Angry Birds: A Terrible Tab Tussle Temper Tantrum
Angry Birds is a running feature in which we take a look at the ruffled feathers in the latest Twitter flaps. Today's: newsletter proprietor Rusty Foster and Guardian editor Heidi Moore, fighting over the ownership of ideas, the giving of credit, and the provenance of the tab-based feature.
Dramatis Personae
Heidi N. Moore, finance editor at the Guardian, idea-haver, dibs-caller
Rusty Foster, purveyor and editor of Today in Tabs, a newsletter of obnoxious websites (as in, "Close that tab!"), recently acquired by Newsweek
Robinson Meyer, associate editor, TheAtlantic.com
Anil Dash, blogger and proprietor of Dashes.com
Katie Notopoulos, senior editor at Buzzfeed
Heidi Moore vs. Rusty Foster
Prologue
Way back in September, Heidi Moore wrote a tweet about how great it would be to reveal her end-of-day collection of websites open in tabs on her browser to everyone she knows.
@jbenton At the end of every day I just want to tweet out my open browser tabs. "HERE! THAT'S ALL I KNOW TODAY!"
— Heidi N. Moore (@moorehn) September 11, 2013
"Today in Tabs"
Fast forward to today. For several months Rusty Foster has been sending out a daily newsletter, recently acquired by Newsweek, of all the tabs you probably shouldn't open each day—a collection of current internet outrage points that's kind of counterpoint to the today-I-learned tab.
A Deftly Parried Attack
Moore remained blissfully unaware of this newsletter until it received positive mention today on the Nieman Journalism Lab website.
@rusty5k Hi, I thought you tweeted that you would give me credit for taking my open-tabs idea that I was working on for the Guardian?
— Heidi N. Moore (@moorehn) January 15, 2014
@moorehn I don't know what you're talking about.
— Rusty Foster (@rustyk5) January 15, 2014
@rustyk5 I already cited the Tumblr Writer Tabs, from which I think you got the idea?
— Heidi N. Moore (@moorehn) January 15, 2014
@moorehn Nope. I never saw your tweet, I don’t use tumblr. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
— Rusty Foster (@rustyk5) January 15, 2014
Today in Tabs was actually my idea, and I noted in September that I was doing it for Guardian. So, knock off theft. https://t.co/YjJmxasZ70
— Heidi N. Moore (@moorehn) January 15, 2014
@rustyk5 I find that hard to believe. Knock it off. I'm writing to Jim.
— Heidi N. Moore (@moorehn) January 15, 2014
("Jim" is Newsweek editor Jim Impoco. Moore later tweeted directly at him.)
@moorehn Drop me a link to your thing, I'll be happy to include it in today's Tabs.
— Rusty Foster (@rustyk5) January 15, 2014
(A reminder, at the risk of ruining the joke, that Foster's newsletter collects the day's worst, stupidest, and most frustrating articles, posts and tweets on the web.)
@rustyk5 Great, use this. https://t.co/YjJmxasZ70
— Heidi N. Moore (@moorehn) January 15, 2014
@moorehn I mean the thing you're writing. Your column or newsletter or whatever it is.
— Rusty Foster (@rustyk5) January 15, 2014
@rustyk5 Right, you mean my idea, that was publicly identified as a Guardian work in progress? Link to the origin of it please.
— Heidi N. Moore (@moorehn) January 15, 2014
@rustyk5 unless you're trying to take someone else's idea without credit, in which case that link could be so inconvenient.
— Heidi N. Moore (@moorehn) January 15, 2014
@moorehn Will do! Let me know if you ever actually write it.
— Rusty Foster (@rustyk5) January 15, 2014
Collateral Damage
It could—should—have ended peacefully, passive-aggressively, and perfectly right there.
But the drama was too juicy, the subject matter too inane, the initial argument too stupid to resist. No one could stay away—not even those who sought to clarify that Foster's newsletter, which focuses on troll articles and the outrage economy, doesn't actually bear any resemblance to Moore's Twitter idea:
@moorehn Wait, but—I remember you tweeting this, and thinking it was a cool idea, but I don't think it's what Today in Tabs is at all.
— Robinson Meyer (@yayitsrob) January 15, 2014
@yayitsrob it's what it looks like to me. A What We're Reading feature.
— Heidi N. Moore (@moorehn) January 15, 2014
we have fun here on twitter dot com don't we?
— Rusty Foster (@rustyk5) January 15, 2014
A Brief History of the Tab
Others tried to helpfully point out that "blogging all your open tabs" as a concept—which is, again, not even what Foster's newsletter is—dates back to at least 2004, and has been used by widely read establishment writers like Ezra Klein and Felix Salmon.
@moorehn @ckolderup @rustyk5 I can't tell if this is just a really good troll, or whether the "blog all open tabs" trope has been forgotten.
— Anil Dash (@anildash) January 15, 2014
@anildash @nostrich @noahWG @ckolderup @rustyk5 Not giving credit is okay? Is anyone here a journalist?
— Heidi N. Moore (@moorehn) January 15, 2014
@moorehn @noahwg @ckolderup @rustyk5 all that side, "blog all open tabs" has been around for a decade+. http://t.co/J8OR922GH9
— Anil Dash (@anildash) January 15, 2014
Spreading Subtweets
All of this, of course, sets aside the fact that you cannot call "dibs" on an idea.
But by now, it was too late. Too many followers, and their followers, and their followers' followers had seen the excitement. Armed with snark, Moore's opponents soon blackened the skies of the Twitterverse with subtweets.
Approximately 70% of my feed is subtweets right now, it's like the most glorious sunset you can imagine.
— Rusty Foster (@rustyk5) January 15, 2014
I feel bad for the person writing an article about this.
— Dick Wisdom (@nostrich) January 15, 2014
The Block Falls; the Dust Settles
Many users were felled by Twitter's block function this fateful day.
@harrisj I blocked like 10 people who are pro-stealing-ideas-without-credit; it's over
— Heidi N. Moore (@moorehn) January 15, 2014
The Final Word
The rancor cooled, the fighters embarrassed, Katie Notopoulos, as she often does, stepped in with the last and best word.
@mathewi @max_read @anildash @moorehn @pkedrosky i'm a human toilet
— Katie Notopoulos (@katienotopoulos) January 15, 2014
Update Jan. 16
The birth of the Today in Tabs idea may, in fact, have happened on Twitter. But it also happened weeks before Heidi Moore tweeted her thoughts on the matter.
@tcarmody @nostrich and I tried that with http://t.co/GjFtXb1FBg but frankly it's a grim effort actually explicating hatereads.
— Rusty Foster (@rustyk5) August 22, 2013