The Downside to Blogging
I enjoy blogging. Well, as this site shows, maybe not so much in the writing part of it. But I enjoy discovering and reading blogs on a variety of subjects, and leaving comments. There are many, many smart and interesting people out there, and the things they write about - be they news, photos, tips, or articles - makes for good reading. In my experience, blogs are a particularly good source for technical information, programming or web-related. Sometimes, even more so than any official documentation. The following discussion via comments is enjoyable and useful as well. Plus, finding the information on new blogs (new to me anyway) makes me want to explore those sites a little more, to see what else the authors write about.
The point, after all that, is that the bloggers, or blogosphere, make up a huge community of writers and readers. And it’s almost always a good experience, and an interesting way to pass the time.
There have been incidents in the past where disagreements in opinion by different commenters got out of hand, but in general, blogs are a great way of finding information and interacting with other people. Until today.
Today, I came across a very disturbing post on Kathy Sierra’s website. Kathy is/was a game programmer, and participates in panel discussions and presentations. Apparently, she cancelled her involvement in a presentation after a death threat was left in a comment on her website. That’s right, a death threat. And more than one, it seems.
The unfortunate part of blogging is that almost anyone can participate, and that creates an opening where unsavory people can make anonymous comments, and in this case, very serious ones.
And I’m sorry that that’s the case. Blogs are so useful, that to see them abused in this way is very shameful and sickening.
For more details, have a look at the post on Kathy’s website.