But one thing I would add is that the problem I found with SBBS is the incredible unevenness of the so-called satire. Sometimes J.B. would be reasoned and reasonable, sometimes not. Sometimes he would affect a persona, sometimes not. One felt, as a reader, somewhat manipulated- and that wasn’t a question of literary intention, but something baser. I can cope with that, of course, but allied to the self-description of one who takes a middle course (shot by both sides), and reaps the benfits of surfing through the ‘mainstream’, it had a somewhat incendiary quality.

I feel, to put it bluntly, that SBBS exploited the very qualities of evenhandedness and reasonable good-blokishness that it affected to respect. It drew people in and then slammed doors in their faces- ha ha. Moreover it seemed to regard this quality at an evidence of intelligence and worthiness.

Well, just quibbling. I don’t agree with anyone who might have damaged John B. with his employer. I believe that we’re probably damaged by such tactics too. On the other hand I won’t pretend that I thought SBBS was anything other than intelligent and stupid- mixed in an unfortunate and destructive ratio. I have preferred JB’s more considered pieces at the Sharpener anyway.

Here’s a suggestion. Why not get someone who either is unemployed or whose employers are easy-going to republish your archives for you under a different name? We’d all know whose it really was, but you wouldn’t be legally responsible for any of it.

A sad day for bloggers, I have to say. We should find out who did this and do something nasty in return.

Good luck.

(hmm, just noticed I’ve typed the sbbs url in as my website. ever so slightly saddening.)

Cheers all for broadly kind comments.

Thus Swift’s Modest Proposal is well within the boundaries.

This John Band guy should’ve declared himself Jewish (at least temporarily) and make all the gassing jokes he wants; otherwise it’s way over the line. Must follow the rules.

Scary perhaps, but you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to work out that this all kicked off about the time regular sparring matches took place at Harry’s Place, here, SBBS and B-BBC, and why JohnB asked him to email him privately at about the same time JohnB’s blog went silent.

As for tracking JohnB down, it wasn’t that difficult – his site made reference to where he worked.

The more worrying thing from your perspective, Natalie is having this kind of vindictive little man regularly keeping company on your blog’s comment board.

Alas, if only we knew who that actually was.

I don’t think that nosemonkey’s defence of the gassing Jews remark is particularly convincing. The Bob Geldof part of that remark doesn’t make the Jews part OK. Surely I don’t really have to explain why.

But tracking John B down and threatening to destroy his career? Making him take down his archives? That is vindictive.

It is also scary.

Logically extrapolating from the attempted justifications in the comments here (and by some of the more self-righteous idiots in the comments section of Harry’s Place), it would seem that wanting to gas people who complained about Geldof swearing is fine. As long as they aren’t Jewish. Which, in my humble opinion, is significanly more patronisingly racist than anything I’ve ever read of John B’s.

Shot by Both Sides was a satirical site – not always satire of genius, but satirical nonetheless. John’s whole persona on that site was, from everthing I can tell, merely that – a persona, an exaggeration of some of the worst excesses of the internet. To take that into the real world is less than pathetic. It’d be akin to trying to get Swift booted out of the Church for writing “A Modest proposal” – after all, if he wrote that the children of poor Irish people should be used as food, he simply MUST have meant it…

So let’s just put this in perspective: while some may have been offended by what John wrote, others actually took it upon themselves to try to destroy his career.

To say that these people are scum is something of an understatement – and I for one hope they’re outed before they pull off another stunt like this.

On Shot by by both Sides it currently says:

For those of you who lied, twisted, cheated and bullied until the least worst choice available to me was to close the site, congratulations.

And on Backward Dave’s site it says:

Perhaps there’s no higher acclaim that being blackmailed by envious anonymous cunts.

While I had my disagreements with John B, I still think he was a decent enough bloke and do take exception to people who may have used blackmail and anonymous threats to force him to stop blogging (not even to merely apologise for the post). Certainly his site had become formulaic and merely offensive most of the time, but it was not a site that should have been effectively “banned”.

So what is going on here?