Is Wikipedia Sleazier Than Valleywag?

Totally agree with you Phil...

This fight is actually pretty funny and finally there is more to talk about in the Valley other than Google, valuations, Facebook Scrabble and all the other mundane stuff we hear about.

I think we need to be practical here and not refer to bloggers as journalists per se. Both of these sites exist because people are interested in them. Look at Perez Hilton....would you consider him a journalist? Call him what you want but his site gets more traffic than either of them.

We are covering the "fued" over at CapitalChaos just to lighten up the sometimes boring lingo of who just got funded for $X Million.

ah the joys and rewards of "citizen media".

when you lower the bar, you lower the bar.

Blogging, in general is a sleazy business It takes virtually no training, no credentials, nothing to start a blog. Why would anyone expect these things (this one included) to rival the new York Times in credibility? Read them for what they are - the web version of Entertainment Tonight...

One thing about blogging is that the platform is available for anyone to fire back. This is difficult for some of Valleywag targets especially if they are CEOs. It's easy for Valleywag to attach personally CEOs of companies but it's difficult for CEOs to blog back. Most shareholders frown on the notion of 'blogging back". Being on the receiving end of a series of very false and personal attacks from Valleywag I can tell you it's difficult to blog back if your a CEO.

The real problems with Valleywag and sites like it is that their strategy gets them stuck in the middle between journalism and tabloid. Valleywag tries to report on real stories while mixing in complete bullshit and lies. They should pick one or the other.

I'm simply pointing out a couple of facts:

(1) Arrington does seem to say that his form of journalism is the future of media, and

(2) He has been a part of start-ups as a founder or investor, which is highly unusual for a quality journalist, and he even writes about them. As such, it's fair to point out that he fails alot. Because his judgement is both very critical to his success as a tech writer and completely impaired by all his failures, it's an interesting issue to raise.

Things he invests in or starts don't seem to succeed.

So if Wikipedia, ValleyWag and TechCrunch are all hacks, unsourced slimemeisters with personal agendas who disregard people's privacy and show tons of poor taste (and I don't entirely disagree after reading about Jimmy Wale's "cleanup" of Rachel Mardsen's page, and all their cute IMs on, well, um...ValleyWag!) name me one tech site or tech blog that we can all trust and respect, that we can go back to again and again (hint: I can't think of one, so extra credit if you can - another hint: don't say C|Net, ZDNet, PC World, PC Mag, or TechMeme -as far as I'm concerned, they're too "commercial" and/or they're just linkfests).

Get your thinking caps on, I'll check back later...

Not sure how one defines failure. Is failure not making $100M in a venture or is failure not attempting to build a company.

TC and VW are on two opposite extremes. Whereas SAI is in the middle (IMO). Which one is right?

Totally agree, Max, but this is why people read ValleyWag. Techcrunch tries to hold itself out as the future of journalism and prognasticators. I don't Arrington has the credibility to pull this off. As his audience becomes more aware of his past failures his power will wane.

Well maybe Techcrunch does come across a bit cocky as it thinks its the expert on the Internet like you said. But Valleywag is a snarky below the belt stabbing blog that takes a swipe at everything like its bitch sister Gawker.

I mean, come on Nick Carlson starts slamming the TED conference as celebrity cluster circle. They salm everything! He writes like a petulant teen where Arrington does not. He has some dignity.

Also, what is with all the references to escorts and T&A now on Valleywag - Desperate for traffic spikes? And, who gives cares about Julie Allison?

This is a funny topic. I actually think Techcrunch is worse than all of them. Why? Because they act like they're experts in "all things Internet" and they aren't. As far as I can tell Michael Arrington has done a lot more failing than anything else. We know that much of what ValleyWag writes is BS or gossip, much of it highly suspect and unchecked in the classic sense. Techcrunch act like the arbiters of good taste or future promise. One just needs to look at Arrington's past failures like Edgeio or his current roster of angel investments to know this is not a guy that really understands broad value creation of the web.

I consider TechCrunch to be the sleaziest of all three.

Dave Winer is right on. Wikipedia is a sleaze rag, worse than anything else out there. At least at other tabloids, we know who's writing the crap...and it isn't my ex or my pissed off neighbor.