I just found out via a Twitter post that Kathy Sierra, the author of the Creating Passionate Users blog, which I read religiously, has been receiving a series of threats. Cyberbullying, even death threats. Threats of violence. To the point that she had to back out of presenting a session at the ETech conference, and is canceling all public engagements.

[ED - I removed a paragraph that could be perceived as inflammatory. I wasn't trying to imply that any specific individual(s) made a death threat, only that some had been named in Kathy's post.]

This is seriously not cool. I don't have the entire story, but from Kathy's post, a group of people self-organized to inflict threats on her and a few other people online. She suggests that some of this goes with the territory. I disagree. This is not acceptable.

[ED - I removed another potentially inflammatory paragraph that didn't add to anything]