That being said, I’m certain that the mess that followed Scrivs selling the site have affected it, and as far as I can tell we’re heading in the right direction again. Linkage show that, at the very least.

I’m fine with you criticizing the redesign concepts, the grid comment you made is valid (although the grid obsession that some people put forth is a bit strained online, in my opinion – in print it’s more important, but that’s a totally different discussion), and I appreciate your point of view. However, whether I can do a good design or not doesn’t really connect to how I can criticize others in my book. Think about it, do you require any other critic to be better at the trade than the ones he criticize? Does the book critic have to be able to write The Great Novel himself, for his words to be true about books?

Free speech was a stretch, absolutely, but the point of it was to get the message through, the one above.

That being said, do keep criticizing! It’s always a good thing to be pushed forward. Hopefully you’ll keep reading as well, and will weigh in on the turns Wisdump will be taking in the coming months, as I refocus the site. Because as you say, the about page is sorely dated…

Actually, I am glad that I could help start the discussion and I appreciate your thoughtful response to the whole thing.

I still wonder…what is Wisdump about? The about page says, “Over the years, it successfully established a tradition of discussing and dissecting business, design and web++”, which is what I am guessing it is supposed to be about today…I am not sure though.

If it is about those topics doesn’t the traffic you are generating speak to your credibility as an expert in this space? Is a decline in traffic relevant? Is the decline in traffic related to a decline in the interest in these topics or just a decline in interest in this blog’s perspectives on these topics?

I don’t actually think that the bigger blog is the one who is automatically right. In fact, I don’t even think that RRW and Wisdump are writing about the same topics. However, I do think that design influences whether people subscribe to your site or not.

Subscribers / Traffic create revenue, right? If this site is about web business and design isn’t it fair to judge your authority on this topic based on some of the metrics that are related to the business side of operating a blog?

My point was simple. If you are going to criticize the design of a successful site and if you are going to put yourself forth as an authority on design…you should be able to back that up with by putting forward a compelling design for your own site. If you can’t do that then I think you should keep out of the business of doing design criticism.

The free speech comment strikes me as a bit of a stretch. My comments were not designed to challenge your freedom to write anything you want to write. My comment was a challenge to back up your position as someone giving design critiques with a great new design for your own site.

Best of luck with the reDesign.