DOS stands for Denial of Service. It’s a computer term for what happens when a website or a blog is hit with so much input from people trying to read the site or submit comments that the server hosting the website can’t handle it and crashes. It can be just high volume, like what happened to HBO’s site on June 10 after the finale of The Sopranos, or it can be malicious; automated attacks by someone trying to shut down a web or a blog because they don’t like what the site is saying.

That’s what’s been happening at Shakesville. I’m going to spare you all the behind-the-scenes stuff because A) it’s a lot of techno stuff that I don’t understand (something about squirrels gyring and gimbeling in the wabe and overloading the capzapitor), and B) when the site comes back, Melissa McEwan, the dynamic force behind Shakesville, will have her say, and I’m not going to upstage her. As a contributor to the site — and ever the theatre scholar — I know who the star is and I know my role as a supporting player, and Melissa gets the spotlight.

I will say, however, that the little people — and I mean little in every sense of the word — that are doing this will not win. They don’t like what Melissa or the rest of the contributors have to say, so instead of having the balls to engage in a civil discussion about their issues, they resort to a techno-tantrum, and they are probably having a nice laugh about what they have done, chortling with glee when they click on the site and get an error message. Well, all I can say is, laugh it up now because when the site comes back — and it will — there will be plenty of things that Melissa and the rest of the Shakescrew will have to say that will send you even further around the bend.

Thuggery works on the theory that the victim will not respond or will curl up in the corner and whimper, “Please don’t hurt me,” and there’s a certain element that thinks that liberals can be easily intimidated. That may be true in some cases, but most of those have apparently been elected to Congress, and this crowd is different. We all know how to fight back because we’ve been doing it all our lives, whether it’s because we’re queer, female, transgendered, a member of a minority, or just the kind of person that bullies seemed to think were easy targets. But we have all survived and even thrived because of these threats by the foolish and the dull-witted, and this attack on Shakesville is no different than facing down schoolyard bully. (Or in my case, a drunken frat boy who called me a faggot and threatened me with a piece of 1-by lumber. He found out all too quickly that I didn’t go to the gym just to look good in a polo shirt. I may be a Quaker, but I know how to respond to an assault.)

So Melissa and Shakesville will be back, and as soon as it is, I’ll post the news. You may not agree with everything she says. You may not like the use of earthy language. You may even wonder what the fuss is all about; what’s one blog more or less in the blogosphere. But silence one and you silence them all, and that makes us all — readers and writers — a member of Shakesville. As I wrote back in February, picking up on the meme from the film Spartacus, I am Shakespeare’s Sister.

FYI: The old Shakespeare’s Sister site is still up and running, and Melissa has put up a post saying pretty much what I’ve said here. However…there is also the Paypal button over there where if you feel so inclined, you may make a donation to the cause. Fighting off the bastards with a donation makes you feel good.