food and wine article about food bloggers

As you may have noticed I closed the comments section on the earlier post about Food and Wine magazine. Let me explain some of the reasons why:

1) I had a hot-headed reaction to the piece which since I have calmed down and reconsidered, I now regret.

2) The article not really such a big deal. Personally I don't like that he singled out recognisible individuals for derision, but other than that the rest of the article made some valid and interesting points. The people he picked on have have their own personal issues with the journalist to sort out, and whilst I respect that, the rest of us should certainly try and be less subjective about the matter.

3) It was pointed out to me (and I actually missed this one myself. sorry), that the author of the piece was being ridiculed about his appearance in the comments on this site, and that kind of behaviour is absolutely unacceptable here.

4) When you have an argument with someone, anyone, we all know lots of silly things are often said in the heat of the moment. Many of us said silly unsensible things in the last day or two, myself included. I have done us all a favour by removing all of the comments from view.

5) Please take this opportunity of a clean slate to rethink your actions with a clear head and put them in perspective. Be funny, be smart, be mature.

6) Things you write on the internet stick around for ever. It seemd like a funny idea at the time to have mean tags and suchlike, but really, does the poor man deserve to be haunted for a lifetime over one article in his career? How would you feel if that happened to you.

7) If your blog never criticises anything, then ignore this next point. Personally, I have written many critical reviews of restaurants on my blog. I certainly wouldn't like it if all restaurant owners were themselves a community of bloggers who banded together to taunt me every time I had a negative opinion about dining out. If you wouldn't like that either - then please think twice before you post your thoughts on this Food and Wine piece.

8) Read the article again. Read it carefully and make sure you really understand what he is saying. As I pointed out before, he makes a lot of very good points worth heeding.
As bloggers we should absolutely be big enough to accept criticism, to learn from it and be capable of improving our output because of it.

9) I am sure Mr Wells is man enough to take criticism himself - he even jokes in the article that he may well have been hit by the snarky writings of Gastropoda too. The man obviously has a sense of humour. Please, everyone, I ask you all to reconsider your reactions to this article and to demonstrate humility and strength in posting about it.

At this point, we all really do have something to prove.

And I would like to apoligize to Pete Wells personally for any upset cause to him by comments that were previously on this blog.

Sam
becksdotposhatgmaildotcom

PS I think it best there are no comments on this post. If anyone wants to rant and rave at me, I suggest they do it in a post on their own blog and not here. I can take it. Thank you.


PS - By allmeans keep blogging cheese sandwiches - nobody in these parts is going to complain about that!