Robert Scoble has enraged many in the blogosphere by accepting an invitation to speak to a conference organised and sponsored by PayPerPost – everyone’s most hated blog-related company.

I know this conference will be controversial — one way to get discussions among bloggers broiling is to bring up PayPerPost. Certainly more controversial than speaking at Gnomedex, LIFT, or Northern Voice or something like that.

Why do it then? Cause I’m a capitalist and because I think that blog advertising is something that we should talk about. Disclosure is something those of us who accept payments are figuring out how to do. I didn’t do it well last weekend. Microsoft didn’t do it well when they handed out laptops. And I’m still not that satisfied by PayPerPost’s disclosure policy either. I’m sure we’re far from seeing the last controversy here

Unsuprisingly, he is getting a kicking in the comments. His co-author and friend Shel Israel doesn’t hold back himself:

I am personally dosappointed that you have chosen to do this. To me Pay for Post represents everything that the book you and I wrote opposes. I wish you would change your mind. This will not help your reputation.

One more thought, Robert. You taught me the standards for blogging that I adhere to. It is what you taught me that makes me so passionately oppose Pay per Post, who have shown themselves to be the sidewalk hookers of the blogosphere. Robert, I really hope you cancel. In the long run, you will be doing PodTech a service.

It seems like Scoble is on a mission to destroy the goodwill he has built up for himself, what with this and last week’s hissy fit. Very strange behaviour.

[tags]scoble, payperpost, shel israel[/tags]

Steve Rubel asks why it is that not many blogging and other social media platforms allow commenters to edit or delete the comments they make on community based sites.

Everyone sticks their foot in it from time to time. If you do this
on your own blog, you can edit the post and take it back. You could
delete the post too, but it’s not looked on very positively. Still, if
you leave a comment on some other site, you very often need to live
with it. So you better think twice before lambasting your friend for
slamming Jethro Tull on his blog.

There’s really no reason why community sites shouldn’t offer this
option. It’s good for everyone involved. Three sites, at least that I
know of, allow you to edit or even delete your comments. They’re the
social saints.

These ‘social saints’ are Flickr, Blogger and Facebook.

WordPress doesn’t feature the ability for commenters to edit what they write. There might be a plugin out there that does something like that, I don’t know. But for me, it should be up to the blogger – the site owner – whether a comment is changed or deleted. A commenter can always send an email to the site owner, or add another comment clarifying things.

To my mind, the person that makes the decision on the site is the person that is responsible for it. There have been countless examples of bloggers getting grief for deleting comments from their sites – allowing others to do so just clouds matters and complicates things, especially when the deleted or edited comment has already become a part of a conversation.

[tags]steve rubel, blogging, comments[/tags]

Also posted at Performancing