Dear elearning101...

Every so often, someone who 'wishes to remain anonymous' slithers out from under a stone to post a few destructive or malicious comments on someone else's blog, vandalises a wiki page (like 'Furballer' did recently) or hacks into a site. Sometimes the comments are quite clever. More often though, they are simply meant to hurt, damage or undermine. The perpetrator hides behind their anonymity because they wouldn't have the courage to say the same thing to a person's face. It's so easy to be anonymous on the web. Then you can say exactly what you want to say, and suffer no personal consequences, because there's no come back. Right? Er... wrong. Let me introduce you all to 'elearning101' (whoever he or she may be), and point you in the direction of their recent post on my Slideshare site. This is what elearning101 wrote:

"Another rehash of the same old stuff. Is this really what passes off as a keynote nowadays? Any chance of of evidence rather than a load of hyperbole. This is just a list of ideas loosely thrown together without any examples, evaluation or evidence Can anyone explain what a CC Steve Wheeler licence is? Does the author have his own version of Creative Commons?"

This was posted in response to a slideset several people asked me to share after they heard my keynote presentation in Germany for the LearnTEC Conference. I don't want to make a big fuss out of this, or act like a wounded victim, because I'm not. I'm big enough and old enough not to worry too much about a few negative comments. The positive comments I receive about my work far outnumber the negative, abusive or disparaging ones. No, instead I want to point out that posting anonymous rude comments on someone else's site is unacceptable. For me, it's a form of cyber bullying. I won't stand for it, and neither should you. I'm writing this blogpost because I want to bring such behaviour out into the open. In so doing I hope the community of practice I value, the readers of this blog, and those who are as passionate as me about learning and technology can read, be aware, assess and otherwise discuss the implications of it.

Here's what I wrote in response to elearning101 on my Slideshare site:

"Wow, thanks for your comments elearning101 - if that is your real name. :-D Unfortunately, your comments don’t really bear any resemblance to reality and I’m almost certain you wouldn’t be bold enough to say this to my face. Agreed, some of the slides have been used before in previous presentations, but the content and message were specific to the audience at LearnTEC so I repurposed some of them appropriately.

Ask anyone who attended for their comments and feedback and I think you will find they would be all very positive, and we had a lot of constructive dialogue afterwards. That has to be worth something? I would like to discuss this with you without you hiding behind your shroud of anonymity sometime perhaps... I’m open to criticism, when people are honest with their identities, and then perhaps your comments might actually carry some weight."

Ironically, since I posted the slideshow, it has received over 1500 hits in 24 hours. Not bad for a slideshow filled with hyperbole and a lack of examples, evaluation and evidence eh? I would also like to ask this: How does elearning101 know that my talk was all hyperbole and lacking evidence? Answer - they don't, unless they were in the audience. Then they would have heard the evidence I cited from my own recent studies into my students' use of social media. I will also say this (although I doubt very much if elearning101 will dare to reveal their true identity, especially now I have made their activity public). I repeat my challenge to elearning101 to discuss with me why s/he thinks my slides are valueless. They actually make a valid point about the Creative Commons licence - I failed to post the final slide which tells viewers exactly which licence I selected - a share alike, non-commercial licence. Shame, because these kinds of argument would hold more water if these anonymous commenters provide their real name. I would also like to hear if elearning101 or anyone like them has ever been up to their tricks on anyone else's sites. What is the extent of this kind of anonymous commenting? I'm well aware that elearning101 has been active on other sites, including Wikipedia, so watch out - your website could be next.

Please don't misunderstand me, I'm open to any amount of criticism, as long as it is constructive and is given without spite. Tell me what is wrong but then tell me what you think I could do to improve it. I learn a lot from the feedback of my own personal learning network. When it's anonymous and destructive though, I think the writer forfeits their right to be taken seriously. But I also wonder what you think as you read this? I welcome comments from anyone (including elearning101 of course) on this incident, but please identify yourself if you are able to. Have you experienced the same or similar? What are your views on such incidents? And what are the implications for us all as an online community?

Image source by Jeff the Trojan


Dear elearning101... by Steve Wheeler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.