Boing Boing's Moderation Policy (Archived)

Our moderation policy was revised in October 2009. Read the new version. This version is deprecated.

Q. Why does Boing Boing have to have a moderator?
A. First answer: Because every general-interest online forum that's worth reading has some kind of moderation system in force.
Second answer: Because four years ago, Boing Boing's first, unmoderated comment system went so septic that it had to be shut down. The Boingers want to never go through that again.
Third answer: Because Boing Boing gets enough traffic to attract non-automated scams.
Q. All the vowels have disappeared from a paragraph I wrote! What's going on?
A. We did it. Someone (a moderator, one of the Boingers) was expressing displeasure at your remarks. The technique is called disemvowelling. It deprecates but does not delete the remark. With work, the disemvowelled text should still be readable.
Q. You disemvowelled a very polite comment of mine that happened to mention a current presidential candidate. That means you're biased against that candidate, right?
A. Wrong. It means you shouldn't throw in mentions of presidential candidates unless they're mentioned in the main entry or are highly relevant to it. This rule will apply until the next president is elected.
Q. Something has happened to the link back to my website that I put at the bottom of my comment.
A. There's an answer to this problem: please don't put links in your comments that aren't relevant to the entry. We'll just have to remove them. Instead, put a link to your site in your user profile.
Q. My link-free .sig lines keep disappearing too.
A. We aren't big on .sig lines either, though they're a lesser offense. Rationale: first, your name is already there in your message header. Repeating it a few lines later is redundant.
Second, .sig lines eat up vertical space to no good purpose. The more messages you can see at one time, the easier it is to understand how they relate to each other. Pointlessly using up vertical space reduces the number of messages per screen without conveying any benefit in return.
If your .sig lines keep disappearing, it's because the moderators are removing them. Please take the hint and stop using them, because deleting them is bleeping tedious.
Q. Are you changing people's comments in any other ways?
A. Not really. We'll occasionally fix HTML errors or zap duplicate comments, if we feel like doing it and have the time. Once in a while we'll remove excess line returns in order to conserve vertical space.
Q. There's an old comment of mine I want you to delete.
A. Drop us a note, if it's really important; but the default answer is "no."
Q. One of my comments has disappeared!
A. There are several possibilities. One is that we may be having technical problems. It never hurts to write and ask. Another possibility is that someone thought your comment would be better gone.
Q. I can't believe that Boing Boing, of all places, would be using censorship. What happened to freedom of speech?
A. Boing Boing is steadfast in its support of your freedom of speech. We believe that you, O Reader, should be able to have (or refuse to have) anything you want on your own website, as long as it doesn't deprive others of their rights. Yay, freedom of speech!
By that same token, freedom of speech also means that the people who write and edit Boing Boing have the right to have (or refuse to have) anything they want on their own website. If one of the things they don't want is a comment that you have posted, they aren't depriving you of your freedom of speech. You're free to put that comment up on your own webpage.
Q. Why can't you just tell everyone to ignore the trolls?
A. Because they can't. Everyone automatically reads the text that's there. If it's nasty or unpleasant, they get a dose of that. If there's too much of it, they stop participating. There's far more internet discourse lost to trollage and casual rudeness than is ever lost to moderators.
Q. Isn't the moderator just enforcing compliance with her own political views?
A. Not at all. You couldn't reconstruct her personal views from a list of the times she's intervened in a discussion. The time she invented disemvowelling, it was so she could deal with a flaming leftist.
Q. Isn't the moderator just enforcing compliance with the Boing Boing party line?
A. There is no Boing Boing party line. The Boingers have varied political opinions.
Q. What's with all the [steampunk, outsider art, papercraft, other Boing Boing obsessions]?
A. One or more of the Boingers likes it.
Q. Aiiiiiiieeeeeeeeee! Boing Boing has advertising! Doesn't that mean you've become hopelessly corrupt?
A. You mean, unduly influenced by whatever advertisers are the source of the site's revenue? Don't worry about it. Boing Boing's editorial content is unaffected by its ads.
Q. But--but--those people are giving them money! How can they not be affected?
A. (The moderator speaks solo: "In order for the Boingers to be unduly influenced by who advertises on their site, they'd first have to reliably remember who those advertisers are. Trust me: this is not an issue.")
Q. But you take ads from Microsoft!!! Aren't they the root of all evil?
A. This is rank Manichaeanism. Go lie down with a cool wet cloth on your forehead until you feel better.
Q. The moderator disemvowelled one of my comments, supposedly because I had violated some rule of debate. Doesn't that just mean she doesn't agree with me?
A. No. Online discussions are not formal debates, but the usual rules for what constitutes valid argument and legitimate rebuttal, and who's responsible for proving what, still apply. They are independent of content.
Q. I thought I was being reasonably polite when I got into an argument with Bonzo, but two of my comments got removed entirely, and he just had a couple of paragraphs disemvowelled. Why me? Why not him?
A. There are many possibilities. The biggest one is that you were insufficiently polite. In the heat of an argument, your own remarks are going to seem more justifiable, and Bonzo's arguments are going to seem shabbier and more malicious. This temporary distortion is best addressed by being more polite than you think should be necessary.
Another possibility is that Bonzo has an established history of posting clear, well-informed, apposite, and entertaining comments, whereas you're posting for the first time. Or you're posting for the third time, but the first two times you did it, you posted snarky and unilluminating remarks. Or Bonzo posts under his real name,* but you don't. Under those circumstances, Bonzo is going to have more credibility with the moderators and editors.
Life is an unending series of auditions. Get used to it.
A possible explanation that's guaranteed to be wrong: we're not going to delete or disemvowel your comments because we simply can't deal with the vast swoop and majesty of your hard-hitting opinions. If we tell you it was due to your behavior, believe us.
Q. One of the people in our comment thread is behaving abominably. Does Boing Boing flame trolls, or just ignore them?
A. Neither. See the little one-eyed icon in the top right-hand corner of messages? That's the lookitthat button. Clicking on it tells the moderator that she should come look at that particular message. Be sure to explain what it was about the message that prompted your action. If you include your name, you may get a thank-you note. You can also use the lookitthat button to point out comments you think are particularly good.
Please don't use the lookitthat button to post comments. The moderator's the only one who'll see them.
Q. It's obvious that you won't tolerate anything but supportive comments from brown-nosers and yes-men--right?
A. I'll venture a guess that you responded to a new entry on Boing Boing by announcing that it was hopelessly lame and boring, and then came back later to discover that your comment had disappeared.
Q. Yes! Why did you remove it?
A. This is another one of those questions that has multiple answers.
First: you didn't explain why it bored you. Without an explanation, announcing that you're bored is neither useful or entertaining. Also, it's a real bringdown for readers who lack confidence in their own opinions.
Second: because frequently the "I'm so bored" thing is just attitudinizing. There's a whole big internet out there, and it's full of people who, if they don't like what they're currently reading, move on and read something else. They don't post about how bored they are just to have something to say.
Third: maybe that entry just isn't your thing. It could be someone else's. Why drag down their conversation?
Q. So we're not allowed to say something's boring?
A. Of course you're allowed. You just have to explain why.
Q. How come the moderator nailed me for a comment that didn't contain any swearing or personal attacks?
A. It's remarkable how many people believe that "you're good as long as you don't swear or launch personal attacks" is a universal rule. We'll actually tolerate both those things -- but only if you do them perfectly. Few people can manage that, so it's best not to try.
Note that there are three words you can't say on Boing Boing. I'd rather you followed that link and read the full explanation, but if you just want the rule, it goes like this:
ROT13 is a simple method for encoding text to make it unreadable. This is a ROT13 conversion utility. Use it to read what I'm about to say. The three words you can't say on Boing Boing are avttre, snttbg, and phag.
There are only two exceptions to the rule. First exception: you can use one of those words if you're a Boinger. It's their weblog. Second exception: you may use one of those words if you're quoting something genuinely worth quoting that needs to be said, and that's also appropriate to the thread.
If you go out of your way to find occasions to do that, we'll notice.
The rule on other crude language and obscenities is that they're only permitted if you can use them as well as Joel Johnson does.
Q. What's likely to land me in your bad graces?
A. Since you've asked, here's a nowhere-near-exhaustive list:
1. Spamming. Linkwhoring. Re-posting text you've already posted on a dozen other sites.
2. Making supercilious and unpleasant remarks in a civil liberties thread about how the victim had it coming. This is not to say that victims never have it coming; but there's a species of internet demi-troll that appears to specialize in posting such comments. Try not to look like you're one of them.
3. Making snide comments and insinuations about the editors. That's right out. You don't like one of the editors? Take it up with them in e-mail. If you're going to comment on an entry, talk about the entry.
4. Being nasty to no purpose. (This is the catch-all.)
5. Using unnecessarily exciting language. Making an argument is fine. Making your argument in language guaranteed to make your hearers see red? Bad idea. It practically guarantees that you're going to have a dumb (and therefore boring) argument. And if the argument's not going to be interesting, we don't see the point.
6. Jeering, sneering, condescending, or one-upping when there's been no provocation. Telling people they're naive idiots for caring about whatever-it-is. Like the "I'm bored" pose, it's empty attitudinizing, and it's remarkably unpleasant.
7. Failing to notice that there are other people in the conversation. Posting a remark that's already been made five times and answered six. Coming back and re-posting essentially the same material after a twenty-message thread has discussed your previous comment. Trying to forcibly wrench the conversation onto one of your own pet topics. Posting a stale, canned rant you've posted a dozen times before at other sites. Not coming back to see how others have responded to you.
Why post comments at all, unless you expect to be read? And if you expect to be read, you must know you're part of a conversation. Therefore, you should act like it. Engage with what the other commenters are saying. Read the thread before you add to it.
8. Posting a snotty but otherwise worthless anonymous comment. It's a lot easier to get away with snotty comments if you're a registered user.
9. Dragging in one of those topics that's guaranteed to generate a huge thrash that goes nowhere, like gun control, abortion, or Mac vs. PC vs. Linux. You're only allowed to discuss those if (a.) they're relevant to the entry; and (b.) everyone in the discussion is doing their level best to say something new.
10. This list will undoubtedly get longer.
Q. It's not fair! You've misunderstood me and disemvowelled or removed me because you mis-read what I posted. Can't we talk about this?
A. Sure. If one of your comments is disemvowelled or removed from its thread, you're welcome to write to the moderator.
Q. I can't register or post a comment. Does this mean I've been banned?
A. If you didn't get into some kind of fracas, it's highly unlikely that you've been banned. It's moderately unlikely even if you did. We're probably just having technical problems again. Drop us a note describing what happened.
Q. I was told my comment posting privileges were suspended for a week, but they never came back on. Am I permanently banned?
A. Probably not. If you were given a specific period and it's expired, drop us a note.
Q. What happens if I re-register and come back under another name while I'm suspended?
A. If we catch you, all the comments made by that false identity will be unpublished, and your suspension period will be re-started from the point at which the false identity was caught. It's okay to change your username when you aren't suspended, though we'll look askance at you if you do it too often.
Q. Is it okay for me to have more than one userid at a time?
A. No.
Q. What happens if I use someone else's userid?
A. You mean you use their identity without their say-so in Boing Boing's forums? We throw the book at you.
UPDATES:
08 May 2008:
There's a new rule about not mentioning presidential candidates unless the main entry mentions them first. That rule will remain in effect until the next president is elected.
08 May 2008:
We believe in community-based moderation. In theory, anyone can momentarily act as a moderator, as long as their action is warranted and they get it right.
However, Boing Boing also has Assistant Moderators. It's like having a deputy sheriff's badge. Currently, the Assistant Moderators are AVRAM, as in Avram Grumer, and ANTINOUS.
So now you know. If one of them should suggest an alteration in your behavior, or ask what you're hoping to accomplish with your current behavior, you'll no longer need to ask who the bleep they think they are. You'll know who they are: they're the Assistant Moderators.
14 May 2008: The rule on obscene language has been modified. Crude language and obscenities are now permitted only if you can use them as well as Joel Johnson does.
24 June 2008: Added to the list of circumstances that can increase a commenter's credibility: using one's real name.
Also added an explanation of the local prejudice against .sig lines and excess line returns.
20 November 2008: Rewrote the section about Words You Can't Use on Boing Boing to make it clearer and more specific. Redirected the explanatory link in it to a longer and more coherent explanation of the reason for the rule.
15 January 2009: Takuan, Xopher and arkizzle are Adjunct Moderators. Please see the May 8, 2008 update above regarding moderators.
Our moderation policy was revised in October 2009. Read the new version. This version is deprecated.

Life, I has it. ::: If I could have two icons, the other one would be a flammhetzer.

More at Boing Boing

Ants and Stars: Bruce Sterling and Jasmina Tesanovic visit the Sardinia Radio Telescope in Italy

The Snowden Principle

arkizzle

Wow, sounds like a regular darknet we have going on behind this big white page :)

mdhatter

heh, only three words were supposed to be bold.

The preview button, please show it to me.

Nelson.C

Ah, but the sea has many moods.

Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator

HuronBob? That was the thread about the kid with the pencil sharpener, right? It looks to me like you were trying to explain that it wasn’t the teacher’s decision — blades aren’t allowed at most schools, and there may be laws mandating reporting incidents to the police. If I’m right, then what happened was that you didn’t explain fully enough, and people took what you said as a defense of the appropriateness of the response.

Am I getting it right? Please let me know.

Pteryxx

#248 posted by scottfree , March 27, 2008 9:11 PM

“Wow, did every single user weigh in?”

I didn’t… oh wait. Darn.

Antinous / Moderator

I’ve reported it to the star chamber. It may be a system glitch as we’re in mid-upgrade.

minTphresh

thanks mucho for the sentiment, arkie, but if i had my druthers: http://images.google.com/images?um=1&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&q=chocolate+volcano+cakes&btnG=Search+Images

Xopher

I’d like to propose that the mods automatically DV any post that says BB should be like Fark, or claims that removing comments completely is better than DVing them, or calls BB “politically correct” for DVing.

This is on the same grounds they now disemvowel for saying “I’m tired of Steampunk” or “Cory how dare you promote your own books on your own blog”—asked and answered ad nauseam, and any further instances are just boring and useless, and to the detriment of the conversation and the community.

Antinous / Moderator

Will you be supplying the unguent for my index finger?

joshmillard

What sense of entitlement? I’d obviously like some sort of comment in response to my questionâ€”I think that’s a pretty standard part of asking a question, yes?â€”but I’m not beating down anybody’s door to get one. Some or all of them might drop a response at some point, and if so, great. If not, I can live with that. If they want to comment around it, hell, fine. I can deal with a non-response.

But, in the mean time, I’ve been told to bring more to the table, told (without any elaboration) that I’m wrong about what is as far as I can tell a bog standard defintion of a moderator’s role in the community, and had something from this post itself, which I’ve very much read, quoted back to me. (I guess. Was it aimed at me? Was it intended as an oblique answer to my question? Is it so weird to expect a non-oblique answer?)

This is the one place on BB, as I understand it, where it’s okay and even encouraged to discuss moderation policy and practice on the site. I’m an interested, not an aggrieved, party; I have had no comments disemvoweled or deleted, have been party to no administrative smackdowns, have been on receiving end of no aggressive comments from any of the mod staff (save — I guess? Still? Because no one, still, seems to be willing to even yea or nay this — Takuan, who I understand is regardless well-liked amongst the regulars; and in that case I suppose I started it by actually stating criticism).

I have no beef, in short, to justify the notion that I’m coming in here to try and convert a black eye into a cap-feather, or some other such thing that’d explain the defensive response. So the mild hostility towards even broaching the subject politely, the being rebuffed with comments about my sense of entitlement and worthiness of respect for having asked civil questions about moderation in the thread where moderation questions are supposed to be asked: irking. It irks. I’m willing to put myself as a summer resident of Irksville for the moment, on that front.

jeblis

<>Ds t xst prly fr th clvr ply n wrds?

DNG DNG DNG W hv wnnr! W hv wnnr!

Takuan

gives em something to figure out

chatworthy

Checking in late, but better late than never.

Takuan @6: Actually, speaking rot-13 is the new l33t. As Xopher has already pointed out upthread while I was busy basketweaving.

EricT @46: 5 seconds: Coding time or runtime?

Nix @166: If Teresa were to throw Making Book at one, one would duck, retrieve the book and hope it’s autographed. There must be at least two of it, because my copy has never left the house… while I’m looking.

Gary61 @168: That happens all the time at Making Light. It’s rather funny.

And a bug report: for some reason which made sense at the time, I signed up here twice, once as Chatworthy, once as Patrick Connors. I signed in as Patrick Connors, but the preview shows Chatworthy. Strange, but not the end of the world.

techsoldaten

This moderation policy is weak.

It does not involve waterboarding in a steampunk bath haus, plush knitted voodoo dolls for gregarious offenders, or being subjected to ridicule by having your name used in Cory Doctorow’s new book as a government mule used to put cameras up people’s butts.

BoingBoing needs something with some teeth to it. I suggest someone opens a thread about what terrible penalties to impose upon the moderated and incorporates loyalty oaths into the signup process.

While we are at it, is there a BoingBoing flag I can display proudly from my doorstep?

M

Takuan

not me mate! Yer boots gonna get tired long before ma haid!

Xopher

THE CAKE IS A LIE

Takuan

huh?

Takuan

what? you don’t have prescience? (snort! vertebrates!)

minTphresh

you’re putting an escalator where?

joshmillard

One more quick test. Feel free to zap these once the situation is figured out, natch.

jh

I appreciate very much having sane moderators.

But, I *hate* the disemvoweling! It just makes reading these (usually unworthy) comments 10 times as long and wastes so much more of my time than just deleting the comment would have taken. Maybe this is one of those “too precious” BB sacred cows, but I find it really obnoxious.

May I suggest doing what digg, slashdot and many other sites do and just hiding the comments that meet whatever medium-offensive threshold that currently results in disemvoweling?

Technically, it would be a totally trivial thing to do — add an additionally CSS class like badcomment to the comment-content div with { display: none; }, then add a JS onClick to show the comment. Or have JS insert the text so it doesn’t get included by search engines’ indexes.

evilrooster

Cats Unite,

The closest thread I can find to match your description is from October of last year, about an author who unapologetically plagiarized a recently dead writer’s book, then played the disability card to try to excuse her behavior. Her agent, meanwhile, made threats both financial and spiritual.

This didn’t go down well in a group of writers, many of them disabled.

Tell me, do you think bringing rape analogies into this discussion is any better an idea?

connor

why was i disemvoweled ? how frustrating

Antinous

You used one of The Bad Words which meant that I was going to ROT13 you. But in all honesty, your tone was kind of hostile, so I decided to just dv your comment instead. I should point out that your e-mail address didn’t do you any favors. But you do get considerable credit for coming to the Mod thread to discuss it.

anthony

Hello, moderators.
I’ve been reading BB for a few years, and I’ve discovered a lot of great things because of what is posted here (bacon wallet!). I started posting and suggesting links before the last format change (I used the name Anthony but it was a different account).
Lately, I notice more and more hostile comments from readers here, which is troubling because I like to think of BB as a community with a core of smart, funny, challenging people. What’s even more troubling to me is that the same hostility is reflected increasingly by moderators. I’m really surprised at what some of you are writing, when your approach has been more even handed, neutral, and focused on guidance in the past. I can’t say why this is other than the job must be difficult, but I feel compelled to let you know this is a negative development that I hope you turn around soon. I liked the old you better. Here’s hoping you will remember how to flow around opposition. Become as water!

Antinous

anthony,

Truthfully, it’s been a rough month. Normally we do very little wrangling of the negative sort, but recent circumstances have created a big influx of angry new commenters. We’re left with the alternative of verbally criticizing them in the hopes that they can figure out where the line is, or wishing them under the cornfield by disemvowelling them. I’m hoping that things improve when school starts up again in September.

anthony

I watched the helicopter take the bad man away.

arkizzle

Small gods make wonderful pre-dinner hors d’Å“uvres.

Your guests can have fun trying to identify their god’s, and their likes and dislikes, as well as suggest fun interpretations of their god’s opinions on the hot topics of the day!

Fun for all :)

Do be careful to fully defrost your gods before heating, as salmonella and botulism can be a real issue.

minTphresh

ark, i was referring to the massive stacks of crates of vinyl record albums languishing in climate-controlled storage due to lack of ( hopefully soon to be rectified) “a standard rotary electr-ogham phonostat reader, with extended platter attachment”, possibly with a universal serial bus attachment. oh, to dream. but, thanks to the mysterious “bittorrent”, i now have almost half a terabite of music on my harddrive! al-lay-lou-yeah! and don’t u go stealin my jokes! i worked so hard to dig ‘em up. broke my damn shovel.

CS Loser

#!/usr/bin/perl-wusestrict;if(!-e’1-2000.tx
t’){system(“wgethttp://www1.harenet.ne.jp/~
waring/vocab/wordlists/1-2000.txt”);#thisgu
ylikes\rinsteadof\n.wtf.system(“perl-pi-e’s
/\r/\n/g’1-2000.txt”);}my%dict;open(T,’1-20
00.txt’)ordie;while(my$l=){my($w)=split(
“\t”,$l);my$nv=$w;$nv=~s/[aeiou]//g;$dict{$
nv}=$w;}while(my$l=lc){chomp($l);my@
a=split(/\s+/,$l);map{$_=$dict{$_}if$dict{$
_}}@a;printjoin(”,@a),”\n”;}

–snp–.

nw, bvsly, ths dsn’t rlly wrk. y’d nd t cmpt 2-grm r 3-grm mdl f bngbng cmmnts nd s tht t rslv mbgty, nd ‘d rthr jst g s frm tht dsn’t cnsr ppl wh dsgr. bt lk n th brght sd… t wld b whl lt sr thn wrtng prl scrpt t rntrdc th rtnlty nt bngbng dtrs. srsly. yr “t’s my bll, cn tk t nd g hm” plcy bsclly sys tht t wld b ttlly cl fr t&t t drp pckts f pltcl spch t dsgrs wth.

-cslsr.

p.s. jst wt ntl ppl fgr t tht thy cn pst thngs lk ” thnk tht lnx s jst s gd s wndws”, ” thnk tht wmn dsrv t vt”, ” thnk tht gng nt rq ws bd d”, nd pr-dsmvwll thm. tht’ll b lgh.

arkizzle

To the folks saying this post is unnecessary:

Since disemvowelling has been implemented, everytime it happens, the person demands to know why their post was edited, and why they weren’t inform of the policy before the policy was enforced.

Many regulars (myself included) have requested a concrete set of guidelines to know what/when/why various mod actions will take place.

Since that time, Teresa has mentioned she was working on such a list and would post it when it was ready.

HERE IT IS.

To the folks saying troll-posts ahould just be deleted rather than disemvowelled:

Well, in a perfect world, that would be ideal. However the general conversation-convention here at BB, uses the post-number to reference specific comments and direct feedback to the correct people.

eg. (#3 FTW!)

As sometimes occurs, some comments (usually of the SPAMMY variety) get deleted outright. When this happens, the rest of the comment thread gets all fucked up, and the numbers of the posts don’t match the numbers being responded to.

Frankly, I rather a few garbled messages, than not being able to follow (or having to do an inordinate amount of detective work to follow) the actual conversation. Maybe disemvowelling isn’t your bag, and you’d rather the contents were removed altogether, leaving the empty comment box as a place holder for the thread, that’s an option.

Also, as Teresa pointed out (to me specifically) when a post has massive flame-war potential, leaving it up (even when it’s been routinely dealt with once) leaves it open to start an unending series of escalating flame wars everytime some one new happens upon the thread (and long after the original participant thought it was put to bed).

__

The only thing I’d like to put forward concerning disemvowelling, is this:

I would like to see a small “reason” comment, placed in the disemvowelled post, stating the reason (even very simply) the action was taken. I don’t think it would be that much extra work, and believe it would make for a more clear-cut moderation.

I have no problem with the moderator joining in the discussion though. I see Teresa first as a participant with opinions and facts, and second as a mod, having to occasionally put on her boots and walk a little bit stompier. She comments more than moderates in my experience, so I have built up that impression in my mind.

I think Teresa does a mostly excellent job, and I can only be thankful, that she does the job she does, and that I don’t have to.

Thanks.

GregLondon

Teresa: Greg London (244): If the Boingers don’t do anything with that, may I repost it back at Making Light? (280): That one too.

Sure. No prob.

Antinous / Moderator

Sock puppet accounts are always banned. You can e-mail me and explain why you have multiple accounts if you like.

Takuan

yeah, I need a clooo…..

Takuan

never read the thread

eustace

…and re-date…

minTphresh

ya know what you get when you cross a mod with a rocker? a mocker. or a rod. …erm, what was i talking about?

eustace

(in grunting caveman voice)
Uhhhhh! Recent Comments different! Different BAD! Ugghhhh!
Better wait, not club moderators yet. Ugh. Not like different. Huh!

So, me try anyway. Me like now. huh.

Antinous

NAHHHHH!

It wasn’t very interesting.

Mazeltov!

The extent of my juvenile glee surprised even me. Was my guess on #498′s identity correct?

Takuan

I concur in Dr. Hatter’s analysis. Anyone is free ,mods and commenters, to make respectful suggestions. I myself do not get my endoplasmic reticulum in a twist if said suggestions are not adopted. I suggest all else do the same or start their own blog to rule as they see fit. This ship does amazingly well with a dozen captains. A thousand would sink us.

Nelson.C

Will @796: I think I should protest just a little at your misrepresentation. In the context of your original disemvowelled comment, there would have been no problem with figuring out the subject of the sentence, since the whole thread was about Amnesty International (where it wasn’t about China). In your LiveJournal entry, it was indeed easy to misinterpret it, since it was presented shorn of any context whatsoever.

On the larger point, I don’t think that there’s much of a legal leg to stand on. This is boingboing’s site and you implicitly give them permission to publish your comment and edit it as they see fit, same as with a newspaper’s letter page, so it isn’t a copyright issue. I don’t agree that disemvowelling necessarily distorts meaning, but even if it did, I think you’d have a hard time pursuing the case unless the disemvowelling imputed a libelous meaning to your words. Not very likely.

eustace

Wait, wait… WHO would be getting abused in this scheme?

Teresa, typing is as effortless for me as you have described (I owe this to those long-ago years of Infocom games), but what I wish for is a physical high from writing – to compensate for that painful thinking it requires…

Tom Hale

Antinous, yeah I’ve attempted to guess the ages of a few regulars here. Some give themselves away a bit. You said you came out in ’72, so I figure you’re around 50.minT mentioned drinking an alcoholic bev in the seventies once so I’m guessing he’s about your age. Arkie is probably about my age, early 40s – unless he inherited his vinyl collection, then I’d place him between 25-30. Xopher is probably early to mid 20s. Takuan – is somewhere between 18 and 80.

Takuan

so far, an overwhelming majority for Teresa

Xopher

Evilrooster 289:

Plato’s Republic, for instance, never existed, nor ever could.

Actually, I agree with Bertrand Russell that there was a “practical exegesis” of The Republic in the 20th Century. Godwin forbids me to name it. I also agree with you: NOT a place I’d care to live.

Cats 290: What the hell thread are you talking about then? The one where a dubiously-qualified self-described “writer” was ridiculed for posting a lot of truly rotten advice on getting published, including a recommendation that writers LIE about their publication credits and awards? Or the one where Barbara Bauer, the scam literary agent, was re-re-re-re-outed as a scam literary agent? Or do you have something else in mind? If so, describe it.

All the threads mentioned so far were about people who were caught scamming and/or encouraging others to engage in scamming. They deserved the treatment they got. If you’re talking about someone who didn’t, let us know what you’re talking about, because I for one haven’t a clue.

And comparing it to rape trivializes the seriousness of that crime, and that offends me. However, since you’re clearly visiting from another planet where saying something bad about someone who has DONE something bad is worse than the crime committed by the person hirself, I’ll cut you some slack.

Evilrooster 298: Damn, now you’re making me look like a sockpuppet! I swear I’m not, but hear, hear.

Take No Grrl 311: Evilrooster was responding to a post by Capn Barcode, where s/he basically said if her name wasn’t Nielson Hayden, he’d throw up his hands.

I personally hate throwing up my hands. It hurts, because the thumbs get caught in my throat.

Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator

Tom Neff, Bill Higgins tells me you’re one of the good guys, and he’s got tremendous credibility with me. I’ll just have to assume that something about Boing Boing has gotten up your nose, and leave it at that.

Nelson.C

Shawn, in what way was this change not transparent? You saw it, didn’t you? Neither was the unwritten policy on unpublishing invisible before; Teresa has made reference to unpublishing several times up to now. The only change is that it is now explicit, whereas before it was merely implicit. What comment would you like the boingers in general, or Teresa in particular, to make on the subject?

Takuan

good luck! (leave the credit card at home)

Takuan

have to say; ditto.

mdhatter

It certainly smells hypocritical to see Cory post endlessly about censorship, freedom of speech, and individual rights while comments that contest his posts are edited, distorted, and deleted.

It certainly smells hypocritical to see commenters who feel slighted talk about ‘do unto others’, then make snarky comments about scholarly tone and moderators being law enforcement.

Let me break this down for you – your ideas in the little brother thread in question are not new. They are done with people (most of whom are jealous axe grinders) harping on Cory’s success in Little Brother threads. That was explained to you there, quite clearly. Anything further is axe-grinding, and they will not host it.

You can go to your website and kvetch about Cory all you like. Coming to his and demanding to pee in the punchbowl is not okay. “Do unto others” etc…..

The moderators answer to your questions, from the thread you are complaining about: let me show it to you.

k? u dun nao?

thxbai.

Tom Hale

Oh did you guys get the official Rocky Horror BB uniforms? Lucky!
http://www.rockyarchive.org/img/rhpsphotoscolor/RHPS-RW1C2-FrankTattooL.jpg

Takuan

you askin fer a date?

Takuan

easy to say, but a written explanation for every moderators action would mean at least several more moderators. Now, you don’t want THAT!

Takuan

I’m not entirely sure Lewis, but I bet that if you read your own comment history again just now, a pattern would emerge.

Chocolatey Shatner

@ #21 Takuan:

So, would that be inconsonance?

Also, I didn’t know what the eyeball icon was (before this post) and I clicked it and I may have accidentally reported someone (I didn’t fill the form out, though).

bubbleman

My first post was on topic. It was a humorous barb. Only a complete idiot thinks pedophiles hang out at playgrounds to molest children. The vast majority of assaults are perpetrated by family members, friends of the family or neighbors. The tiniest bit of research would spell that out for you. But that complete idiot looks like a genius compared to the dolt who would think a child molester prowls the bb threads for his target.

The second post of mine you mutilated was on a post the next day showing nude paintings of children. You got some gall censoring me for using “sexy children” in a post then showing full page links to naked children. I have no problem with the paintings, although I wouldn’t hang them on my wall. My problem is with your hypocrisy. You owe me an apology, and maybe you should re-read the rules.

Antinous

bubbleman,

Read my comment in that thread. I said exactly what you’re saying about pedophile hysteria. You were dv’ed for making an offensive joke, not for your philosophy.

John Miles

Not sure where this question would go since it’s not moderation-related, but, has anyone else encountered redirections from BoingBoing pages to http://76.74.154.110/zowaweoiruwe/pdf.php?id=3110&vis=1 lately? I wonder if one of the ad servers has been compromised and used to send people to a .PDF attack site.

Antinous

I’ve turfed that to the authorities to be checked out. Thanks.

arkizzle

Spoil sport ;p

Takuan

Lawd Yes!

Xopher

I’m not saying you have to get EVERY one, just that it should be considered sufficient grounds. It’s an argument we’ve had over and over, and that isn’t worth having again, no matter how sincere and impassioned the shlub who brings it up may be.

Takuan

comes great boredom

Tenn

18 and 80 centuries, right Tom?

hagbard

Yes, and his wit is mercurial.

jimkirk

Then there’s the occasional post that needs to be deCAPitated.

The disemvoweling reminds me of the excellent SF short story by Hal Draper, “MS Fnd in a Lbry”.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ms_Fnd_in_a_Lbry has a nice synopsis & link to text.

Nelson.C

Bubbleman @640: It’s not as if all your posts get disemvowelled. The one in the pedo-scare thread got the treatment because it’s an off-colour joke. You thought it was funny, the moderator didn’t, and if somebody complained about it, likely not all boingboing readers did either. Roll with it. Remember it for next time you want to joke about a sensitive subject, and self-edit.

The one in the Amy Crehore thread got zapped because it’s nothing to do with Amy Crehore. Shrug. If you want to question why your rotten joke got zapped, you need to talk about it somewhere relevant, maybe even in email.

presyncope

…our semantic differences preclude much discussion…

You know, right there, I wish you had a less itchy trigger-finger. You asked me “which questions”. I responded. And rather than continue the conversation with me, you puff your chest out and shut me down.

Well, to answer your question: I agree the comparison is over the top, but I do think there is a point to be made that the moderation system encourages piling-on rather than thinking-through, for example by promoting “armchair moderators”.

Secret_Life_of_Plants

Just a note…ever since you did that maintenance (?) thing awhile back, I never stay signed in anymore. I have to sign in before each comment or to look at my favorites or to favorite something, etc. I still accept cookies. Is it you or is it me?

arkizzle

Nice picture Eustace..

I can just see His Majesty being fussed and fawned over for that portrait. Some poor under-servant charged with the task of ensuring there is no blood or viscera visible in the picture. A constant, relentless job, made worse by Takuan’s insatiable appetite and the near limitless supply of both virgins and priests (half’n'half) in the room at the time.

All credit to that persistant individual. Not a blessed bone is visible.

Zinjanthropus

Q. But you take ads from Microsoft!!! Aren’t they the root of all evil?

A. This is rank Manichaeanism. Go lie down with a cool wet cloth on your forehead until you feel better.

Hey! Mani got a bum rap from Christians trying to stamp out all rivals. Please don’t fall into that trap. (also there are tablets in Akkadian which define Microsoft = Servant of Chaos (or not))

Sister Y

Arkizzle, good point, I shoulda put it in quotation marks – yeah, it’s all part of my Game. (Mwahahahaha.)

“IBM cheater, do you understand?”

Clue: science fiction film, 1998-2008
Also: NOM NOM NOM

mdh

i just logged in by NOT using the page-top banner “log in”, which hung up repeatedly, but rather by using the ‘login’ located above a comments box.

either way there was a flash (.swf) element from s.ytmd? that was hanging something fierce.

Still took a while, but I made it in.

Antinous / Moderator

I have to login every hour or so, even though I remain logged in to Movable Type. That’s a new problem. The slow load is YouTube. If YT is having a problem, all those preview images on BB will have a problem, and that could preclude other parts of the page from loading until it resolves.

minTphresh

will do my best, it has been replaced with a ‘federated media’ ad now… but i’ll catch it. oh, i’ll catch it.

hellhead

April Fools? Is it too early?

arkizzle

Do we get to pick our Boinger?

I’m not sure who I have dibs on yet, but I can only presume you are going to pick Teresa, the unmatched marathon domination technician..

Or maybe you are privvy to Joel having a punishment card, or two, hidden up his sleeve?

This may be interesting yet.

joshmillard

JoshMillard – you make the mistake of thinking the mods are customer service reps who owe you something. Bring more to the table, and you will be treated with more respect.

Huh? If I’ve made a mistake, it’d have to be in assuming that “trusted guide and steadying hand” is a fair description of the role of a BB moderator. Is that description really so badly off the mark? If so, why? What is their role, if not that?

And if it’s not off-target as a description, why would you respond to my previous comment with the above?

Takuan

AT&T gets money

BB gets ingrates

technogirl

R: #283 Trs Nlsn Hydn
“Tksh: N, thy dn’t tk kckbcks.”

N nt kckbcks f crs bt … wll hr’s n xmpl …
Vrzn s stll th scm f th rth whn t cms t cstmr srvc, thr hrrd FS mplmnttn nd ,h ys, tht lttl phn tppng n ch nd vry mrcn dl thy hv gng n wth th C/NS ths dys

Nw thr sts r brngng ts t ppl’s ttntn nd Bng Bng sd t b prtty hrd n th ld “V” tslf n tms pst… bt nw tht Vrzn s spnsr f BBTV wht d w s n BB?:

Mrch 14, 2008
“Vrzn tmng p wth P2P cmpns, Yl, t mk fl-shrng fstr”

Lk th BB tm ds GRT jb nd dsrvs lttl csh t spprt thr ffrts bt pls Thrs d nt dld yrslf r rslvs nt blvng tht th cnmcs f spnsrshp nvr ntrds nt dtrl dcsns.

Gv s crdt fr ndrstndng hw th rl wrld wrks.

Takuan

ya liked that oyster? Goody.

Takuan

beats knurd

whatisgoingonblog

Moderators are needed to monitor comments, i agree. Comments come from all sorts of people. People that rude and offensive also. Moderation is needed to understand that although some comments are offensive not all negative comments need to be removed. The negative comments shows that the site understands that there are all types of opinions and that the site provides a platform to express them without offending.

Antinous

whatisgoingonblog,

Please don’t include your blog link in your comments. If it happens again, I might have to tag you as as spam.

calabanos

Disemvoweling is passive aggressive crap. Have some guts and delete the post if you don’t like it. Only the government can censor. Delete this one, I dare you. It’s your site, wimps.

Kieran O’Neill

The thread in question was this one (link goes directly to Teresa’s very eloquent explanation of the disemvowelling)

I was the one saying “fuck you”, and, as I explained in that thread, it was “fuck you, too” to Error404′s saying “fuck ‘em” to the entire African continent. I did admit that I said that in anger, and I honestly wouldn’t have minded if those particular words had been disemvowelled (fair’s fair I guess).

I would surmise that Teresa decided that it was an appropriate response to what both she and I took to be bigotry on a fairly massive scale.

Anyway, Error404 seems to have gotten over it, and is, thankfully, still posting. (It looks like he was having a bad few days, or something – every other post besides in that thread seems to have been reasonably thoughtful.)

And Error404, my name is spelled “Kieran”, not “Keiran” (yes I know they’re both anglicisations of “CiarÃ¡n”, but mine is “Kieran”).

arkizzle

#540 ..Hackers?

minTphresh

sorry, josh. err, what was the question?

minTphresh

i wondered who was pope of this dump.

joshmillard

It looks like one link is fine, and three links hits the roadblock. Someone ought to test two at some point, but I’ve done enough cluttering up in here for one day.

I’ve posted a less-backlinky version of my comment to the corpse-disposal thread, so no worries about kicking one of the prior attempts there.

If those prior attempts aren’t anywhere to be seen, though, it sounds like — bearing on what Antinous had to say a few days ago — there’s a pretty significant unexpected comment-zapping problem in how comment filtration is happening. You could be losing good link-rich comments to the ether on a regular basis, which would be a shame.

Lewis Haidt

Thanks and watch out for those ambient attack waves!

I’ll cut out my u-know-who references. I appreciate the feedback.

william

Wow! I have been involved in on-line communities for a long time, and this is one of the best moderator explanations I’ve seen. I’m definitely saving a copy for future reference and possible pilfering.

One suggestion: at the top, put a short, catch-all question with an answer that summarizes and conveys the spirit. E.g.:

Q: Moderation? What’s this all about?

A: We want the forum to be valuable to our readers. We moderate by removing or dismemvowelling posts that reduce that value, mainly ones that are spammy, snotty, jerky, or create excess drama. Focus on contributing to the conversation, and you’ll be fine.

Takuan

ever stub your toe and then keep hitting it for a week? Sometimes it’s just best to quit.

Takuan

that is what the secretions are for.

Takuan

(pools of sorrow, waves of joy)Thank you for continuing to hold. We value your patronage and look forward to serving you. Your position in the inquiry cue is now: *ONE*(click) Thank you for continuing to hold. (-ross the universe)

Antinous

I hope this comment wasn’t too boring for anyone.

You’re shit out of luck on that one, buddy. You’re about the one millionth person to say exactly the same thing in the same self-righteous tone. At least you didn’t make a dramatic plea to be unsubscribed. That’s something.

Bruno38

I think what makes the richness of a blog is also the variety of comments the readers post. Trying to censure the comments will(I hope not) make your blog BoringBoring=BrngBrng(as you like)

eustace

Antinous – re: your question concerning Microsoft. I try not to rant about MS, fun as it can be. Yet, history has a story to tell. There is a long list of businesses that have regretted doing business with Microsoft, and I hope BB isn’t going to be one (in all fairness, there are many businesses happy to do business etc.)
But my reason for not participating in a MS sponsored thread is more personal. There is a growing body of evidence to implicate Microsoft in a campaign to corrupt the ISO organization’s decision-making process and I depend on ISO standards and rely on their credibility as a standards body.
Microsoft isn’t responding to this criticism directly or publicly (as far as I can tell). Instead they continue to push initiatives-du-jour like IM, as if this were some… okay, I’m self-administering sedatives now…
Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Antinous

Eustace,

Interesting. Has that been blogged here? Or elsewhere.

Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator

or the record, very few of the disemvowellings in this thread are mine. Most of them are commenters posting their own disemvowelled text.

In reply to some of the major themes I’m seeing:

1. They don’t do a lot of comment posting, but the Boingers really do read the threads, enjoy the comments, and care about what you say. That’s why there are comments again.

2. We’re not going to install a threaded comment system.

3. We’re already running the entries on one database and the comments on another in the interest of balancing the load. Suggested features like posting pictures or user-editable comments aren’t likely to be implemented anytime soon.

4. Sorry about the Favorites thing, and the reversed order on your comment lists. We’ve got a number of these persistent technical problems we’re trying to fix.

5. One of the items on our “to do” list is a front-page link that’ll let you send us bug reports and alerts on service problems. Short of that, we need to set up a dedicated e-mail address for that information.

In the meantime, if you need to report a bug or other malfunction, click on the eyeball. Please remember to include your address in case we need to ask further questions.

6. Some people believe effective moderators have to be part of the community. Some believe that moderators must stand apart from the community, and not participate in the conversation. Neither view has ever been canonical. I favor moderation from inside the community.

If it’s true that participating in the conversation when you’re the moderator gives you undue influence, all I can say is that the effect definitely hasn’t kicked in yet. I’m looking foward to it.

7. I wrote several different drafts of the moderation policy, and handed it all over to the Boingers. The final form the document took was their decision. Posting it to the front page was their idea.

arkizzle

oops, posted hackers before ur response came up..

NO, THAT WASN’T MY GO! I TOOK IT BACK!!

arkizzle

I’m still a dv virgin.

I’m torn on who I want to take my cherry.

Whose hands will be kindest with me? Who will hold me tight, afterwards, and tell me it’ll all be alright?

Who will respect me in the morning?

*flutter*

now someone will point out one of my old comments that’s had its vowels taken already. I’ll have been made a man of, accidentally and not even noticed.. probably in a horse-riding related thread, of some kind.

Barack Obama

Woop! Woop!

Can I get a witness?

Antinous

Attention! Attention! There is now a permanent link to this page at the top, just above and to the right of the BB logo.

Takuan

compassion is relative. In my instance it means letting them bleed out quietly before dismembering.

sparkzilla

THN> For the dozenth time in the last two days: you don’t get disemvowelled for disagreeing. You get disemvowelled for being rude.

This is a bare-faced lie. Tell me what is “rude” about the final line in the second comment on my profile (the TSA comment).

http://dynamic.boingboing.net/profile/sparkzilla

The offending sentence actually says: “It is not appropriate to use this tragedy to further an anti-government agenda. Stop your ranting and let the child rest in peace.”

It’s not rude. It’s a plain reaction to the rest of the comments on the page and to the tone of the original post. Several other readers also expressed the same opinion on the page without their posts being mangled. Your behavior in censoring alternative opinions on the Kosovo situation was even worse.

You infect these discussions with your own biases and, at a minimum, you should not comment on threads you moderate.

insomma

must… reach… five… hundred!…

Agent 86

Takuan, did you get promoted/conscripted? Congrats.

Eustace, I like to think sufficiently advanced wit is indistinguishable from vitriol and/or petulance. That’s one of the reasons nice guys are so dull.

Tom Hale

I disagree, Takuan’s last several comments were posted specifically to infuriate religious people. You know it and I know it. Making a post purposely to piss people off is against BB’s moderation policy.

minTphresh

i just think we are all old souls.

Antinous / Moderator

If by soul you mean fart.

eustace

sorry, mortal. sigh.

Antinous

And the notion that “There’s far more internet discourse lost to trollage and casual rudeness than is ever lost to moderators” is not only wrong, but disingenuous because everybody knows it’s wrong.

Wow. Arrogant. Assumptive. Egotistical. By ‘everybody’, you mean ‘you’. Believe it or not ‘everybody’ and ‘you’ are not synonyms. Lengthy, tedious, self-righteous bombasts like yourself are far more likely to drive me away from comments than Teresa’s moderating style. And by ‘drive me away’, I mean bore me to death.

Next!

Takuan

ah jeez, that’s 496 eh? Wot a hoser! Gotta put down this cloudberry liqueur/Grand Mariner combo now….

absimiliard

I wish to inquire where I should make a comment about the increasing length of posts on the main page?

I had noted in a recent post by Xeni that she was positively Rushkoff-like in the length of her post, it went on for several page-downs. I noted that I would prefer if perhaps longer posts, such as her’s and Rushkoff’s, could perhaps keep the body of the post behind a link and only post the initial paragraph or two. I’ve seen other folks here do the same.

That post was deleted.

So if I’m not allowed to make a comment about a post in the post itself I’d like to ask where am I allowed to make that comment?

-abs is quite unsure of where a conversation about posting should take place if not in the post itself

Bergamont

Sweet – a friend got his account banned mebby! Do you dudes actualy mail the banned or dos their account just stop working?

arkizzle

Phew! i thought that was gonna be a long one ;)

..and there was me thinking Gaia was a floaty, warm-feeling, hippy-mother-type.. and she was a TITAN as well you say? RAAR! :)

Here’s one back at you:

Plucky Performers of Mahler’s First (this one is kinda cheeky)

mdhatter

Takuan – and none of us is as dumb as all of us.

The internet is dead! Long live the internet!

echonomist

Selective editing of people’s posts has a lot to do with moderation policy. I understand that boingboing is meant to be sort of a benevolent dictatorship but I can’t take the moderators seriously if they play favourites, particularly when they favour mean people.

Whatever line you moral police have drawn in the sand censors voting(over an admittedly stupid issue) but condones baseless accusations of pedophilia and retardation?

You moderators need to get off your high horse. Har har.

Teresa Nielsen Hayden

Hey, the guidelines were mentioned in passing (and quoted) in the Guardian.

Takuan

or you could let it go

Takuan

right over there, next to the Forest of the Disemvowelled.

IamInnocent

Sorry for posting this here but I see no ‘Help’ link anywhere and I need to know why the BB board system is acting up on me. So thanks for reading and thankest for answering.

First why must I sign in every day and even twice a day. Don’t the cookies work anymore? They do to all other places I need them to do their thing.

Second, the most unfortunate and the one which is really important: my posting history doesn’t update well. Right now, the most recent post that shows in its list is of May 24th. This makes it quite hard to follow up on people addressing me directly since I can’t do better than visit BB once a day, after work.

It’d be nice if you could come up with

Antinous / Moderator

Yeah. It’s a mess. It’s all from the upgrade a couple of months ago. It will be fixed. If it’s any consolation, I have to keep signing in constantly as well.

WeightedCompanionCube

Antinous – Not so much reverse racism as pointing out how the thoughts being expressed in the comments were just as ugly as the accused.

Nothing really needs to be said about those skinheads. They were up to no good and they are in the hands of the law. As for the plan to murder a hundred schoolchildren? Violent skinhead fantasies. It would have been a relative non-story if a threat against Obama hadn’t been made.

I don’t see the good in advocating their rape, torture, murder, castration, classification as subhuman… that’s the kind of thing they fantasize about.

Antinous

Cube,

Take a day to compose yourself.

Takuan

too good to let go…. SFPTP….Shrfipitrp….Shfipit… shifpit? “Wotta shifpit!”? “He’s a bit of a shifpit.”?

Takuan

simple technical fix; modify the user interface to make it a physical pleasure. I have drawings.

Takuan

Dear Greg:

Sorry to be so late, I’ve been to look at your pile and you should proud! That is the most smelly,most runny and generally all around disgusting heap it has ever been my pleasure and good luck to encounter. Do you take disciples?

Sister Y

NOM NOM NOM is part of the clue my brothers (though it also applies to the motoyaki, of course).

BethanyAnne

It seems to me that several people are being genuinely decent towards Takuan, and getting poo flung back at them for their trouble. WTF? BB crew (editors and mods): is this guy one of you?

Takuan

Eustace:
http://www.reptilepark.com.au/images/mediaphotos/tigersnakemilking.jpg

Antinous

I always enjoy seeing a picture of a man milking his snake.

arkizzle

Ok Eustace, but what does a reasonable slice of Ï€ look like?

Ï€/8? Ï€/6?

Greedy guts MinT likes { Ï€ }

Who ate { Ï€ }s?
You fat bastard! You fat bastard!

..you possibly need to be English or Irish to get that, apologies if it offends anyone unwittingly.

mdhatter

@JoshMillard What sense of entitlement?

The answers you seek are IN THE POST, before the 900+ comments.

The clarifications you seek are in the 900+ comments.

You are not entitled to personal attention and the ensuing sense of validation from the Mods because you feel you’ve been slighted – doubly true when you had it coming, because you were (past tense) being a jerk when they moderated you.

heresiarch514

(full disclosure: I am a regular on Making Light too.)

Technogirl @ 306:

The point that I was trying to make was not to in providing accountability for moderation (because there is no accountability here – let’s be real) but rather to point out what I thought were effective vs. ineffective means of moderation.[emphasis mine]

It seems to me that you’re getting caught on the difference between “accountability” and “doing what I want them to do.” The reason this policy exists is that people demanded it. The moderator herself is replying to your comments. She’s not being particularly receptive towards your ideas, but she’s read them. It true, her job doesn’t hinge on how well she pleases you or the commenters. That isn’t the same thing as saying there isn’t any accountability.

Now, you’ve been very clear that you think Teresa’s moderation style is ineffective and doomed. You may be right–none of us really know. But there are as many counter-examples as there are blogs on the internet. Every one of them has a public, vocal moderator, and every one of them works fine. Thus, your argument of inevitable destruction just isn’t terribly persuasive to us.

@ 308: I would note that there are still editors with unlimited mod points–how would you deal with it if one of them found an axe to grind? It still comes down to trusting a particular person with freakish amounts of authority. Besides, Slashdot isn’t a black-box at all–people can trust it because they know exactly who is doing the editing (everyone) and how it works. It’s a totally explicit system.

@ 329:

…used the word in a correct context as in “to pillage.” One could say, quite properly if arguably, that Teresa is raping the comment pool by altering the structure of selected comments.

I wonder how you reconcile this opinion with Cats Unite @ 290′s “red bedsheets.” It seems rather obvious that Cats Unite had the sexual meaning firmly in mind.

Robotech_Master

I’m a little bothered by something I’m seeing over in the “Lessons Learned” thread. (I’ll admit, I haven’t read about the last half of the postings there since I haven’t checked it since Friday night. But the trend seemed to be continuing in the posts I did read, and I haven’t seen any addressing of it in the much smaller number of posts here, either.)

Mike Harris pointed out that some of Teresa’s behavior over in the original Violet Blue thread could be seen to do the opposite of “moderating” it. He could have done so in a more restrained manner, without using phrases like “should be kicked to the curb,” but I think he made a valid point.

I won’t even get into whether TNH was right to disemvowel particular messages, because that is necessarily subjective. But when I look at what TNH herself posted in that thread, I don’t see a calm, moderating influence. I see a number of rather snippy, passive-aggressive posts that acted on the discussion rather like throwing water on a chemical fire. Apparently even TNH realized she went too far, because she went back and disemvowelled herself at least once. (Do you suppose that could be considered literary seppuku? But I digress.)

Oddly, in the aftermath of that, I saw a lot of back-patting about how mature it was of TNH to issue such a mea culpaâ€”and don’t get me wrong, I do agree that it took a lot of guts to do that; one of the hardest things in the world is to admit when you are in the wrongâ€”but I don’t see a lot of acknowledgment to the people who point out that TNH’s behavior made the mea culpa necessary in the first place. All I see in response is Mark insisting that TNH “does a bang-up job.”

While she may very well do a bang-up job in most cases, in this particularly case she only added more fuel to the fire, which is indeed the very opposite of “moderation”â€”and the fact that nobody at Boing Boing seems willing to admit to this concerns me.

azimos

A few of thoughts:

1. When you sign up for an account on BoingBoing, it should direct you to the policies and ask you to confirm that you’ve read them and agree with them. This is typical on most sites.

If you haven’t agreed to them, it hardly seems justified for the powers that be to hold you responsible for following them.

2. I want to second the comments about moderators often taking actions that are immoderate. I think they should follow the general net protocol of “assume good faith”. It can be very easy to misinterpret tone on a message board.

3. It seems common for the moderation staff at Boing Boing to make ad hominems or simply tasteless comments and then excuse them by calling the objectionable statements wit. This just seems like an attempt to justify a double standard. It comes as no surprise that the mods find the people they disagree with to be insufficiently witty.

joshmillard

And I am puzzled by your use of the word common, in the sentence beginning “It seems common…”

I’m pretty new to (actively, anyway) reading the comment threads over here, and I haven’t been on the business end of any deletions or deemving, so hopefully when I say this it can be taken as not coming from a bitter user or otherwise dismissed:

From what I’ve read, not just in the (admittedly exceptional for any number of reasons) VB thread, the moderators here do seem pretty comfortable and justified in acting like jerks to the user base. Call it wit, call it “wrangling”, but it’s an ugly dynamic and one that I don’t really understand the place of in the context of this place.

I know Teresa brought a lot of working theory on moderation over from Making Light, and I think it works well enough over there, but this place isn’t that’n — the commenting userbase is a lot broader, a lot bigger, and a lot less closely knit. And so what works over there doesn’t necessarily make much sense over here, the combativeness and the destroying-with-wit attitude in particular.

If the point of moderation here is to tell people you don’t want commenting to get the fuck out, I guess it’s a workable model. As an outside reader, that’s the message it sends. If the idea is to build up something like a community beyond what small handful of regulars fall into the Correct Wit bucket, it’s a problem.

Takuan

SCOOCHIS! To me!

eustace

Rank Manicheanism! Pure sophistry!
Yeah, I remember freshman philosophy…

minTphresh

mmmmm, dates. and cake! …see how i tied that all together?

Kaiser

#263 said “it only works provided that the moderator isn’t making snide and unhelpful comments herself.”

This is the heart of my problem with Teresa’s moderation style. It isn’t really moderation any more when you’re getting into petty fights with people, calling them out for their spelling mistakes or picking their comments apart point by point.

@ #216 Youâ€™ve had run-ins with me? And youâ€™ll name more names later? What is that exactly? Thatâ€™s neither on topic or a response to something I said. Thatâ€™s just taking a jab at someone. You say you want intelligent conversation but how quickly youâ€™ll roll around in the mud with the rest of us.

heresiarch514

Buttseks @ 312:

Whigs suck!

You take that back!

Tom Neff

I don’t know what it is with Firefox, but there is some key combo that submits prematurely. I will let the previous “partial” stand on its own as there was nothing of substance to add.

Antinous / Moderator

Tdawwg,

If you’re going to make snarky, contentless, little comments, put them in the right thread. Your comments were unpublished for being off-topic.

Antinous

Josh,

Two things. One, the last few weeks have been quite different from the norm here. We don’t usually do nearly so much moderating. Two, it is and has always been a personal blog. If you can really get that, what we do makes much more sense.

Xopher

So you could have been deflowered ex post facto? That’s just what Eustace was saying!

Bonzo McGrue

Bonzo has an established history of posting clear, well-informed, apposite, and entertaining comments…

I’m glad someone noticed. ;)

Tom Neff

“You are clearly from Mars. I have never heard of any documentary filmmakers from Nashville, let alone Tom Neff…”

Men are from Mars, women are from Venus, and I just had a travel day. The exchange in question took place on 16 November 2007 under a BBtv synopsis article. I note that the entire discussion thread for that piece (and only that piece) is gone. I have the followup emails from 21 November, but not a record of the original thread.

Sorry if you don’t remember it (as indicated later in your response). I was quite struck by the question, especially asked in a public message rather than email.

arkizzle

#540

Deep Blue Sea!

mdhatter

And if anyone start’s a discussion with an over-the top comparison, then gets annoyed when someone else has the temerity to point it out, well, just how much ‘thinking through’ are we supposed to believe that person is after?

I “armchair moderate” all the time, but I ‘try-to-get-it-right’ as it the policy.

As for the “taunting”, welcome to the internet. People who say truly stupid things get picked on.

Enochrewt

I just wanted to post in the comments on the post regarding posting in the comments. That’s all I wanted to do.

And oh yeah, this is the most comprehensive set of rules for posting I’ve ever seen.

jim.cowling

“I’m tenacious, some will even say stubborn”

The Supreme Court said that no appeals would be heard. There’s a difference between tenacious and thicker than two short boards. Whatever you wrote (I didn’t read it), you’re wrong.

So on another subject: I added my e-mail address to my profile in the interests of transparency, and it didn’t take long to get e-mail from Diane Lask, a disgruntled commenter who got disemvowelled and banned for some rude accusation about paid editorializing.

Even the most cursory glance at the site proves that the Boingers are looking to make a little money here. Self-links, promotions, advertisements, and so forth. That’s clear.

But guess what? If they want to devote a whole week to the products of one of their sponsors, they can knock themselves out. They can roll around in a swimming pool full of money. They can have a big Microsoft Mobile Parade down the middle of Redmond, Washington, throwing copies of their books into the crowd. They don’t even have to be open or transparent about it. They can obfuscate. They can lie.

Y’know why?

Because it’s their site and they don’t owe me a goddamn thing.

So, Diane Lask. Feel free to start your own blog, find some sponsors, and write hourly essays about how the Boingers have sold out and how we all ‘deserve’ to know about their business dealings. You have fun with that. And keep your spam out of my fckng mlbx.

Anyhow. I just wanted to say: good job, Ms. Nielsen Hayden, for rooting out and crushing one. Don’t get any on you.

waraw

Also, “drama queen” has to be pretty low on the inflammation scale. Can anyone seriously be upset at being called that? (Was that a moderator who said that, btw?)
No, not a moderator.

minTphresh

damn techies.

mdh

oh, now login works any which way I try.

Antinous / Moderator

Echonomist,

You know what ‘petard’ means. I know that you know what ‘petard’ means. You know that I know that you know what ‘petard’ means.

Feel free to drop me a note explaining your fascination with equine/cephalopod interspecies mating if you want me to reactivate your account.

Tenn

My eighteenth birthday is zipping up on me!

I will finally be joining the ranks of adults on BB!

Woohee!

minTphresh

oooh, quarter million comments….THAT’S ME!

buttseks

Woo hoo you guys did it! Nearly 300 posts of completely pointless bickering! I think we can top 300 here people, and to help here are some good starting points for another whine-fest:

1. Fuck whales! Those fat bastards are eating all the krill that could be going to starving children.

2. The ozone is overrated. People look better in long sleeves anyway.

3. AMD vs. Intel

4. ATI vs. NVidia

5. Windows Vs. OS X Vs. *NIX

6. I hate your baby! I hate all babies!

6. All praise to our Lord and Saviour

6. …SATAN!

Antinous

I assume, YankeeKnowHow, that you’re doing a performance piece on the theme of ‘wrongfully aggrieved victim’.

sammich

What on earth happened to the “Heart Transplantee Visits Her Old Heart in a Museum” post?

Sister Y

Good job Arkizzle, you get a sardine!

Takuan

back to meh feh I guess…

eustace

Azimos, please don’t mistake me for staff (for their sake). And I am puzzled by your use of the word common, in the sentence beginning “It seems common…” In a thread of 758 posts, I found this twice (once mine – hence my request). I do not think the word common means what you think it means.

minTphresh

i see! i see! I AM HEALED!!! hal-lay-lou-yeah!

arkizzle

Takuan, part of a verse I once wrote:

World wary deities, all bow their heads and pray to me,
deify my actions while i’m chatting rhyming blasphemy.
the language of their litany, lickin me with serrated tongues,
lacerating grammar rips the whisper from my tainted lungs..

arkizzle

Still beating that horse, eh?

joshmillard

JoshMillard, Antinous: You guys have already heard that the problem was our spam filter getting too aggressive? If not, that was the problem. We need to check the spam trap more often.

I hadn’t heard, but that seemed like the sanest explanation. Yay for sanity!

Thanks very much for the update.

Antinous

I’ve just identified another condition that will trigger the spam filter. But, once again, I’m not talking.

Sister Y

Good job Arkizzle, you get a sardine!

minTphresh

same thing happened to me earlier. i thought it was my machine.

Takuan

or maybe she was extremely moderate in response and did not answer outrageous insult and provocation in the manner it actually deserves.

hagbard

I’d like someone to explain to me how this:

“struck me as essentially petulant and dismissive throughout” — Josh Millard

or “Takuan wtf.” — cortex, AKA Josh Millard, on MeFi

…is “genuinely decent”, or “nothing but polite and reasonable”.

I’d say that Takuan correctly sensed a bit of hidden motive on Josh Millard’s part (his actual constructive contributions notwithstanding).

Tom Hale

re: 1241 by Antinous “It’s because he has a (self-confessed) penchant for trolling and has been suspended on several occasions for it.”

I said I sometimes liked pissing people off on political threads – specifically referring to the election. I compared it to MS windows vs Mac threads.

I’ve been suspended 3 times.

1st suspension – for comments supporting S. Palin, right after she was selected to run as VP. I didn’t really know much about her at the time. I was suspended for a week without a warning.

2nd suspension – I was given no reason or warning for this suspension and Teresa didn’t know why I was suspended. My last comment before this suspension was removed. I disagreed with police in a thread about a black man ran over and killed by 2 white men. I stated that the police officers were wrong about the mans death being an accident. I was suspended for about 8 days.

3rd suspension – http://www.boingboing.net/2009/01/06/citizen-videos-sprea.html#comment-372458 No one disagreed or replied in any way to the DV’d comment – even though it was up for hours before it was DV’d.

I think I’ve only had a handful of comments DV’d since the election and was surprised about all of them except one.

Takuan

volcano cake… I see potential…

Tom Hale

Someone should make a BB irc channel – that would be fun.

Antinous / Moderator

There is a BB IRC channel. Somebody other than me probably knows how to get there.

Tom Hale

Takuan is a total mystery – I’ve searched through his posts a few times – he never gives anything away about himself. I honestly couldn’t find a single reference to himself that points to a certain age, profession, or location. You can usually tell close to what time zone a person lives – but he’s all over the clock.

Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator

Cherry Shiva, I decided to answer your question in the thread in which you asked it. The discussion is winding down now, so my explanation didn’t interrupt it.

Takuan

well, I hate to play favorites, but Cory’s winsome smile is certainly tempting….

Takuan

hee! and you are so predictable! Would you like to advance to the next level?

Takuan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqGsxwQpa_g&feature=related

FoetusNail

Perhaps create a top ten list of the reasons for moderation, then when a comment is subject to moderation the mod just gives it a #3 for astroturfing or a #8 for off topic, etc.

Antinous

We have abbreviations like CATFOTFIC and IDCSESU. But you have to take a shot when you see one.

Takuan

and thank you very much for it. I like it. And if things become something I don’t like, I’ll quietly leave without annoying a lot of other people.

Thanks BoingBoing

Takuan

this neighbourhood needs a name……

Antinous

Oh, and I followed your lead. Now Teresa’s wondering why we can’t figure out who she is.

Can we move random conversation back to Raquel Welch Space Dance? This page takes too long to load.

Takuan

I still haven’t a freaking clue as to the Wicked Sister’s puzzle yet

bubbleman

I’m new to this blog, at least as far as posting. I just added the RSS feed, and am wondering if I made a mistake coming here. The posters seem intelligent enough and entertaining, but if the mods are a bunch of Nazis, I’ll quit coming here. I appreciate the sanity and spam reduction that moderation brings to a board long term, but I can’t stand hypocrites. You ding me for saying “sexy children”, then post naked children the next day. Who exactly have I offended? Seriously, you owe me an apology.

And Takuan, I’ll quit the board before I quit an argument where logic and the rules are on my side.

Tom Hale

Here’s the comment where I admitted that I sometimes purposely try to make people angry.
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/11/09/al-gore-the-climate.html#comment-326412

And, I only found 3 DV’d comments since the election. If I’m deliberately trying to upset people, I’m really bad at it.

eustace

What a drab, ho-hum occupation, “armchair moderator”. How much more inticing to employ a “hang glider mounted, jet-assisted moderator.” Think how much more readily one might ascend to the blogosphere (there to commune with the balloonists!)

bloodyfork

tldnr :)

absimiliard

Errr, pardon, I meant “My comment was deleted” rather than “That post was deleted”. The post itself (by Xeni) stayed up, and garnered a fair amount of commentary on its own.

-abs hates when he mistypes something and ends up saying something other than what he meant, which happens quite a bit since his fingers normally move faster than his brain does. sorry.

arkizzle

Ah, Takuan. So right, so right: I just had to sign in again (and once again on previewing this message)..

So what you are saying is, rather than continuing to slaughter lambs and smearing the offering-blood on my laptop, I should make some permanent offering to these scamperous* little bastards?

But what? Suggestions, people..

* Yes, that is a made up word, but it says exactly what I mean it to.
Hmm.. made up, but apparently in use on the intarwebz.

mdhatter

Azimos, I see what you’re doing there. Go log back in as Zosima and try again, this time with feeling.

Anonymous

Hi Antinous,

Thanks for replying.

1) I didn’t realize you were “busy typing,” as it were. The post had been deleted for at least ten minutes before it reappeared after my comment, but then I don’t know how the whole process works, so that’s probably normal (usually disemvowelling seems to happen one moment to the next, but maybe some instance are easier than others). It was hardly unreasonable for me to think that it had been deleted, though.

2) Given that it wasn’t unreasonable to think it had been deleted (which it was for ten minutes), was it unreasonable to ask to have it back? I remembered it being an interesting point in the discussion. I’ve discovered now than I should have maybe asked here — I didn’t know before, as I’ve never had to ask moderators anything in “moderator” capacity — heck, I’ve never even been disemvowelled. My comment was actually because I was interested in the on-topic discussion, and wanted to keep it going. And it was hardly a “hissy.”

3) When I saw my post had been deleted, I first thanked you for putting the other one back up, and then joked that it was “Orwellian” that my own comment had disappeared. It was not rude — heck, I even included a stupid winky-face in case someone thought I was being rude. That one disappeared too, which was fine I guess. But was it actually worth banning me? For two “off-topic” posts? One of which was because I actually wanted to remember what someone’s long point was?

Two not-rude off-topic posts get a ban without warning? Or was it because I was asking questions to moderators in the wrong thread — that gets you a banning? Or because I was unknowingly “standing in your cubicle and critiquing your spelling while you were typing?”

4) My email address is only bogus because that’s what I used two years ago when all I knew about BoingBoing was that it used to be a pretty cool zine, but wasn’t sure about its blog. I recently tried to change it to a real one, but there appeared to be no way to do this from my profile page. If moderators have a magic way of doing it, it could be changed to *redacted*

Antinous / Moderator

a ban without warning

I sent a warning. You just didn’t get it. There’s a reason for having a valid e-mail address attached to your account. I will attempt to update yours. We’ve had a lot of technical problems in the last few months.

arkizzle

Ah yes. Well, they are both fine young women.

So hard to pick just one.. when they are both looking at you like that. A bargain, is right. Perhaps two.

technogirl

RE #313 posted by evilrooster

“These positive moderation activities work best with personal engagement with the community, and cannot be done silently.”

Slashdot
Fark
Digg
Newshounds.us
huffingtonpost.com
http://www.crooksandliars.com

All work just fine and without the need for “personal engagement”

Terry Karney

Jim Cowling: (#357) Objection. Assumption of facts not in evidence. At no point did I suggest or imply that the illusion was preferred.

Forvgive me if I assumed your saying (with some clarifying emphasis to show what led me to my conclusion)

Better that multiple moderators work as a team, and recuse themselves from discussions in which they become involved. It may not result in truly unbiased moderation, but it gives the illusion of unbiased moderation.

That seemed a, tacit, at the very least, belief that the appearance of non-bias was at least as good as the real thing; if not better.

This is certainly supported by the clarification you make of exactly that position.

In any case, the illusion of propriety even where none exists forestalls endless complaining. I’m more interested in seeing the trolls shut up than seeing fairer moderation. As such, an illusion of fairness is sufficient.

Objection overruled

Antinous

Malebolge?

ZippySpincycle

What happens to the vowels after they’ve been removed? Seems like a waste to just throw them away; maybe they could be sent to Eastern Europe, where there’s a shortage.

anthony

No more malicious just swimmin’ with the fishes.

The Morgan

You’re not teachers. You’re hall monitors. (Who I’m sure do an important job, but let’s not get airs above our stations, huh?)

eustace

On Slashdot and Groklaw.

minTphresh

xoph, as piccasso said (and i quote):” the cake is a lie WHICH REVEALS TRUTH!(emphasis added)
” and since yer being that way, NO CAKE FOR YOU! and arkizzle, yer pushin it…y fckrs jst dnt ndrstnd th trls nd trbltns ve hd t g thrgh t gt whr m! jss tp dncng chrst! t’s hrd t be th wnnr.

Takuan

why does everyone take my toys?…

farrellmcgovern

Wow, that’s a great, if somewhat long moderation policy. I love the concept of “disemvowelling”!

For contrast, here is the link to an wiki article I wrote on the subject for the local Linux users group:

http://oclug.on.ca/phpwiki?pagename=moderationthoughts

Takuan

To Teresa and All: (courtesy o the Micks)

Kind friends and companions, come join me in rhyme
Come lift up your voices in chorus with mine
Let us drink and be merry, all grief to refrain
For we may and might never all meet here again

Here’s a health to the company and one to my lass
Let us drink and be merry all out of one glass
Let us drink and be merry, all grief to refrain
For we may and might never all meet here again

Here’s a health to the dear lass that I love so well
Her style and her beauty, sure none can excel
There’s a smile upon her countenance as she sits on my knee
Sure there’s no one in in this wide world as happy as we

Our ship lies at harbor, she’s ready to dock
I hope she’s safe landed without any shock
If ever we should meet again by land or by sea
I will always remember your kindness to me

Takuan

Dis?

Xopher

Yankeeknowhow 491: Odd, for someone who’s been disemvowelled, there don’t seem to be any vowelless posts on your comments list. Odd, for someone who’s been banned you still seem able to post.

Odd: you think that Teresa won’t ban your new name just as she banned your old one.

Takuan

ya know…. ya know ANtioniooo… yer my friend, no , no I really MEAN that, you, Teresa, everybody,,, hell! eben that Metabooger guy! YER ALL MY FRENS! >>
I’m havin a REALLY good time here, no,no really,I am,…. oh look! its him, it’s him ANtinope look, here he is! Hiya Metaboober! I love ya guy!@ I Lo,, HWAALLLLPP SPlurggge…. ah , ah shit,sorry Meta, ,

ya , sorrrry.,…../

Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator

Will @599, civility is a central value for me, but when have I ever given you reason to believe that incivility is the only thing that will get you moderated?

Zosima’s been given the same terms of probation as another commenter we had a while back, who posted endlessly about gun control but completely ignored other conversations: when the number of comments you’ve posted on other topics equals the number you’ve posted so far about the Chinese in Tibet, you’ll be allowed to go back to talking about your favorite subject.

That’s a rare one for us. We only do it when someone’s posted an almost overwhelming number of words on a single narrow topic or a single thread. Anyone can avoid it by taking a mild interest in other subjects and talking to other commenters about them. If it turns out they don’t want to participate, just preach, it becomes a solved problem. And if they’re astroturfers rather than commenters, I like to think that we’ve de-automated their semi-automated habits.

Waraw @601, what Nelson said. I’ll add one question: have you noticed that the things you’re saying about me are arguably more inflammatory than any of the things you quote me as saying?

arkizzle

Oh Yeh!

Right, here’s another:

Occidental Milieu

Takuan

they are so, so dull.

heresiarch514

Technogirl @ 343:

Look , EvilRooster by and large I appreciate your comments and do realize that a lot gets lost via email – emotional misconceptions ensue. But I must say that I find it a bit condescending for you to assume that I feel “piled up on”.

Such as, for example, your mistaken assumption that evilrooster is being condescending. Or that she was attacking you @ 277. See, I know evilrooster, and so I assumed that she was trying, as she generally is, to calm things down, not fire them up. Which isn’t to say that your reaction was wrong–it was, given that you don’t know her, perfectly reasonable.

All of which is a roundabout way of saying that reasonable conversation cannot happen unless the people involved trust one another. Everyone has to trust that everyone else is honestly engaged in trying to share knowledge, not in winning (for whatever value of win.) Trolls, more than anything else, violate that trust. They force everyone to assume bad faith at the drop of a hat. This is incredibly corrosive to good conversation, which is what the Boingers hired Teresa to create. Which brings me to point two:

@ 348:

Not really Nelson considering the mnemonic half life of a largish internet posting board is overall something like a week (in my opinion and experience).

The fact that you assume everyone will forget a highly public kerfluffle in less than two months completely boggles me. If that is your standard for internet communities, no wonder you’re having a really hard time figuring out the purpose behind Teresa’s methodology. If I were to try to sum it up in a single sentence, “Communities that don’t remember things for more than two weeks don’t produce good conversation” wouldn’t be a bad start. Teresa’s philosophy of moderation (as I have experienced it) is that a moderator’s job is bigger than just keeping the trolls out–it’s building a good community, in order to build good conversation. A website that no one posts on is just as much of a failure as one overrun by trolls. This is very different than Slashdot’s approach, or Fark’s, but that doesn’t mean it is wrong or bad.

Takuan

any motion picture title of the past century that can be classified as science fiction

(that addition to the opening question is just a fillip)

arkizzle

MDH,

but do you have to login on evey page or in now remembers your session? I’m logging in for every page and every comment at the minute..

sammich

I dare not look thataway!

eustace

Takuan – fascinating, esp. at full resolution!

Takuan

I hereby move the Moderation Thread be turned in to a RPG where you have to negotiate obstacles on your quest before confronting the Dread Mod.

Takuan

we could guess the words one by one
enlargement

minTphresh

he was ousted for his dickishness, not his opining.

Jeff

Takuan, I like your poem back there. You’re obviously a sycophant! Good job ;)

back seat astronaut

Antinous (403): Nope, by everybody I mean everybody, but when I say everybody perhaps I don’t include people with disingenuous agendas such as yourself.

Takuan

“In Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy, Dis is the City of the Dead (it.: La cittÃ infuocata di Dite). It is located in the Sixth Circle. The walls of Dis are guarded by fallen angels. The buildings of Dis which are mentioned are Mosques and furnaces. Dis is extremely hot. Punished within Dis are those whose lives were marked by active (rather than passive) sins: heretics, murderers, suicides, blasphemers, usurers, sodomites, panderers, seducers, flatterers, simoniacs, sorcerors, barrators, hypocrites, thieves, false counsellors, schismatics, falsifiers and traitors.”

jeblis

A couple comments on disemvoweling. It’s a clever idea, but in practice it seems to be rather antagonistic. It makes moderation a public show. It’s mostly a public display of power. When someone waves their power publicly, people tend to get upset. If a comment is that out of line, just get rid of the whole thing and send an email rather than punish others in the thread by leaving bits that are hard to decipher.

Particularly troublesome is the practice of selective disemvoweling of a comment. In effect you are changing what someone has said. Their words are now taken out of context. Would you selectively delete parts of a person’s comment?
Better to delete the whole comment.

Like a movie director who has to cut their best shot to make a movie work as a whole, maybe this one is better left on the cutting room floor.

Antinous

Most regular commenters are somewhat blasÃ© about it. Most people realize about a second after submitting their comment that they might have been a little too eager in their sentiments.

It’s not primarily a punishment. It’s mostly used to disempower offensive bits. Sometimes it’s used to get the attention of a commenter who is oblivious to other attempts at communication. And sometimes it’s a public display of cause and effect. That has a much larger effect than sending a private e-mail to everyone who crosses the line.

As to unpublishing comments, it decontextualizes the entirety of the thread, which is a larger problem than decontextualizing the offending comment.

minTphresh

of course takuan , oh HIGH COSTELLO, you have the right idea!

controlbroke

it turns out that the thread in question was about politics in the media. go back to the thread for a youtube link of a retaction from CNN saying they had misrepresented the story.

it was a blatanly peurile peice of spin, and i don’t like to see it presented as reporting on any side of the political lines.

to have it protected in such an agressive manner was shamefull.

Antinous

Yes, well I published an anonymous comment with a link to CNN admitting their fuck up. That was specific, and until that point, media bias was purely speculative. All you have to do is come up with some reasonably credible evidence that you’re not just ranting. ‘Liberal media’ gets the same treatment as ‘You people are all…’ and ‘They’re out to get me.’

Antinous

Let me give you an example. Here’s an unpublished anonymous comment that just showed up in the thread on Daylight Savings Time:

You guys are friggin idiots. DST is wonderful and we should never change back from it! Typical of liberals to want to get rid of something beneficial with no cost. What’s next, birthdays?

‘Liberal’ has become mindless invective.

Tom Hale

I read somewhere that BB is the most popular blog in the world. You’d think you guys would have some of the best website/tech geeks to fix this stuff. That sounds kind of negative – I’m not complaining, I’m perfectly happy not having a profile image. I just hate to deny everyone a glimpse at my stunningly handsome face.

novakreo

May I ask what happened to my comment in this post?

Antinous / Moderator

It was off-topic.

minTphresh

sorry, i meant rudeness. i’ve had a bad week. now i’m being dickish.

technogeek

Teresa@428: Some of us “intend to be people” but prefer to keep our identities on different systems separate rather than getting into “but over on XXX you said….” debates here or elsewhere. (I was posting anonymously for that reason, but decided I should give folks here at least some context.)

That doesn’t necessarily invalidate the rest of your issues with Technogirl (who I have no connection with; there are just not that many suitably entertaining userIDs out there). I’m just quibbling with the assertion that someone who prefers an invented name is by definition malicious. Sometimes it’s just a nickname.

mdh

I think they don’t love us no more.

Takuan

OK, here: nobody thinks you’re a child molesting piece of shit for typing the words “sexy children”.OK? The words were deleted because we do not let ANYTHING stand that could be interpreted or used for evil against children by ANYONE – not necessarily you, got it? I myself are on record for advocating killing and eating children at every opportunity, but somehow this isn’t seen as a credible threat. Neither were you. But the words left standing COULD have been used by evil that follows. Got it? We took down a threat, not attacked you. Now get your knickers untwisted and quit wasting everyone’s time or we might decide that you are a different kind of problem – but a problem just the same. Sheesh. What the hell do you want from us?

arkizzle

OHH!!

I’m anachronistic!

I’m in my very early thirties. My vinyl collection started with the dj culture of hiphop, jungle and drum’n'bass in the mid nineties. Besides playing, I was also making these styles, all of which rely on sampling older records for their drum breaks and instrument breaks. So I started reaching back to the 60′s and 70′s for funk and soul records, which eventually came to far exceed my 90′s records.

So now I have a nice selection of original jungle records, a nicer selection of rare funk and soul originals and compilations, and even more random records bought for a single track or even for just 5 or 10 seconds of a nice sample.

There is a fairly mature culture based around ‘digging’* for breaks and loops (lots of websites and magazines about that subject alone), celebrating the roots of sampled music, and utilising deep knowledge of the labels and artist who made the original records, whose snippets have gone on to provide the foundations for hundreds of thousands of electro, hip hop, drum’n'bass, breakbeat, house and pop tracks.

If you don’t know about drum breaks or sampling, take a look at these two links. The first is the Grand Daddy of all breaks (to a lot of people, anyway), Amen Brother, by the Winstons – a record that spawned a whole genre of music from it’s 7 second drum break. The second link is a short audio documentary describing how huge the impact Amen Brother has had on music since the early nineties.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=uiUSbOnEqc4&feature=related
(listen to the whole thing if you can, otherwise 01:25 is the money-shot)

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=sj0vfU0vFSs
(again, if you have time, check out the whole thing)

If anyone is interested, gimme a shout and I’ll provide a ton of amazing funk/soul/soundtrack music and links.
__

And “climate controlled storage”? Hah! Mine are languishing in cardboard boxes in an uninsulated garage in Ireland, amongst the damp and rain. Feel my pain.

* Digging in the crates, from searching the dollar-bins and sencond-hand boxes in record shops for forgotten gems. Tons of my gold is from the dollar-bin or charity shops.

mdhatter

Actually Josh is right, he was not moderated – I had Josh confused with some other guy apparently.

The reason I say you have been a jerk is this: Your comments have been limited to the VB stuff and then to this moderation thread – and you cannot be placated – so I’ll just leave it there for the audience to figure out if you have an agenda.

There has also been an element of the “connect me to your supervisor” tone to your comments, and your approach is and has been combative and comes across as semantic last-wordism.

I do not take on faith that you have processed a single answer that someone has offered you. I see with my own eyes that you jump on the weakest link in your detractors statements and needle them with questions – ignoring the part where your question was at least partly (if not fully) answered. This is also true when the Mods HAVE attempted to directly answer your questions. You have to hold up your end.

I don’t think you care Josh, but I am sorry if I have mis-characterized you, it’s what I see. You may be brilliant, but you’re not pleasant.

Don’t bother to respond if all you care to do is tell me where I’m wrong or BB is cavalier in their moderation.

buttseks

I declare this thread to now be about lamenting the fact that nobody makes a good drink anymore. Any time I go to a place that my friends assure me has “great mixed drinks” they’re just really strong. That’s not great unless your an alcoholic…a tight-ass alcoholic. Everything has seltzer water in it, nobody makes simple syrup or bothers to muddle anymore. I swear someday I’m going to open a bar with good beer and proper mixed drinks and yakitori/kushiyaki and it’s going to fail miserably and I’ll burn it down for insurance money.

Takuan

skip the intro guv and ‘ed straight on to Circle seven!
http://web.eku.edu/flash/inferno/

arkizzle

Try saying that with a mouthful of cheetos.

Joel Johnson

Hi!

cinemajay

@ 154/Tom

“For myself, because Teresa’s moderation is clearly focussed on rudeness and offensiveness, it has zero impact on the content of any of my comments…”

But it DOES have an impact–it’s been disemvoweled! Your comments are being line-item-vetoed and you don’t care?

This whole policy is flawed because it’s really just subverting dissent, based on the opinion of one person/a few people.

Give that EULA to any or civil rights attorney and they’d have a field day with it because it doesn’t define a damn thing. It’s a rambling mess blurs the line of what’s acceptable and what’s not. Who or what does it protect? People’s feelings? Their opinons? In the end neither. You can’t make everyone play nice.

I agree with #143:
“Again and again we’re told, “This is our site to do with what we will. Love it or leave it.” Also, “This is not a democracy”. But, why shouldn’t it be a democracy? Why shouldn’t readers feel a sense of ownership? Otherwise, why publish?”

And #147/Talia,
I’m guessing you were being sarcastic. Democracy, like life, can only ever be pluralistic, and unruly, and beautiful.

evilrooster

Technogirl @311:
I was playing a little there, because Capn Barcode was actually correct.

Teresa’s surname is Nielsen Hayden, derived from her original surname (Nielsen) and her husband’s (Hayden). They both changed their names on marriage. Wikipedia has the info.

I wonder if the irritability comes less from the spelling and more from the lack of interest in who she is as a person. I know that when I engage with someone substantively, I try to find out how they like to be addressed and use that. (I have wondered what capitalisation you prefer here. Really, truly, about three hours ago, I was considering the matter.)

But I’m speaking for Teresa, who is of course perfectly capable of speaking for herself.

Antinous

New England has an extensive letter recycling program. Rs are removed from the ends of words and appended to words ending in vowels.

Nelson.C

Echonomist, for a site that’s “inhospitable to dialogue and discussion”, I wonder how it is able to sustain a thread that is 1571 comments long.

Tom Hale

ARKIZZLE / MODERATOR &lt——- This is new. Are you a REAL Assistant Moderator now?

AGF

Yeah! Now they both work.

Tom Hale

MDH, I never said I was annoyed by Takuan’s comments. I said some of his comments were designed to insult or anger certain people. The only thing that bothered me was his intent, not what he was saying. At the time I thought his intent was clear, but now I’m not so sure. After reading his last 30-40 comments on the subject and what others have said on the matter, I guess maybe he was just being himself – odd, strange, weird, cryptic – Takuanish.

Antinous

it didn’t take long to get e-mail

Why did she e-mail you? Just because she could, or did you piss her off somehow? I ask because people are getting freakier.

Bill Higgins– Beam Jockey

Tom Neff at #485, you are correct; I wasn’t sure you were that guy (whom I admire).

Since the subject of multiple Tom Neffs had come up, I was adding one to the pool. I e-mailed my answer to TNH’s question “what’s a uranium Tom Neff?” rather than posting it here.

I hope I have not introduced unnecessary confusion into the discourse.

Heaven knows there are plenty of Bill Higginses. Some of whom might be embarrassed to be confused with me.

arkizzle

I just got one of those old “text entered was wrong” submission errors, and got signed out.

Haven’t had one of those in about a year..

/Just got another one entering this text!

arkizzle

Fo shizzle minTizzle.

Dustin Driver

Another thought: Disemvowelling seems like a troll tool, not a moderator tool. I can imagine a troll/coder writing a worm that would somehow disemvowel other people’s posts. Seems eggzonctly what such a technique would be used for. A moderator’s use of the disemvowelling technique seems kind nanner-nanner-goo-goo-ish to me.

Takuan

we’ll have to change sodomites to bushites of course

Anonymous

W000t!

joshmillard

Heya, did a comment from me over on this morning YouTube thread get et by a filter? It had two or three links in it; I’m wondering if there’s an automatic red flag filter as a spam deterrent or some such. Submitted it about 6:30 AM, Pacific.

Antinous

I’m okay with flatterers and sodomites, but I’m not sharing my furnace with any goddamn simoniacs.

joshmillard

It seems to me that this month is probably different in four ways (but a moderator would have to say if I’m right):

…

- The tone is different (because see above)

Ah, and I think Antinous said as much as well yesterday. That was very much part of what I was wondering, so I hear you; I’ll try to not take too much into account the non-VB-thread stuff from the last few weeks and see if I can do a different calibration calibration run, so to speak, from back in the archives.

I don’t see the similarity between the two threads, because I don’t see much debate on the MeFi side, though you say it is there. I’ve only read about 60% of it, but I was sampling it from end to end. Over here, lots of debate.

Well, that’s not precisely the similarity I had in mind — I don’t mean to say that the positions held and the trending opinions are the same between the two threads, so much as that both threads have that same mix of everyday chatter, weird sniping from some particularly impassioned folks, hometown defenses, and amidst it all some serious non-GRRR-ARGG discussion.

The Mefi thread comes off a lot less pro-BB to me as well, for what its worth. There’s some self-selection in play here on both sides — folks on mefi with some sort of criticism of BoingBoing are likely to hop into that thread; readers over here who like this place are likely to hop in to defend it.

- Do I need to make a direct comparison between mefites saying “our mods are great!” and BB readers saying “it’s no big deal, do what you want with your site!” here?”

I’ll do it for you. In the thread in question, the statements were almost universally, “Our mods are great, not like that horrible TNH!” Over here, people (aside from ME this one time) have not been comparing the BB mods to anybody, but responding to the attempt to make the mods the subject.

Again, that’s not really the comparison I’m making. Folks on mefi are likely to be all “big ups, mefi” where the subject is some kind of implicit comparison of mefi to Some Other Site, just as folks on BB are likely to be all “big ups, BB” where the subject is BB vs. Some Other Site. None of that’s surprising — in either case, it’s pretty organic background-radation chatter for either site in context.

Which is all in part an effort on my part to underline that as much as I might balk a little at details of the VB thread over here (which I think I noted a couple of times throughout the mefi thread when things struck me), I dig that it’s two sides of the same coin — I’m not going to fault you either for taking exception to the experience of reading the mefi thread, and I don’t think either of us thinks we’re seeing the respective other-site threads through completely objective lenses, but as long as we’re trying to hash it out in good faith we’re probably in good shape.

So your MeFi thread is dealing with the subset of people who can’t or won’t adapt to the norms of the BB community, for whatever reason.

But also Joel Johnson; Charlie Stross; Anil Dash; and, again, a lot of folks who don’t have any particular grudge against BB, who are having varyingly critical first-blush reactions to what went down. While I hear you and agree with you that there’s a different critical balance in the mefi thread than in BB, and while I can totally understand that with background noise and all it probably comes off as a deeply unsympathetic read, I don’t think it makes sense to reduce that to being the result of BB-rejects driving the conversation.

Almost all of the “not welcoming” vibe you point to involves the same people who are telling you how unpleasant BB is.

Well, but some of it is coming from my own reading of the site. I disagree (and have done so explicitly, in the mefi thread, in a number of cases) with some of the substance and degree of the criticisms folks have made of BB, of the moderation here, of Teresa, of word choices, etc. I hope it is clear from reading my comments over in that thread that I’m speaking for myself and not happily endorsing every critical thing folks have had to say there — so when I talk about e.g. the apparent combativeness or antagonism of some of the moderation I’ve seen, I’m not doing so solely as a projection of what I think other people have been seeing.

But, again, yes: it’s probably going to be hard at the end of the day to really strip some of what I’m seeing out of context, and I know I’m walking in the door with some degree of bias, so I’ll keep reading and trying to get more familiar with this place and how it works under less unusual conditions.

There’ve been frustrating elements of some of the conversation here, but I would like to thank the folks who have stuck it out and put out answers to my long-winded questions and thoughts. For whatever criticism I may have for this or that, I do think it’s a good place and I’m interested in seeing what happens here in the future.

buddy66

Tom, I’d say you’re making progress towards civility. We all get DV’d now and then. It is, after all, the nature of the beast to test its limits. I just got deleted for a “persona voice” that didn’t get by the mods. (It’s hard, as a playwright, to see one of your characters deleted, but I was wearing the wrong hat to the party.) The goal we commenters should aim for is, I repeat, civility; or, more simply put, plain old good manners.

Robert Graves calls self-editing, “The reader over your shoulder.” I try to think of my grandmother.

ZoopyFunk

You took that personally? Jeeeeez. Lighten up already.

mdh

Tom, don’t confuse confederacy for conspiracy.

Takuan

not to worry, the days of the Darknet are coming.

Lewis Haidt

With all due respect, Takuan, touche.

Your posts throughout have a snarky, rude tone when you take your high-horse/mi-so-special-moderators/defender mantle, but I guess some of us r just more entitled (& certainly feel that, show that in their posts)….

Yes, I am passionate about these issues; I consider myself a guest here and contributing my 1.5 cents to conversations, often about social justice-related ideas, which especially in LA, are critically important.

But my question still holds — let’s just say in the name of transparency.

mdhatter

Is there something weird about the idea of holding strong opinions about something without automatically devaluing opposing opinions or the people who hold them?

Not at all weird. I generally am capable of it, but I can be pushed into being disagreeable, because I’m human and fallible, just like every man and just like every system designed by man. Harping on the fallibility of the Boingers and Mods, and their system, ACROSS SEVERAL SITES, and not recognising the repeatedly stated fact that the current system is quite good enough for the site owners IS devaluing their system.

At some point you cross the subjective line from helpful commenter to agenda laden crank. That’s nobodies doing but your own. As the Boingers are responsible for how they are seen by others, so too are you. For me, the jury is out as to which side of that line you are on. My saying this is analogous to you positing on how potential commenters may see the mod style here and be turned off.

For my part, I can and do admit that a convincing argument is convincing, and have no qualms about openly changing my mind about a thing.

I have not seen your views evolve one iota through these discussions. That makes them more of a JoshMillard lecture tour, and that’s not why I come here.

Please see that this is the root of my concern over whether your faith is good.

eustace

oh dear, i shouldn’t complain… but i will anyway… its the natural order of things…

FoetusNail

My profile still looks strange; it is missing my history and does not appear to be updating. Also, it is displaying a password reset code. Was a decision made to ax our histories beyond a certain date?

Takuan

Hi yourself!

Nix

Terry@#132, her name is, um, ‘Nielsen Hayden’. i before e ;}

Tom @#33, I really can’t see much ‘editorial stylebook’ in these guidelines (although I’d not be surprised if they *did* look like an editorial stylebook, given the number of books on my shelves with TNH’s name on the inside cover or in the acknowledgements). They pretty much reduce to ‘we reserve the right to do whatever the hell we feel we need to do to prevent the BoingBoing comment system becoming a worthless sewer that nobody actually reads’. (For proof that she’s truly excellent at this, look no further than Making Light’s comment threads. A more astonishing collection of often-hilarious erudition maintained for thousands of comments at a time I have never seen. It makes unmoderated forums look like white noise. And this is done with what is, to be blunt, a fairly light touch: the great majority of posts seem to go through unchanged.)

As an aside, I find the statement ‘We throw the book at you’ interesting, coming from the author of the book _Making Book_. I wonder if this book is like a boomerang, in that it returns to her hand so she can throw it again? (I mean, *obviously* there’s only one of it.)

Takuan

I’ve been on the web a while too. Probably longer than most think. Maybe even before they called it anything. And before that I talked with people in groups. Around a fire even.

And ya know what?

Boors and bores haven’t changed.

blueandroid

ARRGH!
I’m making an honest effort to be a good community citizen here on boing boing. I respect the moderation policy, I respect(respected?) the moderators, I respect other commenters, and I do my best to bring something constructive to any discussion I’m involved in.

Today, in a discussion on fourth amendment rights, I attempted to discuss the defense of those rights and was roundly shut down. I tried to respectfully clarify what I was saying. I reread the moderation policy. I was polite. I put a lot of good-faith effort into having a good discussion, and for reasons i can only surmise I was not allowed to do so. I asked for clarification and got abuse instead.

I want to know why.

Antinous

blueandroid,

That thread is about wiretapping. If commenters start posting about the right to bear arms, it will turn immediately into a toxic flame war about that. It happens every time. I appreciate your frustration, and you were perfectly polite, but I have to look at the larger picture of avoiding a war. Keeping a thread about current electoral politics civil is already difficult. Sorry.

Antinous / Moderator

Occasional server overload.

And it’s fine to post problems here (which encourages other people to chime in), but it’s a good idea to e-mail me as well.

Robotech_Master

@740: “I would like to suggest to you that wit may appear to be vitriol and/or petulance to some observers.”

If it “appears” to be vitriol and/or petulance, then it might just as well be it. A difference that makes no difference is no difference. Whether it is intended vindictively or just wittily, it still provokes the same response from people who whom it “appears” vindictive. So, either the person has poor control over his temper, or poor judgment as to how his “wit” will be perceived.

Either way, a moderator’s job is not to provoke. It is to do the opposite of provoke. People who cannot keep their temper (or their “wit”) in check simply should not be moderating, because they aren’t “moderating.” They’re doing the opposite.

“I would like to ask you to apply the principle of proportion to this statement. If it were rephrased as, for example, “Is it obvious that someone who is allowed to edit posts (dsmvwl) should be expected to do so more carefully than a random blog poster” you might find the answer so obvious as to make the question unnecessary. Proportion! Wonderful stuff, in moderation. :)”

That’s a straw man and you know it.

But I guess if the only counter-argument you can muster is a straw man, then you concede the point by default.

With great power comes great responsibility. Moderators should be held to a higher standard than posters; before someone can moderate others, he should know how to moderate himself first. He should not let himself be drawn into exchanges of vitriol (or “wit”) that can incite others to join in the fusillades. He should examine the tone of his posts carefully before he sends them, asking himself, “Is this the message I really want to send? Is my phrasing possibly conveying something I don’t mean to say?” (If he does that, he might be able to avoid having to go back and disemvowel himself later.)

Is that a lot of fun? No, it’s not. But being a moderator isn’t supposed to be fun. It’s a responsibility that you take on because you want to make things better on the site you are moderating. When you agree to moderate, you give up the right to set a bad example.

I don’t expect anyone associated with BoingBoing or its moderators to come out and admit that they made a mistake, or even that “mistakes were made.” But I hope this will at least remind moderators of what their job is supposed to be, and prompt them to do it better.

It’s probably a lost cause, though.

mdhatter

Is there any way to prove sockpuppetry?

Not that it’s worth anyone’s time to do so, but if you’re making changes I’d love a little icon or something next to my comments that indicates that only one username is associated with this IP address.

It’s a start.

joshmillard

mintphresh: sorry, josh. err, what was the question?

My comment is here. The implicit questions:

1. Whether the catty or antagonistic responses the moderators sometimes throw out are considered good policy or not;

2. Whether the traditional idea of moderator as trusted guide and steadying hand within the community is congruent with BB vision of moderation; and

3. If so, what the take (from the mods in particular, though I’m also interested in thoughts from the userbase, regulars and others) is on those clashes between (1) and (2) that do arise here.

MDHATTER: The answers you seek are IN THE POST, before the 900+ comments.

Where? I’m not trying to be a pain in the ass here, but I just read it through again start to finish and I don’t see it.

The clarifications you seek are in the 900+ comments.

I’ve read the thread a few times in the last couple months. There has been some commentary on threads of this, but nothing that struck me as a particularly decisive mod-side answer to the above. If I missed something, show it to me, but please don’t just wave me off in the direction of the thread like that.

You are not entitled to personal attention and the ensuing sense of validation from the Mods because you feel you’ve been slighted

What are you talking about? When was I slighted?

- doubly true when you had it coming, because you were (past tense) being a jerk when they moderated you.

Who moderated me where? I am completely lost here.

Again, I don’t feel “entitled” to the personal attention of the mods. I feel pretty certain that I’m in the right place to discuss moderation on BB, and I tried a couple days ago to do just that, to kind of questionable response, but I’m not imagining anyone owes me anything here.

Antinous

Buttseks,

The Orbit Room in San Francisco used to make their own Blood Mary mix by slow-cooking fresh vegetables. Then they garnished it with home-made pickles. When I moved to Palm Springs, I was served a Cosmopolitan made with Rose’s Lime Juice. I haven’t left the house since. High ethanol content is no substitute for an elixir skillfully compounded by a qualified alchemist, using the freshest ingredients.

Antinous

Nope, by everybody I mean everybody, but when I say everybody perhaps I don’t include people with disingenuous agendas such as yourself.

Because everyone who disagrees with you has ulterior motives. Fine. I live under the Denver Airport. I have nictitating membranes and a dewlap. Are you happy now? If I were you, I wouldn’t answer the door if it looks like Tom Cruise on your stoop.

Takuan

come now, for a few dollars I’ll fix that for you

Tom Neff

In fairness to Bill, his character reference appears to be contingent on me being this guy, which I’m not.

The truth is that such “vouching” ought to have no place in a moderated discussion anyway. Criticism, praise, analysis etc, should stand on their own. The whole obsession with “yeah but who are you really” is one of the besetting sins here.

Whatever “someone about Boing Boing has gotten up your nose” means, it’s not a factor. BB is great in its funny way. Its failures, such as they are, only reflect a higher standard that one is tempted to pine for given the brilliance of the principals.

The discussion feature is less successful. I frankly think it would strengthen the blog if they turned it off again, but I don’t expect that to happen for other than technical reasons. Anyway, whatever these threads are, they are not “moderated,” and whatever that thing at the top is, it is not a moderation policy.

bubbleman

Here you go, print this out….

SEXY CHILDREN

Now print out the paintings of the naked little girl. Take them to ANY TOWN, in ANY STATE ANYWHERE IN THIS COUNTRY and ask random people on the street which they find more offensive.

I’m still waiting for that apology.

Mark Frauenfelder

I think of Teresa’s moderation style as strong, very effective medicine that keeps these discussions from becoming as crazy as YouTube’s. Yes, there are side-effects but the overall result is overwhelmingly positive. I’m not about to switch medications or experiment with the dosage. Teresa works wonders.

Vidiot

A couple questions, and I’ll preface them with an apology for only skimming this 600-plus comment thread:

–Is it possible for moderators to be identified in some way in the comments sections? Teresa’s username includes “Moderator” in it, but it’d be very helpful if other mods had that as well. Or perhaps a special logo next to one’s name, like the wrench signifying you’ve got a website?

And,

–How is it possible to convey concerns, or ask questions, or make a point regarding moderation styles without said comments getting deleted, disemvowelled, or met with snarky putdowns (or threats, or accusations of bad faith, sockpuppetry, or axe-grinding, or trolling) from the moderators and Boingers? Of course everyone here doesn’t agree on everything, and some people are just here to make noise. But I must say that the Boing Boing comments section seems to be a less hospitable place — even for well-intentioned, good-faith commenters — than I remember it to be (at least, in the current era. The QuickTopic comments era was just a mess.)

My ‘Net commenting energies are largely spent elsewhere, but I feel like I’m walking on eggshells when I’m commenting here. I feel a little trepidation, ’cause I’m not sure how the mods are gonna react.

Antinous

Vidiot,

We’re working on the display name thing.

How is it possible to convey concerns, or ask questions, or make a point regarding moderation styles without said comments getting deleted, disemvowelled, or met with snarky putdowns (or threats, or accusations of bad faith, sockpuppetry, or axe-grinding, or trolling) from the moderators and Boingers?

Moderation comments belong in this thread. A casual comment in another thread wouldn’t be a big deal, but an attempt to hijack a thread to another topic will commonly lead to dv’ing. Comments are never deleted and very rarely unpublished. Our options for moderating are verbal wrangling, disemvoweling and unpublishing. If you consider those options, most people would rather be snarked at than dv’ed. In fact, disapprobation from the community is the first line of defense for moderation.

If we warn commenters that they’re flirting with their vowels or explain why we did something, they complain. If we don’t warn commenters that they’re flirting with their vowels or explain why we did something, they complain.

We have trolls of all genera and species, sock puppets, commenters posting in bad faith and plenty of ax-grinders. The way to avoid being accused of those things is not to do them. Very few people are subject to those accusations. The ones that are, funnily enough, often turn out to be sock puppets of previously banned commenters. In Kitteh: Vokal minority iz vokal. We don’t have a policy against calling someone a troll, but you might be asked to justify yourself if you do.

Sometimes, perfectly reasonable comments are dv’ed or even unpublished because they act as catnip for trolls, astroturfers, etc. It implies no malfeasance on the part of the commenter, and we normally provide an explanation.

The overwhelming majority of dv’s happen because the commenter insulted a Boinger, the subject of the post or other commenters. There are plenty of commenters who have made hundreds or thousands of comments and never been sanctioned. Unfortunately, some people are unable to differentiate between feedback and insult. If you have a suggestion, you can make it in a thread or drop a note to Teresa. If you don’t like the content of a post, scroll to the next one. I have yet to meet a human being who wants to hear about how bored somebody else is.

We don’t censor differing opinions unless they turn into hate speech or are clearly designed to offend and upset readers. Or, if the commenter keeps repeating the same thing over and over. I’m sorry that you feel like you’re walking on eggshells. The moderation exists so that commenters can have a safe space to comment without being attacked. In my experience, the only children who don’t want the teachers in the schoolyard are the bullies.

minTphresh

will there be cake?

Antinous

There’s nothing in that thread from you. Links aren’t normally a problem, but comments go missing pretty frequently.

Takuan

OK, I wash my hands of this one

Takuan

you GOT to quit smoking (tobacco)

arkizzle

True, but secretions leave stains, no? You look lovely, and I’ll hear no more about it.

Jake0748

Hi Joel!! How come the favorites button doesn’t work? Cool on the IRC thing!!

cajunfj40

@#345 Technogirl:

As you left it open for anyone to comment, I would like to offer a few answers to your questions.

1. For me, personally, it makes a difference to know who the moderator is. Knowing who they are (or, in this case as in most cases, knowing that a particular online moniker belongs to the moderator) helps me keep in mind that the moderator is a person. Put another way, it makes it harder to dismiss and/or dehumanize the moderator as some unknowable outside “force”. It’s a personal preference in my case, not sure about others’.

2. I don’t know which name you meant – poster or moderator – but I will assume you meant both. It is more effective with names attached as that allows the site owner to look at all posts by the specific complainant and all moderations by the specific moderator and thus have a better data set to base decisions on. This, of course, can also be accomplished without the complainant knowing who the moderator is so long as the site owner can distinguish who moderated what post and when, but see my answer to 1. above as to why I think knowing the moderator’s identity is important. If the complainant is unknown, has no comment history, or both, then it makes it more difficult for the site owner to know whether the complainant has a legitimate complaint in cases other than “I see spam!” or “I see foul language!”.

3. I do agree that with great power comes great responsibility. I do not believe that in this case we can move over to the “absolute power corrupts absolutely” position from that basis – the moderator is in the employ of the site owners, so power is limited. (No you didn’t go there, I did, just for the sake of discussion.) Therefore, avoiding even the appearance of impropriety appears to be to tight a specification for the job. I’d rather let the moderator comment and let the rest of the participants figure out for themselves whether impropriety has or has not occurred, and whether it is worth noting. Besides, if the moderator is participating, then the moderator has a further vested interest in moderating well – the reward is a better conversation. In my experience, as discussion groups develop, the frequency of comments that require moderation goes down, whether due to “cleaner” comments or better internal filters on the part of comment readers.

That was long, but I hope it makes sense.

later,
-cajun

Takuan

A Scanner Darkly

Nelson.C

Mark @665: I just hope you buy them all flowers, chocolates, or beer â€“ according to taste â€“ whenever they have to pull a late shift dealing with the nasty stuff that goes flying around here.

Takuan

shock collars connected to house current with the control box to your computer. Everyone in the online community gets one vote against any and every other member once a day say. The cumulative weight of negative votes against you steadily raises the voltage and current. Universal democratic polling of social obnoxiousness. Trying to vote against someone more than once in day counts as a vote against you. Who would fry first?

technogirl

#314 posted by Xopher
“vilrooster was responding to a post by Capn Barcode, where s/he basically said if her name wasn’t Nielson Hayden, he’d throw up his hands.”

No he was not.
If you actually go back and read post number #303 you will find out that evil Roster was replying to a post by Capn Barcode whereupon the Capn is resoinding to a post by Teresa that says:

“@216: ‘I just wish he’d figure out that my last name isn’t Hayden.’

And once again we are responding to a post by Teresa rather then talking about moderation concepts and the issue is obfuscated.

No is it the coffee kicking in along with my paranoia or am I sensing a disturbance in the Boing? Are we being infiltrated by fanboys from Teresa’s blog defending the perceived Queen? More likely my paranoia… however ….

Still if we had no idea who was doing the fraking moderation we couldn’t complain about him/her or defend him/her could we?

Not that Teresa is a him/her I ‘m just being gender neutral… and with that I have posted FAR too much here already about one of my favorite subjects. So I am off to do some real life work in the real life world. SOMEONE’S got to pay the rent for this crappy apartment.

Mary Dell

Technogirl @various:

Teresa’s last name is Nielsen Hayden. Since you like snark, I’ll suggest that you can guess what someone’s last name may be by looking at their whole name, and then subtracting the first word. Doesn’t always work, but it’s worth a shot.

I’m a member of several fora (related to 3d art) that rely on in-your-face moderation, smackdowns, bannings, deletions, etc. Joining up requires agreeing to the moderation policy/TOS, which is linked on the front page of any artist forum worth visiting. People who get banned too many times sometimes end up starting their own a which all run along similar lines. The ones that thrive have strong, obvious moderation – many of them have online stores that generate a pile of dough, and allow them to pay a rafts of moderators to keep things civil. http://www.renderosity.com, which is all about control and internecine warfare, has been going strong for over a decade (thousands of members) and is a lot of fun…if you can play by the rules. I offer this as an example of the part of the internet where Teresa’s moderation style is the norm. You don’t have to like it, but it’s not as startling as you think.

Full disclosure: longtime kool-aid drinker here, want Teresa to edit my book someday, etc.

Takuan

http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/110736

sammich

Perhaps it’s the coming full moon / spring tide, Takuan – they say it can greatly affect the denizens of the deep. Pondlife too, I expect.

Takuan

KILL ALL HUMANS!

Tom Hale

This thread loads really fast with google’s Chrome browser.

minTphresh

hey, i got a limited time with it if u guys don’t STFU! i’m guessing one of the words to be ‘gargantuan’.

phoenix

i don’t know what some of you guys are on about – this is the best comment and discussion moderation policy I’ve ever seen on the web. :D

Not only is it tasteful and observant of people’s ability to comment what they choose, it’s reflective of what more and more blogs need to do: move away from the eyes-bleeding YouTube/Digg comment style and towards something more substantive and intelligent.

There may be hope for the Web yet.

nathn

RE: #263 posted by takeshi

Regarding the question of if Boing Boing has jumped the shark, I have to say that you nailed it when you referred to the posting of this document as the turning point. That said, I will also agree that the enormous pile of autofellatiotic content has been a lot of what’s gotten BB to the ramp to begin with.

Does it matter that BB has jumped the shark when it comes to the health of their site? Maybe less than we think. Blogs have one thing going in their favor when it comes to retaining an audience: habit. We all have our little list of websites we hit every day, and this list doesn’t often change. It probably takes a lot more to lose an audience member than we think because of this.

That said, there are people who will move on to greener pastures. I am pretty well there myself I think. My personal reasons have little to do with moderation since I’m mainly a lurker; it’s the regular content that turns me off these days.

I’m tired of the aforementioned self-congratulatory stuff — including Teresa’s meta-promotional posts; it’s like watching the Oscars every day. Steampunk is incredibly cliche now; it’s annoying-yet-amusing to watch people who see themselves as so incredibly hip posting volumes about it. As an aggregator of other topics I’m interested in, BB does an ok job but I’m pretty confident that I can find a suitable replacement.

Anyway, now that the Happy Mutant is wearing waterskis I suppose that it’ll be interesting if nothing else to see what happens.

Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator

Looking northward, I say: For all its faults, show me a thread like this on Metafilter.

Buttseks, come to New York and I’ll buy you a drink at a place that does all those things. Two drinks, even.

Takuan

The Game (plucky) Players (performers) of Titan (Mahler’s first)

I’ll get you for that

Tdawwg

Sorry, is there a better place for these comments than the moderation policy (ahem) thread? Or were you referring to the earlier, deleted comments? Clarity is of great service to the scold, Antinous.

bubbleman

I should have said anywhere on this continent. I do realize you are in Canada, which makes the censorship even more puzzling.

Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Community Manager

Being naughty while telling the truth is so much more fun that IMO, there’s really no comparison.

evilrooster

Technogirl @284:

1. I had no intention of getting into a snark-fest with you, not even if you surpass Shakespeare in linguistic coinages (please feel free to try; I like new words). I nearly added a comment to the effect that the second part of 277 was not directed at you, but real life called me from the keyboard.

2. I still prefer to see worked examples of interpersonal theories in real life. People do amazing, surprising things, many of which demolish abstract theories of human interaction. Plato’s Republic, for instance, never existed, nor ever could. (And if it did, I’d rather not live there.)

Lack of an example doesn’t render an argument invalid, it just makes it abstract. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course; principles and theories are often a sounder basis of action than pure expediency. But the combination of abstraction and a world-weary tone, as some others have adopted here, smacks of the armchair. At some point, I want to see some examples of these lovely ideas in action.

3. That’s a perfectly valid opinion, but you don’t need me to tell you that.

4. I was only briefly on Kuro5hin, but I have seen other communities fall apart, temporarily or permanently. Communities do that. There’s a fair argument that the previous iteration of open commenting in BoingBoing was a community, one that melted down from lack of moderation.

I don’t know, any more than you or anyone else does, what will happen here. I’m interested to find out. I suspect that if Teresa and the Boingers (Bootleg?) feel that the community is not growing in the direction they want it to, they’ll consider some of the things suggested in this thread. I also suspect they’ll listen more to practical suggestions than purely abstract ones, but I really have no idea.

I think the remainder of your post is an excellent statement of one approach to moderation. As I said before — and this is more than just a “put up or shut up — I’d be very interested in seeing a good example of such a community in action. I’m sorry you’ve taken my request in the vein of a challenge, because it’s not meant that way in this case. I’d like to go look at one. I could learn a lot.

mdhatter

I’m still waiting for that apology.

I’m still waiting for that pie.

joshmillard

The ether it is, then. Ah well, duly noted.

arkizzle

I just did a comment count on my profile, eg. I did a find-all on the string “comment-body” in the html of my profile page..

3407 comments!

That may not be a good thing. Although I’ll bet lots of you have more (hah!), and that both Antinous and Takuan have obscenely bigger numbers..

Antinous / Moderator

You can, by the way, just ask me how many comments you’ve made. I have a much easier way of finding that number.

FreakCitySF

not the longest EULA ever

Takuan

trust me

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7a/DvinfernoPopeNicholasIII_m.jpg

Xopher

Gary 479: Actually Holmes did say that in the form given. Are we surprised that Holmes applied Occam’s Razor? And Ockham himself was using it to argue for the existence of God, proving even as he did so that the Razor is not a magic cure for sloppy thinking.

mdhatter

walking up to north americans in the street with a picture of a naked girl and some scribblings is pretty offensive in itself.

That’s why you got disemvoweled. No pie for you.

Random832

I asked some questions in the VB thread that were never answered because apparently it was the wrong place to ask, so I’ll ask here:

Why were no anonymous comments critical of the Boingers approved in that thread? (this is as of when there were 14 anonymous posts; some after that may have made it through) – the fact that 14 that were either favorable or off-topic *did* make it through seems to indicate there was some bias.

Nelson.C

Wurp, I suggest you click on Teresa’s name above to view all her BB comments, then search backwards for “slashdot”. You’ll find the rationale for rejecting slashdot’s style of moderation fairly quickly.

I’m a bit puzzled by your characterisation of “fawning” on some of the posts, especially when you seem to equate it with not recognising that people are fallible. There’s a leap in logic there that I’m not seeing. I think what you’re seeing, generally, is people being friendly towards one another. I can’t see this as a bad thing. In fact, it’s the kind of thing one would hope good moderation would engender.

Tom Hale

“A darknet can be:
Darknet (file sharing) – a closed private network of computers used for file sharing
An alternate term for a network telescope, used to monitor internet traffic
Darknet Horror – a genre of film combining horror and the internet”

jim.cowling

“If you want to look at a large community that seems to foster somewhat intelligent respectful discussions, I’d suggest going over to Metafilter and taking a look at how they handle things.”

And then doing the opposite. Respectful? Please.

jim.cowling

Why did she e-mail you? Just because she could, or did you piss her off somehow? I ask because people are getting freakier.

I’d never exchanged a single word with her, ever, as far as I know. The e-mail wasn’t addressed specifically to me; my suspicion is that it was a massmail. If you want a copy, feel free to send me a note.

Xopher

Since the thread where it happened has been comment-locked, I’d just like to say that the long-awaited banning of FlamingPhoneBook fills me with joy and gratitude. Thank you, Antinous.

Antinous

Oh, thanks for reminding me.

Berix

@ 812:
dn’t sbscrb t th thry “ths s thr blg; thy cn d whtvr thy wnt”. t my pply t th psts, bt cmmnts r s pblc spc by dfntn. Cnsdr t ‘fr s’ cls fr blgs. nd f y r s cntrd bt th d f prprty, thn cn clm tht th cntnts f th cmmnts mk r my prprty, nd n n hs th rght t mtlt thm.

f crs m nt spcl, tht s why m gnst cntnt mdrtng n prncpl, fr vryn, nt jst m.

Y sm t b sffrng ndr th msndrstndng tht ws tryng t b plt. hv lrdy sd tht ws nt. ws tryng t b srcstc. Y blm m fr flng tht, f crs.

dn’t qt s why ll cmmnts nd t b mpccbly plt whn th psts bngrs ftn fl t b s whn th trgt f thr pst dsrvs t. (TS cms t mnd.)

n th thr hnd, thnk yr bsrvtn bt t lst n f th mdrtrs bng pd t mdrt s cls t th mrk; thy nd t jstfy thr py by mdrtng, vn whn thr s n nd.

Hwvr, f y wnt t s wht s rlly hppnng hr, chck ths t: http://n.wkpd.rg/wk/Stnfrd_prsn_xprmnt

vrg, smngly nrml ppl hv tndncy t bcm ptty tyrnts whn gvn rbtrry, nchckd pwr vr thrs by systm. Thy nvnt rls tht mst b byd, nvnt pnshmnts fr th ppty, sk nt mrly t nsr dscpln bt t prmpt ny thrt t thr pwr by dnyng th vry rght f dsgrmnt.

Ths s why mdrtn s bd d n gnrl; nd why mdrtn by fw, nchckd ndvdls s vl, vn f th ndvdls wr nt t th bgnnng.

Antinous

Oh, and since you’ve admitted that you’re not even trying to be polite, I’ve disemvowelled your comments and suspended your account. You can apply to Teresa for reinstatement.

arkizzle

Anti, you’re just peddling it now.. Teresa would be mortified :)

Antinous / Moderator

Yeah, I’m a pig. I watched it when it first came out. I went to look at it yesterday and got about three seconds into it before my brain kicked in and I clicked off. The Enumclaw Wikipedia talk page has a nice discussion about whether or not to include it on the page. There seems to be some discomfort about living in a town whose sole claim to fame is that a guy died there from horse-buggery related injuries. To be fair, the Wikipedia page on The Hermitage doesn’t mention horseplay either, but then, they have other stuff going on to distract from that particular story.

Tom Hale

Everyone log it in your journals – today, minT got his first DV. I just glad you didn’t hold back – that jerk needed a good tongue lashing.

-wait, tongue lashing sounds gross.

That guy needed a good verbal spanking and minT spanked like he’s never spanked before! -hmmmmm, that doesn’t sound good either. Well, he needed it and minT gave it to him, but good! – still not the phrase I’m searching for. Anyway, welcome to the disemvoweled minT. The club’s getting bigger every day.

Antinous / Moderator

minT has been dv’ed several times. It’s just harder to tell because he doesn’t use capitals or punctuation. Technically, he has a Get Out of DV Free card because he made the 250,000th comment.

mdh

Tom – Yes, and intent cannot be gauged – merely guessed at – and we all bring our own baggage to that game table.

Paul Coleman

Please disemvowel this message. I just want to see what it would look like and I’m too lazy to do it on my own.*

Thank you.

*joking…but not really

Pls dsmvwl ths mssg. jst wnt t s wht t wld lk lk nd ‘m t lzy t d t n my wn.*

Thnk y.

*jkng…bt nt rlly

cats unite

#285

that is not the thread, but it is applicable.

rape – to seize, enjoy hastily. To take by force.

This sounds like disemvowelling; moderators (only moderators) gets a transient pleasure from doing it. They display the red bedsheets. They move on.

Popular blogs with long, negative comment threads can destroy the reputations of the targeted party; they come up on google for starters. To willfully participate in or allow such activities is temporarily satisfying but permanently damaging and this is allowed, perhaps encouraged on ML – by the moderator. Will it be allowed on BB? I don’t know, but I’m not waiting to find out either.

Takuan

“The Arcane Pilgrim’s Triune Cicatrice”

mdhatter

Allow me to summarize:

Some of BB mods, who do a good job 99% of the time, get cranky when they’re constantly asked rediculous questions about trivial minutae, and should be expected to answer every whinging complainer (many of whom are implacable) with a smile.

Tough shit people. Get over it.

Talia

Heh, welcome to the “trainwreck,” as they’d put it on fark.

dystopias

This is the first time I’ve heard of the tactic of disemvoweling – and the first thing that strikes me about it is this:
is there any point to it other than just rubbing it in the faces of posters that the moderator has the last word?

If it is offensive or rude just delete it – otherwise, leave it. I know my comments are at your mercy – disemvoweling seems to me like putting the heads of your enemies on polls both to deter others and to celebrate your power.

IamInnocent

Not a consolation but it is always nice to understand what is going on.

Thanks Anti and have the best day.

J.

eustace

i gots dv onced caus i xposted

presyncope

And if anyone start’s a discussion with an over-the top comparison, then gets annoyed when someone else has the temerity to point it out, well, just how much ‘thinking through’ are we supposed to believe that person is after?

I wonder if we’re talking about the same comment. Antinous and I are discussing the comment currently numbered 818 that starts “dn’t sbscrb t th thry” in which Berix pulls a semi-Godwin by comparing the moderation here to the Stanford prison experiment. Since Berix doesn’t post again subsequently, I don’t know how you know he “got annoyed” subsequently. Was there another post that got yanked?

But look: although it seems to me Berix got a raw deal in that one comment, I’m not going to defend it because I don’t know his or her posting history, I don’t know if he or she had it coming. Also: I don’t really care that much. It’s up to the moderators to decide if he or she crossed a line, and bless them for doing that work. My point is simply that some of that work is wasted if an occasional reader and commenter like myself still can’t understand the line that was crossed (or Takuan’s antics, etc).

(Also – for crissakes guys. enticing, not inticing, and starts, not start’s.)

Antinous

Here’s a quote from Berix:

You seem to be suffering under the misunderstanding that I was trying to be polite. I have already said that I was not.

When someone picks a fight, maintains the fight, insists that they have no intention of being subjected to moderation in a forum which they know to be moderated and….. insists that they’re under no obligation even to be polite, eventually, they’re going to get booted. Ultimately, it was this statement of malintent, more that the Godwinian hyperbole, that led me to disemvowel the comment.

minTphresh

hey josh, like i said, im no mod (as stated earlier, im a rocker! ahem.), but i will take a shot at your q’s. #1 . im going with ‘yes’. #2. my take on the matter would be ‘yes’and/or ‘probably’. #3, i don’t see any clashes between #1 and #2, if the mods are feelin surly (i.e. full of piss and vinegar) they can take out their frustrations on the rude and the ignant. if they’re feeling warm and fuzzy, perhaps a gentle guiding hand to show the rude and ignant the folly of their ways. as one who has enjoyed baiting a troll or two ( and having been disemvowelled for it!), i see they gots a job to do. the bongers like it, and viola! they remain employed. i think if xeni, cory, etc… thought they were doing a lousy job, we wouldn’t be having this virtual conversation. that be the bottom line.

Antinous

HarshLanguage,

You can write to Teresa about reinstating your account.

mdh

Yarrrr!

jgriffiths

Did I miss some entertaining flame thread that led to this being posted on the main page, as opposed to being buried somewhere on the site for malefactors to be pointed at if/when they complain about being censored (or whatever you want to call it)?

kpratt

Late to the party, but I was part of the Great Hamster Snack Debacle of ’08, so I’ll join in briefly.

To the extent I agree with #28, the point is there was a better way to post this. When I first saw this, my first thought was “Where’s the Hamster Snacks II: Electric Boogaloo post? I must have missed a real comment party.” If instead, as some suggested, this was just a post to be referred to later by a link to the mod policy, mark it as such. Starting off with “We the Boingers have made a mod policy. We’re posting it here so we can refer to it later. Carry On.” would have gone a long way towards allaying the “Somebody pissed in my cheerios and now I’m angry” feeling I got when first read it.

And then, to address the ‘being more polite than you think should be necessary’ policy. Hooray! I’m all for it. But ‘It’ is a two way street. Not everyone gets the same fuzzy happy feeling looking at this policy (see the sections on advertiser corruption and microsoft in reference to the ‘respond to the idea, not the idea holder’ doctrine). I would love for everyone who comes over to your house to be more polite, but thats much easier when you’re the most polite host I’ve ever met. As the saying goes, “Don’t get in an argument with an idiot/troll. They’ll only drag you down to their level and beat you with experience.”

–Kevin

eiconoclast

Some people might take the hint.

I did take the hint… they aren’t interested in discussing their moderation policy nor are they open to the possibility that they might be wrong in something.

I was told that my “low-brow” comment got moderated because it was rude. I swiftly collected a number of comments that were not just “low-brow” but vicious (as in wishing death on people for their beliefs) and pointed out that this forum is full of stuff much worse than what I posted.

The response: silence.

I was also accused of other things I did not do. In short, I was not at all impressed with the response. It was cursory, dismissive, and showed a lack of effort and/or comprehension.

It’s their board, they can do whatever they want with it. I have trouble keeping quiet, though, when I hear someone claim lofty goals and demonstrates decidedly unlofty actions.

sammich

Shittin’ fuck!
Thank cripes Dante owed me a favour!
I need a cup of tea now…

Takuan

just how many times have I spoken to you, Lewis? And in what context? Nope, don’t believe you are acting in good faith – or, if you indeed are – I am not obligated to chat with those I find willfully unpleasant. What’s in it for me?

tls

Jeblis:

Honestly I’ve never seen a mod get so angry.

My initial reaction to that was “Wow, you must not read many web fora or remember Usenet very well.”

My second reaction was, “And, um… I didn’t see any posts that looked all that angry to me.” Annoyed, maybe. Angry, not so much.

In the case of the first, I don’t know where you’ve been frequenting over the years, but I can only say it can’t have been any place I have. I’ve seen forum mods use so many curse words you’d think they were trying for some sort of record, accuse people of puppykilling (not literally) because they dared to disagree, delete posts because one of the mod’s friends got their feelings hurt by it even though there was nothing really wrong with the post, throw tantrums and threaten to shut down the board because waah no one listened to them, and all sorts of other tantrum-throwing behavior.

Whereas, by contrast, Teresa has responded a bit snippily to people who’ve been absolutely obnoxious to her.

Also:

On the other hand when a lot of people tell you something, maybe there is something worth learning from them.

And maybe there isn’t. Volume and repetition do not rightness make. In fact, strictly speaking, there’s no right or wrong in this, only opinions. Your opinion is that there’s something wrong with the policy and how it’s being enforced. Mine is that it’s a hell of a lot better than a lot of other options, that there’s no perfect solution that’ll leave everyone happy, and that Teresa is the veritable saint of patience compared to what I’d want to do in her position, the more-or-less reasoned tone of this comment notwithstanding.

Since, frankly, what I wanted to post was going to prominently feature the words “whaambulance”, “butthurt”, “wankers”, and “don’t let the door hit ya where the good Lord split ya”.

See? You’ve benefitted from the policy already!

David Harmon

Xopher @415: You stole the idea right out of my brain, but I have a less centralized variation:

I’ve been running the “Killfile” script under Greasemonkey. This useful little thing was originally developed for Pharyngula, and helps a lot there. On supported forums, it adds a “kill” button that lets the reader ignore particular userIDs, without bothering the mods.

It covers a whole bunch of forums, but (as of the latest update) not BoingBoing…

Yet? Please?

Takuan

go buy your own copy, cheap bastard.

http://books.google.com/books?id=SfTsuYdQdIUC&pg=PA121&lpg=PA121&dq=the+sword+taia&source=bl&ots=NuTmzqSubZ&sig=xE-1bcYiP2OVrGwHHQBg64OBzgA&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=5&ct=result#PPA54,M1

Tom Hale

Well a BB IRC channel wouldn’t be any fun if none of the regulars were there. I’ve tried chat rooms – the trivia rooms on alta vista were fun, but the regular chat rooms were boring – unless I was drinking and stayed up chatting after my wife went to bed -that was OK.

minTphresh

damn, i guess i am an old mofo. and yes, anti, by ‘mofo’ i do mean ‘fart’. and arkizzle, ouch! i can’t bear to think of it!

waraw

So mods I take it Takuan’s filling up your official thread with junk nonsense is totally fine with you? Implicitly yes, just wondered if you’d make that explicit, please.

Deleet

I would really like to see all the different types of boingboing trolls mocked up as lolcats…

jeblis

Oh ok well a least Meetafilters discussions are fairly in depth. “Respectful” is a very relative term. As a large community it seems to work beeter than say fark without the heavy handedness of here.

Hamish

Wonderful!

I’m going to steal it, and use it.

So sue me.

back seat astronaut

#192

Actually I read all the previous comments to make sure no one had said the same thing already, as apparently saying things that have already been said is also against the rules. Maybe you meant it’s been said in other discussions (which would only be further evidence that overmoderation of this site is not a new issue here), but it hadn’t been said in this one.

evilrooster

Technogirl @317:

Am I allowed to comment on how the sites you cite work? Because I’ve spent enough time on both Slashdot and Digg to be able to point out that their comment threads aren’t very interesting to read at all. The ratio of adolescent posturing to content at /. in particular bores me to tears.

Basically, the Boingers seem to prefer the sort of community that Teresa has a track record of building to the ones you list. That’s their choice, of course, it being their blog. And their choices are working, I think, complete with the increasing pattern of posting song lyrics to set the mood (nice one, Takuan).

Xopher @314:
I could never invent a sock puppet like you.

arkizzle

hmm.. I appear to be staying logged in, maybe something wonderful has happened :)

Thank you UnderBoing Fairies!

sammich

You are a bad… thing… Takuan…

eustace

Yeah! THAT natural order!

arkizzle

Pies, eh?

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=TG2gjL-KUqw

Avram

Jeblis #402: Honestly I’ve never seen a mod get so angry.

That wasn’t angry. I’ve seen Teresa angry.

minTphresh

waaah! take your toys and leave the sandbox! oooh, and watchout for that badonkadonk when exiting! smak!

Robotech_Master

I have to say that it bothers me that BoingBoing’s moderation staff, or quasi-staff, apparently cannot respond to questioning or criticism with anything other than vitriol and petulance.

Moderators are supposed to be better than the people they moderate. They’re supposed to calm discussions with their influence like oil on water, not incite them to greater ferocity like water on a chemical fire.

When I have moderated forums in the past (rec.games.mecha, rec.toys.transformers.moderated), I have tried to model my policy on such proverbs as:

“A gentle answer turns away wrath, But a harsh word stirs up anger.” Proverbs 15:1

“If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head.” Romans 12:20

I guess for some reason it’s hard to find people like that on the Internet these days.

celeb8

Hi I was told this is the place to discuss moderation, although frankly I’m sure posting here is just pissing in the wind.

I would like to point out that to have a discussion there need to be comments that are negative as well as positive, unless you have something against intellectual stimulation. Frankly I know that some out there actually care what Rudy Rucker’s immediate family have done badly recently and are eager to read more, but to just delete everything that doesn’t kiss his ass is just ridiculous. I like(d) boingboing because it seemed to be not so homogenous. I guess I mistakenly identified “quirky and different” as “free to express yourself” and part of that’s my mistake.

I realize that it’s “your website” and “if we don’t like it we can leave” but WE ARE PEOPLE TOO! WE AREN’T JUST BUTTON-PRESS ROBOTS HERE TO TELL YOU HOW WONDERFUL YOU ARE. If you don’t want anybody typing a negative opinion just say so, or have a “Vote this article as wonderful” button instead. Calling the link “discuss” is just so much bllsht if you don’t allow anybody to speak if they disagree with the wonderfullness of every single article.

Xopher

I have only the same magic powers I’ve always had. I don’t have the keys to the disemvoweller, and I can’t give someone a timeout. My increased power amounts to this: I can point to this page and say “hey, I’m an adjunct moderator! Y’all’d best listen when I talk.”

I could, that is, if I wanted to be a jerk about it. At the moment, I don’t.

Oh, I did get one new power. I now have the ability to summon the mighty KLIBAN (one hell of a nice deity, NEVER mistaken for a meatloaf) when Takuan gets out of line. I hope to use this power sparingly, and that Takuan’s fear of becoming mere sushi for the Mighty One will encourage him to behave.

mdhatter

mint – allow me to add.

heresiarch514

Avram @ 56:

Comments complaining about how boring the post is are nearly always, themselves, boring. In order to keep these self-referential comments from bootstrapping themselves into computerized sapience and spreading their boringness throughout the Known Net, they have to be deleted.

That’s a lovely, shiny comment. Reposted in full for the sheer joy of it.

And I must say, I really like this pair of criticisms:

Kpratt @ 211:

Context? A framing to the post such that some of us don’t see “AND YEAH VERILY THOU SHALT READEST MY TOME.” and wonder what the hell just happened?

Ogre Lawless @ 231:

No user policy needs to be seventy seven paragraphs. Its length, tone and odd “whimsy” of disemvowling seems like poor choices were made in judging the discretion of this moderator. Respect is a two-way street.

Too authoritarian and too whimsical at the same time! How do you do it, Teresa?

Takuan

Dear Jeff;

T’is an ancient and traditional Irish tune and I can lay no claim to it since the gods cursed me by not having me born to the greatest race.

Mr. Seks:

Do publish your business address prior to the arson fire, I too appreciate quality booze and the best food.

Nix

Entities that intend to be people care about who they are and what they’re named.

Of course this doesn’t mean that they’re using their legal name. It just means they’re using a name they use a lot. (e.g., I’ve been using this pseudonym for fifteen years. It’s not my legal name, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to go around calling people rapists any more than I would using my legal name. — well, not unless they were.)

This is a mistake I’ve seen made over and over again: `you’re not using your legal name so you’re untrustworthy!’

Just because you’re not using your legal name doesn’t necessarily mean you’re scum. Neither does using your legal name imply you’re not a conman.

arkizzle

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension

Oh YEH!

arkizzle

I think maybe you should just tell us how clever you are, instead of us working it out.. coz we’re stumped. sorry :(

c’mon, first one free etc..

minTphresh

when we feed the trolls, they just get larger and hungrier. we must starve them til they are forced to eat their own shoes.

ZoopyFunk

Sex with horses, out the door.

Sex with power tools that rip a vagina apart? *Apparently* brilliant.

No selectivity here…Har Har?

cycle23

#86, I was thinking the same thing. A simple english LM should suffice here.

Gary61

re: ‘Taking money from Microsoft is wrong’ ….

Something like this happened a while back, I even got a screenshot of it …..

Cory (ever the freedom fighter) had posted something (I think it was about Sony seriously sucking again with all the DRM crapware) – and immediately to the left of Cory’s post was a vertical banner ad selling (wait for it) do-it-yourself DRM software (targeted at software co.’s) !!!!
Seeing the obvious irony of the juxtaposition, I immediately dashed off a well-timed (and intentioned) manuscript via electronical means to Mr. Cory, and as it turned out, it was most probably BB’s (evil, under-handed, yet profitable) partnership w/ Federated Media, who were selling / populating that adspace – and the Boinger’s apparently didn’t know WTF … but Cory got on the batphone to FM immediately, said rather offensive ads must vaMOOSE, and they wuz gone, just like dat ….

Anyways – this is the BoingBoing playhouse – they set the rules (thru the lovely and wordful mod Ms. Teresa) – so, if ya don’t like her (and their) moderator style, go start yer own blog, and then vent all ye wish into the great wormhole of them Internet tubes.

I, for one, am sure Ms. Mod’s subtle ‘control’ greatly enhances my reading pleasure (having seen her at work here in the threads), and I also greatly enjoy reading the posts by all of the Boingers themselves – it expands my horizons to learn things about:
steampunk, women’s rights overseas, scams in adoption processes, Sony fucking up yet again, etc., etc., etc.

Bravo, Boingers, I say again, Bravo!

the rest of ya’ll (especially ‘Kaiser’ and ‘SparkZilla’) can kiss my big hairy *ss … but I imagine you guys chose those usernames just to provoke thought, eh? LOL!)

Antinous

If you want a copy, feel free to send me a note.

Thanks, but I’m guessing that she didn’t break any new ground in terms of style or content. After a while, it seems less like human speech and more like a faint scratching noise.

Will Shetterly

I have had my doubts about BB’s moderation style, but Antinuous has crossed the line in the latest Tibet thread by disemvowelling Zosima. Compare her comments with those of Antinuous, Takuan, or Mdhatter. I think any unbiased reader would conclude her comments were more civil than theirs, yet she was disemvowelled. On this subject, Antinuous is extremely partisan: to exercise that power in that way is wrong.

Takuan

precisely. Which is why I feel chronic offenders who persist in attacking it should be impolitely shown the door. Let them go back to internet kindergarten until they appreciate a civilized place. It is not Boing Boing’s mission to save the entire world. Just the good parts.

sammich

Why would you take a new aquaintance and drop her in there?????

Takuan

Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.

Kieran O’Neill

Well, I second Takuan’s comment above. I’ve been going through a lot of threads in the last day or so, and the comments are uncharacteristically civil, lacking in astroturf and filled with dry wit.

I can only think that this is the direct result of your vigilance.

hagbard

“If the point of moderation here is to tell people you don’t want commenting to get the fuck out, I guess it’s a workable model. As an outside reader, that’s the message it sends. If the idea is to build up something like a community beyond what small handful of regulars fall into the Correct Wit bucket, it’s a problem.”

Wow, at least you’re not being passive-aggressive anymore. Now you’re simply mischaracterizing what goes on here and being rude to your hosts.

Josh, you are observing how Boing Boing looks when they in an exceptional circumstance, and you admit you don’t know how it looks otherwise. Perhaps this should temper their reaction to your advice, however well-intentioned and constructive it is meant to be, which it is, sometimes.

Meanwhile, your thread at MeFi is the launching base for griefing attacks, to use your term. Perhaps your perception of your moderating prowess and what you have to offer to BB’s moderators is biased by the fact that everyone on that thread is the kind of person who read BB obsessively and then complains about how they don’t like it; and pulling the kinds of stuff that needs moderation over here and not over there. The only time they take a break from their endless harping on the same subject is to tell you how wonderful you are.

I don’t mean to say that you are a bad moderator, but that maybe you don’t know how you would deal if you were in a BB moderator’s shoes right now, bearing the brunt of the sustained and malicious crap that is coming primarily at this point from your MeFites. Many of those MeFites are resentful that they got bounced over here, and perhaps that colors their descriptions of how things work over here. Or maybe they never understood it in the first place. What they are doing now is still trying to wrest editorial control from BB’s owners, making the moderators (and Takuan) the subject. (and just how much should BB’s owners and staff be interested in giving such people tea and cake and pie?)

The more sober MeFites are just starting to acknowledge that there is a structural difference between BB and MeFi, but I don’t think you appreciate fully the significance of it. BB threads are initiated by the editors. How could anyone who reads BB need to have that spelled out for them? But do you understand that since BB is not a community driven open blog, the moderators are more focused on keeping the conversations on-topic than they might be elsewhere?

As you no doubt know, an online discussion is unlike a spoken one in that every point made can be responded to, so the conversation tends to branch rather than meander. If you want a thread to stay on topic, you have to prune branches that head in the wrong direction. As I see it, moderation here is more like talk-show moderation, not just etiquette policing and troll-bouncing. On MeFi, attempts to hi-jack threads are more rare, because if one wants to, someone can start their own thread.

Some of your MeFi friends acknowledge that, but say that it means that BB needs to have a place for that pressure to go. But why is it so important that these non-editors get their platform ON BoingBoing? The pressure is not for an opportunity to speak, but an opportunity to use BB as the platform. Again, that is an attempt to wrest editorial control from the owners (and to use the owner’s whuffie to aggrandize one’s point).

As I understand it (and I came to this late), a lot of what went down early happened because people from the outside world tried to hi-jack existing threads (which are supposed to stay on-topic) because they wanted to force BB to talk about something that BB was not prepared at the time to talk about. Put another way, outsiders were trying to wrest editorial control of BB from its owners.

You (or your MeFi pals) imply that this is evidence of the weakness of BB’s structured environment compared to MeFi’s. I say it is evidence that the people who are now hysterically squawking about rampant deletions were in fact violating BB’s norms, and were being properly moderated. So I don’t think, after the fact, that it is good advice to say that BB should have been run more like MeFi; because the people that plan would cater to are not regular members of BB’s commenting community. If they are long-time lurkers who suddenly decided to speak up, as many of them claim, then all the more they should have understood the norms of the community, where you get moderated if you try to hi-jack threads.

If you strip away all of the deletions of hi-jackers and the griefers from your troll-cave over there (and I mean that to be constructive and respectful, so if you react poorly, I’ll take offense at your tone), you’re left only with the original unpublishing act, an editorial decision by a BB editor. As has been discussed ad nauseum, that was an exceptional case which involves issues which remain (properly, I believe) private. So all the people making digs about things disappearing are being cute but unfair or ignorant.

If the BB editors were interested in my advice, I would advise them that there is a legitimate case for not changing policies or structure based on this month. When I look at the normal threads, things look pretty normal and copacetic even now. Let BB remain a salon where the hosts initiate interesting conversations, and let places like MeFi remain the Free Speech Corners like in Hyde Park.

Takuan

heh! Pesco’s not looking ! Let’s talk about him!

arkizzle

shame

Takuan

“being more polite than you think should be necessary.”

that oughta cover it

bardfinn

#97: Simplicity and elegance? In 24 hour this entry /will/ be buried somewhere on the site.

Even the “how to submit stories” link goes to an entry.

joanna

None of the disemvowelled posts I’ve troubled to decipher – in this thread or in the past – are particularly thought-provoking or amusing, whereas Teresa’s comments are hilarious. The moderation on this site is welcome, as far as I’m concerned.

Takuan

oooh! got video???

Xopher

Well, Tom, you’re entitled to your own definition of ‘moderate’, I guess. But the definition in use here is the Boinger’s definition, and they seem to think not only that the OP is a moderation policy, but that it’s a good one.

You’ve made your position abundantly clear. And more so. We get it, you don’t like the moderation policy, because it’s a policy about things you don’t think are moderation, in fact you don’t think it’s really a moderation policy at all, and by the way did you mention that you didn’t like the moderation policy?

It’s the policy (not to mention the definition) that’s gonna be in play here. It’s your choice whether you want to play in this sandbox or not, but saying the same thing over yet again isn’t going to change a thing. Is it your policy to be so immoderate?

I think it’s too bad comment threads don’t come with symantic de-duping software.

Rats, I forgot I was supposed to be ignoring all your posts, since you declared your intention to talk but not listen (much like the Creationist I was stupidly arguing with this morning, though he didn’t actually admit that’s what he was doing…your labeling is better, I’ll give you that). So you got me there.

controlbroke

fck ff wth th dsmvwlng y twts

joshmillard

- How is it possible to convey concerns, or ask questions, or make a point regarding moderation styles without said comments getting deleted, disemvowelled, or met with snarky putdowns (or threats, or accusations of bad faith, sockpuppetry, or axe-grinding, or trolling) from the moderators and Boingers?

Moderation comments belong in this thread.

A quick note here: some sort of link directly to this thread in the vicinity of the comment form might help there. I realize it’s linked down near the bottom of the sidebar (and on the policies page), but it sounds like it might be worth putting the path where the eyes are if this is a recurring issue.

On that note, actually, I’m wondering if there is a contact form or official general-purpose contact email for the site. I went hunting for one a week back and came up short, ultimately dropping Teresa a line during what had to be a busy-inbox sort of week and not even feeling confident that I was poking the right person.

If we warn commenters that they’re flirting with their vowels or explain why we did something, they complain. If we don’t warn commenters that they’re flirting with their vowels or explain why we did something, they complain.

Maddening, innit? I’ve got my own opinions about a lot of the little details involved in this stuff, but I don’t want to get into a big go-around about it here so I’ll sit on those for another day.

But while I greatly sympathize — both personally and professionally — with some of the headaches you folks have been dealing with the last few weeks, I have to say that I agree with much of the criticism that’s been levied toward some of the moderation that has taken place as well. There are no perfect solutions to any of these weird human problems of commentary and community, but the choices of response to perceived problematic behavior have seemed unsettlingly antagonistic and insular — the “us vs. them” dynamic a couple folks have mentioned in different places recently — and it’s not clear to me how much of that can be laid on a frustrating day or week vs. fundamental policy and practices.

Also, can someone please clarify Takuan’s role re: moderation? I get the impression from a May comment by Teresa that he’s something like a part-time mod, but I don’t know if that’s current or what that entails compared to Teresa or Antinous’ responsibilities, and I’m not sure how that reflects on his involvement in the Violet Blue thread itself, which, honestly, struck me as essentially petulant and dismissive throughout. I was shocked to learn he wasn’t just an overzealous fan.

buddy66

FUN-NEE. One way of getting rid of ____________.

Takuan

well, waraw, I actually like to think of it as YOUR thread (waraw warawwaraw! waraw waraw! woof?)

pheidole

Thanks for a simply brilliant post.

I’ve always thought the Getty Museum was a cut above, as they foster quality in everything they do. Even the Getty gift shop is first rate and classy.

I now feel the same way about Boing Boing. Any place on the web with moderators of such wit, charm, and character has my deep admiration.

Antinous

I have no answer. I skimmed your comments. You seem sane, but pretty combative about the Billboard post incident. All I can say is, nobody’s perfect. Staying upset about it doesn’t appear to be making you any happier.

m2key

Wow. Just wow. If this isn’t a record for posting on a BB thread, it should be a cumulative commenting candidate for the BB archive – and mebbe Letterman’s list of top 10 internet time-wasters….

Takuan

aye! an ye say nuthinn o the pirrrate marrrrket eitherrr!

waraw

I don’t define “cranky” as publicly calling someone a liar.

TEKNA2007

Feel free to outright delete the linked comment, since it already served its purpose (letting Cory know to check the name). In fact, I hope you do delete it, since it could be taken as critical when it’s just meant to be helpful.

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/06/06/evolution-religion-s.html#comment-512043

Sapolsky is my hero too. Wishing I could sit in on that entire lecture series. That guy just rocks my socks off.

Xopher

Xopher is probably early to mid 20s.

I don’t know if you really believe this or if you’re having fun at my expense, but if you read some of my posts you may change your mind.

Or perhaps you think I’m masquerading as a Much Older Person. THAT would be jolly fun!

Jake0748

hee hee… he doesn’t know the difference between Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel… HAR HAR.

Takuan

.” Starting off with “We the Boingers have made a mod policy. We’re posting it here so we can refer to it later. Carry On.”

I can go back through Teresa’s post for an exact count, but I’m pretty damned sure she made at least three separate references to a moderation policy she was working on, that had been requested, was open for input and so on.

I read almost every single thing that hits this board and my memory can be treacherously accurate when inconvenient (to others).

cats unite

#298

Cheapening the word rape to make a point, and doing it in gory detail to boot. What a compelling argument for more empathy you make.

>Maybe ‘wrape’ is better?

wrape – the act of disenvoweling
wrapist – one who disenvowels

Now it’s more light-heartedly and funny aka disenvoweling. How’s this.

#314

yes, thanks for pointing out two more examples. I understand there is a question of the seriousness of the crimes; but is it the job of a moderator to ruin people’s careers? To engage, participate, trim online discussions to the detriment of others via god-given name or alias? To have these trimmings show up on Facebook, in Google, in other media – Is this the role of a moderator.

mdh

Why is the “Recent Comments” box at BBGadgets SO MUCH COOLER than the one at the mothership?

arkizzle

ok, answer: Zardoz?

Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator

Classic, I think the word you’re looking for is censor, not censure.

Big Borther you can figure out on your own.

ZippySpincycle

TNH: Since you noted @ 216 that post #14 had received insufficient props, let me do likewise for a line from your own post @ 160:

If it’s true that participating in the conversation when you’re the moderator gives you undue influence, all I can say is that the effect definitely hasn’t kicked in yet. I’m looking foward to it.

OK, maybe this makes me a suckup, but I am now thoroughly in love with you.

Antinous

The forests of BoingBoing were thick with the impaled.

Yup. Disemvoweling is just like sticking heads on pikes. Tidier really, because the vowels just go away into the great all that is nothing. With the whole head-on-pike thing you have all those decapitated corpses to get rid of. Of course the head thing makes for a bit more visual interest, what with staring at their contorted, bloody faces thinking, “I wonder what he was trying to say.” You can’t really compare trying to figure out if it’s ‘and’ or ‘undo’ with that sort of visceral experience. But other than that, pretty much the same thing.

sammich

Seriously – what happened to the “Heart Transplantee Visits Her Old Heart in a Museum” post? from
Viz: http://thebaba.com/aggregator/sources/9

hagbard

Nothing like some very lightly moderated threads to prove conclusively the value of moderation.

FoetusNail

Controlbroke fits you well, excellent choice. BTW, don’t be so lazy, close your account yourself.

eustace

Oooooh! Think long and hard before playing that card MinT…

dmonbot

tht ws ttlly wsm!!!Lng, bt wsm stll th sm — dsmvwllng fr hck f t. :)

Dustin Driver

I agree: disemvowelling is more annoying than useful. It makes “rude” comments almost impossible to read and makes rude commenters even angrier.

technogeek

I hate to post a Me Too, but in case anyone’s counting… chalk me up on the “I approve” side. Perfectly reasonable policies… if anything, more lenient than I’d be comfortable administering.

Freedom of the press belongs to the man who owns and operates one. Editorial policy is not censorship. If you can’t live with the BB policy, you really should go find or start a group better suited to you needs.

(To the BB’ers: Illegitimi non carborundum and keep up the good work.)

joanna

Dystopias: “If it is offensive or rude just delete it.” Personally, I’d much rather see what’s going on, rather than having posts go down the memory hole. Plus, you can learn what sort of comments are unwelcome, should you be inclined to learn.

Takuan

s’OK, I’m pretty shocked at your presumption myself!

Nelson.C

BlueAndroid @699: Like it or not, discussion of gun control and the fourth amendment does hi-jack threads. It is a highly polarising issue, passions are roused, feelings hurt, doors slammed and the original subject is left bleeding in the rubble. I’m surprised that this has escaped your notice, since it is a subject you seem to be passionate about. Since it has escaped your notice, take some not-unfriendly advice: This is the poster-child of hot button issues. Unless handled under carefully controlled conditions, it will go off. The moderators decided that that thread was not the appropiate venue for that discussion. You must either pursue it elsewhere, or wait until a suitably reinforced comment thread is prepared here.

If you can accept that your first post can be legitimately misunderstood (or, alternatively, that you did not make yourself sufficiently clear), then you should do so, and also accept that the follow-on post could also be regarded as an attempt to swing the discussion onto the hot-button subject.

Much is being made, here and elsewhere, of a code of conduct for BoingBoing. I don’t know why the editors and moderators of BB have to do all the hard work in this relationship. It seems to me that there should similarly be a code of conduct for commenters. Not just “Don’t be a ____ [insert suitable epithet here]” that I’ve seen deployed at other sites, but “Don’t act like a ____” or even, “Think about whether what you’re communicating will look, through this imperfect medium, like something a ____ would write.”

If you have been misunderstood, BlueAndroid, then you should consider the effect your first comment has had, intended or not, and how that will influence how your subsequent comments will be interpreted. Sometimes, when you’ve mis-stepped, there is nothing to be done except to apologise, step out of the discussion, and ponder how to communicate your ideas more effectively.

arkizzle

I don’t subscribe to the theory..

And yet, you subscribe to the blog.

..comments area is public space by definition.

No, you are invited to participate in a freindly discusssion. With the right to boot you, retained.

Takuan

“08 May 2008:

We believe in community-based moderation. In theory, anyone can momentarily act as a moderator, as long as their action is warranted and they get it right. “

Takuan

does this mean speaking dsmvll will be the new Leet?

Avram

CS Loser, you might want to familiarize yourself with the concept of the common carrier, a business entity that provides some sort of service (usually transportation or communication) without discrimination. There are legal benefits and responsibilities involved with being a common carrier. AT&T claims common carrier status, while BoingBoing does not. That’s why BoingBoing can delete or censor comments for whatever reasons it sees fit, while AT&T can’t.

Talia

#165: I have never seen a purely democratic virtual community end well. You need to have rules and someone to enforce the rules or things go down the drain rapidly.

And yeah, this is their website, so they do have the right to specify what those rules are. In this case, the rules are not unreasonable in the least. It REALLY just comes down to “dont be a jerk/idiot.”

That’s not difficult (for most people, anyway).

“Who or what does it protect? People’s feelings? Their opinons? In the end neither. You can’t make everyone play nice.”
You can get rid of the ones who refuse to, though.

And I’d say the rules are an effort to keep things mostly civilized, as some people have a hard time doing that on their own. Unmoderated boards = horror shows, because a large quantity of people on the internet are trolls or morons or both.

Xopher

I have a question for the mods: why were all of JDFreivald (sp?)’s late, long, lamentable posts in the Al Franken vs. Eva Braun…um, Ann Coulter thread disemvowelled? Usually there’s a word or two in the thread saying why, but not there. Is it because he was repetitiously redundant? And repetitious? I can’t be bothered struggling with his vowelless text to figure out what he was saying, not at that length.

Not that I’m objecting, mind you: I’m probably better off NOT reading rants by someone who thinks that of course members of the American Communist Party had to be rooted out of the State Department. I’m just curious as to the rationale there.

Antinous / Moderator

Don’t know, but lay off Eva.

minTphresh

arkizzle, sorry for my tyrant-esque rantings. of course i will share my cake with all y’all! now, wish me luck again, as i’m off to round 2 of the poker tourney. if i win, PIE!

Conte Anusfish

These rules are fine, just please tell me we’re still allowed to use racial slurs.

nathn

I have to add something to my post @310 that is crucially important and that I unfortunately forgot.

The practice of disemvowelling should only be used with a ‘re-emvowel’ button that allows one to easily render the content readable. That way a reader still makes a conscious choice to read the content, but isn’t being punished for the poster’s transgression.

Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator

Disemvowelling doesn’t mean we think you’re a bad person. It just means we deprecated a comment, or a part of a comment.

Tom Neff

“Rats, I forgot I was supposed to be ignoring all your posts, since you declared your intention to talk but not listen…”

I missed the posting where I made that declaration – can you provide a link?

Trvth

So, if I click the eye, and leave a comment, Teresa will see it? Once she DV’d one of my comments, I clicked the eye and asked why – she actually emailed me back telling me why she DV’d it. I was impressed (she has her own wikipedia article after all – famous!) she was very nice and polite. However, the last few times I flagged a DV’d comment asking “what’s going on?” – I didn’t get any responce at all. I know about her MI so I assume someone else is monitoring the flagged comments now. A little email explaining why a comment was DV’d when it was flagged and asked why would be nice.

Antinous

Teresa is the only moderator who gets the eyeball notes.

Takuan

yep, that was a freebie,your serve

arkizzle

Sis, I was also thinking of the “abusing this comment thread” thing, and reckon we could keep this little speak-easy mobile, maybe move every few rounds. We shouldn’t draw too much attention if we only play in the derelict backwaters of BB comment threads..

New clubhouse (and the next Game) is here.

Antinous / Moderator

celeb8,

It’s a blog. It’s not a news site. It’s not a public utility. Boingers and guests post things that are of personal interest to them. Nobody requires you to read them.

The comments that I removed were off-topic and unpleasant. BB would rather have guest blogging be a pleasure than an opportunity to be bullied and abused by commenters.

I hereby give you official permission to link to your own blog or website in this thread so that everybody can come visit you.

Takuan

(promise not tell anyone?) ….sometimes,when there is no one around…. I go to the disemvowelled posts …and I DO things to them…..

Anumati

Is there any sort of regular moderation for the IRC chat?
Right now there’s a troll in there, he’s been spamming and making an ass of himself for awhile now. Apparently no ops around, so no one can get rid of him.

This seems to happen pretty often too. Or maybe it’s the same guy over and over. Either way, he really sucks.

azimos

@Eustace #759:
There are plenty of other examples. I really don’t have the time to dig through all the threads and pull out all the examples. But there is a metafilter thread that documents numerous examples. I wouldn’t trust the list of posts on BB, though, as the posts are regularly removed and edited.

@Mdhatter #760:
I responded to Teresa in the 2nd Vb thread but…

If the mods say: “You’re on timeout, contact Teresa to talk about getting it undone.” and they ignore your attempts to make contact. Then the moderation staff is acting in bad faith and I don’t see anything wrong with creating a new account, especially when signing up for that account doesn’t entail me making any false statements or breaking any agreements. I emailed Teresa twice and waited greater than two weeks with no response. If I could post under Zosima I would, but they haven’t left me any options.

@Mdhatter #761: BB actually has a page that describes how to evade ip bans at the bottom of their site:”Defeat Censorware”. That said, I’m making no attempt to conceal my ip.

Other than that, I don’t intend to continue this with you, I learned my lesson the first time. If I let you draw me into a flamewar, I’ll be the one that gets punished.

arkizzle

Well gang, at the end of one week, and the beginning of another..
Let me just say thank you.

Good night!

arkizzle

Waraw? Have you read this whole thread?

..go on, I’ll wait.

arkizzle

Poker Poker Poker!

M-I-N-T
Phresh!

GO TEAM!

We’re with ya!

garys

There is a way to avoid the censorship issue: Create two comment views. One is the “standard”, or “moderated” view, just as described in your policy. The second is the “original”, unmoderated view. Posts deleted from the “moderated” view still appear in the unmoderated view. That way, rather than censoring your users, you are providing them with a value-add — namely, your opinion on which comments provide positive contributions to the discussion.

Antinous

my memory can be treacherously accurate

How tall am I? You have ten seconds.

Tom Neff

“Joining up requires agreeing to the moderation policy/TOS, which is linked on the front page of any artist forum worth visiting.”

Of course, no such agreement is required in order to create a BB account or to post a comment, and no TOS is displayed or indeed even available for the site, whether commenting is turned on or off.

As nearly as I can tell, the only thing any party has agreed to is the Creative Commons License which governs the whole of BB. Under the CCL, the “moderator’s” disemvowelling would probably be considered a “remix” or adaptation of the CC licensed comment originally submitted. But it lacks the “adaptation label” that CC requires, e.g., “This posting was disemvowelled by the Moderator.” Therefore BB arguably violates the CCL every time this is done.

Agent 86

I’m hoping that things improve when school starts up again in September.
I think the internet just reversed itself…

I’m still waiting for that pie.
I’m still waiting for that cake.

Oh, and BubbleMan:
I could not, would not use that joke in polite company. I could and would proudly show any of those paintings in polite company.
I could, but would not, use your tone when speaking to anyone I even mildly respected but disagreed with. It would not be polite, it would not be fun, it would not get my point across, and would not brighten an otherwise cloudy day for anyone.

My advice to you, right now, is to think of something that _will_ help brighten BB’s cloudy month, something that you will enjoy writing, that I (or any other commenter) will enjoy reading, and that will enrich an otherwise stifled thread. Show some respect for our tired Overlords, put this incident out of your mind, and help entertain our body collective.

or, I will ask you – politely, kindly, but with no giddy spirit – to take the loss of 8 days worth of commenting, and just leave. Because, if you aren’t here to have fun and be happy, we don’t want you.

controlbroke

fck n

Antinous

Feel free to write us if you’d like your account reinstated.

Antinous / Moderator

On it.

arkizzle

Me and Tenn went over there one time, it was as weird as you presume :)

Antinous was enchanted: “I went to that IRC channel that the younguns are talking about. They’re jabberin’ away over there in real time. You’ll have to check it out.”

Mostly the regulars were “defeated by the technology”, if I recall correctly (geddit, IRC, haha).

minTphresh

anti, oh wisenheimer. have i told u l8ly just how much i love you?

waraw

Yes I have,

Zandr

Absolutely brilliant. I run a listserv where I could use exactly this sort of policy. Am I correct that this is covered by BoingBoing’s CC-BY-NC license?

ariadneallan

Not sure that I really agree with disemvowelling – perhaps a cutscreen link would be more democratic – but the word is kinda interesting to say… “disemvowelling…”

GregLondon

OMG, did someone seriously compare disemvoweling to rape? And then try to defend it by making up their own faux definition for rape?

(insert picture of me boggling)

Tom Hale

I’m unable to log in on my normal account, user name Trvth. I created this account last night. I emailed Antinous about this problem several hours ago- no response yet. I assume he’s busy or something.

Antinous / Moderator

Your account’s not blocked. Clear your cache. Clear your cookies.

Nelson.C

While I’m here, a thought just occurred to me while reading that thread, though it doesn’t really pertain to the subject: Where are these high-traffic, light moderation sites that are constantly brought up, where the moderators are nigh invisible, silently flitting about doing the moderation thing, yet magically never managing to upset anybody and everybody is the best of friends?

The most lightly-modded site I know of is a hotbed of infantile squabbling. The sites where mods deal with rudeness and trollism quickly and effectively tend to be those where the mods post as themselves, in my experience. There is seldom confusion between when they are just commenting and when they are using the mod-voice, if only because the latter is usually linked linked with an actual action. The mods are occasionally caustic, and sometimes even use… sarcasm, but given the usual circumstances that’s understandable.

Nelson.C

I’m getting the following error when I try to post to the M-21 thread in BBGadgets ( http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2009/05/08/photo-lockheed-m-21.html#_login ):

Publish error in template ‘Comment Preview’: Error in tag: error in module Comment Detail: Publish error in template ‘Comment Detail’: Error in tag: Unknown tag found: CommenterLoginName

Is it something I’m doing, or a problem with the thread?

Nelson.C

BlueAndroid @614:

dn’t ndrstnd th trdtnl lfty ppstn t wnng rms.

I’m reading that as “I don’t understand the traditional lefty opposition to owning arms.” That’s your second sentence on your first message on that thread. It’s nothing to do with the subject at hand, and being a contentious subject has a great potential to take the thread over with no useful conclusion, as has happened many, many times in the history of the internet â€” as you surely know.

I don’t think you were trying very hard.

mdhatter

disemvoweling is a balm proscribed for either acute or chronic antagonism. Apply as needed. Lather, Rinse, Repeat.

mdhatter

Azimos/Zosima – your grasp on reality, you should check on it.

You are not someone who should be tossing around accusations of bad faith. I will leave it there.

joshmillard

The reason I say you have been a jerk is this: Your comments have been limited to the VB stuff and then to this moderation thread – and you cannot be placated – so I’ll just leave it there for the audience to figure out if you have an agenda.

Augh! No, actually, please state my agenda. You clearly believe I have one regardless of my previous statements, and you’re clearly willing to use the idea that I have one as a means to dismiss my participation in the conversation here, so at least have the decency to state unambiguously what it is that you think I’m after.

There has also been an element of the “connect me to your supervisor” tone to your comments, and your approach is and has been combative and comes across as semantic last-wordism.

I talk a lot, and in detail. I’m trying not to be openly combative—I have zero desire to antagonize anyone here—but I am going to argue against dismissals or mischaracterizations of what I’ve said, and I’m not going to be disingenuously obsequious.

I do not take on faith that you have processed a single answer that someone has offered you. I see with my own eyes that you jump on the weakest link in your detractors statements and needle them with questions – ignoring the part where your question was at least partly (if not fully) answered. This is also true when the Mods HAVE attempted to directly answer your questions. You have to hold up your end.

I have actually gotten—and thanked folks for—the responses I’ve gotten to questions, and I’ve had genuinely positive things to say among the criticism I’ve voiced. I appreciate every time that Teresa and Antinous have responded to my questions or comments (and Joel, and David, too), and I was not one of the people railing angrily and unpacifiably against BB during the big VB thing.

I apologized to Teresa for being such a word engine once, and I’ll do the same again here if the volume of my comments is coming off as an offense. I like to be clear in what I’m trying to convey, and I don’t find pithiness gets me anywhere but in trouble most of the time. I’m not trying to needle anyone; I’m just trying to be clear about what I’m trying to say and what I’m understanding from what other people here have to say.

Takuan

girth

scottfree

The disemvowel system emasculates a post, in a way. Its sort of appropriate for the overly macho type troll to see his effort robbed of its potency.

prentiz

Was just replying to the earlier comment, which brought him up…

David Harmon

Addendum to #422: And yes, those who know me will realize this reverses a previous position of mine. Idealism got squelched by ugly reality….

Lewis Haidt

Teresa,

Thanks for responding. We clearly will agree to disagree.

I have absolutely no problem with being moderated. I just graduated from the Annenberg Program for ONline Communities where obviously we believe in creating website for networks/online communities that must be moderated.

I do object to what seems like an arbitrary policy, which Xeni essentially disclosed in the LA Times interview.

I do object to this subjective policy, which I believe damages the BB brand and, on a personal note, which I find disappointing given that Cory and I shared numerous discussions and I received his support when one of my class seminar blogs was “unpublished” completely due to another arbitrary “brand” decision by the USC Annenberg Center for Comm.

I am disappointed that both Cory and Xeni, who I look up to would countenance such a policy, but such is life.

Finally, Teresa, I want to be clear: I am completely comfortable with “moderation.” I am NEITHER comfortable with the authoritarian tone both in your response nor in some of your and your co-moderators (or co-editors) actions — (emblematic in the loaded “I’m completely impenitent” spirit) — which sounds quite Inquisition-y. As I said, I hope the moderation and “un-publishing” policy on this network evolves. Dis-emvoewling is a creative tactic, but the “moderating” and “un-publishing” power seems to have grown without you and your associate becoming aware of how it has wreaked its own legitimate blowback, of course until now.

joshmillard

s’OK, I’m pretty shocked at your presumption myself!

Which one? Honestly, I don’t have any overwhelmingly bad impression of you in general — I’ve hardly seen much of you up until recently, I don’t know a thing about you in the larger scheme of things, and I’m not presuming to know anything about you as a person.

What I have seen, what I do have to go on, is your comments in that thread, in which you seemed to be hopping between mild defenses of the BB folks (understandable, doubly so if you’re not just a community member but a staffer), and dismissive crapping on the idea that people were actually having the discussion (not at all understandable if you are in fact a staffer).

If I’m off the mark — if you don’t have any official responsibilities here, and your comments are strictly those of a commenter — then I apologize for the misunderstanding.

mdhatter

Hagbard said.: Who are we to be having this conversation but a pair of newbs?

Or a trio.

Josh, I was annoyed with your endless questioning, but on reflection I am impressed with it.

FoetusNail

The Stooges in Sweet Pie and Pie.

Takuan

I think we should add pbpxfhpxre to the formal list making it five words. Enough time has been wasted already.

waraw

but if I’m some non-person you can feel free to be a dick to, if I hadn’t read the thread, I just wanted to stand up and say: This particular policy of dickery? Yeah. It’s lame.

Capn Barcode

EvilRooster @305: ‘Must we therefore request said flag, or burn an effigy?’

Drat! I was paying too much attention to the order of the I and E. Yeah, that’s the ticket. OK, one flammable effigy, and some salt for my hat while I’m at it.

Nelson C@336: Yes! Possibly even Viking kittens. Taking our poor, defenseless vowels and defacing them with umlauts, macrons, slashes, and whatever else it is they do up there.

arkizzle

Boors and bores haven’t changed

Boars however, have gotten smaller and a little less hairy.

minTphresh

dunno what the hell happened to “untitled 1″, but Bettie Page passed away today, and i just wanted to say, i hope they got hairbrushes and leather up in hebbin. RIP to the original “Betty”.

classic01

So, I just posted a critique about a BBTV video and it was erased. I think it was a fair assessment and it wasn’t an attack or anything.

Aren’t we allowed to talk about something when we don’t like it? Only good and cheerful comments are accepted? I’m very disappointed with your censure policy.

Mark Frauenfelder

And I should add that *all* the moderators on Boing Boing do a terrific job. I’m amazed they don’t lose their cool every 10 minutes.

waraw

And by ‘you’ I mean, “the mods” as well as “the reader”.

Takuan

anyone can moderate. Just takes a case of whiskey and a carton of pills.

Secret_Life_of_Plants

I would just like to add my vote for the old comments style.

Takuan

only against the Irish

Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator

@251, Tom Neff, who is clearly from Mars, said:

“I’ve also had run-ins with Kid (31, 48), Tom Neff (33/36), Kaiser (35, 51), and others to be named later.”

[chortle]Run-ins???[/chortle]
Let’s be clear, the only reason you ever deigned to communicate with me was because you thought I might be the Nashville-based documentary filmmaker who shares my name.

You are clearly from Mars. I have never heard of any documentary filmmakers from Nashville, let alone Tom Neff, the documentary filmmaker from Nashville, who shares your name. If for some reason I had ever had cause to think about it, I’m sure I would have conceded the possibility that there are documentary filmmakers residing in Nashville; but that’s as far as it would have gone.

Do you often imagine that people are mistaking you for Tom Neff, the documentary filmmaker from Nashville? Do you ever imagine that they are mistaking you for someone else entirely?

When I disappointed you in that respect,

Did you know that one of the film editors on My Favorite Martian was named Tom Neff? I looked him up in the Internet Movie Database when I was trying to figure out how far gone you are. It took a load off my mind to discover that there are three Tom Neffs, and one of them is a documentary filmmaker. The other two Toms Neff were both film editors. One worked on My Favorite Martian and the other worked on Blacula.

How do you imagine people react when you think they think you’re Tom Neff, the documentary filmmaker from Nashville? Do they do anything … special?

and added (in polite detail) on the strength of 20-odd years of Internet moderation in all media, that what you are doing is not actually moderating, you disdained further response.

I’m afraid I don’t recall this interaction, at least not the way you describe it. Perhaps what actually happened was that I backed away slowly while making reassuring noises?

So be it. But it takes two to “run-in.”

Why stop at two? I’m sure your imagination is up to the challenge. Whip yourself up a whole party!

What I said then is equally true now. Your massive trove of one-line backatchas above is as good an example as any.

Backatchas? Is that what they call it on Mars when you stay at the office until a quarter of midnight, trying to answer all the remarks addressed to you by the reader/commenters who are your real concern? Which, by the way, was a hell of a lot of work, done at top speed.

When I posted in #40, primarily for your eyes as a putatively watchful “moderator,” that #33 was an accidental partial post of #36, and invited you to delete the stub,

I’m sorry, you must have mistaken me for yet a further Tom Neff, one who’s your personal assistant. I’m the person who just published a document that says we correct comments at our own discretion, and only when we have time.

you did nothing,

Riiiiiiight. You’re going to make a great big deal out of the fact that when I was extremely busy, and was dealing with notes and queries from half the posters on Boing Boing, I didn’t hop to and make your little text correction for you? I am astounded. You have a remarkable opinion of your own importance.

instead citing me as (33/36) above. They both still sit there.

So they do. So do a a lot of other glitches in comments that I could have corrected, if I had time and thought they were important.

Any actual moderator worth their salt would have fixed it in a jiffy.

Malarkey. My chief job as moderator is not to run around doing minor proofreading corrections. I’ve never known a moderator who had that in their job description. I think we must bid farewell to your credibility as an expert on this subject.

Instead, you’re wasting time compiling position points on a policy that you’ve already claimed you didn’t even decide.

Instead of paying attention to you, and following your orders, I was communicating with the rest of the readership.

And by the way, I didn’t claim I didn’t decide any policy. If you’re going to put this much work into getting angry, why not instead put more of it into getting things right?

Anyone who has really done it (including me) will agree that Internet moderating is a sh1t job – a thankless job.

Most of the people I deal with aren’t that bad.

Anyone with a grain of intelligence would choose to do something else. So I am the last person in the world to second-guess you for doing what you do best instead, acting as an editor and/or a proxy Boinger.

You are seriously from Mars. I’m not a proxy Boinger. I’m the moderator. And I don’t see what my editorial work has to do with any of this.

Enough. I’m tired of responding to your bizarro lectures. It’s very late at night, I have a busy day tomorrow, and I’ve spent more time trying to make sense of your fantasies than they ever deserved.

Takuan

my dear yankee; “messianic, disturbing and loony”?
For the last time,I am NOT the moderator.

sammich

… posted by cory at either 7.30pmish or 8.30pmish, according to the ever-fading sources…

arkizzle

j’know.. i’m losing my eyesight.. i read “science fiction film: 1900 to 2008″ as “science fiction: 1908-2008″

Anyhoo, we are indeedy agreedy.

Game On.

joshmillard

mintphresh: If you’re right on #1 and #2, you’re right that that pretty much resolves any clash as in #3. I’ve got personal and professional objections to the idea, obviously, but I’m okay with those being mine and BB policy differing.

the bongers like it, and viola! they remain employed. i think if xeni, cory, etc… thought they were doing a lousy job, we wouldn’t be having this virtual conversation. that be the bottom line.

Yeah, fundamentally I dig that it comes down to that. My feeling as someone who isn’t a regular is that there may be some disconnect between what the mods and the regulars are comfortable with and what lurkers and other not-so-regulars have had to say on the subject, hence my interest in trying to put a finer point on it and get a sense of what the explicit rather than implicit take is.

Thanks for your perspective on it.

Xopher

This has been brought up before, and is definitely a known bug in the comment system. I don’t know if or when they’ll fix it, but there is a workaround: After hitting Preview, click your browser’s (or mouse’s) Back button, and make changes there. Your final post should also be made from that page rather than the Preview page.

This is inconvenient, but it’s the best we can do until the bug is fixed. I personally compose in a Notepad window, especially if I’m using a lot of HTML tags. Then I paste it into the comment window. This guarantees that I have a backup if the Preview chews it up and the Back button fails (which happens sometimes).

RJ

@166
blv th phrs s mr cmmnly rndrd s, “nnny-nnny b-b.” Tht bsnss bt nnnr g snds lk t cld b smthng nsvry.

Antinous

Like thats news.

Antinous

It was probably a repeat, but that’s just a guess.

mdhatter

Zosima/Azimos – What I said it might appear to be ad hominem. I can prove you comment in bad faith, but “I really don’t have the time to dig through all the threads and pull out all the examples.”

When you have a point you care to back up, people other than me might be willing to take you up on it. Until then, do your own homework, and pogue mahone.

celeb8

OK :V

http://www.somethingawful.com

minTphresh

zoopyfunk, horses have no real say in the matter. if a man fuck a horse, he is more than likely doing it without the consent of the horse. ergo: horse-rape. not funny. meanwhile, two consenting adults…fucking a sawzall…har, har, indeed!

Takuan

http://xkcd.com/565/

Nelson.C

Waraw, it’s not dickery, it’s tomfoolery.

absimiliard

I just want to know how I can make an acceptable personal attack. I’m really not sure how I could pull that off.

I have less trouble understanding how I could use an expletive appropriately. In fact, since I was in the US Navy AND a construction worker during my life, I’d say I’m about as expert at swearing as you get. After all they don’t say “swear like a sailor” or “crude as a construction worker” for nothing.

(though I’ll admit that since becoming a civvie I’m not really comfortable with making “Fuck” every other word in a sentence, these days I try to keep it down to 1 in 5, maybe 1 in 6. *LOL*)

-abs

kpratt

#196 “I read almost every single thing that hits this board and my memory can be treacherously accurate when inconvenient (to others).”

Yes, and bravo for having such copious free time and the mental bandwidth to cache the entirety of bb. For those of us not so blessed, or rather cursed with full time employment and other demands on our mental prowess, the two lines of context would be a great help in remembering what has gone memorized by others.

Xopher

I like disemvowelling. It lets me look at a person’s comment trail and figure out how much of a jerk they’ve been. Deleting fails to serve this valuable purpose.

Sparkzilla 316: You accused the Boinger who posted that of exploiting the tragedy to further an anti-government agenda, then of “ranting” and obliquely of disturbing the child’s spirit. If that’s not rude I’m not sure what your criteria are. The fact that your comment was also patently absurd had little bearing on it, I’m sure.

Tact? No, girl! 320: First, Evilrooster herself has clarified that she was playing with Capn Barcode. As for the rest of your snotty post, you can [things too rude for me to post, and involving recommendations for Tch! Noggerl to do anatomically impossible things, eliminated here].

Takuan

Dear Gun-Nuts All:

So many want to talk guns. OK. Use the “Suggest a link” and try to start a gun-fetishist thread through the same channels that all threads come from. If the editors deem a gun-topic Boing-worthy,so shall it be. I got nothing against a gun thread, we’ve done it before. It always turns into the same thing where some irrationally defend their emotional need to have sex with their firearms, but that’s OK too – it’s a big world and I myself welcome perverts of every stripe. Just don’t try to bring up the same tired dispute on unrelated tired disputes.

mdhatter

Waraw, ye noble paladin of justice, the world does not run on how you or I define “cranky” or “lie”.

Be more polite, and the mods may just care.

arkizzle

And let that be our gift to you.

Or, you know.. don’t. Then I can stop it with all this Samurai-themed, martyr pseudo-wisdom.

Takuan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQqq3e03EBQ

Jake0748

Teresa, forgive if this is an ignorant question. You mention that one should email with questions protests, etc. I’ve looked, but I just don’t see how to do it?

technogirl

RE: #289 posted by evilrooster

“I’d be very interested in seeing a good example of such a community in action.”

You want me to show you a community where :

-moderation is handled anonymously

- no personality issues from a single moderator what so ever intrude upon the process e.g.. no demagogues

-no destruction of the original message occurs and no “emasculation” of the messenger is committed .

- the community of free to pick and choose whether or not to view the message

Well I’m simply not going to do that because as soon as point out even the most obvious example of such a thing then this argument devolves from a ransfer if ideas concerning moderation and the role of the moderator into a tit for tat of whether a given example lives up to those ideas. So I’m just not going to go there at all.

“There’s a fair argument that the previous iteration of open commenting in BoingBoing was a community, one that melted down from lack of moderation.”

Of this I do not doubt – it’s the implementation that I am concerned with not the usefulness of the idea..

I have seen too many cases where a community dissolved from the effects of an over zealous moderator. Where,what should be a simple social policing action turned personal.

The requirements to be a moderator should be much like those for a politician, if you really love the job then you are probably ill suited for it.

-

buttseks

Well of course there are places that make proper drinks in NYC (I assume by New York you mean NYC because I used to live in Rochester and I know how these things go). Here in Houston though I’ve been served a mint julep with lime wedges in it, which is so near blasphemy that if I’d had a six-shooter on me I would have brandished it at the bartender. I’ll admit that they make some pretty good drinks at Under the Volcano, but it’s so close to Rice University that it’s always full of twats that don’t appreciate a Pimm’s Cup any more than a Corona.

Takuan

“Volume and repetition do not rightness make.”

but enough DOES make wrongness

mdhatter

Actually, Azimos, from your comment history it appears you are more polite than I remembered.

Too bad Zosima was such a jerk.

Nelson.C

Rob, no, I didn’t know that. The precise administrative relationship between BB and BBG isn’t clear from this side of the monitor.

So, I guess you’re leaving the credit-repair spam by a registered commenter with no history in the Chrome OS thread for your own ineffable reasons? Fair enough. Sorry to have bothered you.

Takuan

wht th fck! Mch? gmm brk, nbdy rbs m ptncy!!!

hey, this is fun!

takeshi

Whew.

Quite an entertaining read. The comments, I mean. The post itself, not so much. The moderation policy is reasonable enough, even if it appears as rigid authoritarianism to some, but, as several have noted here, the implementation stinks. First off, this doesn’t belong on the front page. Oh, sure, it’s your RIGHT to post it there, but it’s a terrible decision for way too many reasons.

I’m not going to go back and try to remember who said that the comments here were “overwhelmingly” in favor of Teresa’s position, but I will politely disagree. Many of the comments here have expressed a discontentment, if not outright disgust, at the politicizing and arbitrary nature of many of these editorial decisions. The fact that this thread is so lengthy should be some indication of how polarizing this is. I’m quite sure Teresa has an edge here, but is that really so surprising? And even if only a fiftieth of BoingBoing’s readership disagrees, considering the extreme popularity of this blog, isn’t that enough reason to have this discussion? But too much disagreement gets you disemvoweled, or worse, so watch what you think. Nonetheless, kindly add my complaint to the list, please.

Here’s what really rubs me the wrong way. I have been a fan of BoingBoing since the earliest days, and never has it seemed so insular and hive-minded as it does right now. Trolls are the scourge of the Internet, we all know that, but this post is pure showboating. Teresa has made it clear what the policies are, and although moderation serves to ease the conversation along, it only works provided that the moderator isn’t making snide and unhelpful comments herself.

Malcolm Muggeridge once noted that “good taste and humor are a contradiction in terms, like a chaste whore.” Civility is a virtue, but indignation’s a vice. So often we believe that because an opinion is unpopular, it must be incorrect. We have proven that, as a species, we are uncivilized, and that we behave strangely in groups. We have further proven, time and again, that we are all deeply flawed individuals. Often we are capricious, and even more often we play favorites. Perhaps this very thread will help to expose the silliness and self-congratulation of such policies as disemvolwelment, and pave the way for similar, albeit somewhat more considerate and less humiliating forms of public shaming. After all, the haters need love, too. Even more than the lovers do. Lead by example.

Let’s face it, if only a fifth of the people read the disemvoweled comments, they may as well just be deleted altogether. Yes, you thought of a neat new way to combat trolls, but so what? The term “troll” itself is dehumanizing and mean-spirited. Reader’s opinions of their fellow contributors shouldn’t be overtly influenced by the beliefs of a few, even if the few are virtuous. But it is not without precedent, this “us against them” mentality. Irreverence and mean-spiritedness are common traits among some of the world’s finest thinkers. The world is full of idiots, and so you have the choice of being one of them, or becoming terribly alienated and brilliant. If you really believe that you’re well-adjusted, chances are you’re a moron.

Blindly agreeing with any kind of conventional wisdom, without even attempting to see why others might find displeasure in having to deal with such mindless complacency, doesn’t even register as the expression of an opinion. And given the number of malcontents, cynics, skeptics, and misanthropes the Boingers have given innumerable pages of lip-service to over the years, this whole notion smacks of a “do as we say, not as we do” instinct. Yes, I mean censorship. Still, affixing scarlet letters might seem like fun to a sadist.

I have little appreciation for disemvoweling others’ words. The sentiment has been expressed before: it is an insult to the readers of this blog who consider themselves capable of deciding for themselves what is or is not appropriate. Imagine that. Certainly many comments are deserving of deletion, but more rigorous standards should be established to ensure balance. Any suggestion that edits here have been unbiased is an outright denial of the facts. Every edit must be biased, or else the edit wouldn’t occur. These prejudices with respect to certain uses of language, though arguably valid, are reflections of the moderator’s best judgment, but hers is occasionally a righteously indignant judgment, regardless of how she sees it. For Pete’s sake, throw in the vowel already. D’oh!

Someone asked not too long ago if BoingBoing had jumped the shark. I would say that, if it hadn’t already happened, today’s the day. Don’t mind me, though. The fact that I disagree with this policy is proof enough that I’m disagreeable. Still, a condescending list such as this only emboldens the enemy. We’re not children or terrorists, although some of the comments would seem to indicate otherwise. Most of these policies should be common sense to anyone by now, but some of them are just plain absurd. Beyond that, unless half or more of BoingBoing’s readership are discourteous losers, the rest of us shouldn’t be subjected to snotty primers on the merits of politely engaging in snotless discourse. Like I said, it’s your right to post whatever you like, but so is scarfing down bizarre animal parts on reality TV shows. It may have not been your aim to incite such a discussion, but you must have known that it would. Who has the moral high ground?

As to the assertion that the practice of disemvowelment “emasculates” the culprit, once again I must restrainedly disagree. If after reading a disemvoweled comment I am unable to understand why such an action was absolutely necessary, I lose confidence that the practice as a whole is of any use. As is evidenced here, I know that I am not alone in this estimation. Likewise, if I am offended by any other reader’s comments, I become even more upset that my needs weren’t catered to with the sort of anal obsessiveness we’ve grown to expect from Thanatos, the Mod of Death. Just kidding, Teresa. You’re catching a little heat here, and it’s not entirely undeserved. Snarky mods who complain of others’ snarkiness are a dime a dozen. But hey, I’m just one thinking human. I won’t bother crafting a list of suggestions… I will merely state my opinion and move on.

One last thing, respectfully. According to Wikipedia, Xeni said of irritable vowel syndrome: “the dialogue stays, but the misanthrope looks ridiculous, and the emotional sting is neutralized.” This would seem to imply that every person who has fallen victim to said disemvowelment is a misanthrope, which is every bit as ridiculous. Countless disrespectful comments have evaded Teresa’s scrupulous eye, while several innocuous ones go the way of the spotted vowel. Bah-dum-CHING! Okay, the spotted owl isn’t extinct yet… I couldn’t help it.

Takuan

now that we have a policy,we should bind it. Here’s my idea for the cover:

http://www.roussimoff.com/Photo%20Gallery%202/SHADOWS%20STILL-%20Nightmare%20Executioner.jpg

Robotech_Master

I don’t necessarily expect a smile.

I do expect something a bit more substantive than passive-aggressive one-liners, and a bit calmer than posts that the moderator has to go back and disemvowel herself. It’s nice that she did that, yes, but a more temperate moderator would never have made that kind of post to begin with.

What’s so hard to grasp about the idea that people with greater power should be held to higher standards?

Takuan

‘ey, apart from tentacly horror, I do know how to show a lady a good time!

jemima puddleduck

How do I close my account please?

Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Community Manager

Xopher @1341:

I’m not saying you have to get EVERY one, just that it should be considered sufficient grounds. It’s an argument we’ve had over and over, and that isn’t worth having again, no matter how sincere and impassioned the shlub who brings it up may be.

The trouble with enforcement based on how many times we’ve had to repeat something is that Boing Boing’s audience is so huge, and its threads are so fast-moving, that you can’t count on most people knowing what’s been said over and over again. Thus the need to spell stuff out in the moderation guidelines (bleah).

Maybe we could do like News of the Weird, and maintain a list of tropes, memes, and issues that have been done to death?

Eustace @1344:I would argue against one-strike-you’re-out policies; some leeway has to be given to noobs, or you don’t get new people.I do worry about that. The idea is not to have a small group of well-behaved regulars who have no social continuity with the larger body of Boing Boing commenters.

The temptation to ban on first offense is one I tend to fall for when the offense looks like long-practiced bad behavior, or when the behavior appears to stem from malice rather than carelessness.

I almost feel like I shouldn’t say this, but the best way to get out from under a disciplinary penalty or ban is to immediately write us a contrite letter saying you’re sorry, it was a dumb or thoughtless thing to do, and you hope you can at some point be forgiven because you love being able to comment on Boing Boing. We’re suckers for that. It works even better if you also have a history of posting substantial, engaged comments that are responsive to other comments in that thread.

By the way: if you want to make typing painless, get so good at touch-typing that you’re no longer conscious of it. The same advice is (used to be?) standard for people who hate to wash dishes. The line was, “If you hate to wash dishes, you haven’t done enough of them.” The worst place to be is where the task is familiar enough to be boring and irritating, but not familiar enough to be done on automatic.

It would drive me crazy if I had to think of every keystroke as I type.

Antinous @1346:

There’s always tension between “How can we redeem this person?” and “Marge, get the shovel.”

Come on. Sometimes it works. It’s just that the times when it fails are so irritating.

Ars Technica has a remarkably high rate of suspended users coming back and becoming functional members of the community, so I have to believe rehabilitation is possible.

…

We have an interesting potential problem, but I’ll put that in a new comment.

JFlex

Hi MDHATTER,

Thank you for your response. I have a few more questions because I’m not clear on what you’re trying to communicate.

It certainly smells hypocritical to see Cory post endlessly about censorship, freedom of speech, and individual rights while comments that contest his posts are edited, distorted, and deleted.

It certainly smells hypocritical to see commenters who feel slighted talk about ‘do unto others’, then make snarky comments about scholarly tone and moderators being law enforcement.

So you’re saying Cory and I are both hypocrites?

Let me break this down for you – your ideas in the little brother thread in question are not new.

Ideas needn’t be new to be allowed on this blog. Please explain where you were headed with this.

They are done with people (most of whom are jealous axe grinders) harping on Cory’s success in Little Brother threads.

That’s an unsubstantiated assumption or a gross generalization, or both. I’m certainly not jealous of Cory’s success, so why should this affect me?

You can go to your website and kvetch about Cory all you like. Coming to his and demanding to pee in the punchbowl is not okay. “Do unto others” etc…..

I’m with you on the first bit – I can say what I want on my website. I lose you in the pee/punchbowl part. Using your analogy, punch is sweet. Is your point that nobody should ever do anything to sour it?

Antinous

JFlex,

The Boingers blog for their own enjoyment. If other people enjoy it, great. If not, great. They’re still going to do what they do, and they’re really not all that interested in hearing about who was bored by it. You want to see other stuff – Suggest A Link.

Takuan

ahh, I think I’ll behead you anyway. (can I have your music collection?)

controlbroke

the (second) cnn report had nothing that wasn’t presented earlier in the comments thread.

I am also aware that the U.S has become a country recently more divided by the past election and both republican and liberal can be projected and percived as criticism,
the main contributor to this black and white mindset was sinking media integrity during election fever. some pretty low tactics were used on both sides of the fence and the uncritical are swept along in a tide of either fear or derision.

that the story as told got past so many. tells of the low LOW regard bush has inspired.

however think what would have had to take place for it to happen.

arrive at white house, shake hands shake hands ..
ey jaque can i haf a vord. uh?, yoy we dont lika him no more…. ohhhhhhh ….. tee hee hee hee.

‘leaders of the world’ contriving in a snarky (maybe metaphorical)huddle (and all agreeing) to not aknowlege mr bush while meeting ‘at his house’

maybe in your mind they had a special hand signal too?

it would reflect poorly on everybody if this took place. public world politics is about as far from schoolyard politics as you can get

ok! speculative?? who?.

if harvey had written hysterical media as opposed to liberal he would have been spot on the money
it is a terrible example of entertainews .
it stopped so many people thinking because it was funny and connected with their anti bush sentiment

i would say that the lableling of media as exessively biased in any direction is much less offensive than discouraging rational thought,
this is what the hysterical media of late has promoted and indeed made it possible the labels ‘liberal’ and ‘republican’ to stand for the worst traits of humanity depending on the ears that hear.

let’s just hope that all calms down now.

(ee said liberal … stone ‘im,
ooh, now you said it too)

you said yourself moderating is contextual.

you see kneejerk criticism.
I see shitty media being called out.

Tom Neff

“i don’t know what some of you guys are on about – this is the best comment and discussion moderation policy I’ve ever seen on the web. :D”

Yeah, I’ll bet Huffington, BlogHerald, Gothamist, SFGate, DailyKos, et al., are just pooping their PJ’s in envy of this masterpiece. Look for massive changes across the board. I’m hacking a patented Esperanto-to-Morse-Code translator applet we call BitFrown(TM) for use on comments in the DLD (Don’t Love Domain).

Antinous

Untitled 1 – back-up link

Takuan

Go minT!

Antinous / Moderator

I, for one, welcome our new equine gentlemen callers.

Rob Beschizza

Profile images are still borked.

igpajo

Concerning the DV’ing of posts in Gitmo thread, I don’t see that the posts that were being critical, or in a couple cases, merely skeptical, of PE Obama, as being off topic at all. The article quoted in that post ends with “That is why I am thankful above all that the next U.S. commander in chief is a constitutional lawyer.” That sentence seems enough to me to invite healthy criticism or skepticism of whether people think Obama will be able to change anything being discussed in the article.
I understand why mine was disemvowelled, because I was being offtopic and critical of the moderation policy. I didn’t know this thread existed, so I’ll refrain from commenting on the policy in thread and bring my complaints here.

With that said, count me among the folks who are getting very tired of the disemvowelling practice. I can definitely understand doing it steal the thunder from trolls, but the stuff I’m seeing dv’d lately are far from trolling posts. While I may not know the posting history of many of the people targeted, I am still amazed to see how benign some of the targeted posts seem to be. This practice is just becoming very petty IMO.

jim.cowling

Summary:

Q: Reasonable question?

A Snide answer.

Q: Other reasonable question?

A: Unpleasant, jaded answer.

Q: Kinda snotty question?

A: Withering, unhelpful answer.

Spoon

tl;dr

Tree Shapiro

This would be fine if it were true. Call it whatever you want, but when I left a comment on Cory Doctorow’s coffee tamper post asking whether BoingBoing takes product for money it was “disemvowelled”. This is a perfectly legitimate question, involved no profanity and in my opinion was disemvowelled on your whim. You can call it clever and a device to control trolls, but I call it censorship, which it is.

People want to know whether BoingBoing takes product in exchange for posting about it. Full stop. It’s a legitimate question and deserves an answer. Not censorship.

takeshi

@ Takuan:

Didn’t you get the memo?

Q. There’s an old comment of mine I want you to delete.

A. Drop us a note, if it’s really important; but the default answer is “no.”

sammich

antinous – I think it is a repeat, from the 4th of September, although I wasn’t around to see it then. It’s just the way it disappeared with no acknowledgement, combined with my own personal history of Papworth, that freaked me out to no small degree…

arkizzle

Downward Hierarchical Offshoots of Plural (XY)

Takuan

where do all these horse-bothers come from? Is there a NAMHLA convention in town?

Antinous / Moderator

No, it’s NAHBLA.

enki_carbone

wait wait… calling Tim and Eric “gay” gets my comment deleted, but it’s perfectly ok for someone to post “You can’t insult a whore. What the fuck?”

your moderation policy sucks ass.

eustace

Well, whatever else it may have accomplished, it hasn’t fixed the Photo Bug. Not only am I still a cartoon, but Antinous remains perpetually injured! Ouch!

Antinous / Moderator

“They” have promised that the upgrade will fix that.

Erin Kissane

Brava, Teresa. I often cite you when I’m discussing moderation techniques with clients, and the sentiments expressed in your post are why I do.

It is precisely because Boing Boing’s comments are moving toward the Making Light model and away from the Slashdot/Digg model that I read the comments here.

Takuan

you sure someone did that? sometimes it’s the Ghost.

Kieran O’Neill

Takuan, all this talk of tentacles and deep-sea trenches …

“Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Tak-thulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn” ?

Of course, now I am blessed with the image of a ruined, quasi-dimensional city deep under the ocean inhabited by a horrific, many-tentacled, yellow pickled vegetable.

anthony

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCPGmE000WA&feature=related

Tom Hale

Xopher, I think I found your MySpace page using pipl search. If that is you, its pretty cool. I’m going to have to get a MySpace account some day.

I didn’t search through your posts to see if any gave a clue to how old you are and I couldn’t recall any like I did with minT and Antinous. I just had an impression of your age by your comments and attitude.

arkizzle

I’m just pro-active and self-sufficient.

Go on Anti, spill the beans. What’s your number?

Antinous / Moderator

A mere 7,945. But we pale in comparison to you know who.

Takuan

gonna run with this; from now on, if someone starts speaking Jerk at me, I’ll reply in Dsmvwll and refuse to acknowledge them until they use it too.

(Hee hee! Teresa’s gonna feel like a den-mother with fifty Ritalin-dependent brats to tend!)

takeshi

Thanks for the reply, Teresa. For what it’s worth, I admire your seemingly honest approach to this problem. My only concern is with your gleeful derisiveness. In my opinion, you have been immoderately churlish while addressing people in this very thread, and many others throughout your short tenure here at BoingBoing. Every one of them may have deserved your vitriol, but surely you are aware of the bountiful advantages of permitting such unpleasantries to roll off your back, like water off a duck.

Having said that, it is important to note that I never implied that you *don’t* disemvowel rude comments. I disagree with disemvowelment, across the board, whatever your rationale. In a nutshell, I believe that it draws additional, unnecessary attention to the alleged perpetrator, and further that it is a kind of deliberate condemnation that serves no real purpose but to embarrass offenders into compliance. I have been following these threads with some regularity, and I can say with some conviction that I have personally witnessed the routine truncation of comments that were significantly less crude than many you have allowed to slide, including some of your own. Call it executive privilege if you like. It’s petty and inexcusable, as I see it, but I’m not trying to judge you. If you really believe it’s for the best, in light of the fact that some view it as a demeaning and somewhat disingenuous practice, do as thou wilt.

The fact is: disemvowelment could evolve into something quite a bit more appealing to all concerned, without much effort. Perhaps it is a good idea, but one whose time has passed. In the 1950s, squeezing thirty teenagers into a phone booth seemed like a good idea. Try that now, and you’re inviting a DHS investigation. A good idea doesn’t always have to be practical, either. It can serve as a blueprint for more forward-thinking endeavors. There is no shame in admitting that one’s good idea could use some improvement, or that other ideas may be superior. In theory, disemvowelment is a perfect solution, but in practice it comes off as a bit of a production.

In brief, I am not expecting that you will agree with anything I’ve said. I only ask that you will extend the courtesy of allowing me to appeal to your sense of right and wrong. No good can come of belittling those whose opinions you regard as inferior to your own. Such displays are counterproductive at best,and they are beneath you. Let me put it another way. Real justice is about clemency, not retaliation. We have become so accustomed to seeking revenge that we often forget just why we are seeking it in the first place. Insulting someone because you found something they said to be objectionable is a lot like complaining about having to eat at McDonald’s because you were too lazy to walk to the health food store.

Intolerant people are the most deserving of your tolerance. There are reasons they are so discourteous, and often it has a lot to do with the way they’ve been treated. You don’t have to be friendly to be tolerant of others, but if you are unfriendly, you are guilty of an equal or greater form of intolerance, because you should know better. And my intolerance of your intolerance of intolerant people is no better. Still, it needs to be said. Your position seems to be that no one should be subjected to rude comments. How then can you expect to be regarded as any kind of authority on the matter? Your harangues are classic, and obviously inspire a bit of envy among some of your more ardent supporters here. Imagine how envious your peers would be, if only you could practice what you preach.

I’m no saint, but I can tell you with some confidence that, to some people, your treatises concerning mannerly exposition are bound to resemble vaniloquence in its ugliest form. I recognize that your position here is difficult, and that certain user’s comments can provoke feelings of consternation, anger, and divisiveness. Obviously, many here (myself included) believe that you are providing a much-needed service, but I assure you that with a modicum of patience and experience you will accede to a level of moderation supremacy heretofore undiscovered.

And to those of you who’ve complained about others’ complaints: give it a rest. There’s been much circumspection on both sides of the aisle, and it weakens your position to dismiss others’ enthusiastic pleas for impartiality as trolling behavior. It only makes you appear less concerned with the matter at hand than the methodical ridicule of anyone expressing a dissenting viewpoint. What kind of earnest discussion is that?

Conservationist

This is from a community I’m part of:

There’s two ways to think about moderation:

1) The liberal-democratic way. Everyone is enabled to do anything, unless it turns out to offend someone, and then we condemn them and blacklist them. We call this reductive logic.

2) The fascist-holistic way. We judge everything for whether or not it is productive to some mission. Therefore, some things are clearly not wanted and others are removed “like deadwood” and not “like punishment/judgment.” We call this goal-oriented, process-based logic.

We are a hybrid of the two. On this forum, as every forum I’ve run or had a hand in running since 1987, we believe in “free speech,” but we recognize this has limits. If you posted a member’s home address, real name, credit history, and penis length, we’d remove that.

I think it’s a sensible alternative view of the situation, one which comes from a more extreme viewpoint but also carries the same idea. It’s not based on ownership but on community as an idea.

Anonymous

You post as Tom Hale all the time, surely?

mdhatter

Yeah, your mods rock.

jesuguru

What’s funny is that if you’re from Kyrgyzstan and your message gets disemvoweled, it’ll look pretty much the same.

ZoopyFunk

Minty, I don’t think your my type. Or anyone’s type, for that matter.

waraw

It looks to many like shoutdownery

FoetusNail

Antinous, if it hasn’t been done recently, maybe one detailed post covering a day in the life of a mod, would help everyone understand the scale of the situation.

As someone who for various reasons stays awake for long periods of time, I find the way comments follow the sun interesting. Using flex-time the various day and night shifts come and go. I find the manner in which groups of commenters from various time zones, hence countries and cultures, and schedules interact with varying degrees of overlap fascinating.

That regional idiosyncrasies sometimes have little affect on conversations, illustrates the effect produced by decades of mass communication and easy inter-continental travel. At other times it seems as though the conversation is taking place between different worlds. I love the fact that our conversations literally span the globe, though it is hard to grasp and easy to forget.

A post outlining how a moderator navigates and tempers these interactions, between people of different cultures, beliefs, and sensitivities, along with a few examples, and a few numbers to give the operation some scale, may go a long way in helping people understand your very strange job. You have a job I never heard of until this last year. Like many jobs, the more we learn about them the more respect we have for those that find enjoyment where others find work. If this were an MC, you would be Sgt at Arms with an ITCOB patch and prospects at the ready.

I still like my suggestion of a numbered list of reasons for action. Since the idea is floating around to add some mod info to the sign-up page, that might be the place to post the list. BTW, what do the examples you gave earlier mean?

nosehat

If you are experimenting with a new design format, it’s not going well. When I click on any “permalink” or on a post’s title in the comments, I get a screen that looks like this:

http://i329.photobucket.com/albums/l367/nosehat/bbscreencap1.jpg

FYI

arkizzle

em.. so Tak.. it sounds like you may have settled on a pronoun..

On BB, I’ve seen you referred to as all the genders under the sun (not all at once, that would be.. messy), and I’ve called you at least a couple myself. I always just left it as an unasked question; unnecessary information.

Now I see ol’ Antonio’ giving it the “his”, and am inclined to ask the uber casual/polite question we all learned in that thread, not so long ago..

..so, which pronoun do you prefer?

Phew! Well, that wasn’t so hard, now I’m glad I asked, brilliant :)

[cue: awkward silence, sound of crickets in the night air]

oh..

Takuan

where’d ya come from anyway? Ain’t seen you around these parts afore.

jackie31337

Another bug report about the sign-in system:

It showed me as not signed in, but as soon as I clicked “sign in”, it recognized me as signed in and said “Thanks for signing in”. It never sent me to actually sign in to my account.

Xopher

Hmm. You mean I seem to have a low level of maturity and a snotty-kid attitude, or that I’m energetic and playful?

Takuan

pharmassey

mdh

or at least the last 1000

Rob Cockerham

Ah! Just the other day I read about a team of doctors at the University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Medical Center who had to remove six of a comment’s vowels and refridgerate them to remove the cancerous intent of the poster. After the flame war died down, they re-inserted and attached the vowels.

In total, the vowels were outside her post for about 90 minutes.

evilrooster

Takuan @378:

How about a cover based on just the wristband? I have a lot of black leather*, and I’m sure I could get the metal studs.

—-
* in my binderyâ€
â€ where I bind books, lest anyone get the wrong idea

classic01

eh the ghost of the heavy handed censure. :-/ I think it goes against everything I thought bb was about. Gotta love big borther.

David Bilek

Antinous:

One, the last few weeks have been quite different from the norm here. We don’t usually do nearly so much moderating. Two, it is and has always been a personal blog. If you can really get that, what we do makes much more sense.

I’m sure the first part is true; this is undoubtedly a weird time. But as to the second part, I think it’s pretty clear you give up the claim on things like being “just a personal blog” when the bloggers get press passes to events and such. Accepting press passes and so forth is an implicit admission that you’re doing more than throwing some random thoughts on grandma’s livejournal page.

Antinous

Accepting press passes and so forth is an implicit admission that you’re doing more than throwing some random thoughts on grandma’s livejournal page.

Some of the Boingers do work as journalists in some contexts. Cory writes for the newspapers, Xeni does TV appearances, etc. This is their blog. Different thing.

Xopher

Well *I’m* not taking anything personally, but I still want to know what you meant about horse-consent being “arbitrary.” This is not to harrass you; I just haven’t made head or tail (npi) of what you meant at all. I can’t make it come out to a sensible interpretation, even one I disagree with.

minTphresh

arki, that verse would make a great chorus in , like a tool song! something in tuned-down D.

Tom Hale

Here’s another pic of Takuan. He’s the one on the right.

This is a statue made in Takuan’s image a few thousand years ago – found in Cambodia I believe. Apparently he was just a big giant head back then.

Antinous / Moderator

That would be a system glitch.

FutureNerd

It looks like, when I posted, a bunch of stuff was already in the queue about the astroturf and… astroturf catnip?…issue.

#1077 mdh “You’re all assuming…[insert invective here]” I see that that could be taken as insulting.

After that I get “assuming the current administration threatened it, but it was [someone else].” So you mean invective as in casting blame. Invective does imply an emotional motivation though.

I suppose the clue to look for is the same person posting on the same subject on many threads. I haven’t researched daisytrench.

Moderators, to you it’s all painfully familiar, but if you do the job you’re trying to do, you keep us innocent of all the various forms of threats to discourse.

technogirl

RE: #325 posted by GregLondon Author Profile Page, March 28, 2008 10:07 AM

“OMG, did someone seriously compare disemvoweling to rape? ”

No they did not.
Someone who apparently
1. owns a dictionary
2. Believes that proper use of language overrides bogus “political correctness” concern trolls
3. Does not start his sentences with “OMG”

used the word in a correct context as in “to pillage”

One could say, quite properly if arguably, that Teresa is raping the comment pool by altering the structure of selected comments.

Look it up and get off that horse.

eustace

Waaaait a minnit – i got DVed for CROSS-posting – i carried a running gag into another thread. At least I thought it was a running gag, moderators may have considered it instead to be sophomoric idiocy and it would be hard to argue against that…

Antinous / Moderator

I was going to check to see when you were dv’ed. I saw that you had 909 comments in your history and decided to have another drink instead.

joshmillard

Yes, and? This was my comment, yesterday. What are you responding to?

FoetusNail

minTphresh, if you’re older than 47, do you realize that for the first time in our lives we are older than our president.

arkizzle

Takuan, in repose:

http://community.imaginefx.com/fxpose/cloisters_portfolio/images/98742/original.aspx

Stefan Hayden

disemvowelling is awesome. I look forward to seeing it in action as I had not heard of it before.

Cowicide

Tree Shapiro:

People want to know whether BoingBoing takes product in exchange for posting about it. Full stop. It’s a legitimate question and deserves an answer.

Actually, Tree… speak for yourself. I could really give a shit. You act like they are your elected politicians or some crap. LOL They owe you…. nothing. You might as well like it.

Fred Nurk

Dear BB,

Will someone *please* get the Junior Mod Squad under control? Expecting your readers to parse a thread of more then 800 comments before they can feel free to post on your site without censure is simply absurd.

Disemvowelling may be appropriate and useful in certain circumstances, like movie plot spoilers and funny but potentially offensive humour. However as a punitive measure it achieves exactly the opposite effect than intended – i.e., it usually derails the thread far more effectively than the original undisemvowelled comment ever could have done.

When this is combined with the Junior Mod Squad’s hypersensitivity to any imagined criticism, rigid interpretation of The Rules, and schoolmarmish finger-wagging at any infraction, the moderators -rather than the subject of the post- seem to end up being the subject of discussion every time.

The fact that the JMS frequently post and debate things in the same threads they moderate doesn’t seem to have struck anyone as a potential problem either. The whole issue has been managed with a bizarre level of ineptitude.

Your life could be much easier and your readers much happier if you radically limited disemvowelling, prohibited the JMS from moderating any thread in which they otherwise participate, and boiled the policy down to basics:

“BB comment moderation policy: We sometimes delete things that bug us, though we try not to. If we delete your post, don’t worry – there are plenty of other places on the internet you can go tell everyone what bastards we are :-)”

arkizzle

Nice :)
I did it on a heavy hiphop beat. Epic style.

Antinous

Josh,

The system probably auto-decided that your comment was spam. I know of at least one very specific action that it won’t permit. And, no, I’m not going to tell anybody what it is. However, if your comment was perceived as spam, we won’t ever see it. It goes straight to cyber-hell. FYI, if you keep testing it, you could be black-balling yourself with the anti-spam star chamber.

Joel Johnson

#94: I don’t know why the favorites don’t work! It’s working for some people, right? I can submit it as an error, although it would be good to know browsers/OS where it’s not working.

Xopher

Cats 323: That was on TERESA’S OWN BLOG. She has the right to do an exposé if she wants to, just as the Boingers have a right to do one on TSA killing sick babies.

What the heck are you ON about? I’m getting your tone, which is pretty irritating, but it’s not clear you actually have any content at all. Please clarify.

Greg 325: Bizarre and brain-damaged as it seems, yes. S/he did that very thing. And continues to defend it by making up more words, apparently not realizing how quickly s/he is sinking in our opinion, or at any rate not at all caring what we think of hir.

At this point, I’m not so much avoiding namecalling as putting it in, then editing it out right before I post.

Trvth

DVing often sucks the way it’s handled – I was DV’d, then shut down for a week after I made a few friendly, informative comments about Palin. In the thread “Sarah Palin: spammer and digital secrecy scofflaw,” not a single Conservative comment was allowed – what’s the deal with that? I made one comment, and afterward only responded to people that made comments to me. I had no warning about my impending suspension- I can only assume my comments were too Conservative and Antinous’s only option was to DV my comments and suspend me for a week. Do I have any recourse when I am suspended this way – when it seems the only thing I did wrong is post a Conservative view?

eustace

…and although we have been advised to take anything it says skeptically, is advice from GlaDOS worth taking, really? I think not.

mdhatter

Fair enough Josh, hope you enjoyed my video, though Takuan’s is better.

queennerd

It seems like a better solution to the comment moderation/censorship thing would be to have two views of the comments. The default view is the moderated view and then the second selectable view is the unmoderated view. This would allow people to choose for themselves if they wanted to deal with the trolls.

evilrooster

Technogirl @320:

No is it the coffee kicking in along with my paranoia or am I sensing a disturbance in the Boing? Are we being infiltrated by fanboys from Teresa’s blog defending the perceived Queen? More likely my paranoia… however ….

I was unaware that my participation on Making Light made me ineligible to use my account on BoingBoing.

This thread is about a matter that interests me greatly. You have some ideas that I’ve enjoyed discussing, and I intend to muse on them further. I don’t know that I will come to agree with you, but I genuinely appreciate your input. If that hasn’t come through, I do apologize.

I hope you have a good day at work.

Elorin

Here here! (or is it hear hear?) Reads like a great moderation policy to me.

jgriffiths

Disemboweling is satisfying to say anyway, the letter V just adds extra sexiness.

arkizzle

#272 Jeblis

Oh and yeah you moderated a lot of stuff that is certainly on topic and not that bad. In particular a lot of posts that I would have considered satire.

LET’S BE CLEAR (and shout a little)

LOTS OF THE POST IN THIS THREAD HAVE BEEN SELF-DISEMVOWELLED, IN SATIRE.

#288 Buttseks, those last 3 probly won’t raise and eyebrow, let alone the 12 more comments needed to break 300 :)

takeshi

@ #457:

Your argument doesn’t cut it. Being bludgeoned to death is discouraging, and should be avoided at all costs. That doesn’t mean that it *should* happen.

@ #425:

I respectfully agree that you have a right to an opinion. Personally, I think that deletion of the nastiness is better. It’s tried and true, and not some gimmicky “innovation.” After all, if Teresa had no one left to disemvowel, I’m sure that she could come up with a few new reasons.

@ Teresa:

My suggestion that BoingBoing had “jumped the shark” was said with tongue planted firmly in cheek. As mentioned here, I have been a long-time reader. And frankly, I mentioned that the comment in question was made in response to another comment asking if blogs could “jump the shark,” so I don’t need any lessons from you (or anyone else) as to the three or four differences between TV shows and blogs.

But once again, you display an utter disregard for anyone who differs with your oh-so-virtuous proclamations. You also seem to be suggesting that I should just go away. I’m sure that I needn’t tell you just how petty and snotty that remark is, considering that I have both supported BoingBoing financially and offered thoughtful comments.

If BoingBoing *has* jumped the shark, I think I’ve made it quite clear that this post is the reason why. Perhaps you only care about unquestioning accommodation, but I’ve been reading BoingBoing for years without seeing your name, and it makes no difference to me whether you go or stay, honestly. I even said that you provide “a much-needed service” here, and I do believe that.

Still, I have the right to an opinion, just like you, O Masterful Vowel-Annihilator, and I *should* have the right to express it without listening to your drivel about how I shouldn’t even bother. C’est la vie. You tend to be extraordinarily coarse with some of the people you’re paid to police, and that is my only problem with you.

Mostly, I find you pleasant and encouraging, but occasionally, just like a lot of us, you behave like a spoiled child. Even if no one agrees with that sentiment, it is as certain as the sunrise. Of course, plenty of folks *do* agree with me. Like water off a duck, Sister. You should be thankful that people like me frequent this website, because if everyone were like you this place would, every so often, devolve into one giant btch-fst.

Xopher

Tom Neff, my humble apologies. It wasn’t you at all, it was Jim Cowling. I really do apologize; that’s a pretty big thing to accuse someone of, and you didn’t do it. I’m sorry.

Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator

Yes, Lewis. You were unpleasantly surprised to find yourself disemvowelled, and you’re not yet comfortable with the whole idea of moderation. I get that. However, that’s how things work here. If you’re going to stick around, that’s the way it’ll be.

I’m completely impenitent about imposing moderation on the site. I’ve seen far more discourse lost to thoughtless, casually brutal speech than has ever been suppressed by moderators. Any rule set excludes some participants. I’m shooting for a site that can express strong opinions while staying civil, and accommodate the widest possible range of interesting commenters.

azimos

Mdhatter #763,#764,#765

It sounds like someone is still a little sore over Zosima’s implication that you were thinking like a neocon.

I’ll admit I was upset and rude towards the end of that thread. I think I had ample reason, though. The amount of post editing/ blocking going on in that thread was beyond the pale. Even sites that scrape the bottom of internet barrel, like 4chan, aren’t that bad. So I stand by my statements on Antinous.

Beyond blocking and editing my posts, Antinous was also throwing quite a few insults in that thread. He called Will a “chronic troll and a time waster”, after my 4th post he called me an “astroturfer”.

This pretty clearly contrasts this post, #553, on Lessons Learned by Teresa:
”
That said, I agree that first-time posters shouldn’t automatically be taken for drive-bys or sockpuppets. We all start out as first-time posters.”

That seems a sufficient example.

jjasper

Login links are screwy, I’m getting repeatedly logged out, and my profile s all messed up.

Just FYI

-Josh Jasper, account listes under jjasper

Antinous / Moderator

Yeah, we know. Emergency crews are working on it.

Antinous

Good lord, only the males have recurved spines on their larvipositors. How could you have mistaken Takuan for a female.

buddy66

I think he just rode in, Marshal. I can go ask over at the Long Branch. If I had the price of a beer, that is.

Takuan

and it’s been posted three times in row.

Takuan

Josh Millard: 24 comments so far, beginning from VB, all totally devoted to telling all and sundry at BB that “ur doing it wrong”. That’s all.

ZoopyFunk

The NAMHLA convention convened last weekend, we were all disappointed with your absence, but we took up the slack.

When will society accept us?

Minty, your horse-rape argument is purely conjecture. Consent is usually arbitrary, don’tcha think?

Washington State made sex with a horse illegal. In 2006. Before that? Well, I won’t tell you what WA’s true state motto really was.

minTphresh

jeez antinous, i’ve seen the video as well, and it scarred me for life. i swear that girl looked just like dizzy gillespie when she was done. and zoopyfunk, hang on while i go put on all my wolf rings. i’m headed over to your house to stick my ham-like fist up your ass. and i know u won’t mind, since consent is really arbitrary and all.

Xopher

And yet they’ll prosecute an 18-year-old boy for having sex with a 15-year-old boy, and whether the 15 consented or not is considered legally irrelevant,* never mind whether he was harmed by it.

Something is really, really wrong with our alleged “justice” system.

*OMG, I bet Zoopyfunk meant “irrelevant”! According to the law in most jurisdictions (including WA after 2006) the consent or lack of same of the horse is indeed irrelevant. If you substitute ‘irrelevant’ for ‘arbitrary’ in the original statement, you get a statement from someone unsympathetic to animal rights,** but not a total dick.

Zoopyfunk, is that what you meant?

**Perhaps not even that: the horse’s consent has to be legally irrelevant because there’s no good way of determining it beyond reasonable doubt. (Same reason it is for a 3-year-old; first time an adult talks to them they’ll never know the real truth again. Note that this does NOT apply to 15-year-olds, who are “children” only to dyed-in-the-wool dualists.)

From that perspective, and mutatis mutandi, the argument makes much more sense.

arkizzle

Anti, that’s quite respectabl actuallye. Not as depraved a number as I was expecting.

As to the Other.. *shudder*

Dan Wineman

First — thanks very much for taking the time to make this post, Teresa. It’s great to have some light shed.

Now, I have a suggestion or two that could make the BoingBoing discussion experience a bit smoother. These are really minor changes, but I think they’ll help:

1. Could we have the “Recent comments” view on the profile pages sorted most recent first? It’s a drag to have to scroll down to the bottom when catching up with recent discussions, not to mention having to see one’s first-ever comment displayed with permanent prominence.

2. Along those lines, how about a way to indicate which post we’re replying to? I’m not asking for a full threading system, just a “Reply to this” link that prepends a link back to the comment being replied to. This could even be used to trigger an email notification so that (at our option) we could be informed of replies to our own comments. A lot to ask, I know.

3. This is just a bug report, really, but the Favorite feature seems broken. It used to work, but now nothing I favorite ever gets added to the list on my profile page.

Thanks again.

Jeff

Takuan, yeah, I thinking that was pretty damn good for something on the fly. But it worked for me. The picture was great. LOL. The BoingBoing Gimmoire.

cavalier

Forgive me if I’m missing the tongue in cheek factor, but I’ve seen Metafilter brought up in this thread a few times and I can’t help but think it’s being done in a negative light. If I’ve missed the bus, please, punch me a new ticket, I’ll be happy to take it. Anyhoo, to the question

”
Looking northward, I say: For all its faults, show me a thread like this on Metafilter.”

I’m not sure of the emphasis behind this, i.e. you’re looking for proof of extended rational discourse? I’m just taking a stab in the dark here, pulling up two recent threads:

http://www.metafilter.com/58583/Youre-so-smart-you-probably-think-this-post-is-about-you
http://www.metafilter.com/58058/In-My-Language

Again, if I’ve missed the bus, please tell me which one I should be on. It’s a bit heady now at 300+ comments, but I didn’t quite see anyone calling out MeFi as innately superior, or inferior, but as a pretty long time reader there I felt an urge to try to answer it.

Tom Hale

Thanks, a liberal dose of crap cleaner seems to have fixed the problem. I suppose the second account should be thrown out.

Gary61

re: #486 Xopher

I stand corrected. Thank you, oh thank you, you alien burrowing mammal you.

Oh, P.S. – know any other intelligent life-forms? There don’t seem to be many remaining down here on Dirt … erm, Earth.

hagbard

MDHATTER

Oh, I thought you were an old hand here.

Takuan

thanks for coming in, Nurks. We’ll call you.

Takuan

how about a rehabilitation program where they are turned over to me to be used, debased`and degraded for an unspecified term? I’m VERY limber.

Takuan

microinjections from the keypads of ever increasing doses of MDMA?

Takuan

that was just a lucky guess

Tom Hale

#1483 POSTED BY ANTINOUS / MODERATOR
“We’re getting an upgrade very shortly”

How about a few hints at some of the super cool new things we’ll be able to do after the upgrade. Inquiring minds want to know.

Rob Beschizza

Nelson,

We read most or all of the comments at BBG ourselves (the volume is only 20-25% of BB’s, after all) and it’s rare that spam lives long. So, it’s working just fine.

BBG is, as you may know, unmoderated for registered users. We do delete idiot talk now and again, but it’s at our own capricious and censorious whim rather than by adherence to any sort of policy.

Nelson.C

KPratt @201: What would the two lines have added that wasn’t obvious or couldn’t be surmised with a little thought? Especially as it isn’t just for the benefit of the boingers; one would imagine that as it’s a declaration of policy they would all be in the loop.

Xopher

Evilrooster 379: I have lots of black leather in my bedroom–which is also a bindery, but only live skin is bound there!

takeshi

@ Kip W:

The nasty ol’ comments in question could always be replaced with a single, informative word: DELETED. Numbering problem solved. The question may have been answered, but obviously not to everyone’s satisfaction.

Passing out scarlet letters is nothing to be proud of. It is base and self-important and hostile. Terribly sorry if you disagree. Does today’s story about the social worker extending kindness to his teenage mugger tell us nothing? I for one am alarmed by the number of people who believe that public taunting is in any way meritorious.

arkizzle

hmm.. all i can think of is “Game Player’s of Titan”, becaus eof the player theme, but gaia is the mother of the titans, so almost..

Gaia’s Son’s Sportsmen? :p

Antinous

how do I delete my profile or change my login name?

Send me an e-mail at antinous at boingboing dot net, explaining what you want and why you want it. I cannot cancel your account or change your login, but I can change your display name.

ZoopyFunk

Nope, my VIH pass from last weekend definitely says NAMHLA. You all sure missed the Mr. Ed Tribute.

Tom Neff

No problem Xopher – I thought I saw something like that earlier myself but couldn’t remember who it was. I’m relieved it wasn’t me. :)

I’m actually flattered that you find me repetitive – you can only do that by paying attention to what I’m saying! At least we are both engaging the topic.

minTphresh

arki @1036=100%WIN!

Xopher

TDawwg, Antinous was referring to the earlier, unpublished comments, which were made in a thread that had nothing to do with copyfight. Your comment 1551 IS in the correct thread.

blueandroid

Antinous, that thread should be about wiretapping, the fourth amendment, and the law that passed the senate today.

Currently, it is about Ralph Nader, which has little if anything to do with the original post.

I want to hear what people have to say about the idea of citizens defending the fourth amendment, and their other rights, from unjust laws such as the one under discussion, specifically in the context of the mechanisms that were used to claim those rights when the US was founded.

Is that an irrelevant topic?
If it is relevant, is there a way I can discuss it without offending you? I don’t want a toxic flame war any more than you do, I just want an open discussion.

Please don’t portray me as a troll just because you disagree with my comment. Disemvoweling my policy questions directed at you, and following up as if I’d been trolling was a cheap shot.

Antinous

blueandroid,

The post is also about candidates and their votes (or non votes) on the issue. We rarely allow open discussion about all the candidates because it turns into sloganeering. As you can see, I’m moderating that thread in real time and reining in behavior and topic. If it goes any further into party declarations, I’ll stop that as well. You weren’t disemvowelled for being a troll, but for posting moderation issues in the wrong thread and for persistently trying to introduce the second amendment to the discussion. I disemvowelled several commenters for the same reason. Please don’t take it personally and please don’t take it as evidence of a political position on that subject, because it isn’t.

minTphresh

antinous, is there anything that can be done about a certain commenter who ADMITS he is a troll, and even admits to being kicked off other comment sites ( S.A.) for trolling! it’s not that he is mean spirited or cruel or anything like that, he is just incredibly annoying. like a gnat or mosquito who just hovers around your ear while u are trying to sleep. or like a bad trainwreck, i don’t wanna read his comments, but there they are, body parts lying akimbo. now, if he had arguments that were ARGUMENTS, that would be something i could respect, but his arguments run along the same lines as his comments, just parroting jeebus memes. i don’t know what it is exactly that i want u to do, other than listen to my bitching and whining, and i don’t necessarily want him given the boot, but i don’t think that im the only one that feels this way. there, im done. peace out, anti!

Secret_Life_of_Plants

The comment box on the Hijab post disappeared. Or maybe it just disappeared for me. When I clicked on submit it logged me out and now there is no comment box there, although I could presumably still comment other places, like here.

arkizzle

flaccid

Xopher

Nelson 1013 (which is copcode for “officer down” and the name of the production company that did The X-Files): the concise listing lets me scan down quickly and see whether there’s anything I want to read. I’m usually interested in either whole topics, or anything by a particular user, so the new content suits me (and the first few words of a comment didn’t really tell me much that was very useful).

Shorter: I’m talking about how easy it is to use, not how much room it takes up.

technogirl

I snarked myself into oblivion – and was helped by the fact the this board discards everything between the angle brackets (which I should have known) ….

My key paragraph should have read

“Well I’m simply not going to do that because as soon as point out even the most obvious example of such a thing {**cough**cough**slashdot**cough**} then this argument devolves from a transfer if ideas concerning moderation and the role of the moderator into a tit for tat of whether a given example lives up to those ideas. So I’m just not going to go there at all.”

Damn you Gods of Snarkiness and your arbitrary ways!

Terry Karney

Oh, yes: Teresa: It bother me, that I can’t keep the order of the ei in your name straight. I tried, again, and again, to rephrase that so I might not have to risk the error.

I even went and opened Making Light so I could look at it, and it still got screwed up.

But I’m glad this failing of mine causes you no great pain.

Re bars: I know some good ones in LA, and a couple in SLO (harder, it being a college town). SF is, of course, replete with them.

So Buttseks, come on out and we’ll set you up.

Takuan

“if Teresa had no one left to disemvowel, I’m sure that she could come up with a few new reasons.”

utter bad faith on your part

utter FAIL

Takuan

(flips him a Mexican double eagle)

Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator

Pduggie @1121, I didn’t delete your comment either, and I offer you my condolences on its loss. I’ve occasionally had that same thing happen to me.

WeightedCompanionCube @1132, Boing Boing is all for privacy. Some commenters voluntarily use their real names, or use long-established online names. All other things being equal, they get a tad more credence because they can’t shed their posting history by switching to another byline.

eustace

IMHO, any poster that acts like a real train wreck sows the seeds of hex* own destruction. The inevitable pwnage will occur in time. They will be “planed”, as Neal Stephenson puts it in Anathem.

* More annoying than “his/her”? Less?

Takuan

really, there’s no need for blasphemy.

jim.cowling

“Jim Cowling (12): Did it ever occur to you, when you were defending the poor oppressed questions against their answer overlords, that the same person wrote both?”

You’ve written it in the form of an FAQ; my tongue-in-cheek summary was likewise written in the form of an FAQ. Or maybe you’ve never before been asked questions like those in your policy, in which case the reason it was styled as an FAQ is a mystery.

I promise that I wrote both the answers and the questions in my response. Y’know, just in case you weren’t sure.

“If it’s true that participating in the conversation when you’re the moderator gives you undue influence, all I can say is that the effect definitely hasn’t kicked in yet. I’m looking foward to it.”

Well, you are the only person who alters or deletes comments in threads in which you’re involved. Some would call that undue influence.

IMHO, moderation works best when it is dispassionate and unbiased. It is a rare person who can moderate that way when involved in a conversation. And when I mean ‘rare’, I mean that theoretically such people exist, but I’ve never met one. I’m sure as hell not one of them, and I’ve been moderating on and off since the pre-Web era.

Better that multiple moderators work as a team, and recuse themselves from discussions in which they become involved. It may not result in truly unbiased moderation, but it gives the illusion of unbiased moderation.

Anyhow, I’m just talking. In the final analysis, we can like it or lump it, and I’m more than happy to like it. I’ve been disemvowelled once, but I don’t post often and I don’t go out of my way to be an ass.

I figure that you’re just an irritable and unpredictable force of nature. Posting to BoingBoing is like living in Tornado Alley. And we like the cheap real estate too much, so we take the risk of the storm coming in.

evilrooster

Guys, Technogirl is clearly feeling dogpiled, if she’s starting to mince definitions on the word “rape”. She’s smarter than that.

Maybe we could all leave it to posterity to determine who was right and who was simply left?

arkizzle

Xopher, It’s your fresh-faced flamboyance, I’m sure.

Phikus

Ok, thanks. Please post back here when / if it ever gets fixed.

Harrkev

absimiliard said “I just want to know how I can make an acceptable personal attack. I’m really not sure how I could pull that off.”

Well, of course you do, you dim-witted ninny. If you weren’t such a jerk, you could pull this off. Remove you cranium from your posterior and see if that helps.

Sorry, couldn’t resist :P

waraw

Takuan@702:

or maybe she was extremely moderate in response and did not answer outrageous insult and provocation in the manner it actually deserves.

No. The comment previous to yours is correct; TNH made a bad situation much worse for all concerned, and rather than address that, heel-digging arms akimbo “NUH-UH!” is what we seem to get in return.

eustace

no, wait, if you’re going to do a Monty Python take do it here!

hagbard

I think I should tell you, Fred, because I am your friend: they might not call you.

Takuan

give it a bit, right now they’ve got the engine out, in a million greasy pieces all over the floor and half the tech crew’s drunk already. You didn’t think a hot-rod site like this was easy to maintain did ya?

arkizzle

Do you own a standard rotary electr-ogham phonostat reader, with extended platter attachment?

Xopher

Isn’t that what I said?

kiint

A. (The moderator speaks solo: “In order for the Boingers to be unduly influenced by who advertises on their site, they’d first have to reliably remember who those advertisers are. Trust me: this is not an issue.”)

Hahahahah!

Jake0748

#106 Joel, sorry to go on about this, I don’t know where else to report it. Any time I look at a post and hit “favorite” nothing gets added to my favorites list (it used to work). Win XP Sp2, latest update of Firefox. Thnx.

cinemajay

#170/Talia, I agree with you 100 percent! I’m all for tossing the riff-raff. But the policy doesn’t define that well enough.

I’d be all for a stone-cold policy that lists the “don’ts” and encourages better behavior. But frankly, each time I read the policy it just doesn’t sit right. It feels totaliarian.

I just want something clear and simple and not in love with it’s own prose–exactly what a policy should be.

I think that’s the best way to curtail the “horror show.”

takeshi

The Boingers have no obligation to their readership, but credibility is a concern for some. I’m not making demands that they ‘fess up to anything. I will continue to respect them if they don’t, because this is a blog, not the New York Times.

Still, it’d be nice to know that they’re not accepting kickbacks from telecoms or wealthy Pastafarians.

Xopher

Technogirl, in case you didn’t pick up on this, Evilrooster is being unfailingly courteous to you, not because she’s unaware of your attempts to be provocative, or even because you deserve it, but because that’s her nature.

Kaiser

#358 in reply to #270 said: “Is this the best you can do? These are junior high school tactics, and you’re just wasting my time.”

Is that now one of the rules? That we don’t waste your precious time? Technogirl had some valid points and kept it civil. You’re not moderating, you’re trying to pick fights with people. Try to stay on topic or respond to something someone said without resorting to “junior high school tactics” yourself.

Xopher

I didn’t see this before, but I’m afraid I agree with WCC in several particulars, as I said in the thread itself. And you’ve now stripped the ickiest of the comments, so that’s good.

But I came here to say that gloating over the probable prison rape of someone, even someone as vile as these two losers, should not be tolerated on BB EVER. I’d like Teresa and the other mods to consider* adding that to the official Moderation Policy.

*only consider. You all can decide whether it’s needed. Just proposing it.

Tom Hale

A combination of- quick tempered, unwilling to give an inch on your opinion, you don’t seem to feel the need to smooth things over after a disagreement – AND energetic and playful. Plus I think I mixed you and FoetusNail together a bit.

My apologies.

Nelson.C

You could conclude the new post with, “Read the old post and its thread before commenting, please”.

tls

Takeshi@424: You see “public taunting”. I see “letting the other commenters see for themselves why the comment was unwelcome.”

(And I’m not sure about the particular software here, but I get the idea that to leave comment numbering in place one must leave the header in place, so “DELETED” wouldn’t be any less “public taunting” by your definition (not mine)).

I’ve left boards that have used this practice, or the similar one of removing posts wholesale (leaving dangling references), because I never knew why things were deleted and it came off as arbitrary and left me mistrusting the mods.

Disemvowelling lets me see why. That, in a nutshell, is why I like the practice. Full disclosure is always preferable to me.

arkizzle

well, it was dark.. and my hands were sticky

joshmillard

where’d ya come from anyway? Ain’t seen you around these parts afore.

Over Metafilter way; I’m “cortex” over there. This whole thing caught my eye on the 30th and I’ve been following it ever since; I’ve found community moderation and policy issues fascinating for a long time now, which is a good part of how I got a job as a moderator over there.

I held off on jumping into the discussion over here for a week and change, waiting for things to settle down a bit in the Violet Blue thread before speaking up on the tenth over there — mostly I’ve been over in the mefi thread, and reading this and that and the various blogospheric flares that have gone up throughout this thing. But I’ve been on vacation the last week, and I’m still getting caught up on things (like the Lessons Learned thread that showed up in the mean time).

minTphresh

right on, buddy! and thanx takuan, i came in 63rd out of 2500, and qualified for the 2nd round! yay!

Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator

HarshLanguage @1127:

Yet that thread and, I will attest, at least one response to an e-mail about it, contains needless vitriol from moderators.

Here in my one hand is a discussion of the truly evil Fred Phelps, in which people are endorsing his freedom to show up at private family funerals with big signs saying GOD HATES FAGS and FAGS DIE GOD LAUGHS.

Here in my other hand is Antinous addressing one commenter as “breeder,” and saying “Thanks for the solidarity.”

It’s funny, but when I’m hefting both of them like this, I just can’t bring myself to believe they’re of comparable weight. I can’t honestly write sentences that assume that worldview.

An underappreciated fact of formal rhetoric is that sometimes the argument ad hominem is appropriate, like when you’re explaining to someone that the reason they think “freedom of speech” is (a.) simple; (b.) an absolute; and (c.) value-neutral, is that they themselves exist in a state of white privilege, male privilege, straight privilege, relatively affluent privilege, first-worlder privilege, et cetera. This condition blocks their view of two things: (a.) the fact that they exist in this state of privilege, while many others do not; and (b.) the fact that all societies contain a small but significant number of people who would behave very badly if they thought they could get away with it, and who are constantly listening for society’s permission to misbehave in some way, or in some context, or with regard to some group of people.

Thus, while the person to whom you’re explaining this may recognize that someone who’s opining that “She wouldn’t have dressed that way if she didn’t want it” or “the bitch had it coming” is expressing a fairly Neanderthal opinion, they don’t perceive it on a gut level as hate speech that perpetuates tolerance for a misogynistic worldview which every year gets women beaten, raped, or killed, and is the lurking threat that backs up the oppression of millions more. They aren’t quick to see a relationship between the media’s initial enthusiasm for the stories told by Susan Smith, Charles Stuart, and Ashley Todd, and other stories about men being lassoed and dragged to their death in Texas. They think it’s possible to have a colorblind discussion of the role of low-income lending in the home mortgage crisis. They don’t automatically decode what Pat Buchanan means when he says there’s a secret cabal in America that’s bent on dragging our nation into wars against its own best interests; and if they can decode it, they don’t feel threatened by it.

There is no such thing as abstract, value-neutral, contextless free speech. Speech has real effects, and takes place in the real world, which is full of inequalities.

One way to view hate speech is that it’s speech whose primary function is not to communicate meaning in any normal fashion, but rather to give its hearers permission to hate and abuse the individuals or communities it identifies, and to regard them as less than fully human. When Fred Phelps says “God hates fags,” he isn’t making a statement about God. He’s saying that gays are inherently evil, they have no rights which you are bound to respect, and you’re allowed to do anything you want to them.

If statements like that aren’t going to directly affect you, it’s easy to say “Fred Phelps’ message is evil and objectionable — but hey, free speech!” However, if you’re gay, you can’t pretend it’s an abstract issue. You know that every time that meme gets pumped out into our culture, and falls on the ears of all those lurking bad guys out there — the ones who’ll be only too happy to go out and smash shop windows, if you’ll just tell them whose to target — it increases the chances that you or someone you care about will be on the receiving end.

There were lurking issues in that thread; for instance, the question of whether some of the commenters were arguing that everyone except Antinous deserves freedom of speech. They protested that he’s a moderator, and wasn’t being perfectly neutral. Malarkey, sez I; I’m not always perfectly neutral, and I don’t generally get reactions like that.

I am inclined to think — and perhaps I’m mistaken, or being uncharitable — that the real issue, lurking further down, was the belief that all speech should be free unless it’s being used to tell the assembled multitude that many of their ideals and principles might easily be mistaken for artifacts of unexamined privilege.

If that qualifies as “vitriol” (do please look up the word), the skin it’s being splashed on is awfully, awfully thin.

=============================

Postscript:

You know that line of Voltaire’s that everyone quotes when they’re arguing about freedom of speech? The one about how he doesn’t agree with a word you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it? He never said that. And if he had, he would have been saying it to some specific person whose writings he knew, rather than making a general statement about his relationship with the world. Voltaire had far too much sense to make it an open-ended offer.

What he did say, and frequently, was Ã©crasez l’infÃ¢me. It deserves to be remembered.

joshmillard

I’m not sure how you mean that. I participated in my first flamewar in ’82.

It’s always trouble trying to just casually pin something down like that. I should know better.

Okay: the net as a consumer product, as something to which John Q. TV-Watcher has relatively unfettered commercial access: about fifteen years old, shooting for a moving average around the beginning of its viability as a public product. Mosaic, the web, an explosion of local ISPs, the shift from the early-adopter X.25, file-transferin’, Genie/Prodigy/CompuServe subscriber prelude into fullblown generic capital-i Internet access for the suddenly (if at first still somewhat cautiously) enraptured general public. Eternal September. The storming of the gates.

It’s hazier and more full of overlaps than being able to pin it down to a switch being flipped form Off to On, I know, but 93 seems like a fair approximate reference point for when the internet really started to be (and be hyped as) a plain old open-to-everyone consumer service rather than anything more esoteric.

Again with the me-and-pithiness-don’t-mix thing, see.

Fnarf

I agree with #28 almost entirely.

I think disemvowelling is incredibly rude in itself; and it’s counterproductive, because I actually WANT to read all the comments, even the stupid and/or mean ones, and reading disemvowelled text is extremely difficult. It’s a bit ironic that I spend more time on the disemvowelled ones than on the supposedly contributory ones.

I also agree that it’s applied EXTREMELY haphazardly, which is absolutely a cardinal sin in moderation. The motivation does feel like it’s applied on emotional grounds. Rather than being “what’s against the rules” it’s more “what pushes Teresa’s oversensitive and seemingly random buttons”.

Stupid comments sometimes serve a valuable function, too, I’ve found. I’ve been moderating things off and on for fifteen years, so I’m not totally ignorant on the subject. I’ve made more than my share of mistakes, including feeding the flame, which is what I think disemvowelling does.

As a result, Boing Boing’s comment threads rarely get off the ground and become a true conversation.

I also think it’s ironic that this erratic yet heavy-handed moderation style is apparently to become the basis of a BOOK on the subject.

Conservationist

Interesting comment from people dedicated to an entirely different style of moderation:

There’s two ways to think about moderation:

1) The liberal-democratic way. Everyone is enabled to do anything, unless it turns out to offend someone, and then we condemn them and blacklist them. We call this reductive logic.

2) The fascist-holistic way. We judge everything for whether or not it is productive to some mission. Therefore, some things are clearly not wanted and others are removed “like deadwood” and not “like punishment/judgment.” We call this goal-oriented, process-based logic.

We are a hybrid of the two. On this forum, as every forum I’ve run or had a hand in running since 1987, we believe in “free speech,” but we recognize this has limits. If you posted a member’s home address, real name, credit history, and penis length, we’d remove that.

Unlike moronic liberal-democratic conservatives, we recognize that free speech has inherent limits. Our goal is to permit all speech that is not destructive, and yet to remove “as in deadwood” and not “as in punishment/judgment” things which fail to meet our uber-goal, which is to glorify the intelligence and Romantic in metal.

Moderation

I think we have to admit that moderators need to be fascists, otherwise the legions of idiots, spammers, pedophiles, jerks, whores, sluts, fools, morons, gov’t agents and crypto-capitalists will submerge us all in their lowest common denominator filth.

anthony

Hey, what happened to my profile’s comment history from the past year? I guess I’ll have to trust what my memory tells me-that they were all clever, on point, and grammatically accurate.

Takuan

this is the guy that demands money from his readers, right?

Secret_Life_of_Plants

Thanks Takuan! I am on my way to the Bohemian Grove Moloch the Owl altar with a few local tots lured into my van with candy. I’ll do literally *anything* to see my boingboing favorites list again!

Jake0748

Meh, I still don’t like it, it makes it more difficult to follow specific conversations. (Like when people quote those they are responding to at the beginning of their comment).

phead

Could you fix my spelling while your at it?

mikelotus

Different pages for categories would be helpful. I can’t read this whole thing, way to time consuming.

Antinous

T,

1) That was mild. You’re so much nicer than me.

2) Great way to get all the trolls to sign up on a single list.

3) I might add:
- F*ck and fuck are the same word. The asterisk does not determine whether the usage is offensive.
- If you really want to write a lengthy dissertation, summarize it and link to your own blog post – as long as it’s on topic.
- An apology goes a long, long, long way toward having your opinion respected by other commenters and readers.
- Making an impassioned argument in a thread on a hot button topic like abortion or gun control is one thing. Having a screaming fit in a thread on steampunk is another. Adjust your volume to the seriousness of the topic.
- Before you denounce another poster, click on their name and look at their comment history. Everybody has a bad day occasionally.
- Nobody’s forcing you to translate disemvoweled comments. There’s not going to be a quiz at the end of the thread.
- Everyone here is not white, young, male and straight. If you’ve never had a serious conversation with someone of a different race, age, gender or orientation, this might be your big chance. Don’t blow it by making offensive cultural assumptions.
- Cory is Canadian. He bears absolutely no responsibility for US policy.

Takuan

a Kafkaesque cascade of dialogue boxes that never quite get to an ending?

m2key

f thr ws sm qstn f vrkll nd qstnble mdrtr bhvr, # 262 cnfrms #263 cmmnts…n spds! thnks fr plng th rls r sbjct t m whms…

Xopher

Orrrrrrrr…maybe because she’s better than me at perceiving what’s going on under the surface.

(In other words, 332 posted while I was writing my last one.)

Avram

Alexander Kjerulf wrote a blog post a couple of years ago that’s been pretty widely linked, called “Top 5 reasons why ‘The Customer Is Always Right’ is wrong”. His point is that a wise business won’t cater to abusive, complaining customers, and has to be willing to write some customers off. Doing otherwise encourages abrasive customers, and makes employees miserable, which makes the employees worse at their jobs, resulting in (among other things) worse customer service.

His points apply to comments at BoingBoing. Think of the readers/commenters as the customers, and the Boingers as the employees. To some extent, commenters can be thought of as employees too (metaphorically speaking — don’t write in asking for a paycheck), if their entertaining comments lead to an environment which attracts more readers and commenters.

Abusive commenters, on the other hand, poison the environment. They demoralize the Boingers, and drive off more reasonable commenters.

Antinous

His grandparents simplified the name when they came through Ellis Island. They didn’t think that anyone could spell Tachthulhuan.

Will

Here’s my real question:

Who here, complaining about the moderation policy, ever thought that Boingboing was anything other than a party to which we were merely guests? A party, indeed, thrown by a group of Believer-reading, Amiga-lusting, West-coast punctuation fetishists? Let me tell you that, while I enjoy reading the posts, I am in no way under the illusion that this is a Hell’s Angels convention. Furthermore, if this were BB the zine, there would be no complaining at all about “moderation policy”; the vast majority of dull comments, like this one, would simply be left out of the letters column, were there ever a column in the first place.

Boingboing, as a pasttime, is only lightly participatory. We as its readers are mostly, justly, relegated to minor roles, our voices unheard, our opinions unconsidered. All these things will be lost in time, like tears, in rain. Time, to die.

Cory Doctorow

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Teresa, for posting that fantastic document. It’s as perfect a description of our aspirations for Boing Boing’s message boards as I can imagine. I’m really glad you took my advice and posted it all to the front door.

Cory

Takuan

just to prevent possible misunderstandings: “.

I’ll add another ” later. Everything in between is a quote. From someone, or somewhere or somewhen.

(I was so sure I put a ” at the very start of all my comments here)

Takuan

no, the Ghost that drops posts,doubles them, creates temporal anomalies and does other inexplicable stuff. Or maybe you said something worth deleting, I don’t know.

mdhatter

Whether it is intended vindictively or just wittily, it still provokes the same response from people who whom it “appears” vindictive.

A pat on the back is a nice thing, but not to someone who has a sunburn. I think you may have a sunburn.

With great power comes great responsibility.

Yes, and this is an internet forum, not the Hague.

I don’t expect anyone associated with BoingBoing or its moderators to come out and admit that they made a mistake, or even that “mistakes were made.”

Yes, you do. Despite several mea culpas throughout this and the other threads, you clearly want a personal apology. Hint: It isn’t coming. Stop being concerned on behalf of others, they can fend for themselves.

If I am to be held responsible for my wit not meeting your standards, then you are responsible for your coming across, by my standards, as a totally self-important prat.

mdhatter

Josh, Moderators here are jerks to the people who aim to disrupt rather than discuss. I find the ‘wrangling’ to be wonderful, and I’ve never seen a BB mod shoot first. (ok, maybe Takuan)

and Josh, your perception of a “Correct Wit” bucket, you “as an outside reader”, and your intro caveat about not being dismissed as a bitter commenter – After this many comments and responses, isn’t it clear to you that you are welcome here? This isn’t some exclusive club. Just beware what you bring into a conversation, if you’re looking too long for dragons, you might end up chasing windmills.

In other words: just jump in head first and swim already. The water’s great and the lifeguards are skilled.

[closes eyes] – MARCO!

Takuan

the entire American media rolled over and played dead for a decade of war atrocities – and people hang around BB criticizing their “journalistic ethics”

willshetterly

NlsnC, y r, f crs, wlcm t thnk y wld hv thght dffrntly thn y thght. Bt whn nthng r lttl rmns f wrd, mny ntrprttns r pssbl. (S th spcltns vr wht vwls wr ntndd n ld Hbrw wrtngs.)

nd prbbly shld hv md ths clr: ‘m fscntd by th lgl nd thcl mplctns f dsmvwlng, bt dn’t lk sng th lw t slv prblms nd hv n ntrst n sng nyn, spclly nt Hppy Mtnts LLC.

Ths s hrd t grsp fr ppl wh dvd th wrld nt fns nd htrs, bt lk Bng Bng nd wht knw f ll th Bngrs. jst thnk thr r fw rs–lk hw thy mdrt nd hw thy crrct th prmtn f rghtwng prpgnd t tw mlln rdrs–tht cld s mprvmnt.

arkizzle

Mmm hmm.

joshmillard

As for the “taunting”, welcome to the internet. People who say truly stupid things get picked on.

But, ideally, not by the folks who are ostensibly in the role of trusted guide and steadying hand.

The position of moderator brings with it a great asymmetry in both social privilege and control over on-site discourse; that should be a powerful disincentive against, not an excuse for, mockery and sniping when dealing with a userbase.

The objection to catty responses from members of the BB mod staff — even emotionally justifiable instances of same — is an important and good one for the health of this place as a community, and it kind of concerns me to see it dismissed.

JFlex

XOPHER -

If that’s the case, that’s good to know! I clearly thought he/she was a mod.

Takuan

what’s wrong with “its”?

takeshi

@ Takuan:

Not bad faith at all. As Sherlock Holmes would say, eliminate the impossible, and whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.

The impossible? That Teresa could go a single week without making some grandiose statement about some idiot not having enough respect for people who question authority following a tragedy for which said authority is a likely culprit. Believe me, I have enjoyed many of her rants, but some of them are infantile and boring.

And besides, what I was saying was exactly this: Teresa already HAS come up with reasons to disemvowel, and, as pointed out here, her decisions are not always circumspect.

Even if it is bad faith, it would seem that plenty of people here have no faith in her abilities as moderator. I do not share that position, but it is my right to do so, and I will admit to having my faith shaken from time to time.

Takuan

http://beerinfood.files.wordpress.com/2007/11/pumpkin-vomit.jpg

Shawn Struck

Even weirder is the idea that companies shouldn’t be criticized because in a market, you should just take your business elsewhere. Free markets thrive on good information. For a market to function, customers need to have good information about which goods are worth buying and which ones should be avoided — that’s why we complain in public, to help companies make better decisions.

Nelson.C

I thought Untitled #1 was the right place for snarky, contentless, little comments?

Takuan

Waraw: no, you are wrong. Period.

Part of my charm is I never let peckerwoods, even in packs, dictate to me. Play here all you want, try it elsewhere and get your pee-pee smacked.

Antinous

pduggie,

You can find Teresa’s e-mail via the policies link at the bottom, but I don’t know who moderated your comments.

eustace

For those of you keeping track of the rules, regulars are allowed to be as off-topic as they please until noticed and disemvowelled.

Takuan

if we tell you, we’ll have to kill you.

Takuan

well, it’s all on their hands now.

Jake0748

re: #18 Dan’s bug report – the same has happened to me. I really miss being able to use the favorites feature. It hasn’t worked for me for a couple months now.

arkizzle

Sounds like state-of-art UK bureaucracy..

See the fabulous documentary Brazil for further updates, (after you have filled in form 27b/6, of course)

Xopher

And it was Cats Unite, not Technogirl, who first compared disemvowelling to rape.

Antinous

Is that now one of the rules? That we don’t waste your precious time?

Which part of paid employment are you unclear on?

minTphresh

nelsonc, tht ws fckn fnny!

Will Shetterly

Nelson, if you only call one side on a sin, you’re being a hypocrite. That may be forgivable in a commenter, but a moderator should not be immoderate. A moderator should damn everyone who’s guilty, or be a “concern troll” and damn no one, or stay out of the discussion entirely, or designate another moderator and only then dive in as Antinuous did at #57, picking a side and belittling people.

If you want to go back to the thread and tell me who said China was innocent, or who said no one should be criticized, I’ll apologize for reading poorly.

sammich

test

Takuan

you still have vinyl? swoon!

arkizzle

Hmm. That doesn’t sound like the Xopher I know. More like unwilling to be told what his opinion should be. Which is something that happens a lot on BB.

Takuan

not my best side

arkizzle

Shutdownery?

Tak made a fairly gentle and humourous suggestion that the posters comment had been covered/suggested already, then continued the joke in progressive comments.

You made a pissy comment about Tak not being allowed to post fun comments in an ‘official’ thread, and I asked had you read the rest of the thread. My asking wasn’t related to Tak’s origianal comment about reading the thread. I was wondering if you had noticed all the other fun/asinine/pedantic/witty comments in the ‘official’ thread and maybe singled Tak out for reasons unknown.

Shutdownery.. pfft.

Takuan

I wonder when they will get tired?

On to more important matters:
I think Buttseks will find many supporters and fans where ever he goes.

Anonymous

Another technical thing: Since late last night, I don’t seem to be receiving a style sheet when I open BB; text is showing up all in my default font, and is just stacked higgledy-piggledy without formatting on the page with the sidebar info all just stacked on the bottom of the page. (Can’t even find the log-in button.)

Takuan

Yay!

AGF

cake? how about dates stuffed with pecans and then rolled in sugar? with cake.

Takuan

but you didn’t say “Simon says”.

Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator

Lewis Haidt, this one’s easy: if you want to talk about VB, take it to the VB thread.

This has nothing to do with Ms. Blue as a person, and everything to do with her as a topic. She’s in the same category as subjects like gun control: if you start talking about her in some otherwise unrelated discussion, and others join in, the argument about her will eat that entire thread.

I’m sorry. I thought that was more obvious than it obviously was.

I do like your theory about ambient awareness between editors and readers. That speaks to my experience far more accurately than people who see the Boingers as a vast, remote, and unsympathetic bunch of celebrities.

Try not to fight with Takuan. He’s a good guy, he’s funny, and he cares about Boing Boing and all those who sail in her. Sometimes he loses his balance — it still bugs him that there are people being wrong on the Internet — but I see so many worse vices every day that I can’t bring myself to think too very badly of it.

…

Waraw, I still don’t see what your problem is.

Josh, you and Antinous have exceeded my understanding of the subject. I’m good at dealing with the words people throw back and forth at each other, but sometimes I need to catch up on the software they use to do it.

…

I think of this place as the furthest strand of the world-circling Boing Boing ocean, where the hulks of wrecked arguments fetch up, and the locals sit around a driftwood fire and discuss the nature of the universe. Sometimes raving albatross-laden mariners drift in on their wrecked ships, and need to be dealt with.

We also get an occasional third son who’s been told by some bamboozling fortune-teller back home that his questions can only be answered by the ancients who sit talking around a fire of wrecked ships on the ocean’s farthest strand. This isn’t true. The first fortune-teller who made up that story just happened to get lucky about us being here, is all.

Alternately, there may be a genuine band of ancients hanging out on one of these sandbars, in which case we’re undercutting their business model.

AGF

Takuan 1183 and Foetusnail 1190

Comments like that are why I come back here and just read what’s going on.

arkizzle

Oh no.. you mean I touched the ‘relic’ of an ancient one??

Ugh. sticky icky.. (and tentacly)

AGF

I missed the pie.

Antinous

That’s because you think that it’s punitive. But it isn’t. If someone interjects a topic that’s going to turn the thread into a battleground, I stop it before it happens. It has nothing to do with anyone’s opinion of PE Obama. Trust me. I really don’t care what you think about him.

arkizzle

flagellate

ZoopyFunk

I concur with JJasper. My login capabilities have been severely disrupted since the new login code was added. In addition to what JJasper added, Sometimes I can’t see my previous posts. Other times, I can see *some* of them.

Vista 64, FF 3.0.9

Antinous / Moderator

I submitted a test comment and it worked. Log out/log in, clear your cache, clear your cookies….and if it still doesn’t work, what’s your OS and browser?

arkizzle

Get a comfy chair and a view.

pendraphen

#12 — I was more or less thinking the same thing. I’m glad it’s not just me.

It would be interesting to see if it would be possible to have a rude comment made EVEN RUDER by having it disemvowelled. That would take some dedication (or an Enigma machine) to pull off.

tls

You know what I keep seeing? I keep seeing this:

“Waah! It’s not fair that when I’m snarky, insulting, or dismissive to you, you respond in kind!”

It’s weird how many of the comments seem to consist of that. It’s like Xerox and the Internet had a love child.

You know what else is weird? Those completely intact remarks I see that fall into the category of “disagreement”. I mean, really, it’s eerie how they seem to show up for me with all their vowels even though, as disagreement, they’ve clearly been disemvoweled by the Evil Moderators.

blueandroid

Nelson C,
Since when does the defense of one’s rights have nothing to do with an article about one’s rights being taken away?

Will an open discussion on that topic have any less useful a conclusion that the current bickering about voting for ralph nader which is happening in that thread?

Nelson.C

#674: Will this be on the exam?

arkizzle

Couple thousand in storage. I miss them so.

Talia

I have to disagree with stupid comments serving a purpose. More often than not, they tend to just lead to a flame war.

GregLondon

Wikipedia allows edits to be completely deleted. It’s called oversight privilege. It is a tool that grants absolute power and folks have complained often that it gets abused regularly. Because it deletes the history of original edit, as well as removing any record that a deletion occurred, it is quite a powerful tool and quite a potential for sweeping ugly things under a carpet, never to be seen again by the public eye.

Disemvoweling leaves a record of the comment. It takes the vowels out of it so that profanity and swearing is reduced to something slightly more tolerable. It allows the public as a whole to reconstruct the original comment if they wish, which means the disemvowelment is performed without hiding the fact that it was done.

Since blogs don’t have edit histories like wiki’s do, deleting a post in it’s entirety would be equivalent to the wikipedia oversight privilege. No edit history would exist anywhere to show the original comment or to show that it was deleted.

For those who’ve been around the web a few times, it becomes fairly clear that the potential for abuse for total deletion of comments is greater than the potential for abuse for disemvowelment.

All this business about heads on pikes is just silly emotive arguments. You want moderators to have oversight powers because it looks cleaner at the same time others are bemoaning how much moderators abuse a smaller power like disemvoweling? Mutually exclusive requirements like that can never be satisfied.

Seeing the remnants of a post allows folks to see what was there before disemvowelment occured if they are so inclined. The alternative is to delete teh entire post and leave it to the moderator to oversight themselves. At which point, folks will be complaining about oversight abuse.

No, your choices come down to (1) disemvowlement or (2) total deletion. If you want moderators to be forced to leave a history of their actions, then you want (1). If you want moderators to have complete wikipedia-like oversight powers, then you want (2).

If you compare disemvoweled posts to heads on pikes, then you’re making emotive pleas and I don’t know what to tell you, other than “cut it out”. As for arguments about moderators using and abusing and asserting their power, then you have to look at all the effects of power for both deleting and disemvoweling. Deleting has more potential for abuse than disemvoweling. Deleting has more potential for “sweeping under the carpet” than disemvoweling. Deleting has more potential for “trust us, this was a naughty post” than disemvoweling.

If abuse of power is your concern, then deleting has far more potential for abuse than disemvoweling. Disemvoweling leaves a public record. Deletion does not.

Tom Hale

@ Anon, My original username on this account was/is Trvth – I asked Antinous to change my name to my real name, Tom Hale. But I still have to log in with my actual username, Trvth. When I was unable to log in last night, I created another account with my name as the log in.

Nelson.C

BlueAndroid & Lewis Haidt: I’m speaking as just another internet schlub, but to me the first few sentences of a post are an introduction. If the introduction isn’t… if I say “respectful”, you’ll understand that I don’t mean “formal” or “deferent”? If it isn’t respectful of social norms then it makes me disinclined to pay much more attention to you. When I’m in a good mood. If I’m in a bad mood, then it looks like you want to start a fight. The latter reaction isn’t good for public discourse.

Lewis Haidt, you called a presidential candidate a provocative name. Yes, I understand that it’s his middle name, but it isn’t the usual practice to call people by their middle name, so the only reasonable assumption is that you chose to use it for the associations it brings. Don’t play the innocent. It was out-and-out rude.

BlueAndroid, the Soviets used to have a joke that went like this: When three people sit down to discuss revolution, two are secret police and the third is a fool. If you want to discuss armed insurrection in a public place, you should expect that most people won’t want to engage you in conversation. And you should be likewise suspicious yourself of those who do.

Tdawwg

So now questioning the provenance and appropriateness of a post, in that post’s thread, is “off-topic”? Really? By what criteria?

Thanks for the censorship…. Let us know if there are critical ways of addressing guestbloggers that aren’t “unpleasant” (!?!).

Feedback is often unpleasant. That’s how we grow and learn. If Rucker gets X amount of negative feedback on the latest output from his progeny, then perhaps that’s valid information re: his blogging? Why type those comments as always already snark, nasty, personal, etc.?

If you want guestblogging to be a pleasure, maybe curate the output of the guestbloggers a bit more? Or maybe just come out and say “always be nice to the guestbloggers, you mean commenters, you”?

This kind of censorship is a bigger insult to the guestbloggers than almost any insult your commenters (the other, more frequent, and more numerous “guestbloggers”) could ever dream up….

Antinous / Moderator

Tdawwg, O worshiper of critique and feedback,

The link to your website is where?

Takuan

no ya didn’t!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwirWWnzJKM

presyncope

Yeah, i dun nao.

eustace

…actually, an off-topic disemvowellment can be hard to accomplish, I only have one to my discredit.

absimiliard

*laughs*

Damn Harrkev. Totally PWNED me.

Thos’re some l33t flaming skillz!

I don’t think I’m up to playing in such skilled company. Guess I’ll just have to stick to swearing.

Ooops, let me correct that sentence.

Sht, gss ‘ll jst hve t fckng stck t fcked-p swrng.

(boy, I am out of practice, 20 years ago that would’ve just rolled off my tongue, AND it would’ve parsed more naturally as well too, AND I wouldn’t have felt compelled to disemvowell it as well. Hrmmphhhh. I hate getting old, and civilized.)

-abs

Jake0748

#106 Joel, sorry again, just tried to favorite this in Internet Exploder 7, doesn’t work there either. My favorites list hasn’t updated for several months now. OK, I’ll shut up about this now.

Jamie Sue

“#18 posted by Dan Wineman , March 27, 2008 11:30 AM
First — thanks very much for taking the time to make this post, Teresa. It’s great to have some light shed.

Now, I have a suggestion or two that could make the BoingBoing discussion experience a bit smoother. These are really minor changes, but I think they’ll help:

1. Could we have the “Recent comments” view on the profile pages sorted most recent first? It’s a drag to have to scroll down to the bottom when catching up with recent discussions, not to mention having to see one’s first-ever comment displayed with permanent prominence.

2. Along those lines, how about a way to indicate which post we’re replying to? I’m not asking for a full threading system, just a “Reply to this” link that prepends a link back to the comment being replied to. This could even be used to trigger an email notification so that (at our option) we could be informed of replies to our own comments. A lot to ask, I know.

3. This is just a bug report, really, but the Favorite feature seems broken. It used to work, but now nothing I favorite ever gets added to the list on my profile page.

Thanks again.”

reposting as a YES! vote to these three suggestions.

Takuan

http://www.cristiancontini.it/images/bladerunner02.jpg

SherryArt

I got a message that a normal post on the T.C. Boyle story was not uploaded because I had posted too many comments lately. What does that mean? I don’t post very often.

Sherry Miller

Takuan

let’s not jump to any conclusions here

Nelson.C

The “three words you can’t say” link is just pointing to Teresa’s profile page. Should it be pointing to something more specific? (Or are the three words “Teresa Nielsen Hayden”?)

caqlarrr

Thanks , thats great rules.

Xopher

Tom 1368: But I don’t think anyone who worships Zeus owns a computer, so those are probably OK.

What IS it with you and unwarranted assumptions? I happen to know a Zeus worshipper, and he certainly does own a computer. And why is it OK to insult the religions of people who are not present? Any religion that exists could have an adherent listening at any time, so unless you’re certain the religion is absolutely stone dead, or you don’t care if you insult them (the alleged baby-burning worshippers of Tanit from ancient Carthage, for example), you need to step carefully.

Which is pretty ridiculous, if you come to think of it.

I had no idea – last thing I want is to get into an argument with an adjunct moderator.

Are you really pulling the “some posters have special privileges” argument out of the dusty attic? Please. The only thing I’ve done differently since I became an adjunct was to tell someone that we don’t do sigs here. I’ve always “dropped an eyeball” on posts I thought were, um, in need of moderator attention. I’ve always explained things about the culture of BB to newbs, since shortly after I stopped being one myself. Those things are what led to my becoming an adjunct, not a result of it.

Takuan

sigh, well, one day.

arkizzle

*cough*

Did I just insert myself into your conversation? How rude! Sorry! :)

scottfree

#21

LOL. The good lord of computers saw fit not to bless me with working h g or ‘ keys. I feel a bit guilty whenever I post. Any chance of an automatic contraction maker function?

phlavor

@106

Something is broken somewhere. November 29, 2007 is my last “latest comment” in my profile (I tend to comment 3-4 times a week)and none of my Favorites have shown there since late January.

Up-to-date Firefox on both XP and OS X

Evil Jim

Hmm. Either comment posting is slow or my comment was deleted. There must be a 1337 filter.

Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator

Continuing to answer and respond:

Nathn @310: I think you dislike the idea in theory. In practice, one or two inconsiderate commenters can wreck or stall a conversation for everyone else. Where’s the freedom of speech then?

If the only important aspect of free speech is that you can say exactly what you want, then you don’t have to come to a site frequented by other people to do it. You could speak your mind on your own website, or for that matter on a street corner: mission accomplished.

The fact that people come here, or go to any other inhabited forum, demonstrates that there’s more to free speech than individuals speaking their minds. It’s just as important to be heard, be replied to, and respond in turn. That kind of speech is a cooperative social venture; and just like any other cooperative social venture, it needs ways of dealing with people who want its benefits but don’t want to have to cooperate.

Anyone’s free to disagree with that view. If they think the cooperative aspect of speech is of no importance compared to being able to say exactly what they want to say, in their preferred manner and style, in any and all circumstances, then they literally don’t need to come here to do it. What they want to do, they can do anywhere.

But if what you want is interactive speech with other people, then you’re back in the world where people take turns and say please and thank you. There’s nothing hypocritical about it. It’s just the way things work.

Takuan

and this is your sole experience?

CS Loser

AVRAM, I am familiar with common carrier law, and AT&T is certainly a common carrier in terms of their telephone service. Whether common carrier law applies to internet service is unclear, and many ISPs are actually arguing that they are not — for example, Comcast would have been flagrantly violating common carrier law by disrupting bittorrent, but they claim it is within their rights to do so.

Takuan

and in exchange for that, I grant you a clue
“If a man find no prudent companion who walks with him, is wise, and lives soberly, let him walk alone, like a king who has left his conquered country behind,–like an elephant in the forest.

It is better to live alone, there is no companionship with a fool; let a man walk alone, let him commit no sin, with few wishes, like an elephant in the forest.”

evilrooster

Technogirl @292 & 294:

Ah, that example. Very well; we will not discuss it, neither its strengths nor its weaknesses.

I was merely hoping for some new world to explore.

The requirements to be a moderator should be much like those for a politician, if you really love the job then you are probably ill suited for it.

I think it depends which part of the job you love. If you don’t love the interpersonal interaction, untangling the threads of the discussion, finding and teasing apart the quarrels before they explode, then you should probably not be a moderator. If you love the power then no, maybe get an ant farm instead.

My Gods of Snarkiness mean that I have to go through three or four error messages before posting. I think we both need to make more puns.

Sister Y

Westworld?

Takuan

hey! I only shoot ‘em on the wing, never a setter!

minTphresh

boo, hoo. i so sorry, but i let u all down. it appears that pie is not on the agenda today folks. yes, ol min-T came in 200ish and NOT in the moolah. ah, well. try, try again next week!

ScruffyNerfHerder

Just an FYI, I’ve been getting repeat RSS feeds from you starting at 6:20 PM yesterday. It might be a problem on my end.

arkizzle

@1457

their?

MarlboroTestMonkey7

Overvowelling would be swell as well.

Will Shetterly

Hmm. The heavy hand of the moderators strikes again: For suggesting that Xeni should put a correction on the front page, I was disemvowelled. It smells unethical to me: Print the lie on the front page, then print the correction somewhere in the back pages.

Antinous

Will,

You’re on a time-out. You may contact Teresa tomorrow to discuss it.

eustace

Alas – when my profile was first established, and it asked me for a pic, I directed it toward the only jpeg on my hard drive that I knew would meet “profile pic” standards of low res and small size. My old Count Fragula pic from long ago days of Unreal Tournament CTF 1/2 Extreme Overkill server pwnage. If I had known that this would be my permanent identifier, I might have chosen differently. Sigh.

Berix

Fr wht t s wrth, dsgr wth yr mdrtn plcy, bth n prncpl nd n th wy th prncpl ws ppld n my cs:

s prncpl, wld prfr nt hvng ny cntnt cnsrng f cmmnts. Jst s thy sy n crt drms, ts bttr t lt 10 glty ppl ff thn t pnsh n nncnt. Ys, knw, t s sy fr m t sy tht. ftr ll, m n f th nncnt. *kttn ys*

n th prtclr cs whr my cmmnts wr cnsrd, th tln f th vnts wr s fllws:

1. bngr psts lnk t n rtcl tht h lks. Mks ptntly wrng sttmnt/llstrtv pnt bt th rtcl’s cntnt.

2. mk cmmnt bt th cntnt f th pst. Th blk s bt th mn ssrtn f th pst, nd n pssng pnt t th ncrrct rsnng f th ‘qt’ nd mk fw mldly btng rmrks bt th ppl wh mk sch mstks.

Nw pls tk my wrd tht th mstk n qstn s f sch ndltrtd prty tht mrly pntng t t n plt cmpny cld n gt kckd frm Mrn Crps fr grtts crlty. t s mpssbl t cmmnt ncly bt t.

Thn gn, ddn’t try. f bngr gvs y mtrl gd ngh fr Mnty Pythn sktch, hw cn y lt t g? Why wld y lt t g? T sv hs flngs? Pls. H s n f th strs f th Blgsphr’s frmmnt. H hs cp. H hs cmd n XKCD strps. Twc.

ll f ths, pprntly, s nt ngh t pps th nrtrng nstncts f mdrtrs. Wth ll th frcty f hn dfndng hr cltch gnst prsmpts hyn, ws pckd t dsmbwld mptnc.

f y thnk bngr s s snstv tht h nds prtctn frm fw brbs, d nt stp t cnsrng cmmnts. G nd gv hm TLC & chckn sp.

Th shrt vrsn f ths s ths: sccssfl blggrs r, fr bttr r wrs, pblc fgrs. Jst lk pltcns, thy nd t py th prc f bng tlrnt f crtcsm f thr wrds nd ds, hwvr ncnvnntly phrsd.

eiconoclast

Personally, I find the moderation to be arbitrary and annoying. Disemvoweling is basically defacing a comment and isn’t conducive to civil discourse. If someone posts something and gets disemvoweled, they are likely to be upset rather than curious as to why. The posted policy is pretty subjective, leaving a lot of uncertainty as to what will get moderated.

I spent about twenty minutes looking through the comments the other day and easily found a number of hateful, rude, and downright insulting comments with no redeeming value that had not been moderated. Boing Boing tolerates quite a lot of vicious hatred for certain groups, apparently.

Antinous

It’s like Xerox and the Internet had a love child.

Not so much ‘love child’ as the ghastly spawn of incestuous violence.

arkizzle

That’s not what you said last time! (boom boom!)

eustace

Azimos -when you say “It comes as no surprise that the mods find the people they disagree with to be insufficiently witty” it is clear that you have mistaken my meaning. It isn’t the mods missing the wit.

Takuan

that’s OK minT, I’m just grateful you didn’t lose me again. (still kinda sore)

arkizzle

Enki,

It could be that for your very first post on BB, you came in swinging about how bad a thing is.

Bonus point however, for not telling BB to take the post down or questioning the BBer’s motives in posting.

/Possibility

Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Community Manager

Anchower @1332, a city may have free speech with regard to opinions, while still regulating the style of its expression.

I assume you know the line about free speech not including the right to yell “Fire!” in a crowded theatre. (Yes, I know the context of the original remark was problematical. That’s not the point.)

Freedom of speech likewise doesn’t give you the right to play the saxophone at top volume in a crowded elevator, or to sit in the front row at a music recital making loud remarks about how lame the performances are and how badly you’re bored. It doesn’t mean that you can go to a public lecture on new finds in Amazon Basin archaeology, grab the mike during the Q&A session, and deliver a twenty-minute speech about Ron Paul. It doesn’t cover the right of you and eight of your friends to go to a movie theatre that’s showing a hit film, stake out the center section of two or three rows of seats, and spend the entire movie chatting loudly, making phone calls, and throwing popcorn at each other. It doesn’t entitle you to mount wheels and loudspeakers on a billboard advertising your plumbing business and slowly tow it back and forth through your local parks every weekend. And it doesn’t protect your right to barge in and disrupt a wedding ceremony with loud comments about how the marriage is obviously doomed and the bride looks pregnant.

Thing is, you can still play the saxophone, express your dislike of amateur recitals or your support for Ron Paul, chat with your friends, make phone calls, advertise your plumbing business, and harbor doubts about the long-term prospects of your ex-wife’s second marriage. What you can’t do is sabotage your fellow citizens’ communications, or force them to listen to your opinions when they’ve gathered for some other purpose which you’re disrupting.

Here’s another analogy: free speech means you’re free to publish your opinions. It doesn’t mean that People, Vanity Fair, the Daily News, or the New England Journal of Medicine are obliged to publish them.

Are you getting my drift? In its early years, the internet was a wide-open frontier. Too many people got the idea that freedom of expression includes the right to make it impossible for others to express themselves — or, all too often, to have a good conversation.

They are mistaken.

That’s not the end of the matter. There’s also the issue of public vs. private space. You said:

…it’s too much like a city smugly saying that it’ll only allow its own speech (or its own speech plus what other speech it likes) in public spaces, but don’t worry, you’re free to say whatever you want in your own home.

You’ve got it exactly backward. Boing Boing’s moderation guidelines assert the Boingers’ right to choose what kind of conversation they’ll allow in their own home. Boing Boing is an extremely generous and hospitable private space.

Every so often, when I’ve had it up to here with people complaining about moderation, I point out that if they want a moderation-free venue, Usenet is still there. They say ick, no, impossible — there’s so much crap on Usenet these days that it’s unusable. And I say, “Exactly.”

Takuan

haphazard? Nope. I’ve been watching. Almost unnatural consistency. Have you been reading a different site?

ridl

I’ve been away from bb for a few months (reddit is very absorbing), and the first thing I did after scanning through the front page and making fun of Microsoft was catch up on this thread. Not sure if that says more about this community or my particular mutations, but it did remind me how much I like the folks around here. Cheers.

wurp

OK, I’m going to assume this is the moderation thread. Someone really ought to think about putting a link to it on all the BB comment pages.

Here’s my comment, re-emvowelled:
< <
This comment system is for the birds. You guys should really try t pull in a /. or even (shudder) digg style comment engine to avoid having moderators throwing their weight around all the time.

Yes, I'm aware this comment belongs in the moderation thread, but I don't see any way to find the moderation thread.
>>

By the way, putting <
~~:-(~~

Antinous / Moderator

Washington State made sex with a horse illegal. In 2006.

There’s a reason for that. I’ve seen the video. “Too deep?”

arkizzle

Ant,

Damage Done: “This article is about the city of Enumclaw. For the so-called “Enumclaw horse sex case”, see Kenneth Pinyan.“

Takuan

Hello! Welcome to the Moderation Thread. Please take the time to visit the top of the thread and read the posted policy statement. Your visit is important to us and a representative will be with you as soon as possible (tall and tan, da da da da )

Tom Hale

Antinous, I will paypal you $100.00 if you make it so we can edit our posts.

The spam word has to be Guarantee.

Lis Riba

I’m only about halfway thru the comments, but I’m disturbed by the number of people who refer to TNH as “Miss Hayden”

I’m curious. Anybody care to explain why you chose to make such assumptions about TNH’s marital status.

And if you didn’t know and didn’t care to find out, isn’t “Ms.” the more appropriate honorific under the circumstances?

Takuan

is still OK for me to DO things to them?

Tdawwg

A few posts I’ve made referencing copyfight (bleargh) got summarily deleted with no explanation? If you don’t want posters to jibe at BB’s sacred cows, maybe you’d better say so, ’cause passive-aggressive deleting of said jibes would be major teh suck.

Has BB jumped the Leopards-in-the-Temple shark?

joshmillard

and this is your sole experience?

Sole? No. I’ve been an occasional reader for a long time; Metafilter and BoingBoing travel in somewhat overlapping circles, though with more of a generalist, user-driven bent on the mefi side.

I didn’t follow comment threads back before the hiatus, and I’ve only read them now and then since they returned (though there was a discussion of this thread on mefi at the time), but, at that, the Violet Blue thread stood out to me as an unusual beast in terms of its size. Threads with 500+ comments aren’t a daily occurrence on mefi, but I gather they’re a bit more common there than here.

And there’s a whole internal policy/discussion/metacommentary subsite over on mefi, Metatalk, where users raise issues about moderation, user behavior, site etiquette, etc. as they see fit — so it’s been interesting to me to see the differences in how an issue like the Violet Blue issue this has unfolded over here (contained, essentially, to that thread itself and only once it was made available by Teresa, and some offshoot discussion here) vs. how such a thing might unfold there.

Xopher

“So now…censorship…feedback…censorship…”

Can’t hear what you’re saying past the words you use. Not censorship, just moderation policy. Try again without using the word ‘censorship’.

minTphresh

foet, yes i am, and yes, i know, and bully for it! bush was just a lil older, and look where that got us! and tom, when you mix foetusnail and xopher together, and add vodka…i think that’s called a “drunken angry red-headed bar slut having sex with frat boys on the beach”, or something like that. and yes, arkizzle, that was INCREDIBLY rude. i like that in you.

Takuan

glad Teresa knows what is important

Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator

Takuan, thank you for posting the link. I may not agree with what Will has posted on his site, but this way more people who’ve seen the exchanges here will be able to see his response.

minTphresh

that and the accent.

shadowfirebird

I’d like to complain than on this thread comments are being disemvoweled that are rational, polite, and on-topic.

As far as I can see they are being disemvowelled only for their political opinion.

It isn’t my political opinion — in fact as far as I can work out I disagree with them — but that is, obviously, not the point.

Examples: #1 (no more sarcastic and pointless than many unmoderated comments); #5 (rational polite criticism of Obama, as far as I can see)

Antinous

shadowfirebird,

Sorry to take so long to respond.

One comment was dv’ed because a disgruntled commenter tried to drag the subject of this thread into the discussion since he failed to win his argument there.

Another comment was dv’ed because she tried to inject the Second Amendment into the discussion, which she has tried before. Dragging controversial subjects into unrelated threads in explicitly mentioned in the Mod Policy.

The rest were dv’ed for attempting to turn the discussion away from Guantanamo and onto moderation. Forgive me if I don’t shed any tears for commenters who are more outraged about losing their vowels than about real people being disappeared and tortured.

None of the comments were dv’ed because they were critical of PE Obama. They were all off-topic.

igpajo

I’ve moderated forums before and we always tried our hardest to maintain a hands off, anything goes kind of an atmosphere. No editing of posts, no deletion of posts. It definitely got heated and things quite often went off topic, but that’s the we liked it. Free speech ruled in the end. We had the occasional troll and a fair share of assholes, but in the end they always went away. So I tend to not be a fan of any moderation policy that alters or deletes a users words.
But I also know what a bit of work it is to moderate a forum like this and this is your place, you make the rules.

I’d like to add that everyone needs to be alerted to changes in the moderation policy. When I read it, there was nothing in there about the presidential candidates rule. It’s better to be told what the rules are before we break them instead of finding out after the fact. Perhaps a quick post once a week if something’s been altered or added to the rules would do.

Tom Hale

dot com

Takuan

sorry,just caught that; 6’5″ right?

Orbus

I had thought that the ‘Disemvoweling’ (Wow – That’s an amazingly passive-agressive term…) was just a poster trying to be clever and draw attention to themselves. After reading elsewhere about some possibly questionable editorial decisions (Vague enough to avoid outright deletion?), I found out that it’s actually an editorial device. Is it possible to make this tampering a little more obviously editorial to the casual observer, or do you intend to continue to pass your mutilation off as the original content to everybody who dosen’t venture into the unused lavatory in the basement… etc. to find the disclaimer?

Trvth

I’ll reread the moderation policy -does it describe what astroturfing is? I know I make comments in political threads that are against the vast majority – I’m Republican. Until my last Palin comment – I thought ALL republican comments were removed. I’ll TRY to make sure my comments stay within the rules from now on.

Antinous

Astroturfing is (possibly paid) political propagandizing. It’s quite common on certain subjects. Some businesses and even countries scour the web for references and have their meat-drones blast comment threads with comments supporting them. You might check out the immortal hamburger thread and notice an unusual number of first-time commenters supporting the company in question. Unfortunately, one of the campaigns publicly tried to recruit astroturfers, which was widely reported. Of course, all of the candidates may be doing it, but only one got caught.

I don’t consider you an astroturfer. You do have a habit of picking fights. It is quite possible to voice an utterly contrarian opinion without trolling.

blueandroid

And Nelson C, perhaps if you could read the whole comment you could actually form an opinion based on its content instead of the one line you bothered to decipher.

arkizzle

Antinous got a mod badge!!!!!!!

I’m late to the party on that, I’ve had my head down, working.

However, it’s very becoming, Antinous. Makes you look a little taller and squares off your shoulders.

Antinous / Moderator

It helps that I’m the only one who knows how to change a display name. Well, me and Xeni Hussein.

Rob Beschizza

The spam link *was* removed. You really don’t have to be so passive-aggressive, my man. You just have to shift-refresh.

The “ineffable” reason for leaving the comment up is detailed in your own: because it is “an interesting, thoughtful and apparently relevant comment.”

V(irtual)D(espot)

I find most of Takuan’s iterations to be “snarky and unilluminating” but, alas, overposting does not seem to fall under the scope of the new policy. Please consider the issue in future versions.

Takuan

we should add some tools to the kit:
http://www.barbneal.com/wav/uncat/silence.wav

Takuan

(and that was ichor by the way)

Takuan

what is your intent?

wurp

#1089, Antinous:
You’re misunderstanding my point. My point is not “woe is me, I was treated unfairly, someone swoop in and save me from heavyhanded moderators”.

My point is, that the moderators have to do what they do, or some very near approximation of it, to make this system sort-of work. But there are other systems that work much better, and don’t require moderators.

The party the BoingBoingers are throwing can be nicer. Is it wrong to ask why there’s no movement to make it so?

Comments are nice, but I wouldn’t say they’ve “graciously opened it to comments”. They decided it would be better with comments. I agree. They decided it would be even better with moderators. I agree. Even if I were to decide that I can’t tolerate the moderation policies, I can just not read comments and it’s still better for the people who enjoy it.

However, it could be much better still. Go hang out on slashdot for a while. Even with the tens of thousands of posters (at least) and their crappy ad-hoc system of community moderation, it’s far better than the single threaded three levels of moderation (unmoderated, disemvowelled, removed) that we see here.

The other thing that confuses the heck out of me is the community here. This seems very much an anti-hierarchy kind of place. However, the moderators fawn over the posters, some commenters fawn over the moderators (hi, Takuan!), and some commenters fawn over other commenters.

I like most of the posters just fine. But they’re just people. Some of them are very funny, interesting and clever people, but anyone can be wrong. Pretending otherwise is a disservice to them and to yourself.

WeightedCompanionCube

OK, I’m pissed off at the moderation around here.

Why was ONE person banned for a week for arguing on the BART shooting story? There are lots of people on thread saying inflammatory things. Hell, if that’s cause for banning, some of the most active users here would have been gone a long time ago.

I guess it depends on who agrees with you and who doesn’t. I can only assume what he said hit a nerve with Antinous.

I guess that’s why so many people get away with half-cocked, inane comments. But if someone is spot-on with their criticism of the story or another comment, and they aren’t toeing the party line, they are gone, often with a ban.

I don’t know the guy, and I don’t care, aside from that I take it the “assistant moderators” have the banhammer, yet TNH is the only one who reviews supposed abuses of the system.

One person can only do so much, so I’m guessing a lot slips through the cracks. Talk about weapons in the wrong hands.

Imagine if you had the full legal right in the real world to hurt or erase people because you didn’t like their attitude…. oh, wait, isn’t that what so many people here think cops are out to do?

So many people here are biased against authority… so tell us why we shouldn’t think the authority here is biased and blindly protective of itself?

Antinous

Cube,

It’s because he has a (self-confessed) penchant for trolling and has been suspended on several occasions for it.

Tom Hale

Arkie, I may not have said it right – sometimes I don’t not write no good. I’m working on it – I have to constantly ask my wife for proper grammar and spelling corrections.

I constantly have to rewrite sentences to attempt to not sound like a moron. And still I fail every now and then. <-see! that sentence totally sucked.

Man, I wish I could write. Most of you seem to do it so effortlessly.

Tom Hale

cheapest

Takuan

http://shetterly.wordpress.com/2008/07/10/moderators-who-mock-and-a-proposal/#comment-15412

SamSam

Not sure if this is the place to put it, but there is a piece of spam in the Nabokov post that seems to expose a very bad bug in the html rendering of the comment system.

There is a link to the spammy website, but the guy internally closed the a href tag. In html, his comment looks like this:

`p’ `a href=”spammywebsite” /’ Proenrichment `/p’

(angled brackets replaced by single quotes)

This had the effect, at least on FF 3.5.3 on OSX 10.5, of making the whole comment submission box a link that brought you to his spammy website.

Not only is this a pain because it’s impossible to comment, it’s a huge security risk because it allows spammers or virus writers to insert links into BB that are much more likely for people to inadvertently click on links without realizing it, and without the opportunity of checking that the link they are clicking on actually goes to lotsofspyware.com…

Antinous / Moderator

I got rid of the spam and notified our tech crew.

Tom Hale

free

Takuan

some of us are swimmers, some are divers, some are marine life – but the sea is always the same.

hyperkine

“Q. All the vowels have disappeared from a paragraph I wrote! What’s going on?

A. We did it. Someone (a moderator, one of the Boingers) was expressing displeasure at your remarks. The technique is called disemvowelling. It deprecates but does not delete the remark. With work, the disemvowelled text should still be readable. ”

The above is very, very stupid.

Xopher

404: So, you’re going to talk and not listen. I sure wish there were an Ignore button on those profiles, so I wouldn’t have to manually scroll past any posts with your name on them, on any topic.

Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator

Continuing to respond:

Buttseks @312: Mugwump!

Sparkzilla @316: I decline the gambit. No matter what I say or how I explain it, you’ll deny that it was relevant or sufficient, or you’ll say that I’m lying, or you’ll say I took the actions I did for some other discreditable reason. That interaction will only bring us back to where where we are now. I don’t see the point.

Technogirl @317 and elsewhere, what you’re saying is that you feel I’ve become too prominent, and you hate that and want me to go away. That’s why your exchanges with other commenters here keep reverting to being about me. When they invite you to discuss moderation concepts, you don’t take them up on it.

I’m not going to go away. I don’t care about prominence; that’s your obsession. What I care about is conversations. We’ll have them with or without you.

I figure the reason you don’t care about your name is that the Technogirl persona is essentially a sockpuppet. Entities that intend to be people care about who they are and what they’re named.

Nathn @321, if you and Takeshi think Boing Boing has “jumped the shark” (a dubious concept, since we’re not a sitcom running out of plots), why are you here arguing about it at length?

mdhatter

Takuan isn’t a mod, as far as I know. Neither am I.

If anyone is looking for answers from the mods, the trend seems to be that asking them a question without simultaneously insulting them stands a much better chance of a respons. I mean you Waraw.

Xopher

Does anyone know what Echonomist meant by “baseless accusations of pedophilia and retardation” being condoned, or what Zoopyfunk is talking about with the vagina-ripping power tools? Those sound like things that I, for one, would object to.

Antinous, did that really happen? Are they in prison for depraved-indifference murder, or doesn’t Washington have such a law?

Antinous / Moderator

A) Takuan used the expression ‘hoist on one’s own petard‘. B) Yes, there was a post about someone who used a blade instead of a blank in a Fucksall. C) I’ll have to get back to you on that one.

minTphresh

simian says!

jgriffiths

Or just paged comments, I feel lazy for saying this, but having to press END and then scroll up to the last comment I read is really annoying – it’d be better if I could think.. well I was reading pg6, like in a forum.

Ignore me if this isn’t possible on the software cus then it’s totally not your fault/problem!

dculberson

Jeez, moderate quietly and people harp on you for not having a posted moderation policy. Post a moderation policy, and they whine and whinge about you having posted a moderation policy.

Talk about having your point proven for you.

Teresa, thanks for taking your time to post this, and thanks for your ongoing efforts in keeping BB civil.

minTphresh

martyr?

Antinous

HarshLanguage,

We allow lots of people to break the rules all the time. If a good commenter is having an irritable day, we take their comment history into account when deciding what to do. Much of the art of moderating involves separating the angry (which is allowed) from the hateful (which isn’t).

As Teresa has pointed out, she and I seem to fall outside the fence when it comes to freedom of speech. I censor ninety percent of what I might say in the interest of keeping the peace. But sometimes I’m not willing to shut up.

Since I am embroiled in that thread, Teresa is moderating it. You might give us credit for having ethics.

Antinous / Moderator

Yeah, but I work out of the back room, so I see all comments in chronological order and sometimes just reply without checking to see if someone else already has. Especially in a thread that takes 45 minutes to load.

Antinous

Looks like Nelson already answered for me, so – what he said.

FoetusNail,

I hate this page. Just looking at the scroll bar advances it by a hundred comments. It takes forever to load. I would love to have multiple pages.

Takuan

waraw; you’ve made a dozen posts. All bitching about moderation. You may no longer have any of my time until you can demonstrate you are not a self-involved complainer by actually posting something interesting, positive or constructive. I can’t imagine anyone else being interested until then either. Entirely up to you.

Antinous / Moderator

Here’s the response from Brandon:

those are part of the new ‘shorts’ — meant to be quick-posts/tweets/etc. etc., i think they’re just not properly styled enough yet to set them apart and make them not look like mistakes

Takuan

hah! you WEREN’T kidding!! That means the canard was real too? I’m really gonna be pissed if you are kidding now. Naw, … “soulstruck”.. you bastard!

WeightedCompanionCube

So let me get this straight:

Takuan can question someone’s validity for having a scant posting history and an opinion that differs from his…

and I get DVd when I call him on it? Neither one of use were exactly polite, buy why does Takuan get to be just as rude as he pleases?

Is he/she/it BB beloved ‘special needs child’ or something?

hagbard

I think discourse over here is in trouble, and one can’t fully appreciate why it is without reading the MeFi thread, which I did more extensively last night. I would not have been aware of it had you not posted over here. There is a thoroughly yucky heterodyning going on between the two sites, and it fills me with such dismay that I’ve decided to drop out entirely for a while.

I don’t want to walk through this minefield anymore. Josh, as a moderator, you might want to consider the constructive value of indulging the echo-chamber of ill-will you have over there.

Over here, at least, there are people taking different sides.

I’m done with it.

sammich

I was DV’d once… but I did it to myself… can I count it??

skeeto

I found a bug in the commenting system, but I don’t know where to report it. Any ideas?

mikey p

On the three words you can’t say on Boingboing:

I’ve always wondered why the third word, phag, is used almost exclusively of women in the US and almost exclusively of men in the UK and in Australia. (Australia’s last Prime Minister John Howard was famously called a phag in a secretly-recorded phone conversation between two other Australian politicians, for example.)

I’d hoped to find an answer in Bill Bryson’s Mother Tongue, which discusses a lot of the differences between British and US English, but he didn’t mention it. (Another thing I wanted to learn from that book but didn’t: why does ‘not half bad’ mean ‘very bad’ in UK English and ‘not bad at all’ in US English? If anyone knows, please tell me.)

I’m from Australia, and a lot of our usage follows British English. The first time I heard phag used to refer to a woman was in Woody Allen’s Deconstructing Harry. It sounded strange to me: it had simply never occurred to me that you could call a woman a phag. Later I read Inga Muscio’s great book, Phag: A declaration of Independence, and realised it was used differently in US English, and that it tended to be nastier.

I’ve since heard women called phags in Australia, but it’s pretty much always ironic. It’d be like calling a woman a ‘big swinging dick’, or a ‘prick’, or something. That is, you can do it, but it sounds strange to all present, and that strangeness is probably part of the effect the speaker is after.

Anyway, in the context of US usage I can understand why you’d want to ban it on BB. In Australia phag is a Very Rude Word, but it doesn’t invoke male privilege in the way it seems to in the US. It seems, here, to just be another genital-turned-insult, like ‘prick’, or ‘cock’, or ‘dick’, or ‘tit’. It’s stronger than any of those but it’s also used affectionately in a way that ‘dick’, say, isn’t. It’s maybe more like ‘prick’, in that it at least conveys a grudging respect for the force someone’s able to exert, whereas ‘dick’ and ‘tit’ are more often used to convey the sense that someone is of no importance.

(It’s different if the word ‘silly’ comes just before it, though. Or ‘stupid’. Stupid phag is pretty harsh; silly phag can go either way.)

This fellow has an entertaining discussion of how phag is used in British English, if anyone’s interested.

In any case: if anyone has a good idea of the history behind this difference, I’d love to hear it.

Takuan

nope, only rates hr kr. Sppk is a matter of honour.

buddy66

#682 joshmillard,

”I’ve found community moderation and policy issues fascinating for a long time now….”

Then you’re going to love it here; that’s where all the (in)action seems to be. They’ll probably add a new section to the blog soon to reflect those interests.They don’i call it wrangling for nothing.

Get yourself a cot in the bubkhouse.

minTphresh

ooooh, does avram get one too? and the ‘boingers’ should have a nameplate that says ” xeni hussein/boinger”. it’s only fair. and if you ask me, there should be cake as well. i like cake. you’re right arki, it does give him an air of ultimate authority, and the cut is thinning.

arkizzle

Whoa! what’s with the new “recent comments” format? I liked it the old way, where you got snippets of disembodied conversation.. :(

Boo!

Agent 86

I’m so bored ;)

heresiarch514

Technogirl @ 284:

Do not misunderstand me – I absolutely loathe trolls and uncivil behavior. But the more that I think about it the mroe that I feel that the correct manner of dealing with it is silently, behind the scenes and without fanfare and adulation…..Personality must, in my opinion never enter into the moderation process.

Personality will be a part of the moderation process as long as you have human beings doing the moderation. It would be great if we had silent, machine-like moderators, capable of adjudicating objectively on every issue. Thing is, we don’t–we have human beings, who are error-prone and fallible. You know this:

a. The tendency of human beings to abuse their authority (Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? )

So why do you think that the best way to keep humans from abusing their authority and indulging their personality quirks is to keep them in the shadows? When has that ever worked? The lesson I get from reading history is that if you want accountable authority figures, you have to subject them to as much public scrutiny as possible. Which is why, in a weird, roundabout way, this whole thread has been a huge success–people are engaging in a dialogue with their moderator.*

If you have anonymous moderators, it won’t get rid of personality conflicts. All it’ll mean is everyone will be in the dark regarding one half of the conflict. You want a black-box system, which is wonderful in abstract but, practically speaking, impossible. The next best thing is a moderator who we all know and, hopefully, trust. If being a public part of the community breaks that trust, then the community will burn. You seem to take for granted that this will happen. We aren’t so sure.

*Which is not, I note, the same thing as agreeing with their moderator.

Antinous

Avram,

It drives me nuts when somebody with a full shopping cart gets into the express lane. It drives me even more nuts when the clerk lets them get away with it. When the clerk asks them to move, it might piss them off, but it keeps the twenty people behind them happy.

arkizzle

yesyes :)

Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Community Manager

Selective editing? There’s nothing selective about it. The original text remains. Some or all of it may lose its vowels, but the words are still there.

I’m starting to think Echonomist is another one of those guys who claims that moderation is being done wrong, when his actual objection is that it’s being done at all. And can someone tell me why he’s going on about moral police and playing favorites? Is there some reason I’m not aware of that we care about Echonomist’s morals? Because as far as I know, the only thing we care about is his manners.

Takuan, there are plenty of intelligent, interesting, well-behaved people at Metafilter. My only objection is that so many of their less perceptive offspring think the laws of Metafilter are the laws of the universe.

I’m sorry you didn’t get to bottle up the remains for your collection. Let’s make a note of it so we remember in time, and have you build a marzipan replica of it to put on the table at Christmas. Would that help?

Takuan

throwing their weight around? You don’t get out much, do you?

minTphresh

oooooh! i know, ” xeni hussein/blog mistress”!

arkizzle

Tom, I pore over my posts. I’ve said too many stupid things, and been called out on them too many times,that I have to hit ‘preview’ a couple of times at least, even over the most pedestrian of comments.

I sometimes just delete whole posts that I’ve fretted over and walk away from a conversation because I can’t say what I mean clearly enough.

jeblis

The time she invented disemvowelling, it was so she could deal with a flaming leftist.

Did the mod really invent this?

Nelson.C

I think to compare disemvoweling to even pillaging, let alone sexual violence, is overblown hyperbole and as such is bound to attract ridicule. The message is there for anyone who wants to put a little effort into it; no content has been stolen.

Though I am mildly entertained by the mental image of a horde of vikings descending on a comment and carrying away its vowels.

Antinous

Do whatever you want with the sibilants, but keep your paws off the plosives.

arkizzle

Ichor? AH HA!

I was wondering why my bottle of Tide couldn’t get the stains out of the.. what did you call it? ..’sacrificial’ gown thing (?) you wanted me to wear..

Is there a better product you can recommend? I mean, I don’t go for dresses normally, but the frilly lacework and virgin whiteness are just so cute, it’d be a shame to let it go to the charity bin.

Antinous

My New Year’s resolution is to figure out a way to add Yakety Sax to disemvoweled comments.

FoetusNail

Happy New Year Antinous, you are indeed a fortunate man. You’re blessed with intelligence and its offspring wit; you also, have a boss who trusts and supports your decisions. May you enjoy another great year at home and online.

Rob Beschizza

Repeat RSS feeds are likely to be your end, unless feedburner’s doing something funny.

Profile pages will soon be Pretty again. No histories have been axed, the CSS is just broken.

Profile pics will be fixed as soon as we’ve got our list of To Dos for sixapart straight.

CJ

Okay, now I’m confused as to who is/isn’t a mod. Could we possibly have a list of mods? The only ones I know about are those listed on the FAQ above. So as far as I know, TNH is a mod, and Avram and Antinous are assistant mods.

But Takuan comes across as a mod. And I thought MDHatter was acting as mod too, but it turns out he isn’t.

Maybe part of the problem is that it’s difficult to tell the difference between regulars and mods?

Antinous / Moderator

I think that it’s more of a fixing all the broken stuff upgrade.

Xopher

Takuan, I only knew of three before. What’s #4?

mikesum32

Making your argument in language guaranteed to make your hearers see red?

Readers ?

10. This list will undoubtedly get longer.

This EULA is the Stephen King book the internet. It’s way too long already. Do you really think people will read this, say, more than the would the Microsoft EULA ? I doubt it very much.

Why not just do what you want? People will call you a fscst sshl either way.

It seems to me like the “don’t be rude” is a bit of overkill. What do you expect? This is the internet. It’s inherently dehumanizing. Well, at least more so than it is humanizing.

kpratt

#203
“What would the two lines have added…”

Context? A framing to the post such that some of us don’t see “AND YEAH VERILY THOU SHALT READEST MY TOME.” and wonder what the hell just happened?

“…it’s a declaration of policy”

What then is the problem with prefacing it with “This is a policy declaration. We’re writing it down so we can point people to it later. You may go about your day now.”?

And it’s not a question of who was in the loop and who was not in the loop, but, by way of example, following the traditional bb posting style.

Option 1:
“Here’s why this thing is interesting and why it caught my eye.

Heres a picture.

“Here is a blockquote of the important bits”

And here is the link.”

contrasted with

Option 2:
“Here is a giant blockquote with no introduction that you have to read all the way through to the end to find the part about the civlib steampunk unicorns who work for Lessig on CC.”

joshmillard

what is your intent?

To read and discuss. What on earth do you think my intent is?

Takuan

Hi ya Sammich!

Xopher

JFlex, MDHatter has no power over you. S/he’s not a mod AFAIK, just a person giving helpful advice (if you find it helpful). It’s pretty good advice.

I am also not a mod. I’ve earned the respect of the mods (and one or two other people here), but I have no power over you either. Listening to me or MDHatter is strictly optional, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a good idea.

Xopher

Decades of practice, in my case. Have I failed to smooth things over after a disagreement with you, Tom? Because I don’t think ill of you. And the son you’ve raised is a pretty cool guy. Limits to how bad you can be and have your son be that cool already.

Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator

Josh, god bless you for having a problem that has nothing to do with the RNC.

Those are very strange manifestations you’ve been seeing. Unless Joel and his cheerful minions have been tinkering with the software, we don’t put a moderation hold on comments that have a lot of links in them. We also don’t have an autohold mechanism for registered users. In short, none of that should be happening. I’m going to copy the entire string of messages and forward it to tech support.

Pablissimo, I respect your views, but the list of stuff on the site to be changed has had “fix registration problems,” “allow users to upload photos,” and “implement the Recent Comments list on the front page as described in the original site specs” for a very long time now. At this rate, the odds that we’ll be making changes in the basic moderation tools anytime soon are very slight indeed.

Anonymous

Antinous @ 1665 – I apologize for being unclear. The Recent Comments sidebar is present, but information re which topic is being commented upon is not.

5000!

And maybe I’m naive, but I do think it would make an awesome statement if BoingBoing didn’t take money from companies like Microsoft and refused to run their ads. Though I don’t blame them for doing it because things are rarely black and white and I don’t pretend to know anything about their particular advertising situation.

Agreed on both counts. However, I have to admit I’d be extremely surprised to hear that they don’t know who they’re getting money from when there are big, visible sponsorship notices at the bottom of some posts:

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/03/27/sf-bay-area-electron.html

JFlex

While I can understand any online community’s need for moderation, something about this overview rubbed me as “un-BoingBoing.” It’s difficult to pinpoint what it was, exactly, because a list of rules is always helpful when there’s going to be enforcement and is certainly not incongruous with BoingBoing’s content. Perhaps it was this moderator’s tone and argument structure, which was closer to what I’d expect from a Fox News hawk than a BoingBoing writer.

It’s not like it makes a difference to me – I’ve never left a comment before despite my submitting many-an-unpublished link to the site! I’ll keep reading and enjoying BB many times per day.

Takuan

let’s keep this thread open forever. Any who want to discuss moderation, advertising or similar can be directed here. And violently evicted from other threads.

mdh

echon, yes. See above.

arkizzle

Hoard knowledge. Stockpile technique. Bide time.

That one day, when they have grown jaded and lazy, through sloth and pride, we can strike with awesome completeness, and win this day for our fathers.

This system, is ours.

..wait, did I say that out loud?

arkizzle / Moderator

Tom.. Yes it is. Yes I am.

Bribes to the usual address.

eustace

Cake is difficult to share over the internetses – it’s easier to share 3.14159265358979323846…

Xopher

And Zoopy, you missed MinT’s point. If consent is arbitrary, whether he’s your type or not is irrelevant.

Rob Beschizza

Also, it’s showing captchas to logged-in people, unfortunately. If you fill it out, the system anonymizes the comment. This is a bug, not a feature (though it *could* be a feature!)

Nelson.C

Is it diceless, Takuan? I never really got on with diceless RPGs.

sparkzilla

This extremely defensive and poorly written “policy” stands as proof of the poor quality of moderation at Boing Boing.

I have run several large message boards going back to BBS days, with many, many hot button topics. The quality of moderation on this site is extremely poor. Miss Hayden is a moderator who clearly lets her own emotions and opinions get in the way of even-handed moderation, which is a shame because there could really be some good discussion here.

Basically she makes very little distinction between a valid opinion and abuse. In my case, I have had two comments disemvowelled for no other reason than the moderator disagrees with the opinions expressed (one was about Kosovo and the other about the baby who died in TSA care — see my profile). They were not abusive in any way. When I asked the moderator about the deletion of I was given a bogus response, saying that my research was bad. Even if that was the case, which it wasn’t, do we all have to have perfect research before we express an opinion? The purpose of discussion is to exchange opinion and facts with other users, with as little interference from authority as possible.

I wrote a letter to Mr Doctorow expressing my surprise that someone who is such an advocate of freedom of speech should allow the suppression of opinion on his own forum. No response so far.

I also think disemvowelling is a very poor way to treat people. Howevermuch Miss Hayden think it is clever, it’s simply annoying to make readers work so hard to read a comment. It took me over 15 minutes to re-emvowell one of my own short comments and I knew what it was about. It is also pain insulting to those who have taken the time to comment and who are left asking themeslves ‘WTF is going on with my post?’

Disemvowelling is not any kind of invention that you should be proud of. Be polite to your contributors. If you don’t like the comment, simply dont publish their message and send them a mail asking them to resubmit it. Almost all will do so.

In addition, the moderator should not be allowed to comment on the topic of the discussions, as is currently done. The moderator’s voice is very powerful and can easily distort the discussion.

Frankly, due to the poor moderation policy I have not felt like commenting on Boing Boing recently, and my opinion of the site has been lessened somewhat. I wonder how many other people have been disheartened also?

Takuan

I can’t describe the pure JOY when someone notices me! Thank you thank you!!!

Sister Y

My brothers, are we going to get banned for abusing this comment thread?

If not, how about

“Complying with a vow, takings offs”

arkizzle

Tom, what ‘I know’, is that Takuan appears to be making light of the notion of gods, and enjoying flipping the meme in a different way.

You are too sure of Takuan’s intent here. I’m enjoying the flip, and Tak seems to be too. Why is entertainment be any less likely a reason to post it, than others’ offence (which may indeed be a side effect)?

Also, it’s not a god, or a religion (to the exclusion of all others).. it’s all religions.

All gods. Any gods.

Are Zeus jokes out, too?

Takuan

now there’s a walking argument for deletion (and banning)

KlokWerk

n f th lngst Bng Bng ntrs vr crtd s bt hw, why nd whn thy mdrt psts n thr wn st.

Wrnng flgs dn’t gt ny bggr thn tht. Y cn hr t flppng n th wnd frm mls wy.

Nw f y’ll xcs m, nd t g srch th rchvs fr ll ths Bng Bng psts blstng vrs ntts fr cnsrshp s cn rmmbr wht y gys sd t b ll bt.

jim.cowling

#363:

When I write that it may not result in truly unbiased moderation, that implies that it may still result in truly unbiased moderation. I imply two likely outcomes: truly unbiased moderation or the illusion of unbiased moderation. Either is equally acceptable, because the audience can’t tell the difference.

That seemed a, tacit, at the very least, belief that the appearance of non-bias was at least as good as the real thing; if not better.

There’s no implication that I see one as better, and any inference is unwarranted by the text.

This is certainly supported by the clarification you make of exactly that position.

There’s no such support in my clarification. You know what “sufficient”, means, right?

You’re splitting hairs and being argumentative for the sake of it, I think, with what amounts to a red herring. The original issue was simple: does the moderator exert undue influence on threads in which she becomes involved? Yes, she does. And I adequately explained why.

In simple words: Bias bad. Fairness good. Illusion of fairness often just as useful. When moderator not in discussion it good. When moderator in discussion, it bad. Trolls shut up good, trolls complain bad.

Objection sustained, case adjourned, and the Supreme Court refuses to hear the appeal.

strougly

some damn fine posts today!

but the dv’ing in the keating thread…annoying. i’d still like to hear from the other side of the fence, even if they’re spewing propaganda.

seems like antinous is a little quick on the gun there. i understand if its getting out of hand, but it seems reasonable so far. the dv’ing seems a little premature…

Antinous

strougly,

Post a link to your blog and they can entertain you in your own home.

Takuan

to judge and preach perhaps

wilburevans

srl hs bcm Nz Grmny. Thy r rmd t th tth, blt Wll nd xct t wll.
Th xtnt f th pprssn thy xrt s qt vl t wtnss.
Hw cn th lnd b hly whn ths tht cntrl t hv bsltly n cnnctn t Gd?

WHY WAS THIS CENSORED?

Antinous

WHY WAS THIS CENSORED?

Because it is cheap name calling without any substance to back it up.

eustace

When you find yourself making arguments that equate bitter, viscious, but written dispute with physical violence it is time to take a breath. It’s not such a good metaphor, really. Fighting with words is so much to be preferred that the rules are more lenient; by design, on purpose.

Takuan

oh sorry, that would be four words then. But I still think “retard” ought to be listed too.

joshmillard

The system probably auto-decided that your comment was spam. I know of at least one very specific action that it won’t permit. And, no, I’m not going to tell anybody what it is. However, if your comment was perceived as spam, we won’t ever see it. It goes straight to cyber-hell. FYI, if you keep testing it, you could be black-balling yourself with the anti-spam star chamber.

Antinous, if you’re comfortable dropping me email re: the specific action, I’d appreciate it much. I presume I provided one at registration, but mail to anything @ my listed personal domain should get to me.

If straight-to-cyberhell means that it doesn’t even get caught up in a queue but is deleted without recourse, then that can’t be what happened today — after Teresa responded to me earlier, both of my diverted attempts in the corpse thread ended up showing up in that thread after the fact. If I’m misunderstanding the nature of cyberhell, no worries, but otherwise it sounds like that’s written off as a potential diagnosis.

Regardless, thanks for the help on this. If anybody wants to nix the two of the triplets in that thread, I’d appreciate that too — my comments are long enough without showing up thrice. :)

Takuan

hang on, have to try something…

i i a ui a i oo?

now, THATS tough!

Takuan

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nk2dOuoux6Q&feature=related

Nelson.C

Vidiot @670: If you wish to make a complaint, then I suggest that you write the facts of the matter (having checked that the facts are what you think they are) and how it makes you feel â€“ distinguishing clearly between the two â€“ and while doing so recognise that the moderators are not cool, clear beings of pure intellect, but living, feeling human beings like yourself, sometimes tired after a long day dealing with cranks, stupidity, naivity, faux-naivity, spam, astroturfers, conspiracy theorists, armchair blog theorists, accusations, apologists for torture, apologists for the TSA, steampunk haters, Amy Crehore haters, Canadian haters & misogynists, sock-puppeteers, ankle-biters, martyrs, those who make a great effort to not read the moderation guidelines, people who think they’re being helpful but are just making things worse, people who do all of the above while claiming that they’re being perfectly polite, and genuine nutjobs; and write accordingly.

Comments, in my experience, do not get disemvowelled simply for being critical, being concerned, raising a point of order, or for coming from a newbie, despite how some who get disemvowelled present themselves. They get disemvowelled for being combative, rude, insensitive, contentious and irrelevant to the topic at hand, or any of the myriad other ways of poisoning discourse that the minds of humans can invent. At least, that’s the ideal the moderators work towards, and I think that’s what they achieve nearly all the time.

If you think that Moderator X was unfair in a particular instance, for example, say so, and leave it at that. There’s no need to turn it into the opening salvo in a battle. Moderators are people; if you wish to persuade them, you must be persuasive.

Also, you know, if you do pitch your comment wrong and you do get disemvowelled, it isn’t even symbolic of castration. You can actually try again. But try de-escalating, rather than the opposite. It isn’t emasculating to be polite.

joshmillard

If you discard even civil criticism as judgment and preaching, we’re in very different discursive camps here. I have discussions like this every day, from the other side of the fence; doing so with open ears and an open mind is more or less my job description.

Like I said, I don’t bear you any particular ill will, any more than I do the BB principals or Teresa or Antinous, and I’m not presuming anything bad about you in general. I am still unclear in what your role is here and how that plays against your commentary in the Violet Blue thread and (as I read through it his evening) the Lessons Learned thread. I’m not trying to be nasty; I’m just not clear on what the deal is or in what capacity you’ve been making the remarks you’ve been making.

Takuan

lie down a minute Cubie, I wanna show you something…

If Antinous handed a ban, I think you can safely assume he has a reason beyond being mad with power or in a mood. Write to Teresa if you got a problem. But don’t start with the “party line” stuff because that IS an insult to everyone here.

eustace

for those who believe bb comments would thrive without moderation – submitted for your perusal…

Antinous / Moderator

And I was hoping for Shia Lebeouf to star in my biopic.

Takuan

skzzzit!shsssshsssssclikclik “Langley! Langley! Abort, I repeat abort, we’re blown! shshsssssssssclik

Takuan

there’s dice, but you have to make your own from a body part.

jgrassick

Clicking on “Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator” above gives me Error Unknown user ?! I’m sure more credit is due.

Takuan

@114

and that has what to do with BB?

Antinous

I’m disturbed by the number of people who refer to TNH as Miss Hayden

I think that’s a bit of passive aggression.

GregLondon

Technogirl@329: One could say, quite properly if arguably, that Teresa is raping the comment pool

I appreciate the entertainment value you are bringing to this otherwise quite long and slighty depressing thread. However, if your form of comedy is misuse of terms, then you should know that you’ll need to escalate quickly to more and more outrageous re-definitions. For example:

Teresa is peeing in the comment pool.
Teresa is waterboarding the comment pool.
Teresa is eviscerating the comment pool.
Teresa is raping the comment pool.
Teresa is torturing the comment pool.
Teresa is slave trading the comment pool.
Teresa is war criming the comment pool.
Teresa is genociding the comment pool.
Teresa is Naziing the comment pool.

Notice how the terms keep escalating, starting from ‘peeing’ in teh pool to committing genocide. The problem is you started at “rape” which means you lost out on half the good jokes. Not only that, but when the funny man started with the “rape” comments, you simply played it straight, repeating the “rape” comment, and reinforcing it. Instead, you should have repeated it and then immediately escalated it to the next level. (note you do have to stop short of the “nazi” comment because Godwin showed that constructive discussion ends at that point, but otherwise, escalate for a fun and productive conversation.)

Now that would have been really fricken hilarious. As it is, it’s just mildly hilarious. And I still appreciate that. but there’s plenty of space to go up from there.

Takuan

Dear Antinous:

Thank you for shouldering the load in this time of turmoil and sickness. You too Avram!

jim.cowling

Yeah, I screwed up the quotations in there. Paragraphs 2 and 4 are from #363′s original.

Oh, yeah, and on disemvowelling: it feeds the trolls. Feeding the trolls is unwise. Thus, using that method is unwise.

Takuan

for perfect victory!

minTphresh

tenn! BTW, let us know when the blessed day occurs, and we will throw u a virtual bash! cake n everthing!

anthony

Sign on the gate: “All things are good in Moderation”

Talia

heh, indeed, T.

*shakes head*

Its not that hard to be polite on teh intarwebs.. really…

Takuan

I stop to get drunk and look at what I come back to!
you guys go on without me (for now)

Antinous

Moderator note:

If you experience what is described in #1225, please get a screen cap and send it to me at antinous at boingboing dot net. Thanks.

WeightedCompanionCube

Teresa – Unless a site absolutely requires my information to do business (bank, medical, utility, etc..) I never use my real name.

Having someone’s real name, combines with what their postings might reveal about their location and lifestyle is all you need to get the privacy invasion ball rolling.

I’d use my well-established online name here, but Xeni might call me a furfag ;-)

All in all, I like being the Weighted Companion Cube. It’s everyone’s best buddy, and it never argues with anyone!

mdh

testing testing – it this thing on?

Tom Hale

Xopher, I don’t think we’ve had a disagreement about anything I was concerned about. When I described the things that I thought make you seem younger than you are, I wasn’t thinking of a particular post – just a general feeling (or whatever) about your comment style.

About my son – if you think he’s a pretty cool guy then you and I agree 100%. I wish I was half as mature and intelligent as he is when I was his age.

minTphresh

josh, you are certainly welcome. and dr. hatter, that video just shows me what a sick and twisted fuck you really are. whatever the hell you do, don’t go here: http://dlisted.com/node/27815

eustace

okay, okay, it was a typo (hix) and I left it in then changed the vowel. Words are my slaves dammit – albeit recalcitrant ones… BEND TO MY WILL!!! (hic)

evilrooster

Cats Unite @290:

rape – to seize, enjoy hastily. To take by force….This sounds like disemvowelling; moderators (only moderators) gets a transient pleasure from doing it. They display the red bedsheets. They move on.

Cheapening the word rape to make a point, and doing it in gory detail to boot. What a compelling argument for more empathy you make.

Godwin next?

Takuan

ya never know on the internet – that’s what makes it fun!

buddy66

He’s going to ask you for your papers in a minute.

Damon_TFB

I’ll defend disemvowelling (partial and whole-post) as a valuable feedback mechanism for the community. Here are my reasons:

1. With a little mental effort, the process can usually be reversed.

2. It is indelibly marked as “disapproved” by a moderator.

3. Because of #1 & #2, those who might otherwise be provoked into responding in such a way to distract from the topic are mollified.

4. It serves as an example to other (“Ooh! I better be careful about calling someone a cnt!”) I know that this is covered by the policy above, but I suspect at most 20% of commentors have ever read it.

5. Rather than removing comments entirely, the constructive parts can be kept.

Having said that, It might be nice to have some kind of mark-up to distinguish official mod disemvowelling from self-disemvowelling. Maybe a little graphic next to the eyeball. Could be an ‘a’ with a ‘/’ through it?

Xopher

Mercury, Antinous! 45 minutes?!?!?! We gots to get you a better conekshun.

mdhatter

I thought this thread was cyber-hell, a place you can tell complainers to go to (and a final resting place for the vowel-less and unredeemed)

arkizzle

..hmm, it does give a concise measure of the current conversations, at a glance.

Maybe, BB, maybe. I’ll have to reserve my judgement :)

Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator

This set will be replies to specific comments.

I was thinking of going through and either marking all the disemvowellings I did, or the ones I didn’t do; but neither option is satisfactory. I try not to meddle with text for any purpose other than moderation, so I can’t mark disemvowellings I didn’t do. And if I mark the ones I did do, I’m meddling more with the text of those comments than is strictly necessary.

I think the only answer is to list the ones I disemvowelled. I’ll take them in order as they occur.

Paul Coleman (2) asked to see what his message would look like disemvowelled. I pasted a disemvowelled version of it below his unaltered text.

Zandr (7), since I haven’t worked that out with the Boingers, I believe this document currently has a standard copyright and belongs to me. However, I specifically grant you the right to use it.

Absimiliard (9), Harrkev beareth away the palm, but there are other ways to do it. The chief one is when it’s relevant and warranted, soberly expressed, and arises naturally from the ongoing conversation.

Strong language: if I thought I could get away with it, the rule would be that commenters are only allowed to swear if they can do it as well as Joel Johnson.

BTW, my godfather, a former bosun’s mate and later gunnery officer, once taught me a sentence collected in the wild in which every word except “the” and “won’t” was replaced by some version of the Navy’s favorite word. I was impressed.

Jim Cowling (12): Did it ever occur to you, when you were defending the poor oppressed questions against their answer overlords, that the same person wrote both?

Rob Cockerham (14), that didn’t get nearly enough appreciation.

Dan Wineman (18): “Recent comments” is supposed to sort most recent first. We’re still working on that.

I normally use numbers to indicate which comment I’m referring to. It’s a fallible method. If messages are added to or subtracted from the thread, it automatically renumbers. Fixed message numbers are just not a part of the Movable Type universe.

I expect you’ve long since noticed that the date and timestamp half of the header line is the permalink for a comment, so you must be asking for something more automated than typing in a standard HTML link. I don’t know how much trouble that would be, though I can ask. The same goes for mail notification.

One of the things I dislike about threading is that it imposes the assumption that every message is a reply to a single other message. I believe it has a crippling effect on general conversation, especially if you can only see one or two other messages at a time.

Still, I can see the usefulness of a comment linking and referencing system that doesn’t get knocked askew when the anonymous comments clear; and if e-mail notification can bring commenters back to see how the thread has responded to them, I’m for it.

Phead (21), I can’t fix your spelling, but I hereby grant you forgiveness for it.

Pendraphen (23), the R&D labs at Making Light haven’t managed that one yet, though Avram Grumer’s come up with some real words that turn into other real words when you run them through ROT-13/

Jeblis (26), vowel-free text is older than the sort that has vowels in it. To the absolute best of my knowledge, I was the first person who ever thought of using it as a moderation technique.

(Odd footnote: The Wikipedia entry on disemvowelling used to explain this. Have you ever been stalked by a high-ranking Wikipedian? There’s one of them who goes way out of his way to pick fights with pro SF editors. It’s a mystery.)

MikeSum32 (27): Two words disemvowelled, for obvious reasons.

I deny that the internet is inherently dehumanizing. I believe that we’ve gotten into the habit of accepting far too low a standard of behavior. Back on Usenet, there was nothing we could do about trolls and jerks beyond flaming them or ignoring them. We’re not on Usenet anymore. We’re also not on bulletin boards that don’t care what you do as long as you don’t maim each other.

There are people we could be talking to, and conversations we could be having, that we’ll never see as long as thuggish behavior is an accepted part of online conversations. I feel very little guilt about occasionally suppressing obnoxious speech, because there’s so much more speech — more, and frankly better speech — that’s suppressed by the persistent obnoxiousness of online behavior.

I’ve seen sober authoritative essays explaining that no comment thread can run much longer than a hundred messages without collapsing into random unpleasantness and noise. I’ve also seen well-moderated comment threads that run for hundreds of messages while staying readable and interesting.

I’m all for freedom. I’m passionately in favor of the freedom to have good conversations. That’s all I’m really shooting for.

I’m not going to respond to Sparkzilla (28). It’s hardly even necessary to explain that he and I have tangled a couple of times in the past, and that he lost some vowels in the process.

I just wish he’d figure out that my last name isn’t Hayden.

I’ve also had run-ins with Kid (31, 48), Tom Neff (33/36), Kaiser (35, 51), and others to be named later.

Tazzy531 (39), a bad speller generally leaves some vowels in. I don’t.

JG (42), the “because I say so” model can work surprisingly well. The policy statement was written because readers kept asking for explanations.

EricT (46), we have an automated button in the interface. Did you remove “y” or leave it in?

Ubernym (47), I associate myself with people who love good conversation.

Jeblis (52): Disemvowelled about thirty seconds ago. I’d disemvowel him if he said that to anyone else. It’s just now occurred to me that I don’t have to put up with it either.

I do owe Jeblis one small thank-you for reminding me of a principle of moderation I forgot to mention in the policy statement: if you get a situation where several jerks and demitrolls are egging each other on to more and more misbehavior, you have to root out the entire group. There are two reasons for this. One is that there are lots more like them, and they’ll home right in if they see that behavior being tolerated. The other is that they’ll talk each other into uglier behavior than any of them would undertake on his own.

If you go over Jeblis’ postings to this thread, you can see him getting braver and behaving worse as he soaks up the encouragement.

Spocksbrain (55), Ys and Ws don’t count as vowels — W because it’s only a vowel if you’re Welsh, ad Y because losing it breaks the readability of some text, which is not how disemvowelling is supposed to work.

Avram (56), that’s a better and shorter statement of the principle than my version. May I swipe it?

Pinup57 (59), I was asked to do it. People kept complaining that they didn’t understand why they’d been repressed.

Eltrev (60), I’ve experimented with offering people the option of rewriting and reposting. No one ever takes me up on it.

TwoShort (62), it’s primarily intended as an explanation after the fact.

ElysianArtist (66), puh-leeze. I’m a far subtler sockpuppeteer than that. Jebis is least of my inventions in this thread.

Ethan (67), it’s an interesting idea. I’m not sure it’ll work. I need to think about it.

Kid (68), I’m not impressed with your options or your analyses. The Boingers are artists and journalists. They want to enable comments and community. They don’t want it to go septic again. And there’s no way they have the time to keep order here themselves. That doesn’t make them pragmatic politicians. Nothing could.

You and your buds are just being grumpy and pompous because you’re used to doing whatever you want in online forums, and I’ve inexplicably failed to understand that that’s the natural order of the universe.

Michael Dean (71), the trouble with using ROT-13 is that it makes people who are using it for other reasons look like they’ve been naughty. It also isn’t susceptible to a quick browse for flavor.

Bibliotrope (73), a permanent link is part of the plan.

Keneke (74), I’ll freely accept the pity, but this isn’t a nitpicky moderation policy; it’s the avoidance of one. It’s long because it’s descriptive.

Talia (75), quite right. Fark is not the model we’re aiming for.

Melchett (76), I let this comment of yours stand because it looked tolerable next to your others, but you’re not in line for any MacArthur Prizes. We’ve put all this work into building good comment threads, but we don’t really want to hear people’s thoughts discussed? The right to behave badly and ruin everyone else’s pleasure is a toy you’re entitled to have simply by right of coming here? That’s hogwash, and you’re a cliche.

DMTurner (79): Thank you. Welcome. Have a good time.

Talia (80), they want to be able to do whatever they want at a given moment without considering the effect it has on other participants or the overall conversation. Their version of “free speech” consists of them talking. Listening doesn’t really come into it. Neither does sharing. They’re reasonably articulate and have thick hides, and in fact are the climax species of forums that require only that they abstain from profanity and personal attacks.

They like to pretend that I’m suppressing free speech. In fact, there are entire ranges of nuanced, cooperative, modal, exploratory, or expert speech that seldom get explored in open forums because the rhinoceri are bound to come stomping through. Thus we lose the speech, and we lose many of the people who make it.

Takuan (81): Yes, I am. I get to have other conversations that are much more rewarding.

Jeblis again (85). I disemvowelled it.

CSLoser (86). That was mine also. The code didn’t disemvowel well, so I used a different technique.

Zinjanthropus (87): I’ve got nothing against Mani. His name got used to label a heresy that had almost nothing to do with him.

William (90), I think I may do that. Thank you!

FarrellMacgovern (91): ooh, a new statement on moderation. Thank you. I’ll add it to my collection.

Joel (92): Heya! I’ve been taking your name in vain.

Jim Cowling (95): I promise it won’t happen.

JGriffiths (97): No such fun. It gets posted to the front page once before being tucked away for future reference.

Fnarf (109), I’m of the opinion that BB threads don’t get as luxuriant as they might because the link to a page with a really long “recent comments” list (which I’ve had in the specs since day one) has yet to be implemented. Threads start slacking off when the entry scrolls off the front page.

MarlboroTestMonkey (115), that’s one I hadn’t thought of. Thank you! I’ll add it to my stockpile.

Takuan (116), that “almost unnatural” just made my week.

5000! (119), they know, but it gets knocked down and trampled underfoot by new information coming in.

Technogirl (129), fear not. They’d have to be a lot better at it for me to take it personally.

Do you teach divination?

Terry (132), delighted to see you here. If I disemvowelled you on that occasion (and it seem to me I did), it was respectfully done.

Lazarus (141), that’s not one of mine. I think GabrielM did it.

CinemaJay (142), we’re not conducting a poll. We’re having a conversation. The sin isn’t so much in the duplication as in ignoring everything their fellow commenters have said.

I see you didn’t read it very carefully.

Cycle23 (144): Shush. You’re giving away the trick.

Xopher (145), have they gotten out the ice chest and the lawn chairs? Send them my love.

Hey, EvilRooster! Lawn chairs and cold drinks and popcorn besides?

Tom (153), you’re a mensch. It was a good comment. There were just a couple of sentences that really bothered me. I’d so much rather disemvowel those bits than have to remove a long, thoughtful comment.

Pasq242 (154), that’s an interesting effect, but I don’t see how it’s an improvement on disemvowelling. Besides, it really could be mistaken for bad spelling.

Arkizzle (158), I’ve been trying to remember to mention why I disemvowelled someone. Feel free to remind me if I forget.

Takuan (163), I’d be far more annoyed if you quietly left than if you made noise and gave me a chance to fix the problem.

technogeek

For what it’s worth, I’ve stopped reading most of the posts and started just scanning for new responses from Ye Honorable Moderator. That seems to be enough to let me judge the overall flow without having to wade in it.

I’d stop entirely, except that I’ve _been_ a moderator in the past on other systems and I’m curious about whether anyone can actually find anything new to say on the topic. So far, not so much.

(And yes, this probably counts as a meta-metatopic. Or maybe a control-meta topic, for those who remember the Bucky Bits.)

WeightedCompanionCube

DV is a good form of moderation in that it’s readable for those who really want to read it. It’s certainly better than wholesale deletion. However, it can’t be authenticated as being a moderator action.

If you’re going to DV your own ranting and trolling, then yeah, no one is going to pay attention. If you were to apply some DV to legitimate arguments, and genuinely make it look like the mods were suddenly biased and/or applying some new policy, you could cause a real problem.

Especially if enough people were to do it. One nutjob is just a nutjob, a bunch of them are a movement ;)

What you could do is apply a style that can’t be done by commenters. I think black on black looks good, but maybe I just love reading redacted documents. You can select text to reveal it, and you can combine it with DV for platforms that don’t render CSS.

Antinous

Berix,

Read the Policies linked at the bottom of the page. Synopsis: All your comment are belong to us.

minTphresh

xopher, so what u r saying is that consent, when put in perspective of a minor human, or non-human of any age, is irrelevant in the eyes of the justice system? if so, then that’s fucked up.

Takuan

the Usenet Crusades! A brave body of souls setting out against the darkness, pennants and banners of Free Speech gaily twirling in the electron breeze as the grateful masses cheer them on as they ride, ride into Darkness bearing the Shining Light of The Good to the Endarkened Heathens! …this has potential….

arkizzle

Here’ll do, then we’ll see what action needs to be taken.

arkizzle

Injured? I thought that was self harm.

Kid

Such long moderator policy makes you remember the days when there were no comment system in BoingBoing.

When BB launches commenting earlier this year, I had high hopes that this blog will turn from a one-way medium into a two-way medium that allows fellow readers to interact with the bloggers on the issues they posted.

It turns out that the bloggers rarely replies on the comments section, which makes this system pretty similar to the ones we have in other big blogs: An arena for those who like to argue and release their resentment. It is pretty apparent when there are blog posts on sensitive issues. You find comment warlords in every blog site and forum, and this is no different.

On the other hand, I love the Favorites system that you had implemented. Since human beings (these days) are very bad at complimenting the *wonderful* things, but very good at criticizing the things that make you wonder, the Favorites system at least shows that there is still love in humanity, supplementing the sad fact that most human beings lack the vocabulary to express their excitement and enthusiasm.

Xopher

We all notice you, Takuan. </John Bickerson>

Takuan

you misunderstand milady, I posted that link so Will might be equally vulnerable.

Takuan

(not “Silent Runnings”?)

Takuan

I recognize no authority that can’t carry itself by it’s self evident words. You arrogate much. Why should your ill will be of any interest or weight to me or anyone else for that matter?

Shawn Struck

@711:

Alright, because he’s not listed as an assistant moderator.

But in TNH’s comment here at http://www.boingboing.net/2008/05/19/little-brother-at-ny.html#comment-191634

she says he is.

If he is an actual moderator, then his conduct in both this thread and lessons learned are… well inflammatory or troubling seem to be the kindest I can think of. Those that are in a position of power are usually held to a higher standard of conduct.

arkizzle

And beyond!

CJ

I agree with you, JFlex and PRESYNCOPE, and it’s been bothering me for a while. I don’t feel like I’m a part of this community, even though I read most of the posts and comments every day. And yes, it’s at least partly because I don’t understand the snideness of the mods – they seem to have their own little in-group, and anyone who isn’t in the group, or doesn’t understand their little in-group attitudes and comments gets a snide remark. That comment by Nurk, up at #828 – I agree with it. And I genuinely don’t understand why it got a sarcastic reply. Yes, it was critical of the mods; are we not allowed to disagree with policy? Even in the aim of making this a better place to hang out?

Takuan

I working on my lolcat self portrait … suggestions?

Kid

Some of the very good points of this thread:

- #183:

If ever I’m tempted to participate in a discussion in the comments here, I’ll remember this post, which is basically an announcement that the site is overmoderated for those who didn’t already know it, and I’ll know better. So much for internet discourse not being lost due to moderation.

Comparing the policies applied to Boingers themselves (link), the moderator policy here is a far cry from the Kiss It Simple Stupid format. I wish our moderator would be able to shrink the whole thing to something short, less arbitrary and easily understandable, and that would eliminate a lot of people crying injustice. Humor is good, but sarcasm usually translates to arrogance during a debate.

- #174:

Personally, I find the moderation to be arbitrary and annoying. Disemvoweling is basically defacing a comment and isn’t conducive to civil discourse. If someone posts something and gets disemvoweled, they are likely to be upset rather than curious as to why. The posted policy is pretty subjective, leaving a lot of uncertainty as to what will get moderated.

I spent about twenty minutes looking through the comments the other day and easily found a number of hateful, rude, and downright insulting comments with no redeeming value that had not been moderated. Boing Boing tolerates quite a lot of vicious hatred for certain groups, apparently.

Speaking of inconsistent moderation, you can read this very thread to give yourself an idea. If you look for the one-line comments in this thread, you will see that some of them downright rude or create unnecessary drama, but most of them were not taken care of and are readily available for you to read.

* * * * *

I can see an interesting conservative vs liberal debate here in this thread, as if it were a mini government.

The conservatives agree with the moderator policies, and agrees that the site is the Boinger’s lawn, and they are free to do whatever they want.

Meanwhile, the liberals advocate new methods of moderation.

The most wonderful things in this thread are the self-disemvoweled posts – such alternative methods of sabotage/protest are sometimes what BoingBoing advocates, from handbags with an image of a gun to challenge the TSA, to putting mirrors on your head to challenge government CCTV surveillance.

The ironic yet wonderful part is that such sabotage/protest is applied to BoingBoing itself. If there were a site similar to BoingBoing, I would be sure that this incident would be one of their news post.

This debate is good for both the community and the Boingers, because it proves that the comments system allows a great civilized discussion to happen. Here I’ll thank BoingBoing again for giving us the comments system.

* * * * *

Hi Joel! Have you return the Krups Heineken thingy yet? Still any beer left?

arkizzle

em.. hello..?

you guys..?

well, the lights are on, but it’s kind of quite in here.. is everyone gone home?

oh shit, you guys have left this place in a state !!

empty beer cans everywhere, my records! they’re strewn all over and they’re scratched and hot-rocked..!

argh! there’s cheetos walked into the carpet, and vomit mingling in the fish tank..

jesus, what did u guys do?

..and i want this goat out of my room, and someone better be about to change the sheets on my bed or i’m gonna be super-pissed!

seriously guys, the next time you’re gonna have one of these “parties”, i want notice..

oh god damn, someone shat on the rug..

Takuan!

arkizzle

No,me either, its a almost looking like a lost cause..

Takuan

you intended Count Chocula?

arkizzle

+ a modifying dose of diazepam to take the edge off. Otherwise you will chew your keyboard in half.

Takuan

mmmmmm, now they got me thinking…..what if….just how much do they think they really hate me?…is it WORTH anything to them? How about taking a contract out on myself? All those “fans” I seem to have, let them put their money where their mouth is. What price should I set on my own head? I’ll bet the whiners can’t even raise fifty bucks.

jeblis

Could you fix my spelling while your at it?

Could you fix my spelling while you’re at it?

pchi

A little greasemonkey should make it possible to reemvowel all comments. Here’s a site that will do it for you manually:

http://www.disemvowelment.com/reemvowel.html

Takuan

well,am I right or not?

Nelson.C

Further to my previous comment: It’s only affecting the main Boingboing page and its associated individual posts, but not BBGadgets, BBTV, or the other one whose name escapes me right now. And it’s only happening in Firefox, not in Safari.

This is what I’m getting:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v176/Nelsie/Misc/Snapshot2009-03-0614-54-53.jpg

minTphresh

mmmmm, cubie, the nose is crisp, with overtones of autumn leaves and fascism. not too heavy on the tongue with the redolent flavors of apple peel, jackboot and spicy florals, interspersed with notes of bitchyness and pepperspray. all in all, a bitter little redfaced whine with an extremely complex martyr-complex. serve with a warm camembert or brie, and a slice of mumble-pie.

Anonymous

I can’t seem to be able to log in, and I don’t know whether I’ve been blocked or not.

My username is SamSam, and I haven’t received an email about being blocked, but then again, I can’t remember if BoingBoing has my real email address (when I signed up a couple years ago, I may have given a junk email for all I know).

It’s possible that I’ve been blocked without any warning, but it seems absurd if so. The only “conflict” I’ve been in recently is asking a moderator why a post on “GM bailout will never pay off” was deleted instead of being selectively disemvowelled. When the moderator apparently agreed with me (by replacing it and selectively disemvowelling it), but deleted my post instead, I pointed out the irony my post being deleted for calling out the moderator. I never saw this post, and assumed that it got deleted immediately.

I was never in the slightest bit rude in either of the two posts, and accepted that they were deleted because nobody likes to be called out on things like deleting posts (though I privately thought it a little childish).

So… am I actually blocked for that? Or am I misunderstanding everything and the logging in process is broken for me?

Antinous / Moderator

SamSam,

You were doing the online equivalent of standing in someone’s cubicle and critiquing their spelling while they’re in the middle of typing something. I was in the process of editing the rude comment in exactly the way that you suggested when you threw your hissy about it. You know that this thread is the place for comments and questions about moderation, so your comments in that thread were off-topic. I e-mailed you, but as you point out, you used a bogus e-mail address to register. I believe that covers all the salient points.

mdhatter

Yes S3P, I said shrieking fight-picking trollypants.

(I just assume he’ll move his show over here soon)

HarshLanguage

I’d like to point out the God Hates Signs thread, http://www.boingboing.net/2008/10/29/god-hates-signs-prot.html, as an example of something I think the moderators should never allow themselves to do again. It could have been a civil, constructive, and enlightening thread if the mods had modded themselves, and not goaded others. The mods shouldn’t simply throw out the rules when they decide to, or because they have great personal involvement in a topic. They shouldn’t rebuke commenters who point out what they think are problematic posts. Not in comments, and certainly not in responses to “watch this post” reports. Yet that thread and, I will attest, at least one response to an e-mail about it, contains needless vitriol from moderators.

Is it so crazy to think that moderators should not *cause* trouble? Or if they do, that another mod should try to steer things back on track?

Yeah, I know that in the end it’s just a bunch of blog comments, but read those rules above – I do believe they take civil discourse here seriously, they just slip up too often when it comes to their own discourse. I enjoy this blog — and most of its comments! — too much not to note it.

ridl

So I told a joke HERE and then Arkizzle came along and RUINED THE PUNCHLINE. So I told him(?) off but good and flagged it for disemvowelment and he(?) apologized and everything BUT HIS(?) SPOILER IS STILL THERE RUINING THE FUN FOR EVERYONE. Isn’t ruining the fun for everyone somehow against Moderation Policy?

Anyway, I am here to bitch and complain until I get my way.

Actually, I will probably never mention it again. But it would be cooler if the spoiler got disemvoweled, for everyone’s happiness and enjoyment and good rocking times.

Thank you for your time.

Anonymous

I wanna be a sub-adjunct moderator with re-emvoweling powers. Of course I wanna be young and studly again, too.

Hey, you guys really think it’s hard to figure Takuan out? Maybe I should re-examine my data, p’raps I made a wrong conclusion.

I finally managed to get a userID a little while back, so I’m going to stop posting anon, which will bring great joy to the long-suffering Antonius.

See if you can spot me under my Oh-fish-all name!

–Charlie

Antinous / Moderator

Nobody has re-emvoweling powers. It’s done by hand. Or done by re-emvoweler and then corrected by hand.

Tom Neff

It’s a disorganized and rambling hybrid of an actual moderation policy and an editorial stylebook. You can easily find lots of moderation policies online – google “comment moderation policy.” Moderating using standard practices is hard work but it’s not rocket science. Here (and in the “moderator’s” other blog) we have the consonant trick, the thing with ‘sock puppets’ and identity guessing games, the mid-thread smackdown anthology posts, one-line microsnarks at posts and posters, etc. Nothing will change because BB is what it is, and fortunately

evilrooster

econoclast @175:
I spent about twenty minutes looking through the comments the other day and easily found a number of hateful, rude, and downright insulting comments with no redeeming value that had not been moderated.

Did you click the little eyeball icon (the “lookitthat” button) beside any of these comments, to alert the moderators to a nest of trollish comments that they may have missed? Or did you immediately assume that they were deliberately left in place by Teh Eeevil Moderators?

And are these the same moderators that you would like to assume your good faith when you do something ambiguous?

Antinous

I find most of Takuan’s iterations to be snarky and unilluminating

We prefer ‘vacuous and inane’.

BB comments are like a cocktail party. Sometimes we engage in serious discussions. Sometimes we engage in light-hearted banter. We’re always drunk.

evilrooster

Greg…

Leave it? Please?

Antinous

As you’ve noticed, we’re not Metafilter. The content here is editor-driven rather than user-driven, although user participation via comments is now a huge part of the site. The Boingers are prolific bloggers as well as having many other irons in the fire. They’re not really interested in being moderators, and they’re not interested in being attacked or incessantly criticized. So they hired Teresa, who pioneered some innovative moderation techniques at her own blog.

Most of the internet operates on the theory that anybody can say whatever they want whenever they want. Our prime directive is don’t type it if you wouldn’t say it to someone’s face. That leaves a big continuum between small talk and heated discussion. When we think that commenters are being rude, we tell them. A fair few of our most interesting, longtime commenters started out a little roughly. With some encouragement, they remembered that they’re nice people in meatspace and that it might make sense to be nice people in cyberspace.

Some commenters are just looking for a fight. We selectively disemvowel comments, leaving the parts that focus on content and dv’ing the ones that are pure ‘behavior’. Most people get the hint and learn how to make a point without being offensive. Some don’t, and they will ultimately manage themselves out.

Beyond that, discussions are managed. Although small talk is allowed and encouraged, we try to refocus threads back to the original point or, at least, to keep them from being hijacked to hot-button topics. Moderators are also people and we have the right to chip in our own opinions. I try to steer clear of adding my own political views to the soup because, really, who cares what I think anyway. Naturally, commenters who have been moderated for offensive behavior frequently feel that they’ve been singled out for their political views.

Normally, we dv about one comment per day, very rarely unpublish anything other than spam, and spend most of our time trying to focus discussions back to civil discourse that might actually be interesting or valuable to someone reading it. The idea that discussions are managed is hard to swallow for some people, but it creates a safe space for others to comment. If Teresa hadn’t had her hand firmly on the reins, I never would have read the comments here, let alone participated in them.

KlokWerk

ls, sn’t t ntrstng tht w cn nly hv n sr d? lmst lk thy wnt t mk sr thy cn…trck s?

ddn’t rlz Bng Bng ws spprtr f th gvrnmnt RL D prgrm. <>Pprs? V mst vrvy zt y r wh y zy y r. V hv vyz f knwng f y r lyng.

h wll, njyd ths ccnt whl hd t. gss ‘ll nd t mk nw n. Lckly ll f yr rtcls bt TR hv gvn m th mns t mk nw ccnt whnvr wnt f vr fl lk cmng bck.

technogirl

RE: #337 posted by GregLondon

“I appreciate the entertainment value you are bringing to this otherwise quite long and slighty depressing thread. However, if your form of comedy is misuse of terms, then you should know that you’ll need to escalate quickly to more and more”

From the Oxford English Dictionary, look it up yourself at :

http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/rape_1?view=uk

rape

â€¢ verb 1 (of a man) force (another person) to have sexual intercourse with him against their will. 2 spoil or destroy (a place).

To spoil or destroy a place.
If you have a problem with that – take it up with Oxford, Webster and who all.

Let’s use it in a sentence:
Some people think that Teresa is raping the comment-pool of BoingBoing by being over zealous in her moderation.

Your problem is not with me.
Your problem appears to be with the dictionary .
You should write them email.
You know, try to get it changed more to your liking.

Tom Hale

I was using XP sp3 and google’s Chrome browser when I had my problems logging in. I used CCleaner to clean my browser and was still unable to log in. The next day I updated CCleaner to it’s newest version, cleaned my browser again and was able to log in. Coincidence?

Will Shetterly

Teresa, I thought we were dropping this for now. If so, feel free to ignore this or postpone your answer, as seems best:

When a post inspires people to comment, why should their interest be limited to a certain number of comments relative to their comments on other subjects? Isn’t talking about the subject the definition of being on-topic? Simply banning someone for talking too much about too few subjects seems ridiculous. I would think someone from fandom would understand the nature of interest better than that. Different things are important to different people. Some people have casual interests in many things, some have passionate interests in few, some are passionate about almost everything– Shouldn’t you respect that? Isn’t the point of having comments on a post to discuss the subject?

And please don’t tell me you thought Zosima was an astroturfer. You read better than that.

Now, I do realize that civility isn’t the concern here. That’s especially obvious given comment #57 in the thread. That’s Antinuous’s first appearance as moderator. Does s/he try to calm things? No, instead, the people who dare disagree with the CIA/NED/RWB/SFT take on Tibet are called “concern trolls,” even though no one in the thread was saying that no one should be blamed–we were saying that everyone who’s guilty should be blamed.

Now, if Antinuous was simply a devout Gelugpa Buddhist commenter, #57 would be deplorable, but it would be the sort of thing you’d expect from someone who is extremely partisan. But from a moderator? That’s just wrong.

Sister Y

Yes Senpai.

arkizzle

Brilliant!

..and funnily appropriate to me too.

The “Ark” in Arkizzle is from Arkham :)

Takuan

hey, I may be maudlin, but it’s sincere maudlin.

Xopher

Yeah, like Something Awful is Celeb8′s personal blog. Celeb8, if you like the atmosphere at Something Awful better, why don’t you stay there?

Takuan

oh just great Anti! now I have to kill myself!

jtrummer

Where do I find #1 requirements for photo size and #2 file format?
Judy Trummer

Antinous / Moderator

For the profile pic? It’s been broken for about two years. Some day…..

gATO

long comment section is loooong.

Didn’t got around to read all the comments, so I don’t know if this was mentioned before, but… I think it would be cool to have an “emvowell/disemvowell” button, only for disemvowelled posts, so everybody could check by themselves the alleged douchebaggery which caused the disemvowellment. Could work just like the “spoilers” buttons I’ve seen in some message boards.

Takuan

“Gaia’s sportsman”

mdhatter

Hagbard, I always wondered why MeFi bugged me so much. Very good explanation, thanks!

eustace

Wise. It was many moons ago. I remember realizing I had been DVed, then laughing until I hurt. BUSTED!!! Whoop, whoop!

Brad S.

Help,

I can’t find a better place to put this – forgive me if it’s obvious but I’m on painkillers for a bad back at the moment.

I can’t seem to get rid of the little wrench icon next to my username, located above all my posts. It’s supposed to lead to my website… I have deleted it from my profile but it’s still there, and now the link is broken. I just want it to go away, can any of the mods help? Thanks!

B

Takuan

May the good lord be with you
Down every road you roam
And may sunshine and happiness
Surround you when youre far from home
And may you grow to be proud
Dignified and true
And do unto others
As you’d have done to you
Be courageous and be brave
And in my heart youll always stay
Forever young, forever young
Forever young, forever young

May good fortune be with you
May your guiding light be strong
Build a stairway to heaven
With a prince or a vagabond

And may you never love in vain
And in my heart you will remain
Forever young, forever young
Forever young, forever young
Forever young
Forever young

And when you finally fly away
Ill be hoping that I served you well
For all the wisdom of a lifetime
No one can ever tell

But whatever road you choose
Im right behind you, win or lose
Forever young, forever young
Forever young ,forever young
Forever young, forever young
For, forever young, forever young

Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator

Drat!

Note to self: re-vowel RJ (170) in the morning.

Takuan

men, sportsmen.

igpajo

Is there a mobile version of BoingBoing that I could use? A sort of BoingBoing lite, that doesn’t take nearly a minute to load because of all the graphic intensive ads that need to load over on the side. I’m running a fairly fast IMac at home it still takes nearly 20-30 seconds for anything below the Header logo to load. When I’m out and about with my laptop using my air card it can take almost a full minute, sometimes longer before I’m able to start reading anything. Very annoying.

sammich

Hello Tak =D

minTphresh

i see u hae changed the recent comments to include the first line of the commenter ( kinda like it used to be), me likee.

eustace

I was hoping for something sustainable, being already familiar with the alternatives suggested, as well as a few I shall forbear to suggest myself. Takuan seemed to hold out hope…

Takuan

ah hah! heh! thanks Eustace! (say, is it true what they say; I’m way too squishy soft on people?)

Takuan

please, my formal title is kuso oyaji

Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator

God bless us, every one; and a happy new year to all.

pduggie

On the Palin n-word/redistributor article: my main interest in this story is why links to Kos Diarist cartwrightdale who has audio on youtube keep getting deleted.

Can anyone tell me? Is there an email for the moderators?

o0oo00o0o

I love BoingBoing, but I don’t always think Teresa (or any one of the Boingers) is right, or agree with how rude or dismissive she appears to be in text when answering some questions. Does that mean she is actually being rude or dismissive? I don’t know. It could just be my interpretation. I rarely post comments, and when I did once where she responded to me in another comment, I was a little disppointed by what she said, but I didn’t find it to be offensive.

Regardless of my own experiences, this is their site and they’re free to respond, remove stuff, and edit at their own discretion. When you write in to the OpEd section of a newspaper, it’s the same thing. Sometimes the exercising of one’s freedom isn’t totally beautiful and utopian, it’s kind of unfair to another. But that’s okay because we are free to do the same on our own turf, and are always free to particpate on their turf by their rules, to break their rules and deal with the consequences, or to simply choose not to participate. They don’t have to be fair to everyone all the time: this isn’t government, this is a website.

And maybe I’m naive, but I do think it would make an awesome statement if BoingBoing didn’t take money from companies like Microsoft and refused to run their ads. Though I don’t blame them for doing it because things are rarely black and white and I don’t pretend to know anything about their particular advertising situation. For instance, it’s highly likely that they long ago hired a company (Federated Media?) whose job it is to sell and place ads on BoingBoing, and the Boingers themselves are not at all knowledgable or responsible for the content of the ads.

Nelson.C

Technogirl @293: I think you’re really hobbling yourself by refusing to use actual examples and counter-examples. Abstract discussion can only get us so far; moderation is such an art that examples are necessary to further the discussion. Really, by trying to keep the discussion at the abstract, you make it look like there’s an “argument” that you’re afraid to “lose”, rather than a discussion about ideal moderation.

Cory @295: Just wanted to point at your comment, in case anybody missed it. Really, what’s the big deal about posting to the front page anyway, when it’s going to fall off the front page after about 24-36 hours? If Teresa was the raving egotist some posters here want to paint her, she’d've put it up last thing on Friday so it would have been on the front page all weekend and well into Monday, maybe Tuesday.

Antinous

Unbiased moderation would have to be done by software, and even then it would still contain the bias of its author. I’ll settle for reasonably equitable and generally entertaining moderation.

Takuan

gnrrrr..klik..mmmrmmmrmmrmmr…chchch..;;;

hagbard

Takuan

I suspect Josh Millard is asking about you because you have come up recently on the MeFi thread about the VB thing (in which a bunch of people read and post for days about how they don’t like BoingBoing. More like MehFeh. Are all their threads like that? I should have them all come to my next really chic party so they can talk about how bored they are. I’ll bet the toast of the town).

For example:

“Takuan wtf.
posted by cortex at 5:47 PM on July 20 ”

Tom Hale

Well, I wasn’t talking about any particular religion. But I don’t think anyone who worships Zeus owns a computer, so those are probably OK.

I don’t care what Takuan talks about – I just think he’s doing this in a mean spirited manner.

arkizzle

At least with the old way, you could hover over any interesting snippets that grabbed your eye, and the url of the relevant post would appear in the status bar of your browser.. so both items of data were represented – the comment and the topic.

I’m still definitely split.

Also, how about an rss feed of the recent comments, or individual post’s comments (with an ultra short refresh) to save me hitting reload every 2 minutes, and having to reload the whole page..

Kaiser

Longest post ever! Teresa Nielsen Hayden, is this really necessary? On the better message boards I frequent, the moderator is seldom heard from. When there is a problem, they post a quick two-sentence explanation and disaapear for another month or so. Your moderation style is a bit too vocal and I really don’t like your style. You try to be a group leader rather than a moderator. You participate when you should moderate. And you were at the center of the Hampster/Windows Mobile debacle which was handled about as horribly as anything I’ve seen on any message board evah.

Now your commentary is spilling over to the front page where it is hard to ignore. Never in the history of all the Internets have I ever seen anyone take front page space to post a massive moderation policy. Me thinks you should just get your own website.

Takuan

handy site, but experience has taught me that almost nothing disemvowelled here has significant content

Terry Karney

V(irtual)D(espot) Again and again we’re told, “This is our site to do with what we will. Love it or leave it.” Also, “This is not a democracy”. But, why shouldn’t it be a democracy? Why shouldn’t readers feel a sense of ownership? Otherwise, why publish?

Because the editors feel like sharing.

That’s why I have my blog. Do I like comments? Yes. Do I want my readers to feel they have ownership? Of their comments, sure.

I have some rules (no being rude, no absolute anonymity; to me. A nom de net is fine, but “anon” ain’t. That goes to the ownership of one’s comments).

But I write because I want to, not because someone else comments.

Cinemajay: But it DOES have an impact–it’s been disemvoweled! Your comments are being line-item-vetoed and you don’t care?

No, I don’t, or at least not in the way you seem to want me too. I’ve said, (in those other fora TNH moderates) some really harsh things. I managed, either through a long record of being polite, or enough content to justify some pretty offensive (and intentionally so) things being allowed to stand.

If they hadn’t, well it’s not my party. In real life I’ve lost it that badly; to the point I had to be told to step outside and cool off. I see this as much the same.

No, one can’t make everyone play nice. The options are to defuse the problem, or call the cops (to continue with the experiences of meatspace). One can be allowed to derail the conversation, start a fight, or be deleted (or even banned). The problem was, apparently, so bad in the past that there wasn’t a “line item veto” but rather a flat out elimination of everyone’s comments.

I don’t like that option at all. I prefer this. It is, as Robert Frost put it, “the freedom of yoke in easy harness.

To have a civil society, one has to agree to rules. These are pretty good rules, unless one is looking to start fights, derail conversations and be rude little pissant.

In that case, well I can see where one might not like them.

The problem with the “stone-cold policy” is that one will have rules lawyers who are inside those policies, and still are as offensive, disruptive and destructive as all get out. When I am dealing with subordinates who do that, the phrase which comes to mind is, “malicious obedience”.

Nix: I knew I was probably going to blow that one. It’s why I hate trying to enter the URL to Making Light, because about half the time I get it wrong. Knowing several men named Neil doesn’t help (because there are no rules when it comes to names). The worst thing, I had her webpage open when I typed it, to try and prevent that very error.

arkizzle

404:
I, for one, will miss your input. Please try again. I have no knowledge of the incident you mentioned, but it sounds pretty crappy.

Hope it’s not the last we see of you.

The Morgan

I would like Bing Bong more if Xeni & Cory were feeding me pie while Teresa watched right now. (The pie is Teresa’s favourite kind, but she isn’t allowed any.)

Then everyone has a friendly hug.

minTphresh

i dunno, man. some of ‘em are republicans.

arkizzle / Moderator

Welcome back, both :)

joshmillard

I’d like someone to explain to me how this:

“struck me as essentially petulant and dismissive throughout” — Josh Millard

or “Takuan wtf.” — cortex, AKA Josh Millard, on MeFi

…is “genuinely decent”, or “nothing but polite and reasonable”.

I’d say that Takuan correctly sensed a bit of hidden motive on Josh Millard’s part (his actual constructive contributions notwithstanding).

Have you gone back and read Takuan’s comments in the Violet Blue thread? There’s something like a dozen and a half of them, all one liners, none engaging the discussion in any substantial way. What I said above:

What I have seen, what I do have to go on, is your comments in that thread, in which you seemed to be hopping between mild defenses of the BB folks (understandable, doubly so if you’re not just a community member but a staffer), and dismissive crapping on the idea that people were actually having the discussion (not at all understandable if you are in fact a staffer).

You may disagree with me about those comments and what they mean in light of his (still unclear) role on the site. I can’t tell you to see his comments as being as being the dismissive, catty noise they came off as to me as a reader who didn’t know him from Adam. Cite the comments and tell me why they weren’t as I describe. But even the kindest reading of them doesn’t allow for how those are coming from someone in an official capacity on the site, hence the unanswered question here.

But if you’re going to cherrypick the two least-gentle lines out of everything I’ve written on this subject in the last three weeks to make the argument that I’m on a witchhunt here, you’re operating in very poor faith. I’m here because I find this situation interesting, because this site has for a long time been a part of a pretty fascinating new digital chunk of the world. I said what I said about Takuan’s comments because that is how they read to me.

“Takuan wtf” was (a) posted to a different site entirely, (b) far from a scorcher, and (c) my first comment on that site in seven days and a gut reaction to precisely the surprise and confusion about his (still unclear!) role that I felt when reading up on what had happened while I was on vacation. I don’t particularly want to hurt his feelings, but I’m also not going to pretend to be happy with the idea that he was acting like that as one of the ambassadors of the site, and if even describing in plain words what I saw as bad behavior is a sign of secret motives, discourse over here is in trouble.

minTphresh

hey BB, what’s up with the ‘family forum .com’ advertising? i will put dollars to donuts that BB will be censored from their site. internets with christian values in mind indeed.

Antinous

minT,

We need screen caps for any dodgy ads, please.

minTphresh

charlie sounds power hungry.

Tom Neff

It’s more like a disorganized and rambling hybrid of an actual moderation policy and an editorial stylebook. You can easily find lots of moderation policies online – google “comment moderation policy.” Moderating using standard practices is hard work but it’s not rocket science. Here (and in the “moderator’s” other blog) we have the consonant trick, the thing with “sock puppets” and identity guessing games, the mid-thread smackdown anthology posts, one-line microsnarks at posts and posters, etc. Nothing will change because BB is what it is, and indeed when the “moderator” is too busy to get involved, BB still has good threads. But I would think twice about importing this mess to another forum.

Takuan

damn! I could use a drink!

Takuan

“ten thousand year cowpoke’s octal continuum escapades”

Hah! I fear you are doomed to fail!MWAHAHAHA!

Lewis Haidt

Nelson (and Teresa and Antinous & co-editors),

I understand what you mean about the “collective mass of BB readers.”

However, it seems that on your side, you all over-looked the impact your subjective decisions and your instrumental use of reason (well Violet did X, then it makes “sense” for me/Xeni, to do Y; it makes sense for me/Cory to not respond at all to a herd mentality/uprising; it makes “sense” for BB’s collective editors to not realize the magnitude of the issues involved and “publish” a straight, unambivalent apology (not just in 1400+ comment land).

Coming from a friend of BB, your ethical, “community” standards have not evolved to match how large, complex, over-attached, co-dependent and at times, downright nasty, pathetic and intolerant, your network has grown.

BB is not a hip, SF “directory of wonderful things” anymore. You are a media brand; like it or not, especially given Xeni and Cory’s very specific, cultivated “public” personas, you are now held to higher standards that require you to look beyond your own “subjective,” instrumental, decision-making and institute a more open, less hypocritical policy re: “unpublishing” especially and “dis-emvoewling” so subjectively.

I mean this, that I wish you good luck in figuring out these revised standards, as you all are sitting on a frontier here, and I hope for your brands’ sake, the last few weeks is a learning experience.

and even Antinous’ subjective use of dis-emvoweling in my “Hussein” example and even in the tone of your

Jake0748

“With some encouragement, they remembered that they’re nice people in meatspace and that it might make sense to be nice people in cyberspace”.

Antinous, this may be the best summary of why I come back here to read (and sometimes write) almost every day. Bravo to you and Teresa and all the Boingers.

Antinous

Jake,

Our greatest disappointment is that there are commenters who we know are nice in meatspace, but apparently have demonically possessed keyboards. Where are Robey and John D. LeMay when you need them?

hagbard

Wurp, I have to disagree with you about slashdot. I think the commenting on slashdot is horrible. It’s like they’ve decide to make scorn a sport. I’ve tried to talk about this with all of my friend who read slashdot a lot more than I do, and every one of them says, “Oh, I never read the comments on slashdot. I just like the interesting articles.”

Takuan

aye, and a powerful long time it takes with a number twelve gnat’s hair brush and crystal loupe.

minTphresh

pleasure?

bardfinn

For anyone who wonders what the minimal standard among the community for “acceptable swearing and personal abuse” happens to be, please refer to the timeless canonical classic on the subject,’Insult Scene from “Roxanne” by Martin and Hannah’.

If you cannot meet the minimum level of self-deprecation and originality – as well as wit – set by that milestone, please consider not engaging in either personal abuse or swearing.

Thank You.

(paraphrased from my policy statement on my WWIV-BBS, circa 1991).

minTphresh

AAAAAAAAaaaaaaaa,EEEEEEEEeeeeeeee,IIIIIIIIiiiiiiii,OOOOOOOOoooooooo,UUUUUUUUuuuuuuu,and sometimes YYYYYYYYyyyyyyyy. merry x-mas, Antinous! don’t use them all at once!

mdhatter

(trollypants is a wholly owned subsidiary of 3Bulls dot com)

Takuan

nah, this is more like a Bedlam Hospital or possibly a Victorian tuberculosis sanitarium. (hyack hackk harrrr phutt!)

ZoopyFunk

Just curious, was it by design that the Mod Pol was so hard to find previously? Its seemed odd to me, that in the account sign up process, you were not confronted with the policy, nor was its importance emphasized. Its is most likely that anyone running afoul of the policy was unaware of it in the first place, and only after trying to be part of the community and stepping outside the ‘rules’. Its good to see that its now more prominent. Still a bit surprised that there is not a ‘Germs and Renditions’ section of the account sign up. Or, even more obnoxious, log everyone out, and make them agree before logging back in. just my $.02

Antinous

I’ve requested that the sign-up process include that, but I’m not sure that anyone knows how to make that change. I’ll check again. I just requested the permanent link because the old link kept getting bumped every time that we exceeded ten featured entries. It would be nice if new users didn’t keep complaining about those crazy kids and their vowel-free comments.

sluggo

Y fckrs thnk y’r s wsm, wll y’r nt. m N mth fckn mdrtr s gng t tll m wht t d, ‘ll jst pst nd pst ntl y sshls gt t thgh yr thck sklls tht m wrd s th grtst mssvs y’v vr rd, nd vr wll rd!

Pre-emptive devoweling.

Frankly, I think a threaded discussion, and some sort of alert to when someone is replying to me would be more helpful than someone ‘saving’ me from trolls, swearing, or the like.

Whatever works, I guess. I had to disable comments on my own blog because of spam – after that, I’d love some good ‘ol trolls.

Antinous

No. 6’2″. But apparently I loom large in your psyche.

joshmillard

Moderators are also people and we have the right to chip in our own opinions. I try to steer clear of adding my own political views to the soup because, really, who cares what I think anyway.

Absolutely, and I don’t mean to suggest otherwise; it’s the same on mefi, and I think it’s generally one of the healthier moves a site with real community ambitions can make to pull their mods from their userbase and let them remain users besides.

I tend to keep my head out of political threads too, so I hear you there. I’m rarely at my best there, and I rarely enjoy them as much as discussions about just about any other topic.

Naturally, commenters who have been moderated for offensive behavior frequently feel that they’ve been singled out for their political views.

Amen, and so goes life on the internet.

One of the things I’ve found frustrating but also familiar about reading through the Violet Blue thread in particular is seeing both invested sides of the argument reacting largely to the extremes of the other camp — the folks who are unhappy with what Xeni did and with how BB handled it get blinded by the folks shouting that no wrong was done, nothing to see here, only drama queens care; the folks who are unhappy about the criticism of BB reacting largely to the “Orwell” bits or the balking at “unpublishing”, etc.

It’s understandable, the most risible stuff gets the most rises, but it’s also one of those hair-tearers: in the mean time, there’s some substantial discussion trying to happen, and not only does it get dwarfed a bit by the “you suck / no you” volleys but that bad blood seems to seep into even the calm arguments, to the point where a lot of folks take any counterargument to their position as being conflated with the worst of the stuff that they’ve read.

As far as that goes, Takuan, I don’t know if there’s an element of that in play here in you reaction to me, but I don’t really know what to say to you at this point. I wouldn’t mind an answer to my question about your official role, if any, at BB, but I’m not trying to antagonize you here.

mdhatter

Is the message that if I hold a contrary opinion, I should say nothing?

The message I have figured out, is that YES, unless you are VERY VERY clever about it, you should stfu about Cory pimping his own work at his own site. Those threads are not for others to grind their axes in.

Jflex, you are still being a crank, and not a terribly clever one. I applied the attitude to you that you applied to the actual mods. I’m just some guy, holding up a mirror. Distasteful, no?

JoshMillard – you make the mistake of thinking the mods are customer service reps who owe you something. Bring more to the table, and you will be treated with more respect.

Presyncope – you read the whole thing? At one sitting? Kudos. “Stonecutters” is what you were looking for (Who made steve gutenberg a star?).

CJ – I believe that if you worry about it less, and just add something to the discussion, all it well. If all you have to add is something negative, then you need to find a way to build up with your commentary rather than tearing down. I’ve not seen a mod take down a short “I don’t like this” comment. I have seen them take down a “Cory is a sellout” comment. See the difference?

It’s a directory of Wonderful Things. If you feel you’re not ‘getting it’, or like there is some sort of ‘secret club’, or you wonder why your ‘most cleverest ever’ one liner got axed then focus on those two words – Wonderful Things – and consider what you’ve added today.

But hey, I’m just some guy. WTF are you doing listening to me?

AGF

so that’s what’s going on when I find myself typing ‘u’ everywhere. I thought I was just canadian. but no – it’s your jedi type control.

controlbroke

seconding the sugesstion that mods leave a note when disemvowelling making clear what drew their ire,

the moderation policy is clear on many points (three words) but naturally has to be wooly on many others.

this could serve as both a reminder to others and to quell the search for justification which seems to happen all too often. and intrudes upon the main topic.

Antinous

Moderating is contextual. Sometimes the context is the thread; sometimes the context is the commenter’s history. Carrying on about The Liberal Media rarely goes well, unless of course it’s a thread about politics in the media. In fact, complaining about content delivery derails a lot of threads. If the source is wrong and you have a citation to prove it, bring it on. The Liberal Media meme is just parrot squawking.

ZoopyFunk

Antinous is right, the page is far too long, and such it seems like such an important section these days, segmenting it would a great idea.

Takuan

ever tried getting a dime out of a republican?

perigee

I’m very glad you have a policy and a FAQ. I tried to convince Metafilter they needed one about 2.5 years too early. I think every public community that is big enough really needs one.

Big enough usually means big enough so that the community no longer shares sufficiently common values. Depending on the community, this seems to translate to something between 50 and 150 folks involved and participating.

So thank you!

arkizzle

Berg, you can mail Antinous the details: antinous [at] boingboing.net

Anonymous

So!

sammich

Eustace – i don’t think it counts unless you bleed…

Takuan

I trust everyone is sending screenshots?

Takuan

http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=n2HOiMeDOrs

Jake0748

@Xopher – “the concise listing lets me scan down quickly and see whether there’s anything I want to read. I’m usually interested in either whole topics, or anything by a particular user…”

Well, me too, sort of. But I liked the ability to see the first few words. You could already tell who was making the comment, and you could ALMOST always tell what the topic was. What is missing now is the ability to tell specifically who the commenter was responding to. (Just the way the first line here lets you know that I was responding to your last).

I guess I’ll get used to the new system, but now I have to figure out how to navigate all over again.

Sunfell

I like your moderation style- even handed, but also in service to the overall community. It’s not easy to find that particular even keel, but you’ve come close.

I’ve built and run some pretty large and sometimes contentious communities myself, and your rules are very similar to mine. I like the ‘disemvoweling’ tactic- is there software that you can use to do that with? It won’t work on all communities- but it’s still a cool tool.

I sometimes think that web-jerks do not believe that the pixels on their screens were put there by actual people. That is why they tend to drop trou and show their collective asses. And others seem to be expressing some form or another of mental illness- I’ve had posters who had regular ‘cycles’ of totally assinine craziness.

But the bottom line is the health of the community. You are correct in saying that a few trolls can utterly decimate a stable community. I’ve seen it happen. All you can do is electronically carpet-bomb the worst ones out of your community. If you’re lucky and have some high-quality regulars, they often give the bum’s rush to any habitual troll, or let you know if your board has erupted into a flame-war.

I like BoingBoing- I remember reading the paper magazine, and have my own “Happy Mutant” guide. I might not post or reply often (and the interesting sites I’ve pointed out have been ignored, so I no longer post them), but I read this blogset regularly. Thanks for the brain -food and the behind-the-scenes work.

Sister Y

#537 Children of Men

blueandroid

Antinous, I hear what you’re saying, but it’s not consistent with my actual comment history. I posted exactly one (not “persistent”) comment that could be read as a second amendment comment, though my intention was more closely related to defense of the fourth.

My other two comments were an attempt to get clarification from you about what we’re allowed to talk about and how you could consider a discussion of defense of rights irrelevant to an discussion on loss of rights. I apologize if those two comments should have been in this thread, not that one. Since you were posting mod-topic comments there it seemed natural to reply in the same space, but I can understand why you try to keep them separate.

With all that considered however, rendering my comments unreadable and then giving me a patronising “third warning”, you make it look to anyone else reading the thread like I was trolling, which I was not, or being unresponsive to your comments, which I was not.

If you really can’t accept any discussion related to the admittedly unpleasant business of defending one’s rights, even in a thread about loss of rights, please try to make that position clear in a less abusive way.

Antinous

Fine. I disemvowelled the warning post. That’s the best that I can offer you.

Antinous

I’m checking on that.

mdhatter

What’s so hard to grasp about the idea that people with greater power should be held to higher standards?

Just because you do not understand the metrics used does not make the standard low.

Do you deserve an apology, or do they maybe deserve smarter comments from more understanding people?

minTphresh

uhhh, you mean like calling me ” greedy guts”? arkie, that stings! of course i like pi! i’d ponder endlessly on the area of certain circlesnever considering the addage of : pi R squared, and know in my heart that pi r round and it’s COBBLER that r square. that’s it! NO CAKE FOR YOU!

Xopher

Amen to that! Me too. In addition I wish I’d been on as good terms with my dad at that age. I missed years, and now that my dad is gone (January 16) I have considerable regrets on that score, even though we reconciled years ago.

eustace

i cannot edit my profile page picture
and the pain of it strikes me deep in the soul boss
mehitabel sez toujours gai…

Antinous

It is also driving me insane. Both because I want to change my picture and because I have to hear about it from everybody else.

Anonymous

The “Recent Comments” sidebar on boingboing proper used to indicate which topic was being commented upon – is this handy feature likely to return?

Antinous / Moderator

Anonymous,

Probably a temporary glitch. Try clearing your cache and cookies.

tazzy531

Anyway to indicate that a post has been disemvowelled as opposed to one that a person having a hard time with spelling?

Talia

hv n d wht y mn. VRYTHNG sy s VRY MPRTNT!!!

Takuan

I’ll find that post and check it, I’ll bet you made a typo

Xopher

Dictionaries are stupid. And they don’t show the “load” of a word. Using the word ‘rape’ to characterize TNH’s moderation is consciously, deliberately, and maliciously provocative, and hiding behind dick-tionary definitions doesn’t make it any less so.

Bck ndr yr brdge, Tchngrl.

Joshua Larios

It looks like my comment in Cory’s post about Amazon yanking the Orwell books was removed and got my account banned. But my shorter, snarkier comment in Mark’s post about the same thing was left up, without even disemvowelling. If I had my druthers, you would have removed the snark-only comment and left the one with some actual substance. I’ll understand if you want to remove the earlier one, though. It was posted under the username “rjl20″.

I’m hoping I can get some clarification, though. Have I been banned? I can’t log in to the rjl20 account; the error message I get is “Oops, something went wrong: Permission denied.”–not the same error I get if I intentionally type the password wrong. If I’ve been banned, is it because I don’t have a long comment history and you think I’m just a drive-by troll? Because I do have a history of positive participation; just not in the comments. See http://www.boingboing.net/2006/10/02/torture-bill-nonalle.html and http://www.boingboing.net/2006/12/26/in_case_you_missed_i.html for example.

Agent 86

Vidiot, seems that any moderation question/comment/concern not in this thread runs a fair chance of being disemvoweled for being off-topic.

As for the Mods, there are only 3 (and the actual Boingers) – Teresa, Avram, and Antinous. The rest who shout and scold are simply community members who believe someone crossed the line, and feel the need to leave a warning.

I see you haven’t run afoul of our Mods, and have a nice little comment history, so don’t worry so much!

Takuan

“mehFeh”? meh then. Not a part of my life.

Any who want to fight me: I invite you. Understand though that if it serves no purpose of entertainment or enlightenment to BB, you will be bounced to the curb like any other obnoxious drunk.

joshmillard

MDHatter: Harping on the fallibility of the Boingers and Mods, and their system, ACROSS SEVERAL SITES, and not recognising the repeatedly stated fact that the current system is quite good enough for the site owners IS devaluing their system.

I’ve been trying very hard not to harp. I can’t speak for other folks who have been critical of BB, but, again, I have a tremendous amount of sympathy for the other side of the fence, so to speak, on this whole thing. Whatever my criticisms may be, I’m only talking about this stuff because I find it really personally interesting and because I believe the BB folks are at the end of the day receptive to some questions and ideas — regardless of whether any of those questions turn out to raise issues they consider driving or whether those ideas end up having any utility.

I’m not trying to declare the current system insufficient. I’ve tried to be pretty explicit that it’s my own confusion about what they’re thinking/planning/intending with BB, rather than any presumption that something is prima facie broken, that’s driving my interest. If the answer is that the questions I’m raising just strike them as not pressing, cool. But I haven’t been told by them to stop or to shut my damn trap, and, again, I’ve been trying awful hard not to do anything like “harp” on them.

As far as “SEVERAL SITES” goes, this one’s an obvious venue for discussion; Mefi is my homepage and where I first heard about it; Making Light is Teresa’s homebase and where the first real discussions took place. I visit an awful lot of sites on any given day — I work and play on the Internet — and I don’t understand why following more than one discussion is supposed to be considered a bad thing. I’d think it’d lead to if anything a more balanced take on the situation. On the other hand, I wasn’t lulling it up over on Valleywag or any of the other gossip pits.

Antinous: Two things. One, the last few weeks have been quite different from the norm here. We don’t usually do nearly so much moderating.

I guess what I’m looking to understand is if you’d characterize the moderation style, in non-VB threads in general in say the last week or so, as quite different than normal. Again, I totally appreciate that the VB thread itself was a weirdy and that the pre-TVBT questions-and-references-being-deleted thing was an outlier occurrence; I’m talking more about the baseline, not-VB-related stuff in general, as far as moderator interactions.

If you’re saying you guys are just trending super-spiky lately and none of what you’ve done this week is representative of the normal “wrangling” paces, I’ll take your word for it and make an effort to dig into more of the archives to reinterpret the baseline.

Two, it is and has always been a personal blog. If you can really get that, what we do makes much more sense.

I’m working on it, really. I can respect that that’s the philosophy the BB team is going for, I’m just not yet totally understanding how that’s intended to work vis-a-vis the comment culture here and the idea of community that folks have referenced.

I’m really not trying to be a pain in the ass about any of this either, or lecture anybody — I tend to write a lot, and often, when I’m interested in something, but I suppose I should just make a point of leaving off her before the welcome mat swings back under the door completely.

buddy66

Oh, JFLEX, I’ve just learned that besides the three mods and the apprentice, there are seven ”stealth” mods; so watch your ass!

mdhatter

Josh, your apparent agenda (to me, again just some guy who, like you, has the time) was wanting to get people to define things apparently so you could show them their own inconsistencies. A good skill, but it doesn’t (to me) seem to scale very well all the way down to how blog comments are run.

Then I remembered from the VB thread that you’re a Mod at another site (I’ve forgotten which one), and recognized that -for you- the minutiae actually IS important. My bad, really, but you could focus on what’s right rather than what’s wrong a little more too.

Takuan

they don’t go “missing”. I eat them.

technogirl

I agree with the moderation policy in general although I must side with some of the other posers who more or less seem to feel that moderation should be done a bit more quietly.

The best moderation comes silently ,anonymously and without fanfare, in my opinion. Having a largish front page article on this by th moderator leads, or could lead, to a dangerous “cult of personality” situation where the now (in)famous moderator is attacked by trolls and the conflict escalates and the now well known moderator starts taking it personally and … well it goes downhill from there. Quickly

Disemvoweling is an interesting idea – when done discretely and without further comment. Done so openly it , well it kind of becomes like DRM – a challenge for one to defeat. How difficult would it be to create a web page that reimvowled all comments? How difficult to make a Firefox plug-in?

Anonymity and discretion (as in acting discretely) are, in my opinion, the foundation upon which good moderation exists. I do agree with your ideas and ideals Theresa, but by front-paging this you have set yourself up as a challenge and for a huge war with the trolls and other miscreants that infest places like these.

I predict this will end badly.
I hope that I am yet again wrong .

Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator

Klokwerk, _____ let the ____ ___ you in the ___ on ____ ___ ___.

Takuan

of course there are plenty of intelligent, interesting, well-behaved people at Metafilter. That’s why it’s fun telling the less perceptive there isn’t. Instead of marzipan, can we do the boil-the-water-slow-and-make-them-burrow-into-the-giant-block-of-tofu-before-serving?

eustace

How amazing! You are, each and every one of you, exactly as old as I had hoped. And soon, the reason that you have been gathered together will become clear; the stars are aligning even as we speak…

Tom Neff

Somehow I got a double post on the reload there, you can delete the earlier one at leisure.

Xopher

Technogeek, I think it’s a control-meta-cokebottle topic. Outgeek THAT. :-)

mdh

Ui mai koe ki ahau he aha te mea nui o te ao.

Takuan

ah! and Teresa is “Community Manager” now!