Jon Pretty

Plenty of disagreements have been solved by sitting down and talking things through, yes, but bullying isn't mere disagreement, esp when the same pattern of behavior keeps repeating, and it's ridiculous to ask victims to sit down and solve differences.

It may be futile to hope that some differences can ever be resolved, though I prefer to try. But we shouldn't call marketing claims (and here I'm deliberately taking no opinion on them) "bullying" either, even if they're tiresome and bogus... unless you saw something I didn't?

You can try, I've always admired you for that, but unless the aggressor stops being an aggressor, at some point it becomes victim blaming. The repeated bullying behavior should be obvious, but I'll shut up, lest I might get a cease and desist letter

The best cease and desist letter is the one that doesn't even need to be sent... ;) But seriously, there's so much nuance in the interpretation of various tweets that in the case of @jdegoes, everyone should at least be very precise in their criticisms.

There is so much ill-will and mixed context that it's very easy to characterize "aggressive marketing" as "bullying" or "disagreement" as "arguing". If anything, I'd encourage people to be focused in every reply, because there's a wide gray area that's exacerbating the problem.

I'm no longer interested in gray areas or giving him the benefit of the doubt, sorry. That ship has sailed. I guess I'm doing some "aggressive marketing" and "arguing" right now too, and will continue to do so Please don't bring him again in my mentions.

Specifically, if someone says something unfairly critical of Cats, don't call it "bullying" because that's a different, categorically ad-hominem thing. It undermines the argument against John and it undermines actual bullying when it happens.

Except when John says something critical of Cats, it can very well be that he has an axe to grind. His opinions on technology correlate with his ongoing conflicts or partnership ambitions. And when he screws up, he then deletes his online traces, after the damage was done.