For the last few posts, I’ve pretty much implied how much I love Twitter. It connects you to others in ways that few services can ever be able to. Among other things, I’ve learned it can even enable you to learn about happenings well before major news sources are involved.

I got a very interesting tweet from fellow Twitterer Crystal Williams proclaiming, “this is just sick. My heart really goes out to Kathy Sierra”, with a link to Kathy’s blog entry…

http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2007/03/as_i_type_this_.html

… which I read in it’s entirety.

Y’know, along with all the other sick shit that I’ve had to read in the news about some very grotesque atrocities, this defintely isn’t the worst. However, it ranks right up there with the honorable mentions. No one should have to endure the harassment and humiliation that she has had to put up with. I don’t know what she did to deserve this but, whatever it may be, it’s just not warranted.

I apologize to any of my family members who are reading this and seen my expletive outburst. I’m not changing it though, because that is truly how I felt while writing and absorbing all of this. This Kathy Sierra is someone whom I’ve never read about until now. I’ve never read any of her articles and postings. Not even one of her books, geek that I am. But for a individual or group of individuals to make comments on her posts insinuating and/or threatening to rape and beat her, that just goes beyond the pale in any online blog or community. I don’t even care if it’s revealed that it’s all a joke. I know how I would feel if I were in the same situation. It’s just not right!

Just before writing this, I saw another tweet come from noted techie writer, Chris Pirillo. I’ll post the link here on his response to the outpouring for Kathy from our fellow bloggers…

http://chris.pirillo.com/2007/03/26/i-had-death-threats-in-high-school/

… and, while I truly respect him as a fellow blogger and geek, I have this to say about his posting. I agree with his point that death threats seem to end up as empty threats. However, I’d challenge his feeling that threats are somehow worse from people one already knows. For me, and I’d imagine (yes, speculation) a lot of others, if I know the person then it doesn’t make me take a threat like that seriously. I’m more worried about the people I don’t know at all who may want to take my life. At least the people I know have a face I can look out for! Also, I don’t know about his childhood, but back when I was in high school, we didn’t see things happen like… oh, say, the Columbine Shooting… or some of the other atrocities that have happened in recent years. These latter incidents have made it so you can’t be too sure if your co-worker of 10 years isn’t suddenly going to stab you, chop you into bite-sized pieces and bathe in your blood.

My point in all this: As a global cyber-community, we need to fight these bullies and cowards with all the tools at our disposal. Bloggers, get with your server host on ways they may be able to help track down and pinpoint the origination location of any hostile commenters, so we know what to do to help our buddies in law enforcement act against this sort of illegal activity.

PS: In almost unrelated news, Christine and I are strongly thinking about participating in the 5th Annual Walk to End Domestic Violence. I may fill you in on the details later…

Technorati Tags: Kathy Sierra, Passionate Users, Twitter, Chris Pirillo, Crystal Williams, Harassment

This entry was posted on Monday, March 26th, 2007 at 9:47 pm and is filed under Around the Web, Personal Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.