Its rather difficult to credit Zephyr's claim that ""I certainly didn't expect it to be picked up by anyone" in light of this
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/webcred/index.php?p=17
The "no one will notice" excuse doesn't cut it if you make an effort to be noticed by this group. And its pretty obvious that is what happened....
The "Journalism, Blogging, and Credibility" conference has attracted quite a bit of attention and some controversy because of its relative lack of actual bloggers invited to participate---and the far-right wing ideology of the overwhelming majority of the few bloggers who are participating. (Duncan Black linked to it, as have a bunch of right wing bloggers who will be appearing on the "panels")
Are we really expected to believe that Rebecca McKinnon just happened across Zepher's "important blog post" and inadvertently linked to something that Zephyr "didn't expect...to be picked up by anyone?" (I'm not blaming McKinnon here.)
I think its pretty obvious that Zephyr (who is listed as a conference participant affilliated with the Berkman Center--the host of the conference) engaged in a bit of self-promotion here, asking McKinnon (also a conference participate affiliated with the Berkman Center) to link to her piece because she wanted as wide an audience as possible -- especially among bloggers and those journalists who are concerned with blogging.
(its also pretty obvious that the link provided to the conference is how people found her brand new blog. The link appeared on January 12...)
The conference is turning out to be pretty much of a joke--- a bunch of unethical right wing bloggers, ethically compromised journalists, and now ethically compromised members of the Berkman Center itself will spend two days pontificating on credibility, standards, and ethics of bloggers. And we're all supposed to take it VERY seriously....
I think not.