I was horrified to read overnight of the online hate campaign and death threats conducted against Kathy Sierra, author of the Creating Passionate Users blog, to which I am subscribed.
Kathy is paying a huge price for being generous with her expertise and visible on her blog and at conferences. Now she says she is:
supposed to be in San Diego, delivering a workshop at the ETech conference. But I'm not. I'm at home, with the doors locked, terrified
Kathy goes on to say:
I have cancelled all speaking engagements.
I am afraid to leave my yard.
I will never feel the same. I will never be the same.... I have no idea if I'll ever post again. I suspect I will. But for now, I have a lot to rethink.
Slagging people off online is one thing but when you get to this level of intimidation, and purposeful cruelty something much more sinister is being perpetrated.
There is no excuse for some of the things which were posted about Kathy. None.
One of the people Kathy references in her post about this campaign is Cluetrain Manifesto co-author, Chris Locke. Chris' response is here.
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