Stephen Downes

You read this sort of story a lot, the one where somebody does something online and lives to regret it. In this case, it's a professor who utters something stupid, where formerly, "in the sanctity of the classroom, when you say something, it stays there," but now, it's online. I have two views. First, openness is good. If the behaviour was inappropriate when seen by everyone, it was inappropriate, period, and should not have been covered up by the so-called "sanctity of the classroom." Second, as more and more practices become more open, the self-appointed guardians of morality in our society - you know who you are - are going have to lighten up and stop pretending people live lives of sanctity. Nobody does, and we should stop pretending.