The @media Ajax schedule has been unveiled, and my my, has Patrick managed to gather carloads of JavaScript excellence. Brendan Eich, Douglas Crockford, Derek Featherstone, John Resig, Stuart "I give everyone a weird middle name" Langridge, and last but not least Jeremy Keith for a bit of panel moderation. Early bird registration is still possible until the end of the month, so I advise you to purchase your tickets in the next few days.

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Just as last year, I've got a session planned for SxSW 2008. Its title is "In Praise of Elitism", and of course I hope that my readers will vote for me so that I get free entrance to SxSW.

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Last week, two blog entries caught my eye because they discussed a problem I've started to notice, too. In Reflection Jeremy Keith bemoaned the lack of blog comment quality for the umpteenth time; while in The HTML 5 circus Roger Johansson explained that he temporarily left the HTML WG mailing list because there were too many people who just shouted at others without making any positive contribution.

Jeremy and Roger are talking about the same problem. There are quite a few semi-professional web developers who have excellent knowledge of the web standards but spend their time shouting at other people on blogs, forums, or mailing lists, and they are taking over most public spaces of the web standards movement with their ideologically pure drivel; proving the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory beyond any possible doubt. We ought to get rid of them, but I don't know how.

Who are these semi-professionals? How do they differ from professionals?

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Currently I'm reading Framing the Early Middle Ages by Chris Wickham, which treats Europe and the Mediterranean in the years 400-800 (this, especially the West, was my specialisation back when I was a historian). Wickham has been courageous enough to attempt a general definition of an "aristocrat", and I couldn't resist the temptation to apply his criteria to today's Web development aristocrats.

So today's questions are: what makes a Web development aristocrat a Web development aristocrat? And what are aristocrats good for, anyway?

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