Filed under WTF! - Kathy Sierra gets death threats on her blog and about attending the ETech conference

Ok, this is a serious WTF.  First, i don't know Kathy.  I have never met her.  I don't even know of her.  I read earlier this week that she has been getting death threats about attending a conference.  The only thing I can say is WTF are these crazy people doing threatening someone.  To  me, it shows that there are people out there that don't understand basic concepts like respect for others and their opinions.  I support Kathy in this.  This behavior must be stopped.

http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2007/03/as_i_type_this_.html 

A couple of thoughts on this:

• The community should help out and find these people.
• Speech on the Internet is not somehow protected.  Threatening someone online is no different than threatening them in real life.  Why people think that the internet is somehow different than real life, I will have no idea. 

This is not the first time this has happened, but it is the first time that it has reached such a large scale with a mass knowledge about this.  In the late 1990s, I know that this occurred.  In one situation, a friend of mine (Mike, yes thats his real name), who can be a little bit rough himself, was threatened by another person in a development newsgroup.  Finally, Mike posted his personal address and phone number and invited him to settle the issue.  I don't think anything else was heard on the issue.