SteveSi censored me?

Here’s what happened:

1. I read Steven Sinofsky’s recent post about PMs at Microsoft
2. I disagreed with a few things in his post and responded in my blog
3. I posted a manual trackback in his comments since his blog platform doesn’t have trackbacks
4. He deleted my comment in his blog because I had a link to Mini-MSFT’s blog at the very end of my response

I know it’s his blog and he can do whatever he wants on his blog, but I was still shocked and appalled by his actions. I decided to e-mail him and we had a brief thread. Basically he told me that 1. he doesn’t think anonymous blogs add any value and 2. he doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with arbitrarily deleting comments (he says the “social norms” of blogging haven’t been established yet). I disagree with him on both points, but I’ll concede that he’s entitled to his opinion.

Here’s a little snippet from our thread that I found pretty confusing…

I think what I reacted to is that you claimed that mini represents the way things are at Microsoft so read that, and you “guarantee it”. Given that mini is anonymous and you do not work at Microsoft, from my perspective that is a bit over the top.

I agree that maybe that statement was over the top; I’ve updated my post in light of that. However, I’ve e-mailed Steven back about the fact that I did work for Microsoft – so I have ample first-hand experience – and that my previous post wasn’t based on Mini-MSFT at all. Well, it seems he’s decided to ignore my reply and the sentiment of many people who don’t agree with his censoring actions – including other Microsoft employees…

At first, I could understand that it was a simple mistake where he thought I was just quoting some stuff out of Mini’s blog/comments and disagreeing with his post. But now that he knows the context and should realize that my previous post isn’t based on an anonymous source, I would think that in the spirit of healthy communication, Steve would restore the original comment and encourage some constructive discussion.

Again, I understand it is “Steven Sinofsky’s Microsoft TechTalk” so he can do whatever he wants on his blog, but can someone talk to him about how transparency and open discussions work out here in the blogosphere? Hey Scoble, can you have a chat with Steve about this please?