Letters to the Editor
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"Matty D."
i suppose i should thank you; you are defending me, but i *like* "my jack" (enough so that i won't reveal his last name). why? you get to be *people* if you post enough. ok, some of us are really too terrible to deal with but not many. if i had a job like yours i wouldn't *throw* anyone out of a hotel lobby - i'd *ask* them with clear eyes and a soft voice. i'd tell them they are annoying other customers and i'd walk them to the nearest bar. why be mean if you can get a better result with kindness? true, you have to *learn* this, but that's what the net is *for* (besides other, more important things). the internet is a place of socialization now that the family is kaput(no, not quite, just the impression you get from Salon)
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Kathy Sierra CHOSE to close down her web site rather than make the changes available ...
I am NOT quarreling with her decision or her "right" to make that decision. It's too bad that Joan didn't call Atrios or Kos or Josh Marshall or TBogg for the "guy" experience .. my suspicion, however, is that a lot of this is self-perpetuating bullying and, as such, it's too bad that Sierra "caved" ...
I suspect that, like the storied "broken window," leaving up abusive offensive poosts not only broadens the definition of "what's acceptable" for EVERYONE, it also marks a site as "available" for those people who use the internet for their own self-centered entertainment, y'know those pointless, obcenity-ladened rivalries/quarrels and off-topic rants. ...
I do think that the Salon letters section has increasingly become a playground for a dozen or so flame-seekers, one-note-charlies, and the usual panoply of opportunists looking for a blank wall to write on. Incivility breeds incivility ...
This is only minimally relevant to readers response to CONTENT. Frustration breeds incivity as well. As a few others have asked, Where's the editorial response to readers objections? ... in some cases these complaints have been going on LITERALLY for YEARS. (For example, I think if Salon would avoid placing Paglia's column as the LEAD, front and center, things might quiet down some ... jmho ... but placed front and center, it's perceived as a slap-in tthe face by the anti-Paglia crowd.)
To suggest Sierra's situation is analogous to the oft-maligned female writer of Salon and represents part of some vague global misogyny is, imho, pretty much pull-out-of your-ass musings of someone who has been periodically trying to float exactly this "misogyny" as the cause of such "spirited" objections to Paglia, Dickerson, Waldman, Lamott, etc. How opportunistic.
Now, I gather Salon actually DOES remove letters from time to time ... but I have no ideaa what the real-life criteria is, and if the removal of THOSE invisible letters was prompted by "beyond incivility" such as actual threats, lies, malicious rumor, etc.
I have also suspected that it's embarrassing as all hell for a writer to imagine his/her friends/fans/family reading the objections of non-fans. An angry, abusive e-mail at least is private.
IMHO, Joan's just trying to appropriate Sierra's nightmare ... quel surprise, not. The shoe doesn't fit. It seems unlikely Sierra was unaware of various tech-y remedies ... such as the one's Salon is purportedly contemplating.
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Men who hate web women writers
The sort of men who send hateful and insulting emails to women online writers are like the guys who end up on the NBC TV program, "To Catch a Predator". They are weak and full of sexual hangups. If confronted in person they would wilt and act like the little cowards they are. They also all seem to be a bunch of rightwingers, too.
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Cal Godot
If you are on dialup your IP address changes each time you log on.
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Dear David Sugarman,
If you insist on commenting on everyone's posts, please have the decency to write in understandable English. Punctuation is not optional, nor is cogent thought. If you have this much time on your hands, perhaps you should be surfing sites that might improve your ability to communicate. Practice, for you, isn't making anywhere near perfect.
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Suddenly
...I want to go read all my old letters to Salon to see how much of a dick I've been.
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Ding, ding, ding!
"To suggest Sierra's situation is analogous to the oft-maligned female writer of Salon and represents part of some vague global misogyny is, imho, pretty much pull-out-of your-ass musings of someone who has been periodically trying to float exactly this "misogyny" as the cause of such "spirited" objections to Paglia, Dickerson, Waldman, Lamott, etc. How opportunistic.
Now, I gather Salon actually DOES remove letters from time to time ... but I have no ideaa what the real-life criteria is, and if the removal of THOSE invisible letters was prompted by "beyond incivility" such as actual threats, lies, malicious rumor, etc.
I have also suspected that it's embarrassing as all hell for a writer to imagine his/her friends/fans/family reading the objections of non-fans. An angry, abusive e-mail at least is private.
IMHO, Joan's just trying to appropriate Sierra's nightmare ... quel surprise, not. The shoe doesn't fit. It seems unlikely Sierra was unaware of various tech-y remedies ... such as the one's Salon is purportedly contemplating."
Yep Susan, very on point. Appropriation is the right word. Also, Michael Sullivan's "I call bullshit" series was on point as well. It's hard not to be cynical about Walsh's/Salon posturings on this matter.
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The Nachthexen
To those men who think women lack courage simply because of their gender..
http://pratt.edu/~rsilva/sovwomen.htm
In 1942 the Soviet Union formed three regiments of women combat pilots who flew night combat missions of harassment bombing. They flew obsolete Polikarpov Po-2 biplanes, that were otherwise used as trainers, and which could only carry 2 bombs that weighted less than a ton altogether. They were so successful and deadly the Germans feared them, calling them "Nachthexen"—night witches. (Some sources state that they were nicknamed "Night Witches" because it was made up entirely of female pilots and they flew their missions in the wooden Po-2's at night.)
The Night Witches were the women of the 588th Night Bomber Regiment. All of the mechanics and bomb loaders of this regiment, as in the 586th IAP and the 587th Bomber Regiment, were also women.
The Soviet women bomber pilots earned in total 23 Hero of the Soviet Union medals and dozens of Orders of the Red Banner. Two women bomber pilots—Katya Ryabova and Nadya Popova—in one night raided the Germans 18 times. The Po-2 pilots flew more than 24,000 sorties and dropped 23,000 tons of bombs. Most of the women bomber pilots who survived the war in 1945 had racked up nearly 1,000 missions each. They had served so exemplarily throughout the whole war that they participated in the final onslauqht on Berlin.
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