Ladies and Gentlemen,
Monday, a male agent in my office forwarded me some links to coverage of the Kathy Sierra story. For those who don't know tech blogger Kathy Sierra, she's shuttered a successful blog, Creating Passionate Users because of harassment and death threats. I've read Sierra's blog since last fall, although some of it is waaaay over my head. I hope Sierra will be back blogging soon.
In March Sierra wrote: Death threats against bloggers are NOT "protected speech" The disturbing photos that were posted originally have been removed but there is language....
The agent in my office forwarded some links about the death threats to our manager. Tom (Active Rain member...Tom's never blogged.. that's OK...)in hopes he would forward the information to the agents who blog in our office. Tom did not respond, so the agent forwarded the links about Kathy Sierra receiving death threats to me. The agent wrote to our manager:
"This incidence just points out that women are a vulnerable in a sense on the web as they are in open houses, showing houses etc.
You might want to make this information available for the office because I know you have some blogger agents."
My first reply to the agent in my office was an Active Rain Invitation! Join Active Rain has become my pat answer to all inquiries about blogging.
In an email exchange about blogging I wonder if the male agent in my office is trying to discourage blogging, and the two people blogging in our office just happen to be women, Elaine Reese and me. He's a Kathy Sierra fan, he's read her books, I'm a Kathy Sierra fan, I read her blog.
Does "women are a vulnerable in a sense on the web as they are in open houses, showing houses etc."mean blogging's not safe for women?
I am a real estate agent, but it's not safe for me to blog, it's not safe for me to do open houses, it's not safe for me to show homes? It is safe to sit in the office, answer the phone, and type up the listings? Only men should blog, only men should do open houses and only men should show homes?
Yes bad people occasionally do bad things at open houses. Yes bad people have done bad things on showings. Agents of both sexes have to be careful in conducting business. Yes there are creeps that read blogs.
I remember in the early 90's we started putting personal photos in our newspaper ads at Coldwell Banker and some of us got obscene voice mails. Women shouldn't have real estate ads with personal photos because there are sickos out there with telephones?
What about a traditional website? A static site is OK for a woman but a blog is not? Why? I remember being creeped out by my picture being on my website when I first got a real estate website. Wait... not a great example....that picture was really creepy.... clients would write and call to tell me what a horrible photo it was.
Did Joseph Ferrera and Rudolph Bachraty of Sellsius° Blog encourage unsafe behavior when they encouraged women in our industry to blog? Sellsius Blog's Top Ten Women Real Estate Bloggers post, from August 2006, encourages women real estate agents to blog. Does BlogHer.com with their tagline "where the women bloggers are" encourage unsafe behavior?
Is Real Living encouraging unsafe behavior by asking, us it's agents to blog? Elaine Reese got two listings from blogging recently. Elaine should stop blogging because women are vulnerable? Elaine shouldn't show the properties because it is unsafe for women to show homes? ....because there are some creepy men (and probably creepy women) out there?
What would Active Rain look like without women bloggers? As much as we joke about blogging and especially Active Rain being an addiction, I could stop if the surgeon general said blogging was harmful, but short of that, I'm not stopping any time soon.
Why discourage something because there could be bad? Encourage good behavior. Discourage bad behavior. If you read deep enough into the Kathy Sierra thing a lot of people could have said "stop it" to people who were behaving very badly, for a long time. Other bloggers were complicit in encouraging bad behavior, bullying and harassment. Death threats aren't protected as free speech. One of the websites that was set up by some of the tech bloggers was called MeanKids.org The MeanKids.org site got out of control. That site and another have ceased to exist because of bad behavior.
I love the blurb just before you leave a comments on Creating Passionate Users:
"We LOVE to hear from you, and we think of this blog as a big dinner party. Y'all are our invited guests, but if you're being rude and obnoxious we'll let the bouncer toss you. So please, stick to debating and criticizing ideas rather than personal attacks. Also, if you don't see your comment right away, it means we've turned on moderation to fight the evil spammers. It'll show up soon."
Other blogs about the whole episode:
There are a few of us on Active Rain who are Kathy Sierra fans. Active Rainer Rhonda Ruthman wrote about the death threats - Active Rain Members Only.
There have been two entries on Kathy Sierra's blog since the death threats....
April 4, 2007- about the death threat blog being moved so it is not so prominent
April 6, 2007 - old favorites and Sierra writes about whether she will blog again
Tim O'Reilly calls for a Bloggers' Code of Conduct beause of the death threats
Tim O'Reilly's observation about reaction to a Bloggers' Code of Conduct
Greg Swan of the Bloodhound Blog about the brouhaha and the call for a Bloggers' Code of Conduct
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Edit - The sequel to Women shouldn't blog because... Misogyny or Blogsogyny? There is more to the story of why blogging should NOT be encouraged.
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The illustration above is A Private View by Frith from Wikipedia. It is not a copyrighted image, it is in the public domain according to Wikipedia.
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