A worrisome plan to make the earth move.

It has come to my attention that a number of people are risking catastrophic seismic activity today by exposing n00bs.

This so-called "n00bquake" frightens me, and not just because I live in earthquake country.

If the internet is flooded with n00bs today, the consequences could be tragic.

• We face the spectacle of people hot-linking images on other people's servers -- and then, when admonished, asking what sausages have to do with anything;
• Of putting their names or handles at the end of their posts even when their usernames automatically appear beside their posts -- like there's no shortage of bandwidth;
• Of talking about the boards on the boards;
• Of using Comic Sans and blink-tags!

Some people think that bridging the digital divide will have only positive effects, but have they thought about what would happen if every person who has never been on the internet were to jump onto a desktop at the same time? Do they really think the power grid could handle such a surge of n00bs? Or that we could possibly maintain a high level of awareness of all internet traditions?

Please, let's use some common sense here and not expose more n00bage at a time than is consistent with polite social interaction. Don't let your Facebook friends or Twitter tweeps lure you into n00bquake. The results could be --

What? It's actually boobquake?

Never mind.