EDIT: DanBC said it far more elequently than myself here: http://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=DanBC

The negativity being spouted by commenters regarding Dustin Curtis approach with Svbtle to me shows a complete misunderstanding of what he is trying to achieve with the network. Many have complained about the closed, private beta and the supposed elitist attitude put across by Dustin. Many are acting like they have been emotionally hurt and are lashing out against the work that Dustin is trying to do with Svbtle.

For me, this reaction is understandable, and expected, but I was taken aback by the volume of the backlash, especially on Hacker News.

Svbtle is an attempt at a closed, curated and quality controlled network of blogs. In essence, the very people who have reacted so vehemently to this are EXACTLY people you DONT want in a closed, curated and quality controlled blog network.

Those of you who feel slighted by being excluded from this network and are loudly beating your chests either about how simple the idea is or how too minimalistic (or both) are trying to project your development ethics and ideals onto another discipline, and in my humble opinion, the two are incompatible.

Software development or hacking clearly benefit from the exchange of ideas, sharing and propagation by merit. I wont expand on this any further because all of this is obvious to the vast, vast majority of members here.

Writing doesn't benefit from this. Writing is a solo exercise; a personal and subjective process. A process that benefits from curation from experts; editors who have the chops to not only recognise and correct, but to guide, steer and sometimes say "No". I think Dustin is on to something here. In order to move forward, blogging has to move from the quagmire of "least common denominator", "wisdom of the crowds" sensationalist, ad driven and machine targeted writing.

I was clear to me that this was what Dustin is attempting to assemble the pieces together and start. Yes, most blogging platforms have "drafts" as a feature. Dustin appears to be attempting to move the users of Svbtle away from thinking of drafts; whole articles, and focus on germinating ideas into writings for publishing. The nub of the idea here is small, but is a gentle side step left. It's not an amazing innovation or anything particularly special, but if you can create a platform or network that contains enough side step left ideas like this, then he may have something with the potential to become something special. I'll beat the already pretty beaten dead horse, but I see something of Apples approach to design/production here. Just enough little twists on common ideas in one package creates a very compelling package. And it's always those twists that the competition fails to see.

The idea of a curated, limited network of bloggers with proof reading services is a good idea. As is the desire to build a brand off the interface, to build trust in readers so that when they come across another blog with the same design they know they will be getting quality content. A platform focusing on promoting good content with an emphasis on filtering article ideas. These are good ideas and well overdue.

If you feel slighted by Dustin because Svbtle doesn't include you, thats probably the reason you weren't invited to join yet; the quality isn't there. It certainly shows in your comments that you can't contribute anything of the kind of quality Dustin is trying to curate. So, go clone the software. Copy the visual design. You've missed the larger point I think Svbtle is trying to make, just like all those hundreds of tablet makers out there.