalope belongs to, I remain blissfully ignorant because the macalope has the professionalism to stick to the point.

    • David K:

      I’m going to suggest that you consider therapy for the clear anger issues you’ve got going dude. It’ll make your life a lot better, seriously.

      As for your attack on Gruber, perhaps rather than vague baseless accusations you might support your position with some examples of the extreme statements you are making.

      Incidentally why SHOULD private enterprises be granted free speech? They are not individuals, therefore they can hold no opinions of their own. Whats next? Granting them the right to vote? How many votes do they get? One? One per employee? How about we start applying other rights and rules to corporations. Only corporations 21 years or older can purchase alcohol (sorry Google, your office parties just got boooring). Only corporations who are atleast 18 years old are allowed to merge (I can hear the wedding bells now!).

      There is absolutely NOTHING logically inconsistent with defending the free speech rights of a person while also believeing those rights do not apply to a buisness (which is, not, you know, a person).

      Pardon me I’m going to go by a couple plane tickets, one for me and one for my friend Starbucks.

    • Gary Patterson:

      “Worse, gruber is a political fascist who endorses the removal of free speech from private enterprises, while making his living via the ability to express his ignorant opinions to a wide audience. This makes dicknose a hypocrite of the highest order.”

      You don’t think that’s taking it a bit far, do you?

      I don’t want to stop your hate-fuelled rant, especially when you’re so worked up, but you’re clearly getting over-emotional on this.

      Perhaps you might want to take a break from forums and blogs. It seems you need to reconnect with the real world (where there are *actual* fascists, not just people who you don’t agree with, and they have *real* impacts on people, not just on a blog you don’t like).

  • Sigivald:

    You know, when I go to a blog, and I see blogs with tag clouds and “social” crap all over them…

    I know they’re going to be sucky new-media-douchebag crap.

    This heuristic is almost never wrong.

  • Emily WK:

    “Do you have a John Gruber story you’d like to have told?”

    What is he, the boogeyman? Yeah, I’ve got a John Gruber story I’d like Joe Wilcox to tell. It’s about how he regularly raises the bar in what the conversation about Apple should be like.

    Think he’ll tell it?

  • Oh, Macalope, this is one topic you should run from. Anonymous commenting is the bane of the Internet, and aren’t you the anonymous one hiding behind your horns.

    That little ribbing aside, the year-ago post about Jobs was sincerely meant for him to return and excel (which he has done, by the way). The post came to mean something else after being reinterpreted by some Macheads (who shall remain nameless).

    As for John Gruber: It’s clear he won’t turn on comments at Daring Fireball, and he made a reasonable case for it — and it is his blog. If John doesn’t want to try it my way, then I’ll try it his way. I want to know: Is curation or commenting better for the story’s narrative? I want to stir up discussion about this topic, too (Thanks for your participation there).

    Let me ask you, Macalope: Do you feel comments add to or take away from your narrative, from your storytelling?

    • There’s *anonymous* and then there’s *pseudonymous*, Joe.

      Personally, the Macalope is on the fence about the utility of comments. Since he’s often incendiary, he feels it’s probably better for him to have open comments (comments here are moderated only to keep the spam out and weed out the racism, etc.).

      It’s a tremendous pain in the ass, though. There’s the administration and then there’s responding to people who don’t know the issues, didn’t read the post, obsess over spelling and grammar issues and so on. Most commenters here are thoughtful and well behaved. That’s why the Macalope still has them.

      Even though he’s only part man.

  • Doesn’t b) imply a)?

  • Clark:

    You know, the sad thing about Joe Wilcox is that he only likes to talk about Apple. He’s a Microsoft Fanboy who admits that he finds most Microsoft products boring. He maybe wrote 10 posts blasting the iPad and now all of a sudden, he admits he was wrong about the iPad.

    The dude has a serious mental issues, or maybe he’s doing it on purpose. He doesn’t hold a strong opinion very long.

  • homeslice:

    Perhaps Innocent Bystanders may want to stop projecting their personal deficiencies onto those with whom they disagree.

    I don’t always agree with Gruber, but ad hominem arguments like this demonstrate the solidity of Gruber’s position on DF’s lack of comments. Most of what people write is noise because the unfortunate truth is that the vast majority of comments on anything remotely controversial add absolutely nothing to the debate.

    What I do like about DF is the quality of Gruber’s reasoning. Both he and the present Mythical Beast flourish precisely because most writers posing as “analysts” wouldn’t know a piece of real analysis until it gores them in the ass.

    The real problem is that there really are not very many people with the time, motivation, or skills to hold a polite and well-reasoned discussion from which one could learn anything about a divisive topic. To maintain quality in the conversation, one needs to moderate, which must take an awful lot of time. It’s no surprise Gruber doesn’t want to deal with that thankless task.

    On the other hand, after the two-week comment ban, Mr. Wilcox should try moderating his comments to eliminate the rude and unintelligent junk. I’m guessing that Mr. Wilcox won’t last two weeks with that last part.

    • Innocent Bystander:

      I always love to be personally attacked, and then accused of “ad hominem”!

      I was sincere when I said it was amusing to watch dicknose tear apart the analysis of an anti-apple writer, and then turn around and use the same kind of intellectual dishonesty, straight dishonesty, and disingenuousness himself when it comes to politics.

      When you equate all disagreement with ignorance, then it becomes easy to claim that comments are pointless because they will be ignorant.

      Reality is, Gruber can’t stand the light of day, or honest disagreement.

      If he had comments, he’d be called out for using the same tactics he calls out in others.

      Wilcox is right that it is cowardice.

      • Innocent Bystander:

        By the way, like everything else I’ve said I can back my claims up with examples.

        Awhile back someone set up a site specifically for people to comment on daring fireball articles.

        This is a different site at a different URL and thus there was no possibility for it to contaminate the garden of pure ideology gruber thinks he’s cultivating.

        He couldn’t stand it, and demanded that it be taken down.

        So, the whole claim about protecting the hallowed integrity of his website is complete bullshit.

        He can’t tolerate disagreement.

        I can’t say this is an unusual characteristic of political partisans, from the right and the left. Though those on the left are particularly intolerant, in my experience.

      • bradi:

        Oh “innocent” dude – I am “replying” to your next comment…. I can’t agree that those on the Left are more intolerant than those on the Right. Personally, I think the Leftist (I made a funny) are often more tolerant – BUT, they get called out more since many of the underlieing tenants of their “politics” are girded by tolerance. When someone who has no tolerance for anything, no grays, displays tolerance for different opinions they get some sort of extra credit.

        I will concede in advance there is far too much intolerance – both of others opinions and of those who disagree with one’s own strongly held beliefs. And no side in this debate can safely cast stones…..

        I am unaware of the “talk about daring fireball” site you mention, but if it is factual as you present, I wouldn’t argue your point there.

        Comment on The Antlered one’s point: comments certainly seem to be a “bitch”, but I do agree those on his (this) site are generally high caliber.

  • Chuck:

    “What I do like about DF is the quality of Gruber’s reasoning. Both he and the present Mythical Beast flourish precisely because most writers posing as “analysts” wouldn’t know a piece of real analysis until it gores them in the ass.”

    Bingo.

    What’s got Joe all frosted is that John is just a better writer and a better analyst.

    I read Gruber everyday. I mostly agree with him, but even when I don’t, I’m impressed with the logical thought and the clear expression.

  • Fake Joe Wilcox:

    > Why the ridiculous “manly” posturing?

    Because I think we all know that women are irrational girly people who are constantly scared of everything, like comments and discussions. We men do everything better, because we do it like men, you know? I’m Joe Wilcox, and I ain’t no little girl like those people who don’t even own penises, I’m a tough man because I’m a man! With a penis! It’s even part of my name! And men are better! So let’s do it like men! And by “do it”, I don’t men sex. Because I’m not gay. And I’m not a girl. I’m a manly man. It’s the best kind of man, and the best kind of human in general.

  • Axian:

    Beta News – 10 years of beta testing the perfect troll algorithm. I think they did it.

  • His Shadow:

    “Innocent Bystander

    …gruber exhibits all of the intellectual dishonesty…”

    Pardon my French, but bull-fvcking-shit. I notice you have no examples, so by “intellectual dishonesty” I’ll take you to mean “I disagree with John Gruber but don’t know why, so he must be lying somehow”.

    Feel free to prop up your vitriol with something akin to evidence.

    • bradi:

      Now “Shadow”, “Innocent” did present an example. Let’s not make our host sorry he allows comments…..

      One additional point: I read Gruber every day. I often agree with him, say 60% of the time, but another 30% of the time I don’t, the last 10% I reserve for those WTF moments. But my actual point is: he is a Philadephian (sp) – they’re known for strong opinions and expressiveness (there that was pc) so I can actually see where “Innocent” is coming from. Besides some folks just don’t enjoy dashes of politics in their tech dishes. Different strokes for ……

      And one more thing: Gruber is well thought out, a decent wordsmith, etc. As an often read blogger he is bound to step on some toes and be rightly taken to task for it. If you aren’t making someone mad, you probably aren’t trying.

  • bradi:

    Dear Macalope: I think your “time” is broken. Or perhaps it is GMT? I post this at 2:54pm central. So, the time at top right of comment should be what?

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