Back when I was a very nerdy little kid, every month I would anxiously await my copy of Highlights magazine, and read it cover to cover. I’m charmed to discover that Highlights is still publishing, and that they still feature the regular comic strip “Goofus and Gallant.”
Gallant was a kid who always did the right, noble, and virtuous thing. Goofus, on the other hand, could be counted on to be selfish, unpleasant, and rude.
For now we’ll just gloss over the uncritical definitions of absolute good and bad, along with the thorny question of just what’s going on at home with Goofus that he has so much trouble with social norms.
Let’s assume that Goofus isn’t Goofus because he’s intrinsically evil, but because he doesn’t get it. Perhaps he’s being raised by quasi-tame wolverines who lack the ability to teach him the refinements.
We see a lot of Goofus on the web.
So in the interest of spelling out a few unwritten (or widely written, but ignored) rules of the web, let’s look at how Goofus and Gallant conduct themselves.
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