Comments on: Email from Sergio Rivera-Ayala about the spam and blog comments promoting his book

By: Sergio Rivera-Ayala’s Book Strikes (out) Again

Sergio Rivera-Ayala’s Book Strikes (out) Again — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 18:53:01 +0000

[...] Lawson shed a little light on the less savory aspects of those comments? And then remember when Steve later got unpleasant emails that were also copied to his boss and dean and college [...]

By: Barbara Fister

Barbara Fister — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 19:05:25 +0000

This is really a very sad indication of the desperation around self-fashioning, marketing, and the academic persona and how people who are very bad at sales work feel compelled to throw themselves into it.

I actually think the way that web 2.0 is so often described as a platform for promoting yourself as a brand is mixing up a lot of people who no longer know how to draw lines between communicating, selling, and shilling.

By: caleb

caleb — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 00:25:59 +0000

Aha, good detective work. I couldn’t figure out the U Waterloo ones and figured it was just some weird Canadian academic computing thing, so right about that but not about who the messages were going to. So if he doesn’t want his dean and president knowing that his name is muddy, that weakens my argument. Give ‘em hell.

By: Steve Lawson

Steve Lawson — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 22:11:01 +0000

Caleb, all those "uwaterloo" email addresses are his email program trying to deal with the names of my prez and my dean. So he didn't copy anyone there. And I had originally emailed his publisher, so it makes sense he'd copy them, too.

And I'm not "worried" about my Dean or Prez hearing about this, but I am objecting to his copying them because I see it as an attempt to intimidate me into removing the previous post.

As for the rest, that is a perfectly reasonable interpretation.

By: caleb

caleb — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 21:14:00 +0000

I think you should assume the professor/author has the best of intentions. Besides the folks at your college, he cc'd his publisher and several people at his institution.

Someone else uses spam tactics and sexually harassing language to sell his book and he doesn't care? That's disappointing, but I don't think he's trying to silence you. I have the sense that if you were actually worried about getting the attention of the president or dean, you wouldn't be writing about it.

My read is that his academic reputation is at stake here, and he wants everyone who might search on his name to know that he has nothing to do with any of it. I think of this because of the recent kerfuffle over someone impersonating a professor to give credibility to a racist tract (can't find the link - sorry!)

So he's not picking up a torch and a pitchfork to go after whoever started this crap. He sent you an apology: +1 for Sergio!

By: See Also… » Shady emails and comments about Sergio Rivera-Ayala’s new book, El discurso colonial en textos novohispanos: espacio, cuerpo y poder

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 19:37:57 +0000

[...] Update 7 Oct 2009: Professor Rivera-Ayala responded to my email and I posted our exchange. [...]

By: Iris

Iris — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 17:39:21 +0000

Interesting.

I should note that I wrote a short note to Sergio Rivera-Ayala before you did, but I haven't yet received any acknowledgment or reply. Though if he's going to copy my dean and the president of my college, I'm glad I already alerted some higher-ups to the fact that this situation was a little bizarre.