The New Yorker wrote a piece at the beginning of the month about the BoredAt network of anonymous message threads at Ivy League schools. I thought it was pretty interesting (I’m embarrassed to admit it, but the New Yorker managed to show me a web service I had never seen before). I didn’t think the service was blog-worthy at the time, but now I think it’s very relevant in the wake of the Kathy_Sierra_Mess(TM).

The New Yorker hits the nail on the head by comparing the BoredAt network to the bathroom wall (I wonder if women’s bathrooms are like men’s bathrooms in this respect…). There’s some entertainment value in the voyeurism of watching the thread update in real-time, but the anonymity leads to some pretty awful (often hateful) content.

danah boyd added her own two cents to the Kathy_Sierra_Mess(TM) conversation in a very personal way by talking about a similar traumatic experience she had with an anonymous message board at Brown called “rumor.” I was really sad reading her story, and I hate to think that crap like this perpetuates CompSci as a male-dominated discipline. Obviously, it’s not the only reason, but I’m sure the bigotry that comes with all that testosterone is a significant factor, which really sucks.

I wonder if the BoredAt network of sites has had any big controversies to deal with along these lines yet? If not, they will eventually.