Suffer the Little Bastards
In the other blog, I have often made reference to Alton Brown of the Food Network, and of his blog. And, of course, I linked to it every time I did. I'm not gonna this time, in a spirit of refusal and solidarity and because, as I have said below, mean people suck.
Alton put (or had someone put) some buttons up on his page so that his readers could submit comments, stories, pictures, etc, which he could share through the web site and the blog (I didn't get the particulars; I missed that part of the adventure). When I clicked in today, the latest installment of the blog explained that these buttons had to be taken down, and why:
"Some of you may have noticed that the 'contact' button is gone from my web site and that my rant calling for refrigerator pics is gone. Here’s why: although many of you sent in some really nice pics and insightful, fun emails some of you decided to send vulgar, nasty, frightening messages and images. I always knew there was ugliness and meanness out there but you know what, I don’t have to give you a place to put it. So, the portal is closed and will remain so."
Having had some experience with this kind of crap, I can sympathize with the man. While it would be good to be able to strike back at the kind of mean-spirited bastards who think it's fun to screw with people over the internet, it is, perhaps, a good enough punishment to inform them that they do not matter. No one cares what they have to say, and we'd all be better off, quite frankly, without them.
If there are any super-smart programmer types out there, reading this most likely by accident, let me make a suggestion: might it be possible to create some sort of sneak-circuit or worm or whatever you call it that would allow users to deflect mean crap sent to their mailboxes and have it re-routed to a "fixer," someone who would be willing to take the craphounds task, act as something of an "enforcer?" Not a "cyber-cop." More like an ethereal terminator.
I'd be up for the job. Suffer the little bastards to come to me. I'll tear 'em a new earhole.
Alton put (or had someone put) some buttons up on his page so that his readers could submit comments, stories, pictures, etc, which he could share through the web site and the blog (I didn't get the particulars; I missed that part of the adventure). When I clicked in today, the latest installment of the blog explained that these buttons had to be taken down, and why:
"Some of you may have noticed that the 'contact' button is gone from my web site and that my rant calling for refrigerator pics is gone. Here’s why: although many of you sent in some really nice pics and insightful, fun emails some of you decided to send vulgar, nasty, frightening messages and images. I always knew there was ugliness and meanness out there but you know what, I don’t have to give you a place to put it. So, the portal is closed and will remain so."
Having had some experience with this kind of crap, I can sympathize with the man. While it would be good to be able to strike back at the kind of mean-spirited bastards who think it's fun to screw with people over the internet, it is, perhaps, a good enough punishment to inform them that they do not matter. No one cares what they have to say, and we'd all be better off, quite frankly, without them.
If there are any super-smart programmer types out there, reading this most likely by accident, let me make a suggestion: might it be possible to create some sort of sneak-circuit or worm or whatever you call it that would allow users to deflect mean crap sent to their mailboxes and have it re-routed to a "fixer," someone who would be willing to take the craphounds task, act as something of an "enforcer?" Not a "cyber-cop." More like an ethereal terminator.
I'd be up for the job. Suffer the little bastards to come to me. I'll tear 'em a new earhole.
posted by Bobo the Wandering Pallbearer at 1:31 PM
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