BlogHer - On Monsters, Maple Street and the Blogosphere - Comments

crossposted

Thorne — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 22:43:21 -0500

@
http://www.blogher.com/node/17339

Everyone needs to take a deep breath and count to 10.

I, myself, have had strong and varying feelings and thoughts on this topic since first catching wind of it.

Here are a few:

"OMG!! That's taking it too far. This is NOT satire. Noone should be threatened this way."

"KS is so overreacting"

"How irresponsible to link to a hate site"

"Wait, was it a hate site or a juvenile satire site"

"What about free speech?"

"How can women be so hateful toward each other"?

"Who is crying wolf now"?

I could go on, but I suppose what I'm trying in my fumbling way to express is that I am constantly surprised by my own naivetee. I'm repeatedly getting caught up in "Spin". It's difficult to keep the facts straight, especially when we don't really know what the facts are.

If there was a death threat made it should be appropriately investigated and adjucated.

If it's a matter of character assasination it's Civil. (whether against or by KS)

Intimidation is a tool of the ignorant and Trolling and Baiting and Flaming have practically become an internet institution unto themselves.

I have a delete key and am willing to use it.

Not quite...

The Anonymous Source — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 14:00:56 -0500

I'm making the point that like that Twilight Zone episode, the assailants are just letting the mob kill each other with accusations. Everyone should be banding together to stop this--and March 30th is a great start.

What?

shelleyp — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 12:09:24 -0500

What you basically just wrote is there was one and only one allowable response to what kathy Sierra wrote, and anyone who disagreed, or requested clarification, or defended the four named people are 'bickering', or not 'taking a stand with the community'.

Talk about cyberbulling -- that's exactly what you're doing: using your position as a primary poster here to demean the viewpoints of others who disagree with your view of what is 'proper' behavior.

Deeply shocked by the whole Kathy Sierra situation

Yankeegirl — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 06:07:04 -0500

I was alerted to all of this today by someone I consider a bit of a mentor and have to say how shocked I am by it. Surely if an intelligent human beings disagrees with an opinion or theory and feels he/she has some standing in a community, rational arguments to disprove the theory or opinion can be put forward without attacking the person behind it. What power can possibly be gained when one shames oneself with junior-highschool character assassinations, sociopathic threats and foul-mouthed blog entries? And there is NO justification for creating web sites for the sole purpose of character assassination and humiliation of a fellow human being. It's not a joke if both parties aren't laughing.

On Monsters, Maple Street and the Blogosphere

The Anonymous Source — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 21:09:00 -0500

As a historically low-key observer to this community, I have marveled for years at the blogosphere's relative harmony. Yet the cyber assault on Kathy Sierra, and the subsequent bickering among accused enablers is becoming equally concerning.

At a time when bloggers should be banding together to out this rancid puke and â€˜self police,â€™ many are turning on one another, even boycotting the web altogether.

It's as if The Monsters on Maple Street are now wreaking havoc on the blogosphere.

Ms. Sierra, and whomever else has experienced this harassment, has a right to respond, and expect the community to take a stand. Don Park's entry on the subject seems to do just that. So does Tim Bray's. And it goes without saying that the Scobles have earned their week off.

Ultimately, however, this is about power. And some of the sidebars and infighting are just letting the little $*#ks win.

Remember Rod Sterling (who would have been mayor of the blogosphere were he alive):

"The tools of conquest do not necessarily come with bombs and explosions and fallout. There are weapons that are simply thoughts... attitudes... prejudices. To be found only in the minds of men [and even women.]

For the record, prejudices can kill, and suspicion can destroy, and the thoughtless, frightened search for a scapegoat has a fallout all of its own for the children, and the children yet unborn. And the pity of it is... that these things cannot be confined to... The Twilight Zone."