As technology writing and family life have occupied my time over the past few months, I’ve not really been keeping an eye on what www.kasterborous.com – the website that I setup in 2004 with illustrator Anthony Dry – was up to. I’d assumed that a new editor had been installed and that it was business as usual.
Not so. While I was aware that Philip Bates and Andrew Reynolds, my editing successors, had been hired by the buyer of the site, it seems that things have spiralled out of control, with both men giving notice and escaping to form their own Doctor Who website, thedoctorwhocompanion.com (nice name!).
However it seems that around the same time, Kasterborous was old once again, this time to SheKnows Media, a collection of feminism-first blogs and websites. Uncertain as to the relevance? Me too. But what I do know is that my name has been attached to a blog post extolling the virtues of a Doctor Who gambling machine, a development that I find morally repugnant. (We’ll ignore the more-ads-than-Sky-TV nonsense; not my problem.)
Let us not forget that Doctor Who is a children’s show, and that Kasterborous is read by school kids. Such an advert is not acceptable.
“Why don’t you get in touch with the website, then?!” You might well ask. I have. Several times on Twitter, and once via their particularly unfriendly “form” (which doesn’t consider .co.uk email addresses to be valid). I’ve also left comments on the offending post (where I’m gratified to see that Kasterborous readers recognise a con when they see one) but these have, curiously, been marked as “spam”.
Oh, the irony.
So, SheKnows Media: do something about it. You’re actively degrading my reputation by attaching my name to something like this, and I’d like it to stop.
