It was only a matter of time...

Before blog commentators started making anonymous death threats.

Prominent blogger Kathy Sierra has called on the blogosphere to combat the culture of abuse online.

It follows a series of death threats which have forced her to cancel a public appearance and suspend her blog.

Ms Sierra described on her blog how she had been subject to a campaign of threats, including a post that featured a picture of her next to a noose.

I don't mean to make light of this but I'm actually surprised it doesn't happen more often.

And forgive me for being critical in the face of potentially grave circumstances, but this:

"I agonised about making this post but I hoped it would start a dialogue," she told the BBC News website.

"I never thought it would become so big or be this positive," she said.

While blogging feuds are common, she believes the campaign against her is more likely to be because she is a woman in the male-dominated technology world.

Coupled with the facts that she stopped her blog for a while and cancelled appearances, seems inconsistent with this...

"If you want to do something about it, do not tolerate the kind of abuse that includes threats or even suggestions of violence (especially sexual violence). Do not put these people on a pedestal. Do not let them get away with calling this "social commentary", "protected speech", or simply "criticism"," she said on her blog.

Another prominent blogger, author, and speaker, Roger von Oech has experienced similar troubles with public exposure:

One of the weirdest and spookiest packages I received was from a reader who had gone through "A Whack on the Side of the Head" and cut out many of the drawings in the book. He then cut out the eyes in the drawings and pasted the drawings on a piece of cardboard with the note: "These people all look dead. Do you like death, Roger? Would you like to be dead?" No return address. Just a cowardly act.

You shake your head, speak out against it, take preventive measures, and move forward.

Probably the numbers of celebrities and quasi-celebrities that make it through their 15 minutes without at least a few such threats is low. So was Sierra right to publicize the incident on an international scale? Will this make such behavior more or less likely in the future? Was she right to speculate that it's all about gender? Or is she at once hypocritically glorifying the cowards that do this kind of thing and crying victim at a time when feminism desperately needs a voice of bravery and maturity?

Probably when all is said and done, speaking up is a good thing. Exposing the issue and rallying people against something as potentially serious as death threats can result in positive change. The linked article reveals that at least one blogger has eliminated the option to post anonymously on his blog. It's a step.

But let's be frank, this episode has indeed put the perpetrators on a pedestal. Bad actors like this are not seeking fame in the sense that most of us understand it, they aim to invoke some perversion of respect and fear, rather than adoration. Look at John Mark Karr's false confession to the murder of JonBenet Ramsey. Any exposure at all feeds this culture. Public criticism and anger is not a deterrent, it's exactly what they're looking for. So what is needed, it seems, is exposure only insofar as it effects meaningful techniques to prohibit the behavior.

Lest anyone be confused, I am a fan of free speech, but I also think the 'time, place, manner' restriction is appropriate in circumstances like this. Though I also question the potential for effective enforcement of such a restriction in a medium like the blogosphere.