* * * * *

                    It can happen in the print world too!

> If someone has not already done so, allow me to posit **Scalzi's Law of
> Online Communication:** Anything bad you ever write about someone online
> will get back to them sooner or later. People who don't believe this law
> are by all means invited to prove me wrong. Note that this invitation comes
> with the explicit warning that if you write me something that says “I
> called my mom/dad/co-worker/whatever a hideous gasbag on my Web site five
> years ago and s/he doesn't know,” I'll merely forward the note to them with
> my compliments—Scalzi's Law works because **a)** people can't not tell
> other people about their online exploits and **b)** other people can't not
> tell about your online exploits, either. If you don't want people to know
> what you really think about them, don't put it online. Ever. Really, it's
> just that simple.
>

John Scalzi: Whatever for February 27, 2002 [1]

I don't have much to add to that, other than it can happen in the print world
as well. Surprisingly so.

I learned this the hard way.

It was 1987. I had just started a humor column [2] for the college newspaper
[3] and I had just written a screed against my high school English teachers
(no, it's not online and for good reason. Heck, the editor should have axed
that column but it still ran. It wasn't until a semester or two later did I
get an editor who actually edited and told me a few of my columns were not
fit to print and for that I'm thankful).

Of all my columns I wrote (and I wrote the column for three years) that was
the only one to get back to my high school. And boy did I hear about it. I
felt bad then; I still felt bad ten years later at my high school reunion
(and felt relieved that none of the teachers I wrote about showed up) and I
still feel bad about it now, but the paper itself is long gone and I doubt if
you can even dig up back copies at the library so that particular piece of
journalism is long dead and buried.

[1] http://scalzi.com/w020227.htm
[2] http://www.conman.org/people/spc/writings/murphy/
[3] gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2003/08/09/atlantic.sun.x-html

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