Over at Cosmic Variance, anonymous comments personally attacking me have been posted recently by someone who identifies themselves only as “string theorist”. I’ve complained to Sean Carroll and his colleagues about their policy of allowing the comment section of their blog to be used for anonymous ad hominem attacks by physicists who are unhappy with Lee Smolin and me because of our criticism of string theory. If someone wants to argue not about science, but to complain about my behavior, I’m perfectly willing to engage in such a discussion, as long as it’s with someone who is willing to take responsibility for their own behavior.
Here’s the response I received from Sean:
Personally, I could not care less whether a comment is anonymous or signed. It just makes no difference to me. I understand that you feel otherwise, as you have said so over and over and over again. I will delete comments if they are vulgar or overly obnoxious, but anonymity is completely beside the point. If my co-bloggers feel differently, they are welcome to overrule me.
So, I guess if you want to anonymously attack, insult or slander people you disagree with about a scientific issue, Cosmic Variance is open for business.
Of course if you want to anonymously attack non-scientists like Christopher Hitchens, feel free to do so here. Remember, anonymous attacks are only bad if they are directed at scientists …. right?
Peter, I’m a big fan of yours, so I mean no insult by this, but is it not possible simply to ignore such nonsense, be the bigger man, and rise above it? You only call greater attention to their immaturity when you single them out for a tongue-lashing. Let them fade into the anonymous obscurity whence they came. Your good name has more to lose from your response to them than from anything they say about you.
It is a common stratagem to reject as cowardly criticisms leveled anonymously. However, such a rejection neither rebuts the criticisms, nor has much merit, at least if the criticisms are dispassionately formulated and substantial (and if they are not, they should simply be ignored).
There are many reasons to remain anonymous – among which perhaps the most responsible is the desire not to draw attention to oneself, or even to disassociate what one says from who one is. If Famous Man X says something openly it will be ignored by his haters and repeated by his lovers, regardless of its merits, and knowing this Famous Man X may decide to say something anonymously; there is a long tradition of this in the world (pseudonyms). (Compare this to Famous Man Y, who glowingly trumpets his identity even when farting; he is no coward, I guess, but nor is he responsible). If Unknown Man X says something openly, it will be ignored by almost everyone, because he is Unknown Man X and, being unknown, can have nothing interesting to say, so perhaps by saying it anonymously, and thereby raising the possibility that he is Famous Man X in disguise, he will actually be heard. Other motivations abound – fear of reprisal is one, and to call such cowardly is simply to have never lived in fear of a beating. Among these motivations is surely the cowardly desire to hit from behind, it is not the only one.
The most basic such motivation, is – it does not matter who I am; in any case the audience does not know who I am, and knowing so would not change the content of what I say, so what is to be gained by advertising who I am? There is of course something to be lost – one’s dignity.
Hi Peter,
You may remember me from a discussion (a.k.a. cat and dog fight) in 2006 on Clifford’s blog, where I defended your reluctance to continue a somewhat hostile discussion with Clifford and someone whose writing style bears some resemblance to that of the poster you felt was attacking you very recently on cosmicvariance. It wouldn’t surprise me if you also noticed the similarity in style.
I defended you then for several reasons. Most importantly, I felt you were being subjected to unnecessarily personal and condescending attacks because you promoted a point of view your antagonists strongly disagreed with; their “debating” style was offensive to me because of the degree of disrespect and unwillingness to acknowledge that there might be some validity or forethought in your point of view. Another reason was that in following your blog (and Usenet posts before you had a blog), you seemed to be sincere in your intentions (not a publicity hound as some people assumed), and willing to acknowledge your mistakes. I still believe you are sincere in your intentions, not just trying to stir up trouble because you are bitter or whatever, but over the last year or two I have also perceived (rightly or wrongly) certain changes in your style that I wish I didn’t see. This post of yours seems like an appropriate place to mention them; you won’t have to suffer hearing them from me again.
Before you responded to ST on cosmicvariance, I saw his/her comment. My initial thought was that ST was being somewhat presumptuous to think that you had so much power over Sean that he would consider taking a break from blogging due to anything you might say. Sean strikes me as having some pretty strong opinions, and is willing to freely write about them (which is fine, since a reader can always skip over whatever is annoying to read); I could be wrong but I don’t think he would be beaten down by you expressing your points of view. I didn’t know you would respond, but it seemed like if you did want to say something the perfect response would be to make a joke about the power you hold over Sean, and generally dismiss ST’s concern. That would have fit very nicely with the generally congenial tone of the comment section up until ST chimed in, and you would have come across as disarming and friendly. Instead, your response seemed like a very jarring attack on ST, well beyond what I would have thought was needed to make your point. An image that came to mind was of a social gathering where people are chatting amicably, and then someone makes an unkind remark; the recipient reacts with such rage that he startles the other guests, and then he accuses the host of the party of behaving inappropriately for not throwing the guest out for making the unkind remark.
Perhaps this mental image of mine is overly harsh, but I expect that many people seeing your reaction to a comment in cosmicvariance or elsewhere don’t know about your history of having to deal with repeated unwarranted personal attacks on you, much less the specific personalities involved. Those people would probably just see a very strong (over)reaction to some throw-away snide remark from someone else they don’t know, and the impression would not be good; if anything, I think they would look at your comment as confirming the negative remarks by, e.g., ST, with the net result that someone who had no opinion about you now has a negative one. If you had responded with humor, I think that ST would more likely come across to that person as overstating things and you would look fine. Someone who did know something about you at least would have seen a pleasant side of you that didn’t reinforce their earlier perceptions.
I remember a comment by Chris Oakley sometime ago where he essentially said that he thought it was counterproductive to get into pissing contests with string theorists, and I completely agree. I also agree with others who think you shouldn’t try to doggedly and publicly shame other blog owners into treating certain kinds of comments the way you would like; it seems fine to complain once, but after that it can come across to others that you have appointed yourself to a role they aren’t willing to give you.
Anyway, that’s my two cents and it may not even be worth that. I hate writing critical comments like this, and I hope you will see it as an attempt to be constructive.
Grrr… One sentence didn’t come out quite the way I intended. The end of the fourth paragraph should have been:
Someone who had already formed an unfavorable impression of you at least would have seen a pleasant side of you that didn’t reinforce their earlier perceptions.
Sorry about that.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, and then you win … I entirely agree with Yzer. Best, R
There is no way to verify identity in a blog. Hence anybody can take any identity, even false identity. I do not see any simple way to stop anonymous comments. If one stops anonymous comment, people will just use false identity or some strange nick names like me.
No way to verify identity, really ? Never a clue ? 🙂
I agree with Yzer and “Another Grad Student”: best to ignore the pot-shots.
Remember the adage: “The dogs may bark, but the caravan moves on.”
Keep up the good work.
Another grad student, that is good advise for everyone.
Thanks all,
The advice to ignore this and/or treat it with humor is excellent. It’s my intention to waste as little time and energy on it as possible, but I confess that I’m not amused at all about this situation. The point of this posting was just to make clear what is going on:
I’ll respond seriously to any complaints about my behavior from people who are willing to take responsibility for their own. When I have responded to anonymous insulting comments at CV by telling the commenter what I think of their behavior, my response has been deleted by Sean as “vulgar or overly obnoxious”. I suppose perhaps he has been doing me a favor, but his views on censorship are rather one-sided.
I continue to find it truly remarkable that some professional scientists find it acceptable to anonymously post personal attacks on people they disagree with about scientific issues, and that others endorse and enable this behavior.
Now, on to trying to ignore this and develop a sense of humor about it….
Sticks and stones……
“Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will make me go in a corner and cry by myself for hours.”
~ Eric Idle
Well, I’ve commented on that previously, but since it’s on the table again. I find it very inappropriate to tolerate anonymously made insults. I don’t care very much who believes who ‘set a tone’ or whatever, and I do indeed agree that Peter too sometimes hasn’t been holding back, but I don’t want to make this a discussion of a particular person.
Anonymity is certainly necessary in some cases to protect a person, but in almost all cases on the internet it is completely unnecessary and only used out of cowardice, because one can’t be held responsible for what has been said and doesn’t have to fear a lack of reputation. I guess I don’t have to tell you what the result is of that, just go look into any comment section for some newspaper column or whatever. One of the problem with anonymous insults is that the anonymous insulter deserves to be insulted even in the opinion of the more polite commenters, which will make matters worse. I therefore think such comments should be deleted asap. This has nothing to do with freedom of expression. Say what you want, just sign with your name.
What I find especially upsetting in this case is the following comment by Jennifer West “This is what the internets is all about people. If you cannot take the heat, get out of the kitchen.” or generally the often made recommendation to ‘just ignore’. A recommendation usually made by people who hardly ever are subject to such insults.
If anonymous insults is what the internet is all about – and yes, one could indeed sometimes have that impression! – then it’s about time to change it. To what level do we want interhuman communication to drop, huh?
To repeat something else that I’ve said before: I think one of the reason why some people don’t want to delete such comments is that many readers, including the blog owners, find it entertaining to see how others are insulted, and then the attacked persons subsequently defend themselves. I even sometimes have the suspicion that some commenters only post insults to ‘stir things up’ a bit and have fun. Such things increase the number of comments and attracts visitors like shit attracts flies. I seriously can’t see any other reason to willingly support such a disgusting level of discussion than the wish to entertain readers on the cost of the person attacked. The wish to avoid this has nothing to do with ‘high’ ethic standards. It is simply the desire to have the same standards that we have in normal life. At least where I grew up, the tone has been somewhat more respectful than it is on the average in the ‘hot kitchen’ of the internet.
In this regard, it is interesting to read these two pieces on the Edge:
Cyber Disinhibition
and
More Anonymity is Good
Or you can apply technology:
http://savingtheinternetwithhate.com/
Over at CV, “anonymous” is on the anonymous attack:
http://cosmicvariance.com/2008/04/28/vacation-2/#comment-315873
I wrote a response there, which didn’t appear. Maybe it was caught by their spam filter, maybe I’m persona non grata. Anyway, for those following both threads, here’s a copy:
“The comment that “anonymous” is complaining was censored by me was posted here:
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=681#comment-37499
and my response to it is here:
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=681#comment-37524
What happened in this case was that the comment was initially identified by the WordPress spam filter as spam, so not immediately posted. When I checked the spam queue that day and found it, I dug it out, posted it and responded to it. It seems that “anonymous” couldn’t even be bothered to actually read the comment thread in question before posting accusations attacking me here. If “anonymous” were using their real name, they might find this embarrassing and it might do some damage to their reputation. But, hey, when you”re “anonymous”, that’s something you never have to worry about!”
Peter,
the comment that was censored was posted to this thread, last night, and would have been the first comment on this thread if it hadn’t been censored. As for my anonymity, it’s because I’m actually an “anonymous” nobody, an undergraduate student whose name doesn’t show up in a google search. I post comments anonymously because I don’t want to make it possible for a google search to reveal my blog reading habits.
best,
-anonymous
I hate trolls who change their name frequently, whenever they write ad hominem insults. But if someone decides to create a web persona for himself and is consistent in using it and his critical arguments are of substance, there is no reason why he shouldn’t remain anonymous if he has chosen so.
One thing that is pretty funny though is an morally-outraged anonymus commenter.
A problem with having a “serious” web presence – with a web page where people can comment – is that one feels a compulsive urge to see who is commenting and why, by tracking those IP addresses and by answering every comment…
“anonymous”
If you bothered to look, you would notice that the comment in question was not “censored”, but is there at the top of this comment thread. This is the second comment from you anonymously attacking me over the Christopher Hitchens issue. Both ended up for unknown reasons in the spam queue, both were retrieved by me from there and posted (on two different days). You have now posted 5 anonymous comments here on this topic, from two different IP addresses, using two different fake e-mail addresses. Please grow up. If you want to start behaving like an adult, please write to Sean Carroll and request that he remove the inaccurate comment you posted on CV.
Peter, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to take the stand you take. Not that it’s not fine to take the alternative viewpoint of simply ignoring them. Given the diversity of human response, your forthright approach can strike some as being “oversensitive” while a passive, indulgent policy could give others the impression of timidity, appeasement, and unwillingness to defend one’s views.
In such situations one should just go with one’s instincts. What is not acceptable is to operate an internet blog where anonymous commentators are shepharded by a blog moderator in order to develop a coherent attack on an individual so as to chase them from the scene. That’s nothing less than bullying, and bullies should never be appeased.
However, there is a rational utilitarian approach to selecting the optimum strategy:
Because the jury remains out on string theory, and is likely to do so for the foreseeable future, the debate will remain highly politicised. And while this is a scientific debate and not a political campaign, the lack of any prospect of a decisive resolution of the issues means that it takes on many undesireable features associated with political debates. In this respect, packs of attack dogs in the guise of hostile anonymous commentators represent a form of “negative campaigning”, and in such situations, a robust confrontational approach is preferred because it communicates the strength of your convictions while providing additional opportunities to publicly target the weakness of an opponent’s position. Look where a passive strategy landed Mike Dukakis.
From this perspective, the choice of approach to be used against trolls would ideally depend on the degree of politicisation of the debate, which is why I think you should stick to your guns, metaphorically speaking.
Peter — Your comment was indeed hiding in our spam filter, which has been a tad overagressive of late. Whenever someone puts html in the comment, there’s a much higher chance of it winding up with an erroneous spam classification. I’ve rescued it from the filter.
Thanks Julianne.
Thanks DB. I think your analysis of the situation is spot on.
Peter,
I did indeed bother to look. That comment wasn’t posted there until just now. I checked before I wrote anything at CV. Lots of comment appeared before mine, and mine was the first to submitted last night. You can see how I thought you were censoring it. I don’t have a blog so I’m not familiar with spam filters etc. Also, you see two IP addresses because I posted comments from two different computers, since I don’t have a computer of my own. And as for the fake email accounts, an email is required, and — you guessed it — I don’t have an email account.
Milkshake: why can’t an anonymous commenter feel moral outrage? What’s wrong with being anonymous? I don’t get it.
-anonymous
So, I guess if you want to anonymously attack, insult or slander people you disagree with about a scientific issue, Cosmic Variance is open for business.
God, I never realized [deleted] was such a total wanker!!!
[As far as total wankers go, the author of this comment knows a lot about the subject. He repeatedly posts juvenile comments like this one here, from the IAS in Princeton (IP number 192.16.204.77). The last one I didn’t delete was this:
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=620#comment-30851
]
Sticks and stones can break your bones, but anonymous ad hominem attacks in the comment section of blogs really can’t hurt you.
The “Internet” is where a lot of people come to blow off steam, overstate their case, and act like jerks. They’re stressed out from spending most of their day quietly putting up with the trials and tribulations of life, and they feel like they need to be a jerk somewhere, to someone, just to keep their sanity.
I know it, because I’ve been there. When I was seventeen I used to go into Christian Singles Chat and talk like a caveman (trust me, it was funnier than it sounds). Then I used to anonymously email married men who posted personal ads looking for affairs, and tell them they had small penises. I’m not especially proud of this behavior, but all in all, there are plenty more harmful ways I could have released my pent-up frustrations.
So Peter, I like what you write, but here’s a bit of friendly advice: Try to empathize with the trolls. And if you can’t, at least grow a thick skin, because this is The Internet, the last wild frontier, and the trolls will never ever be stopped.
Anonymous moral outrage: When I was kid in Prague in 80s we got a visit from State Security and they gave us a lecture on fortitude and moral fibre. I stil remember the officer explaining: “They say snitch or grass – but I prefer to call them advisor. Please advise us the very moment you notice some wrongdoing, advise us even anonymously”
Its not my intention to spread hostility, but to be blunt and concise- Who cares if some random dude is talking shit about you on CV. I don’t think it merits your attention, or the attention of your blog-readers. I read all the linked postings you made there, and it was a huge waste of time, i’m sorry to say. Seriously, I come here to read about a bunch of physics and math that I don’t understand, and instead, i’m greeted with something I know all too well- DRAMA. Lame! Bring back the science already.
PS I won’t be offended if you delete this, ‘cus who cares!!!
– dude that doesn’t hate your blog
Hi Peter, it’s a pity to see you and Sean C at loggerheads, as Not Even Wrong and Cosmic Variance are the only two blogs I find myself reading regularly (they’re also the only physics blogs I recommend on my own humble effort at http://www.coraifeartaigh.wordpress.com).
I think overall you’re right, though, and would like to add my own tuppence-worth; there is already far too much space taken up by random opinion on blogs – personal attacks, especially annoymous attacks, is simply a waste of space and everybody’s time…
Regards, Cormac
Peter,
Why not just admit that making a big issue about anonymous posters who attack you is really just a strawman argument that you use as a diversion whenever someone makes a point that you don’t like? This seems especially to be the case when you are losing a debate.
Eric,
The recent anonymous attacks Sean is hosting aren’t about scientific issues, but are purely ad hominem. I think you’re right that this phenomenon has to do with someone losing a debate, but it isn’t me….
Milkshake,
That has nothing to do with this situation, as far as I can see. You’re overgeneralizing from your experience. Like people who’ve had a bad experience with a cop who then decide that all cops are bad. Anonymous blog comments are not the same as informing on people. Compare the consequences of each. It’s a difference of kind, not of degree.
my very own two pence: following o.wilde, it is not important what they say, but it is always a good sign if they talk about you.
Peter, for good or worse, has become a flag of the resistence to stringdom. And it shows…
cheers,
t.
People are constantly hurling anonymous abuse at each other on the internet, especially on blogs. The fact that some anonymous “string theorist” is hurling abuse at you should be taken in the context that it’s an anonymous comment on a blog with numerous anonymous comments. i.e. give it the extremely minimal consideration it merits. Maybe you can decide that after every n=5 idiotic anonymous comments, you write a short response explaining why you feel the comments are idiotic. If it were me though I wouldn’t even bother, as the effort expended in getting riled up is not worth it. But I’m not a “blog person” so what do I know.
Anonymous insults hurled around on a blog rate slightly less relevant than string theory.
Be a bigger man and ignore those anoymous insults, most probably came from someone who was “working” in “new directions” and “noble ideas” and was uncovered and sacked by his/her department chair, obviously is no longer a happy string theory camper if ever was.
IMHO, if I made the rules, moderation of blog comments should be based purely on whether the content is clearly profane, libel by a strict U.S. legal definition, or commercial spam — not adjusted based on whether the commenter is anonymous or not. Otherwise, don’t worry at all, some people will be jerks but that’s life, people will see them for the jerks they are. I think people should probably have the right to comment anonymously (note, I may be biased!). Sometimes that results in some asinine comments, but other times it helps the truth to come out.
Many commenters here are (anonymously) making the point that anonymous insults and personal attacks are just part of how blogs work, so one should accept this and get used to it. While this is an accurate description of the way things mostly are in the physics blogosphere, I think this is an unfortunate situation, one that could be changed.
If you want to see how things can be different, go take a look at some of the excellent blogs run by research mathematicians, e.g. sbseminar.wordpress.com. Almost all comments are polite, professional and come with a name attached. This situation encourages participation by serious people, and the quality of this is very high.
Physics blogs by contrast are overrun by anonymous commenters, with a significant fraction of irresponsible ones. I delete many such comments, probably should delete more. Once you allow anonymous insults and attacks, you drive the level of discussion down to that of the overall blogsophere. This drives up the number of comments, but ensures that very few serious professionals are going to want to participate.
One possibility would be for me to take some commenters advice and embrace the way things are. In that case, the way to deal with my disagreement with Sean on this issue would be to anonymously post comments here, on his and on other blogs attacking him. According to what he wrote to me, he himself would have no problem with this, so why shouldn’t I do it? To me, the reason seems obvious: does one want to make the world a worse or better place?
Please, I encourage everyone who posts comments here to avoid doing so anonymously unless they have a good reason, in which case they should take extra care to behave responsibly. I remain convinced that it is possible to raise the level of discussion in physics blogs to something closer to that of mathematics blogs.
Your conclusion about the way to deal about your disagreement with Sean is a complete non-sequitur… Sorry to say that, but he’s right and, this time, you’re “not even wrong”.
Joao Carlos,
You don’t exactly make much of a substantive argument in response to what I write, you could at least point out explicitly the non sequitur in what I write. Again:
Sean claims:
“Personally, I could not care less whether a comment is anonymous or signed. It just makes no difference to me.”
Actually I think this is obviously an untruth: if someone wrote in a comment to his blog attacking him, whether it was signed and by whom would actually make a difference to him. But taking this at face value, if I’m annoyed at him, and want to get some choice comments about him and his behavior out before a large audience, should I do this and should I put my name on these or not? Commenters here urge me to just accept that anonymous attacks are a normal part of the physics blogosphere, and Sean has no problem with them, so why shouldn’t I go ahead? Obviously I think this would be a bad idea, and I’ve explained why I think so.
Peter,
I for one promise to never post anonymously here again, even though I don’t see a problem with it … it’s your blog after all, so I will respect your opinion on this issue. I think I have a good enough reason to want to remain anonymous as I’ve already explained, but clearly my anonymous comments have not been welcome here so I’ll be signing off.
Respectfully,
-anonymous.
I’m ashamed to say I find these controversies hilariously funny, although I suspect I’m far from alone in that. I do see the serious side though, where people think their reputations may be threatened; but those fears are probably greatly exaggerated.
My only slight objection to posts by “anonymous”, aside from the obvious potential for unaccountable innuendo, invective, or defamation etc, is that they can’t be put in context of other opinions expressed by the same individual.
That’s often fine, in a “res ipse loquitur” sense, where “anonymous” chips in with indisputable facts for example. But in a long discussion someone who consistently uses a unique nickname is still anonymous but establishes a context, for good or ill. In other words, regular readers recognising the nickname know where that poster is likely to be coming from.
It also avoids confusion where there’s more than one “anonymous” in the same discussion – I’ve seen that happen, and the result can be surreal!
Professor Woit,
Prof. Carrol says he doesn’t care. The reason you should not do this is because you care. You can’t have it both ways.
If you think that it’s – at least – a lack of good manners (and I fully agree), it’s a non-sequitur if you propose anything otherwise.
And, by the way, everyone knows the one behind those “anonymous” posts. So, as Prof. Carrol says, “why bother?” If you don’t want to get mad, get even. Reply anonymously… if you really think those ad hominem comments deserve a reply, other than a significant lack of response.
May I remember you of the old saying: “Don’t feed the Troll…”?
Joao Carlos,
Actually I don’t know who is behind these anonymous posts. If you do, please tell, and explain how you know this.
And no, if there’s an anonymous response to these posts, it won’t be coming from me.
Not sure whether WordPress allows this, but some other blog providers offer a number of privacy option including disallowing all anonymous posts. It should not be hard to make posting password protected. Perhaps this is what you need for your own blog. As for other people’s blogs, I think the best attitude is to never worry about things beyond your control.
I like your blog very much and do think attacks on you and Lee Smolin are often unfair — and that indeed tends to be biased toward the anonymous ones.
But the reason I, and I think a good set of others, happen to be anonymous is, I think, a basically reasonable one: if my colleagues see me commenting in a lot of physics blogs, they will know that I’m not doing “real work” and I think my professional reputation will slightly suffer. One’s definition of what “real work” is can most certainly vary, and I do think people should certainly not be penalized for this sort of thing, but things are what they are in a lot of the physics world, and if one bans anonymous commenting, one can often throw out a few decent babies with bath water. Unless we can somehow single-handedly change this view among many people of what “real work” is in physics, then if you happen to want this set of opinions, for what they are worth, I would vote that you please don’t uniformly insist on people using their names.
geometer and ellipsis,
Technically it would be possible to enforce non-anonymity in a blog comment section. I have no intention of doing this, but do think it’s a good idea to encourage people to use their names. I do understand why many people prefer not to use their names, for several legitimate reasons including the one given by Ellipsis.
I suspect one of the main reasons people are reluctant to use their names on physics blogs has to do with the unfortunate politicization of discussions involving string theory. Saying something even tangentially related to one of the hot-button topics surrounding the theory, or posting a comment on a blog identified with one side of the controversy can all too easily get one on someone’s enemies list (or subject one to personal attacks on blogs, whether nonanonymous, eg. Lubos, or anonymous). This is really a shame, but I guess until it changes many sensible people will not want their names to appear on blogs.
You can make people sign-in with openid/typepad and while they would still be anonymous, no one would be able to impersonate someone else.
Peter, You should be proud that people are attacking you. That means your work is influential and your attacks on string theory are spot on. If you were wrong, the critics would offer something proving string theory. They can’t , so they attack you. The problem is when people ignore your work. So, I offer my congratulations to you! Keep up the good work. When can we expect the sequel to NEW?
Thanks Thomas,
To write a sequel to Not Even Wrong, there would have to be some new developments to write about, and remarkably little has changed since the book was written back in 2002. So, no plans for a sequel any time within the next few years, maybe never. I do joke sometimes that my next book may be a comic novel created by cutting and pasting things from blog entries and my e-mail. But one problem with that is that readers probably would find the whole thing implausible…
Ethics of blog discussions is an interesting topic. I can understand Sean’s position that vulgar or abnoxious comments will be deleted whether they are anonymous or not, and I also understand the point of view that anonymous commentators should be more restrained in their behavior.
Perhaps one thing we can agree on is that invented names who are themselves insulting should not be permitted. I remember in the earlier days of NEW a commentator whose nickname was of the form “X makes me puke” being permitted to comment. Perhaps a little consensus we can reach is not to allow insulting nick-names in the future.
(We also have to be careful about ethics which is sensitive to personal attacks but is tolerant to attacks against a large group of people.)