[brazzy]

> it isn't an accident that Jeff blogged about it instead of asking him privately. You do that when you don't care either way what the person says, and it's a completely dick move. As another commenter pointed out, there is no winning move for John Gruber here. That's so obvious that I can't even give Jeff the benefit of the doubt that he overlooked it.

What if he did ask Gruber privately, and the private answer then was the same as the public one now, giving Atwood the choice between disclosing a private conversation, giving up on this, or doing what he has done.

[jspthrowaway]

I'd say you've discovered a hefty dose of speculation that lacks any evidence.

You've also invented a false trichotomy. Those aren't Jeff's only three choices. The fourth one you left out is "make something new without shitting all over Markdown".

[brazzy]

> You've also invented a false trichotomy. Those aren't Jeff's only three choices. The fourth one you left out is "make something new without shitting all over Markdown".

And then everyone would criticize him for NIH syndrome and needlessly fragmenting the markup landscape further. And they would be right.

[brazzy]

What I'm saying is that we should not assume that there was no private conversation just because Atwood doesn't mention it.

[jspthrowaway]

That's precisely what we should assume, because it's the facts as presented. Inferring things that don't exist because they benefit the parties in question is a subtle undercurrent that drives the entirety of our fact-unfriendly blogosphere, tabloids, and so on. You sound a little like an apologetic Gawker reporter, here.

We were given the story at face value, we interpret it at face value. We don't make up what could have been nor consider it acceptable to do so.

[brazzy]

You're making something up as well if you assume Atwood intentionally did not contact Gruber beforehand. That is most definitely NOT interpreting the story at face value.

[smackfu]

The dilemma is that it's basically impossible to contact one of these big blog/twitter folks privately. Send email? DM? I'm sure they get way too much volume (and hatemail) to even read it.

[jonny_eh]

Then you contact a close friend (i.e. "His people"). I'm sure someone as smart and well connected as Jeff Atwood could figure it out.