Michael Wurzer Glenn Roberts’ article is out and I’m thankful to Glenn for writing about the Future of MLS Wiki, as I hope it fosters discussion about the many important issues facing MLSs and their members today. Generally, everything Glenn wrote and quoted from me is accurate, but there are a couple of statements I made that could leave the impression that I’m whining or, worse, a prima donna. More specifically, there is this quote:
“There is sort of this elephant in the room with this gateway. I’m on the governance committee for RETS. I think I should know more of what that is about. There is a lack of information or discussion about the gateway, yet there is this potential huge thing coming down the pipe. What is it and how is it going to be structured?” he said. By contrast, the RETS community is “wide-open … all you have to do is show up and speak up,” he said.
I definitely could have chosen better words here when speaking with Glenn. I think this quote makes it sound like I’m trying to be some big shot and whining about not being included in the secret discussions about the Gateway, but that’s not what I intended.
Rather, I meant to communicate that the lack of information about the Gateway project is so pervasive that even those involved with the RETS standardization effort — which is or should be central to any data consolidation efforts — know very little about it. Put another way, knowing whether the Gateway project is or isn’t committed to RETS would be great, yet not even that is known for sure.
Perhaps I’m being too sensitive about this, but I really don’t want to come across as some self-important whiner. Rather, I just want to foster the discussions about these critical issues. Anyway, thanks again to Glenn Roberts for writing the article. There already are more people visiting the Future of MLS Wiki as a result. I hope to add more thoughts there myself in the coming days, but encourage others to do so as well.