Blogging and threats

It's not uncommon for a blog (and a specific blogger) to attract nasty comments, even death threats.

For that reason, many personal bloggers simply turn off the Comments feature on their blogs. However, professional bloggers and people whose blogs are part of their business marketing don't have that option; comments (as many as 100 on a good post) are a key part of the blog's value. (For an example, see the comments about my recent post on TrenchMice; the post raised questions; the commenter addressed them.)

As a rule, most sites use the comment-moderation feature (part of their blogging software) to handle off-the-wall comments. For instance, when someone posts a comment on Writer Way, I receive an email notification and log in to Blogger to read the comment and publish it. On rare occasions, I choose not to publish it. (The comment may be "comment spam" promoting a product and having nothing to do with the Writer Way blog, or it may contain what I consider to be offensive language.)

"Offensive," of course, is a matter of taste.

Recently a group blog run by several leaders in the "A-level" blogging realm allowed several comments to be posted, some of them with photos, that contained extremely crude smears about a well-known blogger and expert on user-friendly design, Kathy Sierra. Some of the comments waxed enthusiastic about ways Kathy could be killed.

It all sounds like some high school kid's MySpace slambook, but, no, this was really appearing on a blog run by well-known tech types. Who apparently were having a collective Lord of the Flies flashback.

My initial reaction when I learned about this (from reading Kathy's blog post) was simply to resolve never to have anything to do with any of those folks. I was truly appalled to learn that one of those involved with one of the blogs that tolerated the offensive comments is Jeneane Sessum. She's a prominent member of the women's organization BlogHer (where I'm a member).

But I then read Bill Humphries' blog; his remarks ("It's Not Funny") point to Liz Henry's call to action. Liz is right. Behavior like that at unclebobism.wordpress.com (which replaced the original offensive blog, meankids.com) is comletely unacceptable. Liz writes:

"Kathy rocks for speaking up. She rocks for calling this out and exposing it on her blog. She rocks for calling the cops and the FBI, and for saying so. She wasn't shamed into silence or afraid of being called 'too sensitive' or 'humorless', two things which often stop women from speaking up."

Liz's post goes on to focus on the tone of woman-hating that characterized the attacks on Kathy Sierra, but I don't think that's the only key issue -- I've seen sexual slurs and threats used to attack male bloggers on political blogs. For me the crux of the matter is the issue of blogging community standards and the need to shore them up.

I urge other bloggers to post about the Kathy Sierra situation and to talk with their non-blogging friends about what's going on. If the mainstream press reports on this situation, wouldn't it be great if they could also report that the blogging community has taken a strong stand against a tiny minority of foul-mouthed bullies?

Can you spot a bad adverb?

You'll find out if you listen to the delightful Writing Tools: The Musical by Roy Peter Clark of Poynteronline.

TrenchMice is Facebook for the workplace

When I clicked over to TrenchMice this evening I could hardly believe what I'd been missing. This site enables registered users to post reviews of their companies and their managers. And that's just the beginning.

Bronze membership at TrenchMice is free; Gold and Silver levels provide "super anonymous" posting capabilities (hmm...so how anonymous is Bronze?) plus advanced search features and the ability to reply to posts about yourself before they are published (hmm again...are we talking about paying for "protection" from other users?).

Certainly, TrenchMice promises to be highly entertaining as well as potentially informative. I predict we'll be hearing a great deal about this Seattle-based start-up in coming months.

Writer reads

My office is a neat, well-organized place -- papers filed, desk cleared, cords coiled -- with one exception.

The books.

They're everywhere. On bookshelves. In boxes. On the floor.

While preparing to do some book reviewing for January Magazine I was forced to go through the piles to locate the novels I'm reviewing and referencing.

It was discouraging to realize that only a dozen of the books were memorable, and only half of those were memorable for good reasons. The outstanding book among them was The Feast of Love by Charles Baxter. Inventive, light-footed, and thoroughly charming, it's a novel about an Ann Arbor writer whose late-night wanderings lead him to a fellow insomniac who has a treasure trove of bittersweet stories. And I liked Simple As Snow by Gregory Galloway, slightly edgier in tone, about love and coming of age in a small town that reverberates with echoes of Columbine. (Parental guidance: If you have teenagers, this book will make you crazy.)

Ad agency ads

Advertising agencies are famous for demonstrating their production skills with elaborate insider jokes. The corporate site for Kruskopf Coontz does it better than most. After you've enjoyed their intro, go to Fun Stuff>BS Central>(2) Viral to check out their proposal to improve on the viral marketing using a contagious scheme of their very own.

Follow that lemming

I came across a blog entry today written by a fellow who had apparently just heard about the latest power-of-positive-thinking book, The Secret.

The blogger starts off a tad skeptical about the book, but quickly reassures himself "There must be some validity to the ideas in it or people wouldn't be talking about it so often."

Proof that human thinking processes haven't evolved too far from those of our furry little cousins, the lemmings.

Keeping web visitors happy

I recently wrote a blog entry for a client about how a company can make the best of an email mistake. The recommendation was to quickly send follow-up email offering customers a discount or benefit to make up for any inconvenience they may have experienced. The idea is not only to calm the minority who may have been affected by the mistake, but to make a good impression on the majority -- particularly the ones who take advantage of the freebie or discount.

Now I'm wondering if a similar marketing mechanism might be applied when a site has an unscheduled or poorly timed outage.

Today I went to log in to my Linked In account and, for the first time, ran into their upgrade/maintenance page. The friendly tone of the writing, and the amusing image, really took the edge off my initial frustration. (A striking contrast with the curt maintenance notice at my bank's website -- which I seem to encounter one in every four times I try to log on.)

Imagine if Linked In had gone just one step more are said something like "Are you a Linked In member? Come back in a bit, log in to your account, and use this code to get a free 1-month upgrade to our premium account level. Thanks for your patience!"

Ooh, that would be nice.

Austin has its limits

If you're feeling bad about missing out on South by Southwest Interactive, the tech extension of the SXSW music confab in Austin, read this travelogue by Todd Levin.

You'll feel better. In fact, you'll feel positively relieved that you didn't attend — and run the risk of having Levin write about you.