That’s what you learn when you’ve been a brash, arrogant jerk on the Internet for a long enough period of time. Trust me. I know. I’ve been there, and if you want a cite … groups.google.com, alt.books.tom-clancy, morrisg@uah.edu between 1997 and 1999.

HTH. HAND. YMMV. YHBT.

The links you gave do provide some proof, and yeah, they reference some feedback. But that’s not exteremely extensive. That feedback seems to indicate more about the timing of the contests, not the actual setup of them. It does show that eris has BTDT.

I especially like the ‘We’ve gone over the valuable input from everyone who submitted and learned quite a bit on how to make the Auctions better.’ bit in the last one. But the Wordpress community has a well-established tendency to jump down people’s throats if they dare to suggest that something isn’t already 100% perfect and could be improved. There’s no point even trying to contribute to a group with that kind of mindset, which is one of the reasons why I stopped posting on the forums, and why eris should have realised that her feedback would not be welcome.

I’m also still waiting for some contest examples, so we can stop picking nits over semantics.

GFM <– “Arguing with an engineer is like mud-wrestling with a pig: you both get dirty, and after a while, you realize that the pig enjoys it.”

It’s simple pedagogy, people: if you have to qualify your criticism with “I’ve done this before”, it implies that you’re afraid of your criticism going unnoticed or unregarded. If it gets ignored … so? If Eris really has run other contests–and I have no reason to doubt that she might have, truthfully–she should run her own. There’s nothing stopping her.

Eris: in complaining, you are saying that you would have rather seen it done “your way”. If you can’t see that, you really need to be LART’d repeatedly. See my comments about the need to buttress your criticism. If you had relevant examples, cite them! The Internet loves links. I would dearly love to see an example cited.

Oh and on a side note, eris only pointed out that she had done other competitions after you started your eris-bashing fest at Alex’s blog. She came in with a nice suggestion, and the response was that she was “brash and arrogant.” How would you act in that situation? I think you’d try and defend yourself too!

Eris went from: “i am just giving you my opinion because i think this is a good idea and i see room for improvement. and i say this as someone who has been organizing and participating in web design auctions and contests in the blogging community for almost three years now.”

to: “i have just been down this road before both as a participant and as a judge and i’m just trying to offer my opinion and perhaps help you jump over some future hurdles that you’re going to encounter.”

The first I don’t doubt. The second I see no evidence for in terms of “I’ve been a judge”.

Now, I have no reason to doubt that eris does better design work than I do; my designs aren’t that great. But it is EXTREMELY ARROGANT AND BRASH to come on and tell the people who ran a contest how they should have run it in your eyes. It smacks of sour grapes by someone whose designs weren’t picked.

I think the guidelines spoke for themselves: intentionally vague, open to ideas. Yes, there was cash money involved, and some of it was mine. Do I feel as if my dollars are ill-spent? No. Do you? Perhaps. But I ask: What damn business is that of yours? Even though Alex is a developer of WordPress, is any of this on the WordPress.org domain? Is it official in any way? If I wanted to give Alex $50 for just being a buddy and responding to my IM’s every once in a while, that’s my God-given right.

I owe no apology. And if eris wants to consider this “sophomoric character attack”, then fine. I find it amusing that someone who seems to hide their entire net.presence behind a net.handle would dare to do that. In this case, you know that Geoffrey F. Morris of Huntsville, AL, USA thinks that this situation is foolish and stupid and smacks of sour grapes. Want to talk to me about it personally? I work for Teledyne Brown Engineering [see the sidebar]. Call 256.726.1000 and ask to speak to me during business hours. Patty at the front desk will be happy to route your call to my extension.

I never, ever, saw eris personally insult anyone in any of her comments. However, she got insulted herself. With this in mind, who was really being a “brash, arrogant jerk” ?

In addition, I would like to say that I do agree with eris in everything she said. Perhaps I wouldn’t have said it in the same way, but I do agree with them nevertheless.

Before you start bashing eris and her qualifications, I’d also recommend you check out her website, so you know what sort of a person you are talking about.

If you do, I’m sure you’ll realize that eris does know her stuff when it comes to design, and I think an apology to her is due.

its “she”.