What a crazy hectic day. To be honest, I'm not as pissed off as the previous posts would make me out to be. I'm just getting it out of my system. 
Why did we - the "Le Resistance" (yes, I know that's bad grammar) - have to resort to doing mass postings and mass linkings? Because we wanted to be heard. We've paid too, and we had two days filled with Microsoft and Google and Yahoo and friends talking and getting no tough questions asked.
It wasn't just that we weren't being listened to - no, wait, it was because we weren't being listened to. We need to make it astoundingly clear to people that we won't stand for being fucked around with.
On the grand scale of attention, taking three days off, flying or taking the train to Paris, booking in to a hotel and spending a large chunk of change on a ticket is a big thing to do. It may not be for people with expense accounts, but for those of us for whom the money comes out of our pockets, it's a big thing.
We don't want to be professionally managed - even though having croissants and orange juice is nice (next year: keep the catering company but the conference needs to change). We want to be able to ask questions, interact. We don't want to be treated like eyeballs - we want to have a conversation. This was totally absent.
This isn't difficult stuff - it's what people like Doc Searls - and, in fact, Loïc Le Meur - have been pushing for the last few years. Indeed, citizen journalism was something that was on the agenda at Les Blogs 2.0 last year - and yet this year non-citizen-journalists, non-participatory-media-ists (in short, the folks with big cameras or big newspapers waiting at home) got in for free, got priority treatment, got seating at the front of the hall. I brought this up because it was relevant. It would be standard operating procedure at any other conference - but at a conference such as this one, it's hypocritical and it makes us have to ask - do we actually believe this stuff or do we just pretend we do so long enough for Google to buy our startup? I do believe in the transformative power of the Internet - perhaps I'm naïve?
I feel sorry for Loïc Le Meur - as Pat Phelan says, it looks like Loïc is going to have a busy week reading Technorati. I hope he and others involved with the Le Web conference realise that this blogging shitstorm could have been avoided by talking to us in person - by getting a proper functioning backchannel going (despite Mena Trott's protestations), by allowing more time for comments, by not insulting our intelligence with big company shills on waffly panels.
I am proud that I am one of only a small number person who managed to get up and say something - of the three comments I tried to make, the one where I managed to get my voice out is the one where I was trying to point out the torrent of bullshit that the conference had been. Somebody needs to have said it. Now back in blogland, people are saying it - and if that makes the organisers uncomfortable, then think about how we feel having our time taken up to help Monsieur Sarkozy in his presidential bid.
I wouldn't have objected to the politicians being there if they were talking to us (allowing us to talk back would have helped too) - but we were just a backdrop for who they were really talking to - the television cameras. They were proving they were "down with the cyberinterweb". They weren't interested in conversation - or at least, if they were there wouldn't be any chance for it to happen.
Loïc - please, let's have the conversation that we didn't have at Le Web. You, me and all the pissed off bloggers. I'll be perfectly happy to come back next year if this kind of shit doesn't happen again (I really want to see Paris properly) - if we can make sure that people can have conversations - because, lord knows, Europe needs what Le Web could have been.
Thank you to all the bloggers - whether you were in Paris or not - who kicked up a stink about this. Today's posts are now on TailRank, Scripting News, MetaFilter. It's being described as a "collision", a "festering corpse", "bullshit" (by the guy who raised the shitstorm last year, no less!) and of "the vast number of disgruntled attendees". There's a whole sphere of opinion which I cannot access because I don't speak French - I'd love to see what people are saying in the blogosphere français. Thank you to the folks in IRC - whether you were in Paris or not - for keeping it all going. Thanks especially to Nicole Simon and Adam Tinworth - who has provided great coverage of the panels while I was busy getting angry.
I have a Eurostar to catch at 9am tomorrow. And I need some sleep before then. Thank you and good night. And if you find yourself at a conference which is boring or lifeless or hypocritical or where the hosts aren't respecting your attention - get angry or these kind of conferences won't ever get any better!
Tags: leweb3, loic le meur, paris
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