“Playing fair is a central precept of both citizen journalism and blogging.”

Principles of Citizen Journalism | Center for Citizen Media

Clearly that hasn’t happened for Kathy Sierra.

As I type this, I am 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. For the last four weeks, I’ve been getting death threat comments on this blog. But that’s not what pushed me over the edge. What finally did it was some disturbing threats of violence and sex posted on two other blogs… blogs authored and/or owned by a group that includes prominent bloggers.

Creating Passionate Users: Death threats against bloggers are NOT “protected speech” (why I cancelled my ETech presentations)

I’ve been around the ‘Net for a while and seen people bully, hate and manipulate from the comfort of a warm ISP but to see this erupt and affect such luminaries as Kathy Sierra and Robert Scoble is upsetting.

Maryam and several others here at PodTech asked me about it and are concerned since the same sites that are attacking Kathy also mentioned me and Maryam. Maryam is really freaked out about it. So am I.

Taking the week off ｫ Scobleizer - Tech Geek Blogger

Already the bloqsphere is talking about the use of OpenID as a means of stopping this senseless bullying.

Blogging was supposed to be challenging and fun. Not the place to threaten and hate it seems today to have become.