VA: I Never Told Kathy Sierra to Shut Her Gob (But I Wish I Would Have)
Mar 28th, 2007
(7 votes, average: 3.14 out of 5)
Loading ...I see how it is.
Someone threatens Kathy Sierra and everyone starts throwing my name into the argument as if it were me who told her to shut her gob.
First of […]
Original post: I Never Told Kathy Sierra to Shut Her Gob (But I Wish I Would Have)
how is someone like kathy sierra supposed to be anonymous when she gives public talks at web conferences et al.? she is a public figure, just like any other blogger who is trying to build a reputation. i know the majority of the full names of people whose blogs i read, and i definitely know their email addresses. i read a lot of blogs because of the reputation of the people behind them, such as paul graham and joel spolsky. nobody deserves to be attacked just because their email address is listed somewhere. do i think she’s overreacting? yes, although i’m the first to admit i wouldn’t sleep for a week if some stranger photoshopped a picture of me like they did of her. do i think the obvious answer is to just make yourself anonymous and unreachable? no. not everyone is interested in the internet solely as a place to run in, piss on everything, and then run back out. some people actually believe communication is a two-way street (foreign concept, i know).
Anyone else notice that whenever V tries to say “oops” she actually types “opps?”
She does it so much I’m starting to think it’s on purpose.
V,
I really do hope you read this, because if you are going to blatantly reword the blog I posted 2 days ago, at least give me a trackback and send some traffic my way.
http://leafcounting.com/2007/03/27/big-meanies-and-their-anonymous-ski-masks/
Kathy Sierra is an idiot and makes the rest of us women look like frail idiots and victims. She gets some “threatening” messages on her blog and has to lockherself in her home?!?! Is she retarded?? It’s called Google Kathy, and it hates you. Of course people can find out your address, because you’re stupid enough to have it listed in the phone book!! She needs to buy a can of mase and shut the fuck up.
Man this place is kind of boring now :(
@2
Yes I’ve noticed, but since I can’t spell or type to save my life. I’m not pointing it out first. haha
@6
You miss your Em don’t you?
I’m not defending Kathy, nor attacking her, but if she plans to post her info then she needs to be concern with her safe if being threaten. Women are easy targets when it comes to violence. Sorry it’s just the fact of the matter that if a man really wants to hurt a woman, he will. A woman really doesn’t have a chance in hell 99.9% of the time. Unless she is standing there with a firearm, loaded, in hand and ready to go.
I know that sounds sexist, but it’s the true.
@6
also she does need to suck it up or shut up. That’s life! There are some crazy people out there and if you’re going to live a public lifestyle you best be ready for the danger that comes with it.
sorry correction.
@5 “also she does need to suck it up or…….”
Kathy should talk to some celebrities. As far as I’m concerned, popularity equals death threats. If enough people know you, enough people will hate you and talk about having you dead or otherwise harmed. Deal with it or avoid celebrity status/fame/recognition.
Oh, yeah, of course - I don’t condone death (or any other) threats, Internet or real life, but the problem is not the Internet OR the threats. It’s the causes, so how about Kathy and the “there’s meanies on Internets!!!!” crowd get on to solving *those*, instead of condemning the delivery medium.
I had a moment in my professional career when the curtain was pulled back on the Wizard of Oz. At the beginning, there were these names, these exalted figures who wrote the books, who spoke at the conferences, who were the respected and elite members of my professional community. And I looked up to them. I actually thought they had worth. They had value. They had unattainable knowledge.
Then I met them.
A few years ago, I started presenting at these conferences, I started being let into their circle and it turns out, these great and powerful OZs were little more than shriveled up insecure fallible idiots like the rest of us. They didn’t have more skill, more ability and yet they had achieved recognition and praise as such. I began to wonder why I had held them in such high regard.
Today I had that experience again, except I feel a bit ashamed about it this time. George Bush said it best when he said “fool me once shame on me, fool me twice…shame on…fool me again…fool me shamefully…yeah”. I am not at the forefront of blogging fame, and maybe that is why someone I had respected, somebody with a high readership, somebody whose IP address visited my site about 2 hours before their recent post that blatantly plagiarized MY commentary from a few days ago on the threats against Kathy Sierra. After all, who would really know, who would really read it when I called her out on it? Maybe it is just human nature, but it is disappointing when every wizard I have ever encountered turns out to be just a bumbling sap behind a curtain.
The lesson today? Only respect those who do not seek acclaim.
The smartest man I ever met was an aborigine that lived on the streets of Cairns, Australia. He made no pretense about it, but when you took the time to sit and talk to him, his wisdom, his knowledge and his passion for life burst through his eyes and infected everybody who had the balls to stoop down to where he perched on the ground begging for change. That was the way he liked it. I sat with him talking for three hours, and insignificants like names never came up. He had no fans, no one to praise him and yet he sat like an untapped gold mine.
I find people like him too rarely.
UPDATE:
It turns out I am a “snide little jackass” (as if that was news to me) and the highly etiquette friendly aforementioned blogger saw the errors of her ways and has made amends. BUT, regardless of that fact, this blog is less about her as it is making a point about heroes and as such I am leaving it in tact despite the threat that I run the risk of offending HER delicate sensibilities and rub HER the wrong way. Thanks V.
UPDATE part deux:
It seems that I did offend poor V and she removed the link that she had once had up! Tisk tisk! I guess she didn’t like the fact that I didn’t kiss her ass.
A story:
It turns out that V does indeed read this site. Early this morning she added a paragraph to her blog about Kathy that trackbacked to my site and responded directly to the comment I posted here. In this paragraph she called me “snide” and “a little jackass” and told me that she was letting it go that time but alluded to the fact that I should watch my tone when I speak to her.
The problem was that I had already posted a new entry that accused her (possibly falsely) of exactly what I said in the previous post on this forum. Now naturally, being full of blogging etiquette and the gentleman that I am, I quickly went back to my new entry and updated the fact that I was mistaken, that we simply had the same ideas and that she linked to me as such. Granted, I threw a bit of sarcasm and attitude in my words because that is who I am. It seems that she can dish it out but not take it, and within a few minutes after that, she had removed that paragraph from her site.
I post this here for three reasons: 1- because I know V reads this and I want to respond. 2- because it is fascinating to see how her behavior was influenced by me. 3- Because of anybody I read, I figured V would be the last person that would get all butt-hurt about my “tone” when addressing her.
V, I think you may be listening to too much “my chemical romance”. I think you are getting a little Emo from all these sappy first love stories. I think you have become a little hypocritical when you are fine to write with a sarcastic tongue but hold it against. You disappointed me today.
Admin…that copied way too much in that post, i only meant to copy teh story part at teh bottom…feel free to delete
What are you even talking about? One article was a rambling mess of incoherent thoughts, the other was VA’s.