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The blogosphere has been on fire for the last couple of days regarding the abhorrent behavior towards Kathy Sierra. I don’t think I need to post any links, but if you have been living in a box for the last 48 hours, here’s a link to a Technorati search that shows it all. As expected the entire blogging community has rallied around Kathy and this is something that should of never ever happened.
I wanted to discuss a different issue related to this whole fiasco. Kathy’s original post which started this all said that she was going to stop blogging and soon afterwards Robert Scoble decided to take the week off from blogging because he was so “ill” over this. This brought up a few questions with me that I wanted to raise, but before I could Piers Fawkes over at PSFK Trends wrote an article discussing several of the same points that had been circulating in my head.
I couldn’t possibly understand what Kathy is going through right now and my heart and prayers go out to her. If she wants to step away for a while, it makes all the sense in the world. If this happened to me or a loved one, I don’t think my head would in be any position to sit down and write. Though when Scoble announced that he was taking the week off, I wondered, by stepping away from the keyboard, by not writing, don’t the bad guys win? Do you set a dangerous precedent for the next time this happens? And it will absolutely happen again.
Why this hit home for me was that I was in downtown New York City on September 11th when the World Trade Center fell. I lost a number of good friends in that tragedy and it was by far the most horrific day of my life. One of the things that I remember most of that day was walking down a street after the center had collapsed and looking around at all the people walking by. They all had this same expression of utter shock and awe on their faces. They were confused, they were lost, they all were asking the same question I was, “So what do I do now?”
I concluded on that day that the only way to stop a bully is by standing up and showing that no matter how much you scare me, no matter what you do to me, I will not stop what I am doing because if I do that, you win and I cannot allow that for myself and even more importantly for the next person this will happen to.
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Stop Blogging and They Win -Excellent
Wholeheartedly agree, Cord. She needs to get back on the horse.
I went over the check out Chris Locke’s response to all allegations. He doesn’t apologize, but he also says he was not personally responsible for some of the comments made. I tend to believe him because he’s always been a straight shooter, even if he’s a bit of a jerk sometimes. However, in an interview, he decided to toss his character out the window. Everything was going well until he said this…
“I did write two comments on the “Bob’s Yer Uncle” site, which I am happy to repeat for the record: 1) “Kathy Sierra is a hopeless dipshit.”; and 2) “The only ‘passionate users’ I know are crack heads.” I do not like Kathy Sierra. I like her even less after her post of Monday. If she is waiting for me to apologize for something I did or said, she is going to have a very long wait.”
It bothers me that he couldn’t be a man and just leave it alone. He had to pull a sucker punch at the end. Cluetrain is one of my favorite marketing books and I recommend it to lots of people, but right now I wish I could send it back to him and ask for a refund.
I completely agree with you Dave C. However, I tend to think that Chris Locke did write some of the nefarious comments of which Kathy is referring. To me it’s just too coincidental that one of his favorite epithets is to refer to someone as a “slut” (this is exactly how Kathy was referred to in one of the anon’s comments).
Cluetrain WAS one of my favorite books. But now, purley on principle, I have banned it from my list.
If anyone can think of a better descriptive for him, let me know; maybe those of us who are disgusted by this can get the search engines to make Chris Locke relevant for what he really is: a clueless, sad, pathetic jerk.
Dave and Rob,
Thank you both for your great thoughts and comments. In my opinion, Chris took the sissy way out. Either take your lumps and admit what you did or deny it if you are being falsely accused. Instead, he tried to have it both ways and that just showed himself for what he is a coward.
On a happier note, the first commenter and I don’t just share the same last name, we also have some DNA in common. But I think as I get older I am mutating those weak genes out.
Anyhow, everyone welcome Sandy “I wish I had drowned him when I had a chance” Silverstein, my mother to her first post. Thanks Mom.
Welcome, Sandy.
I don’t care what Cord says about his genes, I think he turned out just fine.;-)
I think Chris Locke is a brilliant writer, but I always sensed that he had a broad evil streak.
I thought that he had learned to sublimate it in his writing, now it seems otherwise.
Welcome Sandy
The only think I have read of Chris Locke’s was his post regarding this affair.
He is probably rubbing his hands that the linkbait finally paid off.
Vince, I don’t think we have heard the rest of this story, so we will just see.
Andy, if someone is willing to put their reputation on the line for linkbaiting then I say enjoy yourself cause you just sold your soul to the devil for a few bucks.