Alas, the blog go around. Apparently Amy is…. sniff….. sniff.. sad about our recent barking on her “Re-name RSS contest”. On her latest update (wow, “Elert” and “Newsfeed” have moved up on “Grapevine”) Amy sobs:
Also, “Grapevine” was recently excoriated in the geek-oriented weblog CogDogBlog. Sadly, this is yet another example of how some software developers really don’t seem to be able to grasp that the rest of the world doesn’t think like them…
Oh what a wretched cruel, sad, horrible, nastly, mean world it is! I am such a horrible geek! Eeeeeek!
I would despise a world where others think like me. Scary The net environment, for the matter, life, is what it is for the plurality of opinions. And glory be for weblogs that allow us to express the opinions.
But the point still stands- “Grapevine” or “Elert” or “Bealzebubblegumjouce” does not make the concept of accessing information via RSS any simpler or more intuitive. Just because a buzz word makes sense to Amy and her fans who lobby her contest with votes, does it apply across the cultures of the net? Does it make sense in India? in China? In Fiji? in Buffalo? 😉
What is truly sad is the misguided notion that one can re-name a term that has already spread across the net, a spreading meme. How about renaming “World Wide Web?” Does that name really tell you what it is? It is too long, it does not roll off the tongue! Do all of Amy’s sad friends really understand what that is? Let’s rename the web “Biff”.
Cute 🙂
Anyway, to clarify:
My use of the word “sadly” in my blog entry, which you cited, did not refer to my own emotional state, but rather to how unfortunate it is that some intelligent people are apparently unable or unwilling to grasp that a world of communication exists beyond their subculture.
Also, with regard to your comment above about the term “World Wide Web” see my Jan. 28 posting concerning what Tim Berners-Lee had to say about that term: http://blog.contentious.com/archives/000090.html
– Amy Gahran
Editor, CONTENTIOUS
That’s me, lost in my own subculture. I guess working on and via the net since 1987 can make things like that happen.
A cardinal rule of being on the net is to question everything you read and not to accept it on face value.
OK lets get on this Web->Biff rollover thing; I’m behind it 100%. All our web browsers can be renamed *Biffilators*, and the act of browsing could be called *Biffing*, as in “I spent a couple of hours last night biffing. I will no longer create websites – it’ll be *Biff-burps* instead, and individual pages will be “Biff-whifs”. Those who manage and create Biff-burps will be *Biffmeisters*
And we can really rename the internet as the *interweb*!! Bonus
;^)
You’ve got the concept, Rob! Bifferos to you.