Dangerous Ideas

Kathy Sierra, author of the Creating Passion Users blog, posted today that she’s going to stop blogging, maybe for a while, maybe forever. The reason is because some people have crossed the line from offering immature criticism to making death threats and suggesting sexual violence.

Not only is that bad enough, but this has been happening on blogs where prominent bloggers participate, and they haven’t been criticizing these comments while continuing to participate in sites like meankids. So it’s not just what’s being said, but also what’s not being said. It seems like this behavior is accepted in the blogosphere, and Kathy doesn’t want any part of that any more.

From Kathy’s (last?) blog post:

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. People you’ve probably heard of. People like respected Cluetrain Manifesto co-author Chris Locke (aka Rageboy).

[Note: This post includes disturbing language and a picture beyond anything I’d normally say here, so some of you might not want to continue reading. But I felt it was important to be specific about as much as the police investigation will allow.]

Sorry about the last minute notice, but there’s a vigil this evening for Ruby Rodriguez, who was murdered in San Francisco one week ago today. The press release mentions two other murders of transwomen of color in the past six months just in the Bay Area, which is a crazy high number.

This is from CUAV’s (Community United Against Violence) press release, which I saw on APIQWTC:

Community Mourns Murder of Latina Transgender Woman —————————————-

Requests Attendance at Vigil to Demand Change

San Francisco, California (March 22, 2007) – A Nicaraguan transgender woman, Ruby Rodriguez, 24 years old, was murdered on Friday, March 16, 2007. Her body was found on the corner of Cesar Chavez and Indiana Streets in the Mission District of San Francisco. The murder is currently under investigation by the San Francisco Police Department. Community United Against Violence (CUAV), EL-LA, San Francisco LGBT Community Center, TRANS Project, allies, and community members will hold a community vigil in her honor on Friday, March 23, 2007 at 6:00PM, on the corner of 24th Street and Mission Street in the Mission District.

Organizers request that the community bring a white candle to the vigil. There will also be an additional altar set up on Cesar Chavez and Indiana Street, and community members are encouraged to bring flowers, photographs, cards and good wishes to this site. Let us not forget Ruby. She was an exceptional woman who was intent on improving her life. Ruby participated in various support groups and language classes, and idolized Chicana singer Selena.

This murder comes at the heels of at least two other violent deaths of transgender women of color in the San Francisco Bay Area over the past six months. Transgender people, particularly low-income transgender women of color, are disproportionately poor, homeless, criminalized and imprisoned as a result of systemic discrimination in our daily attempts to access safe housing, healthcare, employment, and education. Unfortunately, Ruby’s murder is not an exception, but an everyday fear for many transgender people who are targeted and brutalized by institutions and society at large. Our communities mourn Ruby’s death and ask for a renewed commitment to real safety for transgender communities. It is vital that the Mayor’s Office, the San Francisco Police Department, and the District Attorney’s Office work to end the cycles of criminalization, poverty, and violence in transgender communities and communities of color.

Please direct any questions about the vigil to Tina D’Elia or Alexandra Byerly. If anyone has any information regarding Ruby’s murder, please contact Inspector Karen Lynch at (415) 553-1388 or Inspector Tom Cleary at (415) 553-9569 of the SFPD Homicide Unit.

I like humane text formats like Markdown (which I use for this blog) or Textile for writing things like blogposts. I find that the WYSIWYG editors like FCKeditor or Kupu sometimes don’t generate markup as clean as we’d like. Of course, from a user perspective, a WYSIWYG editor is a lot easier to learn. So it’s been a tough choice, sometimes, to decide what to use. Now it looks like there might be a happy medium! While browsing Open Source Web Design, I saw a link to a new editor called WYMeditor (it takes its name from the last three letters of WYSIWYM – What You See Is What You Mean). It feels like a WYSIWYG editor, but it keeps formatting out of the way so that people can see the markup. It looks like a great idea!