Thursday, February 11, 2010

A question of internet etiquette

Ignoring people on the internet is harder than you would think. I stopped reading syncaine's blog a while ago, but unfortunately he hasn't stopped reading mine. So every time I make some blog post about some PvP game, like "I don't like legal RMT in EVE", syncaine goes and makes a blog post with my name in the title, full of personal attacks and lies about me and my blog. And because people on the internet just love blog wars, his posts then get linked to and commented on elsewhere. So I'm just surfing the blogosphere and I stumble upon posts by somebody quoting syncaine having said that I am getting paid by Blizzard to promote World of Warcraft, or similar lies and ad hominem attacks. I even get mails from other people telling me "hey, did you see what syncaine is saying about you now?". How does one ignore that?

So I'm really at a loss about what I could do, what I should do, to stop somebody from slandering me all over the internet. Never write another post about anything remotely connected to PvP any more? Defend myself and correct all the lies he is telling about me? Write attack posts against syncaine on this blog full of reciprocal slander? Take a lawyer and sue him? Remove all blogs that ever link to syncaine from my reader? Stop blogging? Report him to the IRS for not declaring his income from Darkfall? I don't think any of these solutions are feasible. I'm afraid syncaine will just continue writing anti-Tobold and anti-WoW rants. Such posts drive traffic, and direct traffic is important if you finance yourself with an affiliate program.

So what do you think is the correct internet etiquette to deal with repeated personal attacks and slander? What would you do if some blogger repeatedly dragged your name through the mud for no reason other than you liking a different style of games than him? I could really use some help here.

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