Paul Scrivens wrote a post today blasting Bryan Veloso of Avalonstar. Bryan stopped blogging for the month of April without responding to emails, and Paul felt it appropriate to “call him out” in a post today. Avalonstar was a popular member of Paul’s 9rules blogging network and was one of the network’s greatest proponents. Despite their past relationship, Paul chose to publicly defame Bryan based on speculation and frustration.
Paul and the 9rules crew kicked Bryan out after not posting for just one month. During that month, Bryan’s blog hosted a message from his fiance explaining that Bryan was taking an indefinite break and asked everyone to understand. Yet Paul felt like he was owed an explanation.
Update: 9:27 PM: Mike Rundle explains the button is merely the result of a plugin, without mal intent. Thanks for the correction.
Paul feels that “calling Bryan out” is the appropriate action to take, even though he, and everybody else, still has no clue why Bryan stopped blogging.
In his post “Ego, Being a Man, and Opening Your Eyes”, Paul calls Bryan’s actions child-like, disrespectful, and egotistical. The post is filled with speculation (e.g. Paul insinuates the message from Bryan’s fiancée was designed by Bryan and was insincere) and Paul’s disrespect for Bryan is apparent from the first sentence — (”Bryan Veloso let his woman post an ominous message talking in vague words about how something has happened with his site”..)
Paul lost a bit of my respect today. It’s one thing to “call Bryan out” in a respectful manner—but disrespecting and defaming him publicly is horribly inappropriate and rather ironic. Bryan was an important part of Paul’s community—if Paul really respected him he wouldn’t have cast his scorn on him so quickly.
Being a man means not resorting to ad-hominem attacks when polite criticism will suffice. People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
† Tyme White of 9rules explains that Bryan was removed due to standard 9rules policy of no site, no 9rules. I understand the need for consistency, but maintain it was a mistake to dismiss Bryan so quickly.
1) The Digg This button is on every entry, it’s a plugin.
2) “Rather than resolving his personal issues with Bryan in private, Paul aired his grievances in public today on his blog.” As mentioned in the post and in several comments, we did try to communicate with Bryan numerous times (even after 9rules members put together a support site which he never acknowledged either). Bryan made it seem as though his life was in disarray, but at the same time was posting messages on Twitter and playing DDR, two things that are obviously more important to him than replying to any of our emails (or any of our members’ emails either.)
3) “Paul lost a bit of my respect today. It’s one thing to “call Bryan outâ€? in a respectful manner—but disrespecting and defaming him publicly is horribly inappropriate and rather ironic.” I suppose we were simply returning the favor, since he disrespected us and many of our members when we tried to offer our support and he never even acknowledged us with a reply to our dozens of emails.
4) “People who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.” Maybe that analogy would make sense if Paul pulled his blog down and came back without any explanation, but because he hasn’t, the analogy doesn’t stick.
1 — I just added an update to the post correcting my mistake on the digg this button. Since I only saw it on that specific post, I assumed it was added intentionally.
2 — I never said it was inappropriate to criticize Bryan. He may deserve criticism, and perhaps he was irresponsible, but that doesn’t mean Paul has license to publicly ridicule Bryan. What Paul did was mean, disrespectful—almost spiteful.
3 — Bryan didn’t publicly attack 9rule’s credibility in front of an audience of 7,472. Perhaps you felt disrespected by his lack of communication, but he wasn’t demonizing you on his blog. I hardly consider what Paul wrote to be “returning the favor”.
4 — Perhaps the analogy isn’t perfect. What I meant to communicate was the irony of Paul calling Bryan disrespectful while himself being completely disrespectful of Bryan. Being a man means you don’t “return the favor” and engage in 3rd grade pissing contests.
Again, criticize Bryan all you want, but do it in a civil manner. Disrespect shouldn’t beget disrespect.
This is a tough one, it really is. No one wants to hate on someone they are friends with/look up to/admire, but I really couldn’t convince myself that the way Bryan handled things was acceptable. As I mentioned in a comment on Scivs’ post…
Also, Bryan is no longer a 9rules member because he doesn’t have any content to offer the network. I doubt very much he would have been given the boot had he returned with his archives.
Matt, I agree that Paul is entitled to criticise Bryan—maybe that criticism is even deserved, as Bryan could have certainly handled things better than he did. What I find offensive is Paul’s mean-spirited attitude towards Bryan in his post. Public discourse is fine, but public attacks and defamation ar