COMMENTS….Shakespeare’s Sister posts an odd observation today about well known bloggers:
I?ve seen (if memory serves) Kos note at MyDD and Drum note at his place, and I?m sure I?ve read it elsewhere, but I can?t remember where off the top of my head, that one of the big dogs assumed to be a man is, in fact, a woman. I have my suspicions about whom that is, but I don?t know for sure. Would this blogger have become one of the big dogs if she hadn?t hidden behind a veneer of manhood? Who knows?
Hmmm. It wasn’t here, at least not on the main blog. In fact, there aren’t very many big bloggers left who are still anonymous, so I’m not even sure I could come up with a candidate. Has anyone else ever heard this rumor?
The rest of the post (actually, the main point of the post) is about whether women are unfairly ignored/dismissed in blog comment threads. Shakes points to a mini-survey project that says the answer is yes, but this is sort of like that famous research project that showed that drunk men find women more attractive. You don’t really need a research project to figure that out, do you? Still, like so many things in life, it can’t hurt to keep pointing it out.
On a more personal note, Nancy Goldstein notes in comments that I’m a “truly nice guy” (thanks, Nancy!) but that despite this my comment section is unusually heavily infested with trolls. This has long puzzled me too. All I need now is a research project that shows me how to get rid of them.
UPDATE: Ah yes. As Paul points out in comments, the rumor was about MediaWhoresOnline. Is MWO man or woman? Or neither? No one knows!
UPDATE 1.5: According to Eric Alterman, the “guiding sprit” behind MediaWhoresOnline was Jennifer Kelly. I didn’t know that until now.
UPDATE 2: As a few people point out, comment registration would help the troll problem. It would also help the comment spam problem. This is above my pay grade, I’m afraid, but it’s definitely a possibility for the future.
