Don Park's Daily Habit - Beating and Hanging in Public

Don mentioned the tendency for the "blogosphere" (as they've taken to calling it) to react swiftly and harshly to events. As a former frequenter of many internet bullettin boards, I say ... you're just NOW noticing this? Blogs have nothing to do with it except an exclusive voice, but it's the internet and the relative anonymity that lends it self to this dynamic. Here's the comment I posted at Don's ...

The problem is self-censorship, or the lack thereof. There are a lot of "off the cuff" comments that get thrown out there because ... well, the internet is so immediate that one keystroke and your thoughts are gone before you have a chance to realize that maybe you didn't think things through as much as you could (read: SHOULD) have.

Take this incident with Futuremark and HardOCP. Never mind the fact that Kyle loves to air his dirty laundry in public (something that eventually got me to stop reading Tom's Hardware, and will likely drive me from the OCP too), but the comments from the Futuremark person were heat of the moment things that a few moments of self-reflection could have stopped. Instead, we now have a permanent record that could end up tarnishing not only his, but his company's record.

The entire problem is that people are just too darn quick to hit the Enter key. Even editing after the fact, which you can do though blogs, can't keep you out of harm's way if Google spidered you and captured a screenshot. Take time ... there's enough of it out there ... and as cliche as this sounds, count to ten before you hit Enter. It works wonders.