I’ve already written my seven point guide to hacking off a blogger, and it seems that Gartner wants to create an eighth clause.

8. Depersonalise the blogger: Don’t use their name in any communication regarding an infringing post.

It seems that I annoyed Gartner yesterday by allegedly taking a Marketing Week article out of context. According to Gartner, I’ve wrongly interpreted their “Analysts sink teeth into Apple over iPhone bungle”, attributing general statements and my own opinion to that of Gartner’s analyst Carolina Milanesi.

Now, I never knowingly or maliciously post information as fact without either providing the source of that information, or making it clear that there’s an element of rumour within it. I personally believe that I interpreted the Marketing Week interview in good faith.

Actually, I don’t have a problem with being asked to remove or edit an article if someone mentioned in it disagrees — providing it’s fair, of course — even if it does take up time which I could have spent working on other projects, or simply relaxing.

What I do object to is when the person making that complaint doesn’t even have the courtesy to use my name, when it’s clearly published beneath the article.

Yes, I can understand if a company is annoyed at a supposed misrepresentation, but it only takes ten seconds to work out that I had written the article:

That’s fairly obvious, I’d say.

Why, then, is the email addressed “To Whom It May Concern” and state that “Carolina has not been interviewed by the author of this blog”?

How much more work would it have taken to write “Dear Mr Merrett” (formal is fine, I have no problem with that)?

Even if the dreaded “you” word wasn’t to be used, at least write “Carolina has not been interviewed by Mr Merrett”.

Even better than that, perhaps learn that blogging is a more personal medium, and respond accordingly. I won’t think less of your company if you write more personally — in fact, I’d think more of you.

The fact that you’ve inferred that I’ve quoted one of your analysts, when in fact I didn’t, is something I could take issue with, but won’t.

There’s something ironic about a research company that doesn’t do basic research.

A little irritating.