John Gruber Is Surprisingly Cool With DaringFireballWithComments.net, Dev Says [UPDATED]

John Gruber's Daring Fireball is getting comments, thanks to DaringFireballWithComments.net.

UPDATE: Just got word that Gruber is NOT cool with the site, and is demanding it be taken down. This about 20 mins after this post was published. Guess the “reasonably parodic period” is up. That was quick.

I’ve just been IM-ing with John Casasanta, the brains behind DaringFireballWithComments.net – a website that mirrors Apple pundit John Gruber’s Daring Fireball blog — with the addition of reader comments on posts.

Casasanta says he’s received a short note from Gruber, who says he’s cool with the site. Gruber even gave Casasanta permission to keep the site up for a “reasonably parodic period” of time.

“This absolves me of any lawsuit,” says Casasanta, who runs the super-popular MacHeist software marketing operation.

As reported yesterday, DaringFireballWithComments.net mirrors everything on Daring Fireball — posts, ads and all — but allows anonymous commenting on posts. Gruber’s blog is famous for not having comments, an ethos at odds with most other web publishers (except Engadget, which has temporarily shut down its “out-of-control” comments system). Casasanta is mirroring Gruber’s site as a “social experiment.”

Meanwhile, most of the comments on DaringFireballWithComments.net so far have been exceptionally moronic, partly proving Gruber’s point that comments are a distraction.

Casasanta says he is unconcerned by the stupidity (which appears to be mostly purposeful. People are being deliberately dumb) and is willing to give it time. “It’s kinda what I would’ve expected so far,” he says.

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One option is moderating the comments, but Cassanta says it hasn’t been discussed yet.

Gruber hasn’t responded to a couple of notes I sent him asking for comment, and hasn’t yet mentioned the mirror on his site or Twitter stream. As some have noted, with about 40,00 followers, Gruber’s Twitter stream acts as Daring Fireball’s behind-the-scenes comments system.

12 comments »

About the author

Leander Kahney is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac, and author of three books about technology culture: Inside Steve’s Brain, the New York Times bestseller about Steve Jobs; Cult of Mac; and Cult of iPod. Leander has written for Wired, MacWeek, Scientific American, and The Guardian in London. Follow Leander on Twitter @lkahney and Facebook.

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http://mcdevzone.com/ Mike Cohen
I thought the moronic level of the comments was the whole point of it, as performance art and to demonstrate the uselessness of comments.
Sam
I’m not surprised the comments are mostly moronic. Engadget turned off comments because a small but significant number of people think its alright to show that they have little or no mental capacity and like to behave worse than small children.
I think if you want to have comments, fine; but don’t criticize people that choose not to put up with that rubbish.
Yes I realize I am commenting, thereby proving… something.
http://ObamaPacman.com ObamaPacman
I like turtles?
(Just kidding).
Well like any site, there needs to some moderation, otherwise the trolls will run wild.
Alfred
Comments can be useful, if only people would moderate them properly. All posts which are in any way flippant or disrespectful or use bad language, should be removed, along with any replies. This encourages fair, respectful and intelligent discussions, and weeds out those who would bring it down.
“Free speech” is not to be confused with childishness, insults, and a disrespectful tone.
I’m happy to say that usually the comments here at CoM are of good quality. I assume that’s due to the occasional use of the delete button.
http://www.toxicspark.com Andrew Macdonald
Im not surprised he is a little pissed off with this website. Think of the duplicate content filters in the search engines. Grubers official site could be harmed in the rankings because some other site is blatantly ripping off a site, with the content in its entirety.
Michael
This whole exercise is completely moronic and could be detrimental to Gruber’s own website. If you have an issue with John’s opinion you are free to set up your own website and argue your counter-points. Completely duplicating someone’s website is ethically wrong on so many levels.
Muse
“I thought the moronic level of the comments was the whole point of it, as performance art and to demonstrate the uselessness of comments.”
Bingo. Maybe the fact that the Comments site was full of stupidity and moronic commentary, Gruber was happy to “let his detractors speak for themselves”.
Sometimes Free Speech is its own worst enemy.
Montana Bob
I think I just got a million dollar idea: the very first (PRINT) Tech Tabloid magazine to ever hit the newstands, and is sold at grocery stores, Wal-Marts and Best Buys all over the world.
It focuses on the drama queen fights, gossip, and catfights that happen all the time in the tech industry. It spreads rumors about Steve Jobs already being dead for the third time! And then reports that Steve Ballmer of Microsoft is already dying of Stage-3 rectal cancer. And then we have articles about John Gruber versus the Gruber-haters. Apple versus Adobe. Apple versus Google. Apple versus Microsoft (old news). Google versus China. And some snapshots of Heidi Montag naked mud-wrestling against Octomom. Heidi is wearing a G-string with the Apple logo. Octomon’s bikini has the Google Android logo.
Montana Bob
In Issue #3 of Tech Tabloid magazine, we’ll make up some story about Leander Kahney, a stray dog, Steve Wozniak, and illegal use of KY Jelly.
John Brownlee
For the record, I agree: this is basically content theft, and it dilutes Gruber’s own site’s value markedly. Gruber should be pissed.
Peter Ripley
I was thinking of doing this myself, but considered it insufficiently original:
Back in the day, The New Yorker was famous for not printing letters to the editor (Tina Brown changed all that). Anyway, Spy Magazine started their own letters-to-the-editor-of-The-New-Yorker column.
The distinction here of course is that it’s not just the comments but the content too.
Tabby
The site is back online — as a distribution point for a Safari extension that adds comments to Gruber’s own site. Presumably the comments are stored on the With Comments database.