5 ms·

Is there a reliable summary somewhere of what all happened in the Kathy Sierra incident? I mostly ignored it at the time, but now I'm curious as to how that all

Is there a reliable summary somewhere of what all happened in the Kathy Sierra incident? I mostly ignored it at the time, but now I'm curious as to how that all went down and what went wrong.

blasdel 18y ago
Not really, every party is an unreliable narrator! This is undoubtedly a troll and goes way too far, but the base of his criticisms ring true: http://www.derkeiler.com/Mailing-Lists/Full-Disclosure/2007-03/msg00507.html http://www.derkeiler.com/Mailing-Lists/Full-Disclosure/2007-... "Kathy hollers like a stuck pig as she wonders why the trolls escalated to magnitudes which she could no longer control. The answer is obvious: she fought the LOL. The LOL won. She flew off the handle trying to silence criticism of her books, and this is what she got."
- TweedHeads 18y ago
  "She fought the LOL. The LOL won" I like it, good for a snorg tee
- ahoyhere 18y ago
  His criticism rings true? He claims that she came out of nowhere because she was a prostitute at O'Reilly conferences. A literal prostitute, not a metaphorical one. That's beyond ridiculous. How can you brush off something that bizarro and believe the rest of his rant has merit?
  - blasdel 18y ago
    For starters, the literal and metaphorical are not mutually exclusive. He literally (in the text) said she "got the train run on her", and in the context of an outrageous troll it's a metaphor for her vapid self-promotion and the co-dependent nature of the 'tech' conference presenter scene. She's supposedly a programmer, but she made a career out of giving the same tacky clipart presentations about generic PR & Marketing bullshit over and over. She fit right into the circle-jerk with Scoble et. al.. Some people found her constant paid presence at the conferences they went to obnoxious and wished she'd STFU, so they started griefing her. She was egotistical enough to think that anyone cared enough about hating her to make those "death threats" remotely meaningful, and she did exactly what they wanted.
    - ahoyhere 18y ago
      My background: I have spoken at OSCON, SXSW, Webstock, RailsConf, and more -- venues shared with Kathy Sierra -- and I have been an OSCON organizer, and I was behind the creation of the new "People" track. I am a programmer, and a usability expert. Allow me to respond to your points: A) she doesn't pretend to speak as a programmer B) her stuff is not generic PR & marketing, it's about user engagement and results in concrete recommendations about the business of building software, AND C) she cites psychological research, not marketing handbooks (she's pretty damn current too, the lady does her homework) D) she doesn't name drop or publicity whore, podcast, screencast, chum up to people for photos or videos, or write product reviews (unlike Scobl E) she actually made her career with the invention of the redonkulously succcessful Head First book series, and that is why she is paid to speak -- tech books sell like ass... except hers (and Missing Manual, another O'Reilly line) F) Her talks are a bit repetitive, but I wasn't aware that giving the same talk (slightly updated) a few different times was reason for death threats to be acceptable. Would I have reacted in the same manner? No, but then again, I'm not Kathy Sierra, I am a 24-year-old girl who grew up online, and don't even have a hamster to worry about much less a teenaged daughter. I simply cannot fathom the ridiculousness of accusing Kathy of "vapid self-promotion" (totally unfounded) and basically suggesting that she was asking for it. It has "socially disabled adolescent boy" written all over it. Just like the original "griefing" and threats.
      - ahoyhere 18y ago
        For what it's worth, the origin of "griefing" is not found in the value (or lack thereof) of a person's conference talks. If that were the case, then just about every conference speaker would get "griefed" this way, because speakers are uniformly unprepared, unrehearsed, completely unaware of the separation of "What I want to say" and "what my audience wants to hear," incapable of making it 3 sentences without stuttering, couldn't design a legible slide to save their hides, and leave the audience wondering where the hell their 45 minutes have gone. It is arrogance, it is disrespect, and it is absolutely fucking unprofessional. It's also universal. No, it comes from a feeling of insecurity. You get somebody towards whom "everyone" feels warmly disposed (like Kathy), and the people on the fringes -- who feel their own brilliance is being ignored -- hate this interloper, who adds no value, who isn't even one of us for fuck's sake! And people like him/her! Act as if they are god's gift to whatever! Out comes the viciousness. I've experienced this myself. I've never received death threats, but I did have my own personal troll, who'd come into the framework IRC channel and flood it with nasty, nasty things, making it impossible for me or anyone else to hold a conversation, and photoshop my pictures in rude ways. I know who did it -- prominent people. These were smart, smart guys. They had a lot going for them. But in their eyes, it was a valuable use of their time to harrass a 20yo girl who wrote some tutorials that people loved. You have to question the ultimate utility of a person who'd rather harrass some person who's off doing his/her own thing, rather than creating more great shit. Now me, I am nothing if not ballsy. I know who these people are, but I never bothered to tell them I knew. Now they both treat me with respect, even like me and use my ideas for their stuff. All the while, I quietly prove that I am the better man. But I do not think that being ballsy makes me a better person than someone who is not ballsy.
chris11 18y ago
Basically a blog post was written, http://www.horsepigcow.com/2007/02/04/more-on-higher-purpose/ http://www.horsepigcow.com/2007/02/04/more-on-higher-purpose... and there was a pretty big argument started in the comment section. Kathy compared some commenters as mean kids. Chris Locke started a website called mean kids in response to this to attack people. Kathy received death threats. She skips a conference, and the police get involved. Soon the media picks up on the story. part1:http://www.onebyonemedia.com/the-sierra-saga-part-1-dissecting-the-creation-of-the-kathy-sierra-blog-storm-4/ http://www.onebyonemedia.com/the-sierra-saga-part-1-dissecti... part2:http://www.onebyonemedia.com/the-sierra-saga-part-2-big-bad-bob-and-the-lull-before-the-kathy-sierra-blog-storm/ http://www.onebyonemedia.com/the-sierra-saga-part-2-big-bad-... part3:http://www.onebyonemedia.com/the-sierra-saga-part-3-who-are-the-real-culprits-in-the-kathy-sierra-saga/ http://www.onebyonemedia.com/the-sierra-saga-part-3-who-are-... people involved:http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/news/2007/04/kathysierra http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/news/2007/04/kathysierra

Is there a reliable summary somewhere of what all happened in the Kathy Sierra incident? I mostly ignored it at the time, but now I'm curious as to how that all went down and what went wrong.

blasdel 18y ago

Not really, every party is an unreliable narrator! This is undoubtedly a troll and goes way too far, but the base of his criticisms ring true: http://www.derkeiler.com/Mailing-Lists/Full-Disclosure/2007-03/msg00507.html http://www.derkeiler.com/Mailing-Lists/Full-Disclosure/2007-... "Kathy hollers like a stuck pig as she wonders why the trolls escalated to magnitudes which she could no longer control. The answer is obvious: she fought the LOL. The LOL won. She flew off the handle trying to silence criticism of her books, and this is what she got."

TweedHeads 18y ago
"She fought the LOL. The LOL won" I like it, good for a snorg tee
ahoyhere 18y ago
His criticism rings true? He claims that she came out of nowhere because she was a prostitute at O'Reilly conferences. A literal prostitute, not a metaphorical one. That's beyond ridiculous. How can you brush off something that bizarro and believe the rest of his rant has merit?
- blasdel 18y ago
  For starters, the literal and metaphorical are not mutually exclusive. He literally (in the text) said she "got the train run on her", and in the context of an outrageous troll it's a metaphor for her vapid self-promotion and the co-dependent nature of the 'tech' conference presenter scene. She's supposedly a programmer, but she made a career out of giving the same tacky clipart presentations about generic PR & Marketing bullshit over and over. She fit right into the circle-jerk with Scoble et. al.. Some people found her constant paid presence at the conferences they went to obnoxious and wished she'd STFU, so they started griefing her. She was egotistical enough to think that anyone cared enough about hating her to make those "death threats" remotely meaningful, and she did exactly what they wanted.
  - ahoyhere 18y ago
    My background: I have spoken at OSCON, SXSW, Webstock, RailsConf, and more -- venues shared with Kathy Sierra -- and I have been an OSCON organizer, and I was behind the creation of the new "People" track. I am a programmer, and a usability expert. Allow me to respond to your points: A) she doesn't pretend to speak as a programmer B) her stuff is not generic PR & marketing, it's about user engagement and results in concrete recommendations about the business of building software, AND C) she cites psychological research, not marketing handbooks (she's pretty damn current too, the lady does her homework) D) she doesn't name drop or publicity whore, podcast, screencast, chum up to people for photos or videos, or write product reviews (unlike Scobl E) she actually made her career with the invention of the redonkulously succcessful Head First book series, and that is why she is paid to speak -- tech books sell like ass... except hers (and Missing Manual, another O'Reilly line) F) Her talks are a bit repetitive, but I wasn't aware that giving the same talk (slightly updated) a few different times was reason for death threats to be acceptable. Would I have reacted in the same manner? No, but then again, I'm not Kathy Sierra, I am a 24-year-old girl who grew up online, and don't even have a hamster to worry about much less a teenaged daughter. I simply cannot fathom the ridiculousness of accusing Kathy of "vapid self-promotion" (totally unfounded) and basically suggesting that she was asking for it. It has "socially disabled adolescent boy" written all over it. Just like the original "griefing" and threats.
    - ahoyhere 18y ago
      For what it's worth, the origin of "griefing" is not found in the value (or lack thereof) of a person's conference talks. If that were the case, then just about every conference speaker would get "griefed" this way, because speakers are uniformly unprepared, unrehearsed, completely unaware of the separation of "What I want to say" and "what my audience wants to hear," incapable of making it 3 sentences without stuttering, couldn't design a legible slide to save their hides, and leave the audience wondering where the hell their 45 minutes have gone. It is arrogance, it is disrespect, and it is absolutely fucking unprofessional. It's also universal. No, it comes from a feeling of insecurity. You get somebody towards whom "everyone" feels warmly disposed (like Kathy), and the people on the fringes -- who feel their own brilliance is being ignored -- hate this interloper, who adds no value, who isn't even one of us for fuck's sake! And people like him/her! Act as if they are god's gift to whatever! Out comes the viciousness. I've experienced this myself. I've never received death threats, but I did have my own personal troll, who'd come into the framework IRC channel and flood it with nasty, nasty things, making it impossible for me or anyone else to hold a conversation, and photoshop my pictures in rude ways. I know who did it -- prominent people. These were smart, smart guys. They had a lot going for them. But in their eyes, it was a valuable use of their time to harrass a 20yo girl who wrote some tutorials that people loved. You have to question the ultimate utility of a person who'd rather harrass some person who's off doing his/her own thing, rather than creating more great shit. Now me, I am nothing if not ballsy. I know who these people are, but I never bothered to tell them I knew. Now they both treat me with respect, even like me and use my ideas for their stuff. All the while, I quietly prove that I am the better man. But I do not think that being ballsy makes me a better person than someone who is not ballsy.

chris11 18y ago

Basically a blog post was written, http://www.horsepigcow.com/2007/02/04/more-on-higher-purpose/ http://www.horsepigcow.com/2007/02/04/more-on-higher-purpose... and there was a pretty big argument started in the comment section. Kathy compared some commenters as mean kids. Chris Locke started a website called mean kids in response to this to attack people. Kathy received death threats. She skips a conference, and the police get involved. Soon the media picks up on the story. part1:http://www.onebyonemedia.com/the-sierra-saga-part-1-dissecting-the-creation-of-the-kathy-sierra-blog-storm-4/ http://www.onebyonemedia.com/the-sierra-saga-part-1-dissecti... part2:http://www.onebyonemedia.com/the-sierra-saga-part-2-big-bad-bob-and-the-lull-before-the-kathy-sierra-blog-storm/ http://www.onebyonemedia.com/the-sierra-saga-part-2-big-bad-... part3:http://www.onebyonemedia.com/the-sierra-saga-part-3-who-are-the-real-culprits-in-the-kathy-sierra-saga/ http://www.onebyonemedia.com/the-sierra-saga-part-3-who-are-... people involved:http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/news/2007/04/kathysierra http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/news/2007/04/kathysierra