Why real conversation matters

If you have been following along with the story of threats against Kathy Sierra, this will likely be no news to you.   But if you haven’t you can start by reading her blog post about this situation in which she was vilely and violently threatened by an anonymous blogger, the act and response to which launched a flurry of bad feelings everywhere.

Yesterday, Kathy and Chris Locke, one of the bloggers she had singled out held an actual conversation and the harvest is here is a dual set of Coordinated Statements on the whole affair.   What is important to note is that they enjoyed the conversation with one another, they met, truly and openly as human beings who had a common purpose that overrode their stories about one another.   And it seems like they discovered each other for the first time.

This sort of goes to show that, as lovely as the internet is for helping us have conversations, the conversations that really matter are the ones that are face to face (or mouth to ear, in this case, the next best thing).   No amount of virtual back and forth can substitute for the genuine progress that can be made in two hours of storytelling.   The internet helps us do this, but it is not a proxy for doing this.   I applaud Kathy and Chris for their simple act of grace.