web-goddess

I’ve taken down the Sorry Day post (for now). Things have gotten out of hand. One of the people who was harrassing me the other day sent the link to the woman mentioned in the post, and she’s been very hurt by it. That was never my intention at all. I deliberately left out all identifying details, and I took great pains to clarify that even though I disagreed with her, I still liked and respected this person. In fact, I’ve directed this person to my website in the past, and I didn’t say anything in the post that I didn’t/wouldn’t say to her face. Some of the comments got a bit rough though (not that I’m shifting the blame onto you guys!), and this woman isn’t very comfortable with blogs and the Internet. To her eyes, it looked like we were ganging up on her. I’m really very, very sorry about this.

The whole situation came to a head this week and I had to do something to clear the air. (I’ll also be apologising to the woman in person, and also the other woman mentioned in the comments.) To be honest, the decision to remove the post wasn’t an easy one to make. On one hand I want to admit to my error and make things right… and on the other hand, it fills me with a blinding rage to give in to the trolls who were harrassing me. (I do not believe that the woman in question had anything to do with them, other than being told about the post.) But you know what? I have to be the grown-up here. My friendship with the woman affected is more important than spiting trolls. So I’ve removed the post and I unreservedly apologise to the woman in question. I’m sorry.

And as for the troll in question? I don’t know what I did to piss in your proverbial cornflakes, and I’m sure at this point I don’t care. For future reference though, I do have a log of your IP addresses, and the next time someone asks me to prove it was you – as happened today – I might not be the bigger person after all.

I hate trolls. In case you didn’t notice, I’ve been being attacked on this website over the past 24 hours for sharing an opinion that 68% of Australians also hold. (Or it might be that I’m also American. Or that the person hates George Bush. They’re not very clear.) Anyway, my attacker(s) aren’t even debating the issue; they’re trying to deny me the right to have an opinion on the matter. I tried arguing my case, but you know how well that goes. So now I’m just going to delete the crap. (I’d block them outright, but they share ISPs with several of my legitimate commenters, and that would block you all from the site. That said, if w-g suddenly disappears for you, that’s what’s happened. Drop me a line and I’ll grant you access.)

I’m not really sure what else to do. These people really don’t deserve any more of our attention, so perhaps we should just leave it at that. I guess I could force a sign-in for comments in the future, but I’d really hate to have to go to that option. Man, what kind of pathetic, antisocial jerk picks fights with people over things they say on their personal websites? We’ll just have to ponder.

Update: I’ve locked down commenting for the time being. Those of you who’ve commented before shouldn’t have any trouble, but please let me know if you do.

I have no idea how the airlines can get away with this crap. Using Qantas’s website, I get a fare of $1998 for a return trip ticket between Sydney and San Francisco. If I switch to their US site and use the exact same cities on the same dates (just going in the opposite direction), the cost is USD $1229. Even allowing for the exchange rate, that’s still a $500 premium that they levy on Australians. I got so mad I just called them. “We’re very sorry, Ma’am, but there are certain fares that are only available to North Americans…” yada yada yada. Qantas is supposed to be an Australian company, right? Why shouldn’t we be getting the special deals? This sucks. I’ll fly Air New Zealand instead.