Blogging is about communication.  And communication can bring out the best and the worst in people, especially in the so-called anonymity of being online.  In this scenario, bullies can appear to flourish.

My sister (never one for thinking before she speaks) has got herself involved in a bit of a flame war, with a guy well-known for using bullying tactics.

The result is that, not only has she been verbally abused, she has been openly threatened (and although I know that’s a strong word to use, I have seen the evidence).

Evidently, one loud-mouthed MMO ‘guru’ didn’t like her questioning his tactics.  So now he is saying he can affect her online income if he chooses to do so.

He has been quite specific too.  Without ever saying he will do this, of course.  The guy isn’t quite the dickhead he comes across as.

My advise to her has to be "Shut the fuck up.  This guy is an arrogant bully, who obviously gets a hardon from bullying people.  Arguing with him isn’t worth the effort."

I’ll admit that thoughts of self-preservation are high on my list here, as I share hosting and sites with my sister and have a family to feed from the proceeds.

Perhaps some serious ass licking is in order.

Nevertheless, I’m pretty sure my sister will not listen to me.  She hates bullies as much as I do.  And, although both of us need to protect our online income, whereas my answer is to keep my head down, hers is to fight back, guns blazing.  She even has an avatar for this!

The guy in question says he is pretty powerful.  I see no reason to question that.

In fact, cowardly as it may seem, I see no reason to question anyone online.  It’s just not worth it.  And the only time I did, it came back to bite both me and my sister in the ass.  She has never let me forget it, telling me to STFU.

Nevertheless, this ‘rule’ does not appear to apply to her.

My sister believes in questioning people for all their motives.  I’ve told her many times she should set up a site for this. 

Of course, that would depend on whether she has any hosting left after the bully has finished with her…

Arguing with an online bully never turns out well.  There are no winners.  Each ’side’ thinks they are in the right and cannot be persuaded otherwise.  Because the bully is more powerful, he usually ‘wins’ – at least in his eyes.  But I’m not so sure he really does.

Online bullying is usually dominated by men.  Perhaps it’s a ‘male ego’ thing?  Or just that it makes them feel hard, taking pot shots at the opposition?  Perhaps they even jerk off while thinking about how they ‘hit their target’?

I’ll go back to building my adult sites now, and hope not to get hit by the shrapnel as my sister goes into battle against the bully.

But if this site goes down, you may well assume it was taken down when it became an unwitting victim of bullying online.

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I have many blogs and websites, some good, some absolute crap (I had to learn somewhere ).  When I began working on the net, I hovered for a while, reading other blogs and forums and anywhere I could find helpful (rather than crap) information, and then I dived into an adult webmaster’s forum and asked some questions.

Several people answered and one in particular gave me a fair bit of help.  That help came at the price of signing up for some of his sponsors, but I reckoned that was very fair exchange and hoped I would later on be able to make this worth his while.

My ‘mentor’ wasn’t always around when he had ‘promised’ he would be, but I’m not the complaining type.  I just got on and learned more how to do things myself.

After a while, I reached the stage many of us reach in a new career.  I knew I was doing some things wrong (hardly any sales), so I asked for help on the forum I had gone to originally.

My mentor rushed to the rescue as if he had never disappeared, offered me very good advice, and then went on his way, with the promise to be in touch the very next day with even more help (I hadn’t asked by the way).

Of course, that ‘follow up help’ never materialised, but then I had never expected it would.  I was happy enough with the help I had received and, with the extra advice and more of my own research, eventually my ‘little business’ took off.

However, I have always thought of this guy as ‘my mentor’, despite the fact I know other mentors who help people much more and actually keep their promises.  I am pretty self sufficient anyway.  I believe you learn more that way.  And he had been there to help at the times I needed help the most.

So, as far as I am concerned, he was my mentor and I guess I will always feel that way.

I always knew this guy was a bit of a rogue.  Nothing criminal, but willing to ‘bend the rules’ to suit him and his needs and definitely ‘cut throat’ when he needed to be.  But then, aren’t most successful business men (and women) like that anyway?

In any case, by that time, he knew I was smart and he did appear to have some respect for me.

But then the economy took a nose dive.

And now, my ‘mentor’ is using his ‘business methods’ in an even more cut throat way.  Again, nothing criminal – just not good for the unwary.

I guess he must be finding things harder now, like the rest of us – more work for only the same (or sometimes even less) reward. It’s happening all over.  People find their ways to deal with it.

He has definitely found his.

If I think about this, I suppose the thing which hurts the most, is that he even tried to scam me.  And what hurts is not so much the attempted scam, but the thought he could get away with it without me noticing.

Now that is an insult to my intelligence.  He should have know better than that.

He knows I know.  He hasn’t tried it again.

But very often now, I see ‘my mentor’ trying to scam wide-eyed, eager newbies with his schemes.  To me, his tricks are blatantly obvious.  But others often don’t see through them (or the wiser ones choose to ignore them).  And the newbies hold him in high esteem.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to hold back and not ‘out’ him publicly for his methods.

For the newbies’ sake I should.

And my ‘broad hints’ are falling on deaf ears.

He knows I know what he is doing, but he thinks I won’t let on. 

Perhaps he is right…

But I am definitely pondering this whole dilemma probably a lot more than he thinks.  My only question is…

Do I really owe my mentor my silence?

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