If I really have become the cranky curmudgeon that posted all of those horrible things about SocialDevCamp on Twitter all day Saturday, I deserve any cranky old man jokes that come my way.

That being said, I don't take a word of it back. During the entire conference this year I had flashbacks to the ACLU member conference in DC two years ago. Now I love the ACLU but there's something that happens with the confluence of bleeding heart liberals, a strong bent on freedom of speech and expression, a question format for varied and interesting guests that consists of an open microphone available on the floor, and C-SPAN. That confluence at the ACLU conference was the crazy eugenics woman.

Crazy eugenics woman was a conspiracy theorist and held some position at an ACLU branch somewhere in Texas. With a wanton disregard for the topic or any thread of discussion, she was able to plant herself in the line to question every speaker in every workshop she was in with a tortured speech-as-question that inevitably worked its way back to the inevitable return of government-enforced eugenics and forced sterilization against minority groups in the United States.

Now its fine that she has a hobby, and there should be at least a few people in the country mindful of every threat, so they can sound the alarm for the rest of us. I get that. The major misfortune was that nobody who potentially held the authority as an organizer wanted to be the person who quelled speech at the ACLU conference. The problem is that Joe Wilson's expertise and chosen topic doesn't have anything to do with the return of eugenics, but C-SPAN had cameras rolling almost the entire time -- recording a conspiracy theorist diatribe over and over again interrupting every topic.

I tell you that story to tell you this: I love moderators. I think every meeting of more than six people should be run by a guy or a gal who absolutely hates meetings and is armed with a large air horn, a rational mind, and no reluctance to use either one to quell stupidity. Any time there's an opportunity for grandstanding or verbal masturbation in front of a crowd of twenty or more, there should be a time limit on questions (17 seconds seems good) and somebody to keep a topic directed, yet clearly flowing.

SocialDevCamp, by design, had none of those things. Now I don't fault something billed as an "ad hoc conference" for being, well, decidedly ad hoc. To some point it may have been the hangover making me excessively cranky, but I believe that there was a level of product hyping, grandstanding questions, and type-A geek verbal battles and oneupmanship that made me miserable. In several cases a strong moderator in the group was able to facilitate the discussion, but politeness appeared to be a foreign concept to many. In some cases I found myself with my hand up for four or five minutes waiting for the current speaker to finish and being preempted by louder and more aggressive folks in the room who wouldn't wait to be the center of attention.

More about SDC and the holiday parties later, passing out now...

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