A while back there was some disturbing press about harassment of bloggers, and I made a post then about having community standards and understanding the legalities of blogging.

Rick Caine, one of the directors of Manufacturing Dissent chose to speak up about all the discussion on his film on AJ Schnack’s blog. AJ moved the comments to a post, Rick Caine Responds. I thought his comments were very interesting and contribute to the discussion that we’ve been having, until the end.

Let’s start with the violating of your own ’self imposed’ standards (if you don’t follow your own ‘rules’ what’s the point in having them?) about blogging about other films, even as you suck and blow your own mediocre and largely ignored film. I know I was at SXSW when it screened during the music part of the fest and all of like 50 people turned up for a screening in the 1,200 seat Paramount Theater, and that’s the music crowd.

While I probably would have allowed this comment on my blog had it been directed toward me, it does seem to be attacking AJ more than any kind of thoughtful critique of his film. I didn’t go to the SXSW screening so I can’t say how many people went, but I’ve been to screenings at AFI Fest in Los Angeles and at IDFA, which were capacity crowds, but it would also be true that people have mixed responses to AJ’s film because it isn’t a typical fan-worshiping film. But it is exquisitely made, if nothing else.

But worse, and I believe totally unacceptable, is some of the comments on John Pierson’s letter at indieWIRE.com, one in particular. Many of them attack John personally and viciously. I was hoping that the editors would remove such comments as indieWIRE is a professional community and I find it hard to swallow that such attacks will remain on the record, even if the attacker later apologized. The comments in question remain as of now (and I won’t grace them by linking or repeating).

Thoughts on this? What’s over-the-line of civil disagreement?