[jspthrowaway2]

I don't like Dustin Curtis as a person, based on prior history (i.e., American Airlines, presumption in his articles bordering on know-it-all after accomplishing little, and so on). You might find that the majority of the haters you're talking about feel the same; there's been discussion about this recently linked elsewhere in the thread that I won't rehash here. If he's genuinely confused by the hate, that'd be surprising to me. I'm willing to be corrected on my opinion and come around, for what it's worth.

That said, I couldn't care less about Svbtle, frankly, though I certainly understand what it is. Good luck with Y Combinator's investment is my sole commentary on this news: I'm smart enough to divide between Dustin Curtis and Svbtle and realize that my thoughts on and the trajectory of one don't necessarily impact the other.

[w1ntermute]

> I don't like Dustin Curtis as a person, based on prior history (i.e., American Airlines, presumption in his articles bordering on know-it-all after accomplishing little, and so on). You might find that the majority of the haters you're talking about feel the same

I'm guessing that pg's comment was at least partially in response to my own below[0], and you've exactly stated my issue with Curtis and the Svbtle network. There's nothing horribly wrong with the general concept behind Svbtle - perhaps it'll work, perhaps not. It's definitely legitimate enough that it's worth a shot.

But the way dcurtis went about it - the way he worded his initial post on Svbtle, his responses to the Svbtle theme being cloned, and so on, were very off-putting, to say the least. Moreover, the fact that he was so fixated on people copying the theme suggests that he was placing value in the wrong things in Svbtle.

To use a newspaper analogy, is it the layout of the NYTimes that gives it prestige and distinguishes it from your average tabloid rag? Is it the font? Is it the type of paper they use, or the size of the paper? No, it's the content, and the people who create it.

By stirring up such an enormous shitstorm over some people copying the Svbtle theme and creating RoR[1] or WP[2] clones, dcurtis gave up his reputation (which is actually important for running something like Svbtle) in a futile attempt to preserve the uniqueness of the Svbtle theme (which isn't all that important). His best hope now is to spread Svbtle outside the tech community, to people who aren't familiar with him, and thus don't have any impression of him at all yet.

0: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5027577

1: https://github.com/NateW/obtvse

2: https://github.com/gravityonmars/wp-svbtle

[bravura]

I've only been following Svbtle with passive interest, so I cannot recall or comment on how his responses may have been off-putting.

I would like to explain my hypothesis as to why he jumped on the fact that people copied the theme.

Consider pg's statement: "it's what I'd guess a traditional magazine evolves into when it hits the Internet: a loose confederation of lightly edited writers with their own individual reputations"

If you are building brand around a loose confederation of writers, decentralized between domain boundaries, then brand recognition (and, conversely, brand dilution) is an important issue.

Just to dig into your example a little further: Yes, the value in the NYTimes is the content. But if you can't tell whether the content is from the NYTimes or a knock-off competitor, then you don't get the value of recognition when you see something that resembles the NYTimes before you consume the content. So brand differentiation is important for value-creation.

As I said, I don't know how he addressed this question of brand dilution. Nor do I know exactly what the right way to preserve the brand of a loosely federated organization on the wild wild web. Perhaps a trademarked seal for all participating sites?

[batgaijin]

I think he's a bit of a d too, but I never heard about the AA story and just looked it up[1]. I assumed someone got fired because he was whining, but it seems AA fired someone for breaking their NDA to talk about why the website was so crappy. So, to me the story is more AA being the asshole in that story.

[1] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/travelnews/6531610/America...

[jspthrowaway2]

When classifying assholes, there's no rule that states only one party can come out the asshole. Nobody won in that situation.

[lucisferre]

I'm not sure how anything Dustin did there would classify him as an asshole. Maybe I'm missing something.

He blogged about not liking the aesthetics of a website, sparked a discussion with on of the designers of that site and then AA fired the guy and Dustin said that he was "horrified" that it happened.

What's missing?

[Confusion]

Why do you feel the need to post this? Most here don't know you, don't know Dustin Curtis and couldn't care less about what you think of him personally. Your comment doesn't add any information to this discussion.

[rdl]

I would really draw a distinction between "as a person" and professional persona. I don't like a lot of things people say on the Internet, but I'd generally trust even those people to be reasonable people in other contexts. And there are people I respect professionally who turn out to be utterly obnoxious in real life or one on one social settings.