I'm hereby declaring open season on anything unfamiliar that comes through the door. Newbies: behave or die.

Teresa: I recommend Purdeys.

I'm hereby declaring open season on anything unfamiliar that comes through the door.

I am somehow reminded of a scene from Sethra Lavode:

"I wonder how many of them there are."

"Let us count them as we go."

"Very well."

---

Incidentally, I've never been a MeFi reader, and a quick scan through the linked thread suggests that I never will be. I'm not sure what kind of Filter the MetaFilter is, but it needs some maintainance, because it seems to be clogged.

Teresa, it's tempting at this point to arrange for a singing telegram or something just to see what this open season involves. Then I reflect on videos of firepower in action and reconsider.'

"Troll season!"

"Crank season!"

Anil Dash phrased clearly just about what I was thinking. I assume that there's some very good reason for what's been happening to the VB-related material, and I'm guessing that there's fire-fighting going on. And from little what I know of the people involved, I'd be surprised if, once they cease to be up to their collective asses in alligators, they didn't provide at least a bit of an explanation about why it was necessary to do some swamp drainage.

The interesting phenomenon here, to me, is how not how quickly people are willing to jump to conclusions with little to no information, but instead how passionately they will defend those conclusions.

I guess if I were running BoingBoing I'd be pleased that I'd succeeded in creating such intense emotional engagement. People don't get this worked up over stuff they don't care much about.

Just the same, I think I'll hide backup copies of my favorite rants in the Curmudgeons League apocalypse-proof data bunker, if I can just find the durned key....

This is why some of us love scooting over to Metafilter - what a great community. You can even find links to posts here - what a convenience.

An ounce of data is better than nothing. Thanks, Teresa. I'm sure looking forward to the full payload, of course.

Forgive my ignorance, but where does Anil Dash fit into the MF link? Does he have a pen name I don't know but everyone else does? Firefox findeth not his name on that page...

I find myself mystified by the whole BB/VB/TNH kerfluffle. I don't know what is going on or why, but it seems many people are in a high state of outrage/excitement over it.

I will admit to rarely if ever reading the comments on BB.

Anil's handle on mefi is "anildash".

Incidentally, I've never been a MeFi reader, and a quick scan through the linked thread suggests that I never will be. I'm not sure what kind of Filter the MetaFilter is, but it needs some maintainance, because it seems to be clogged.

MetaFilter isn't for everyone, but I would recommend not dismissing it so cavalierly. The operating principle there is freedom of speech; the moderators are extremely chary of deletions and depend on speech (theirs and others') to counteract speech they dislike, which I find exemplary behavior. Yes, it can get noisy, especially in a controversial thread like that, but more interesting things tend to emerge than in a comfortable round-table discussion where everybody knows everybody else and is on the same page.

In that particular thread, John Scalzi and I got hot under the collar, snarled, came to our senses, and shook hands. That couldn't have happened had our initial snarls been deleted for lowering the tone, and that sort of thing is very common at MeFi.

I fully understand that the vigorous, often jokey, sometimes confrontational discussion style at MeFi can make people uncomfortable, but on the whole it provides the most wide-ranging and interesting debate of any internet site I'm familiar with. You might want to give it another chance -- though I'd recommend trying another thread!

Anil Dash

Teresa's link should hop right to his post. If not, search for "anildash".

#11 Josh: Wow. I saw the post here, looked at the MF link page, found no posts by Anil Dash, etc. Now, prompted by you I went back and the thread is ten times longer than it was when I went there the first time, including posts by Dash, Scalzi, etc. Weirdness.

Ah. I believe I now have context for Patrick's remarks of the other day. Sympathies all around, to thems as need it. And yes, Anil Dash has got some mighty brane on.

A statement has gone up on Boing Boing.

Had the BB people had just said that in the first place (even by private email) when asked instead of deleting all questions on the spot, this whole thing probably would never have blown up in the first place.

Yeah, probably just a burp, DaveL. It's a big pile of thread.

And I'd second much of what language hat just said. I'm one of the folks who runs the site -- "cortex", over there -- and while I will never imagine Mefi to be for everyone (any more than any other interesting community site would be), I think there's a worst-possible-light aspect to the kind of vaguely-antagonistic cross-site interactions that come up in a context like this.

It's more or less impossible to prevent a large community from having some sharp edges and some loudish mouths. Commentary is more or less laissez faire on mefi, and we only pull really out-of-line or willfully, continuously disruptive stuff getting pulled from threads on metafilter proper if we can help it. Between that and the degree of inscrutibility that comes with in-jokes and localized lingo, it's always odd having eyes coming into the site when there's a contentious topic about.

Insofar as that means that there are some obnoxious cheap shots in the thread, I'm annoyed at some mefites' behavior but accepting that that's how we can look. It's like having a very large, very weird family out to eat at a restaurant sometimes. But get past the drunken uncles and it turns out there are some fascinating folks involved, having some pretty solid discussions about everything under the sun.

Sorry about the stuttering of first places there. Note to self: must proof read more conscientiously.

Phil, to repeat what was said on Boing Boing, they were trying to avoid embarrassing people. You can't say that without causing the embarrassment you're trying to avoid. In the end, it wasn't possible to avoid it.

language hat @ 12--You're right that it isn't for everyone, though. It's a place that privileges the more aggressive commenter, and effectively silences the shy. That's also a form of speech-control, and just because it happens invisibly doesn't make it not so.

It's a place that privileges the more aggressive commenter, and effectively silences the shy. That's also a form of speech-control, and just because it happens invisibly doesn't make it not so.

Oh, come on. To allow free speech is neither to privilege the aggressive nor to silence the shy; it's simply to let people say what's on their minds. To call it "a form of speech-control" is Orwellian (in the sloppy but now accepted sense of that much-abused term). Shy people silence themselves; that's a pity, but it's not the fault of the agora.

Teresa: I appreciate that entirely, but once you'd got to the point where the BoingBoing moderators were deleting comments asking about the issue you'd already lost control. Doing stuff like that is just guaranteed to stir people up and make things worse, not better.

Personally I'm really surprised that a new media savvy organisation like BoingBoing couldn't (or wouldn't) see that.

I didn't say the control was being exercised by anyone but the shy people themselves (which is one of the reasons I carefully avoided the word "censorship"), but if it seemed I was implying that, I apologize. Still, I think it's illustrative of the lack of middle ground between the idea that fora are wholly public spaces that should have little or no control over what is said, and the idea that they are more private spaces where active moderation is desirable to create a safer space for communication.

language hat@22: I'm not sure I agree with you on that front. Much as I love the cut & thrust of metafilter, I can quite see how such a culture would be anathema to certain types of people, who will simply choose not to post at all, and metafilter is in some senses poorer as a result.

Other forums (like ML) choose a more aggressive approach to moderation partially in order to demonstrate that they value the contributions of people who don't necessarily want to engage in the kind of in your face debate that often occurs in metafiter threads. Neither option is necessarily "better" than the other.

Andrea A. Phillips #6:

I'd guess that when defending a snap judgement - especially a jumpy one - you are not defending just that particular conclusion, but your confidence in and capability to make such quick decisions.

LanguageHat, there really are people who can't speak up in an environment like that. Honest. I'm not one of them, but I know they exist. I also know they aren't rare.

Some kinds of speech exclude others. It's a matter of environment. I'm glad MetaFilter exists. I'm glad for the existence of other forums as well.

Phil (23), if we were not entirely in control of the situation, neither were the commenters who were trying to force an issue the Boingers were still debating.

Teresa, thanks for linking to that statement. It's about what I figured.

I'm still curious about why the content was removed, but... as I've said to friends who've touched on the edge of something very personal in their lives, "I'm curious about this, but I know that it's none of my business and I don't want to pry. If you'd like to talk about it, I'm willing to listen."

Other forums (like ML) choose a more aggressive approach to moderation partially in order to demonstrate that they value the contributions of people who don't necessarily want to engage in the kind of in your face debate that often occurs in metafiter threads.

Which is a totally reasonable approach.

Oddly enough, the dichotomy between unchecked-and-rough and more-closely-moderated modes of community administration exists within Mefi itself:

Ask Metafilter has a somewhat more restrictive, more actively moderated commenting culture than Metafilter proper -- the goal of that part of the site is to get folks answers to questions, not to host free-form discussions attached to interesting links, and so we're pretty attentive about removing derails or infighting in order to keep the utility of the site high.

Metafilter itself isn't utility-driven, and so the (mostly) free-for-all approach reigns there.

As you say, it's not one option being better than another in any absolute sense: there are just different trade-offs and compromises that come with any given choice.

One of the heartening things about mefi, for me, is that as often as you have someone swaggering and shouting, you may have someone else telling them to can it and let the shy guy talk. There's an aspect of community policing there that, when it shines, mitigates well the chase-out-the-bashful effect of a busy and boisterous conversation.

And Phil again (25): Making Light is fine with in-your-face debate. I believe there's an inherent respect shown by fully engaging with someone else's argument. What we don't like is careless habitual rudeness, or the use of rudeness to bolster what would otherwise be a weak argument.

Well, I for one just melted the hell down on BoingBoing. Jesus, I hate this maleficent energy that BoingBoing lightning-rods in from (apparently) the entire human race. It's a talent. One wonders why the boingers still boing. I would have packed it in years ago, faced daily with such evidence of the fundamental hopelessness of humanity.

Normally, only ruling Republicans can arouse my ire so effectively.

Ah well, too bad that statement didn't get made earlier. It is scary but not surprising just how fast general indignation and flamage can blow up.

Because it'll go far better if you completely clear the air now, rather than seeming that there's something to hide later, may I suggest an addition?

There were some general flames suggesting that Boing Boing had also deleted all posts and comments referencing Ursula Le Guin. That's manifestly false, as I found a number when I did a simple search on the site.

However, I did also find some subtle indications that one or more past posts about Le Guin might have been deleted some time back - probably in haste at the time of all the foofaraw about quoting her one-paragraph story. I humbly suggest that now would be the best time to check with the proprietors, and if that is what happened, to acknowledge it now (e.g. in a postscript to the VB post) and deflate any head of steam over that topic. Otherwise next time there's a "controversy" it'll be dragged out again with even more real or faux indignation behind it.

Last thought: next time something like this has to be done, if ever, replace the deleted posts with placeholders such as [original post removed by author] rather than vanishing it? I suspect this would somewhat reduce the fears about "rewriting history".

P.S. Teresa, email me if you need a hint on what I'm talking about re UKL, if the parties involved forgot.

Phil@25: Neither option is necessarily "better" than the other.

hmm. I disagree, and I think that in this case quality is actually measurable -- at least in theory.

It's my observation -- and not just mine -- that what you call "the cut & thrust" is especially off-putting to woman, not least because of the way guys will casually insult each other with gendered language. I think this is co-extensive with the real problems with misogyny in tech workplaces.

Now, IIRC if you have a group of people with men and women talking, when women make more than 30% of the comments people (M & F) say that the women are talking "all the time". In other words, unless you have the gut (though mistaken) feeling that the women in your group are talking "all the time", you're not hearing women's voices. And any space that's supposed to be for "free speech" but where only some people's speech is free ... isn't.

Clifton @33 -- that's an eminently reasonable suggestion.

Phil @ 23 -- I don't think you understand the nature of BoingBoing's burden. I'm not joking that they draw the negative vibes out of the very atmosphere itself. There is literally nothing they can do -- ever -- to avoid shitstorms.

Also, in general, (1) I can't even read contentious and voluble crap like mefi (tho I wish I were parent-supported so I'd have that time) and (2) it's fine if you keep the arrogance and general snot-nosedness within your own walls, but when you spill out into the world at large, there are many people who aren't liable to chuckle and say, "Kids will be kids." Civilization is a thin veneer over primate nature. There are reasons for the basic rules of politeness, and while it may appeal to the adolescent in all of us to run rampant over them (again: primate behavior), that is not the world we actually want to live in.

I guess I'm just saying, fine, you can keep your drunken uncles, but if you wheel them out in public, it's your problem if they end up in the drunk tank overnight.

@34-5, the Le Guin affair you're referring to is largely a matter of public record. Something was posted, then it was deleted, and very shortly thereafter Cory posted an exhaustive explanation.

I think it's pretty clearly different from the current kerfuffle, most obviously because the Boingers were responding to a legal threat.

Link.

Oh, sorry -- my last post turned out to be based on a hasty misreading. Apologies to Clif.

Teresa: I did not mean to imply that debate does not occur (or is not permitted to occur) here. Clearly it does. The tone differs markedly from metafilter of course, as a consequence of the moderation policy & the culture built up by those who choose to participate, which obviously interact and feed upon each other.

I was merely suggesting that the tone adopted by ML might be more conducive to certain types of people that that adopted by metafilter. I hope there's nothing controversial about that!

I think this entire situation is complicated by the fact that many people have a personal relationship with the principals involved. Or, at least, are close to people (like our hosts here) who do have such a relationship.

Anytime you have a personal connection to someone you are going to be willing to cut them more slack than you otherwise would. There isn't anything wrong with that; it's how the world manages to keep chugging along. But from an outsider's point of view, I still see that BB generally doesn't grant other entities that level of slack. There certainly aren't a lot of "this is weird and potentially troublesome but let's all settle down and wait to see what happened" posts there.

Anyway, I'm glad a statement went out and I think BB would clearly have been better off if they had listened to and followed Teresa's rules for PR management. At the least they probably should have anticipated that actions like they took coming from a site like Boing Boing would provoke widespread interest and had a statement ready for that eventuality. Lastly, I think BB should probably decide if they are a site that's partially a media outfit (boing boing TV, media watchdog activities, etc) or if they're just a personal blog for a couple people to throw out some things they think are cool, because they seem to want to be both depending on which costume advantages them in the current situation.

My sympathies to anyone involved in any embarrassment. Live your life partially online and out there for everyone to see and that sort of thing is inevitable but still, no doubt, uncomfortable.

As to moderation in general, I still believe that the completely uncensored Usenet circa 1991-1993 was the Amber that all other online communities are but pale shadows of. With the commercialization of the internet I recognize that being able to delete spam is probably necessary now, but beyond that, well, the solution to speech you don't like is, in my opinion, more speech. Yeah, there are downsides to that. Yeah, it can be obnoxious and uncomfortable. Sometimes life is like that.

Teresa @ 31... Making Light is fine with in-your-face debate

Hear, hear. And the supposedly aggressive moderation suits me just fine, but one's kilometrage may vary.

Ask Metafilter has a somewhat more restrictive, more actively moderated commenting culture than Metafilter proper...

Thank you, now I understand. Like duct tape, Metafilter has a light side, and a dark side!

(Okay, okay... With due respect to those of you who cherish the Howling Mob Experience, let's call them the "formal side" and the "wild side".)

I was wondering why this thread was totally unlike any other Metafilter link I'd ever followed...

I guess I'm just saying, fine, you can keep your drunken uncles, but if you wheel them out in public, it's your problem if they end up in the drunk tank overnight.

Er? When did I suggest otherwise? People from mefi say and do embarassing things. There's thirty-something thousand of them, all told. I don't think impromptu cross-site interactions -- between any realistic sample of community sites -- tend to go well, or to scale well, or to make either side of the interaction look particularly good.

I don't fantasize that I have any real ability to prevent someone who hangs out on mefi from being a jerk elsewhere, though I occasionally make a point of asking someone threatening a ruckus to calm the heck down and walk away.

I'm having trouble parsing the "I wish I were parent-supported so I'd have that time" thing, though. Is that a "mefites live in their parents' basements" jab, or something aimed more at site administration, or what?

The LATimes has an article on this:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/webscout/2008/06/violet-blue-scr.html

Oh yes, and Fark has a comment thread set up on it too...

Wakboth @26: Hmm, that's an excellent point. Thank you for making it!

Separately, on MeFi: I find it a very useful community. It helps me to work out how people can arrive at very different, reasoned points of view on many, many subjects. It's worth the price of admission for that alone. The signal to noise is fairly high (though not as high as here) and even the noise is educational in its own way.

It might not be right for you, but that doesn't make it (or its participants) a festering barnacle on the face of the internet.

You know, I may have to memorize Anil Dash's comment so that I can haul it out (attributed to him) at key moments.

I think maybe I'm more naive than I want to be. However, I was surprised by the sheer rate of blog posts and comments which, in the lack of any actual data, simply assumed the absolute worst. Once that started, I wasn't surprised that it took a life of its own. But I'm always taken aback by what can grow in a vacuum.

I'm glad that BoingBoing has issued a statement. Hopefully, this will put a stop to at least some of the hysteria.

I comment here. I will continue to do so.

Descriptions of MeFi make me think it's not for me. And I am far from shy. Anil Dash's comment on MeFi was intelligent, but one doesn't have to read far in either direction to find comments to make one shudder, not if one is this one here.

The BoingBoing statement is clear and to the point and ought to lay most questions to rest. It didn't. Some of the commenters on the resulting thread ought to be spanked, or have their heads shoved in the toilet (not to drown them, just long enough to trigger a dive reflex and humiliate them a little).

I think this whole thing is stupid. If I throw away old love letters from (or to) someone I messily broke up with, am I "unpersoning" them? No, I'm decreating them in my own little universe, which is something I have a right to do and may need to do. And anyone who tells me I have no right to do that can really go fuck themselves.

John L @44 -- The LA Times Blog has an entry on this. That's slightly different than the Times running an article.

Much as I love the cut & thrust of metafilter, I can quite see how such a culture would be anathema to certain types of people, who will simply choose not to post at all, and metafilter is in some senses poorer as a result.

LanguageHat, there really are people who can't speak up in an environment like that. Honest. I'm not one of them, but I know they exist. I also know they aren't rare.

I don't disagree with either of you, but you're disagreeing with a point I didn't make. I didn't say there weren't people who can't speak up in an environment like that; I know some of them personally. I was saying that's their decision, it's not some form of oppression by "free speech," which is what #21 alsafi seemed to be saying ("It's a place that privileges the more aggressive commenter, and effectively silences the shy. That's also a form of speech-control"); I accept alsafi's word that the statement was not meant the way I took it, but I still have a hard time reading "That's also a form of speech-control" any other way.

Whether MetaFilter is poorer for it is a matter of debate. While of course more voices are better, it is impossible to have both vigorous free speech and the participation of those who are intimidated by such speech, and I value the former highly enough to be pretty sure it's worth the loss of the latter. Furthermore, people can learn over time to deal with it; I know some who started out only participating in the "safe" AskMetafilter section, but gradually got accustomed to the rough-and-tumble of the other parts and joined in.

Xopher: What you're fantasising about is torturing people. Do you really think that's healthy?

language hat@22: Shy people silence themselves; that's a pity, but it's not the fault of the agora.

It's for this reason that the standards of the agora are not the same as the standards of the coffeehouse or the salon, and also why the agora should not be the only venue for the exchange of ideas. A loud voice and a thick skin are useful in the rough-and-tumble of public debate, but the stentorian and the leather-hided among us are not necessarily the ones possessed of the keenest insight.

It's my observation -- and not just mine -- that what you call "the cut & thrust" is especially off-putting to woman, not least because of the way guys will casually insult each other with gendered language.

This is absolutely true, and the "boyzone" aspect (as it's called there) has historically been the single biggest flaw in MetaFilter. It has caused some valued contributors to leave, and I have spoken out about it as long as I've been a member. I'm happy to say that after a couple of long and painful MetaTalk threads (which I won't link to, because if people have a hard time with the BoingBoing thread those'll really upset them) a lot of people got the point and things have gotten noticeably better. They'll never be perfect, because MeFi is a human institution, but it's encouraging to see that these things can get hashed out in such a way that minds are changed. Again, I find that better than just zapping all comments that anyone might perceive as "hurtful" or "sexist" and sweeping the problem under the rug.

Knock it off, Phil. That's not what Xopher said.

Debra Doyle #51 : It's for this reason that the standards of the agora are not the same as the standards of the coffeehouse or the salon, and also why the agora should not be the only venue for the exchange of ideas.

Quite so, and neither should the coffeehouse or the salon.

A loud voice and a thick skin are useful in the rough-and-tumble of public debate, but the stentorian and the leather-hided among us are not necessarily the ones possessed of the keenest insight.

See, this is what bothers me about the discussion here (and other places where similar prejudices are expressed). You seem perfectly comfortable assuming and stating that MetaFilter belongs to "the stentorian and the leather-hided." With respect, I spend time there and you (I gather) don't; which of us is likely to have a better feel for the place? And do I seem stentorian to you? Why not take my word for it that there is subtle, well-informed, and (save the mark) polite discourse there alongside the jokes and arguments? Just because you (or people you know) don't feel comfortable there doesn't ipso facto make it the equivalent of the Colosseum (or, if you prefer, Fark).

I'll second what languagehat says about the boyzone aspect of Metafilter.

Metafilter is extremely self-aware and there were multiple 1000+ comment threads in Metatalk in a very short period of time about how to make Metafilter more accessible to women in particular without sacrificing what makes Metafilter valuable in the process. So the observation that Doctor Science makes is not only something Metafilter is aware of, it's something that Metafilter spends a hell of a lot of time grappling with, discussing, and taking action over.

I don't think the BB blowup can reasonably be set at Metafilter's feet. It was a car wreck waiting to happen given BBs very high profile and sought-out reputation in terms of being on the forefront of issues regarding online censorship.

Michael Roberts #36:
I can't even read contentious and voluble crap like mefi (tho I wish I were parent-supported so I'd have that time) and (2) it's fine if you keep the arrogance and general snot-nosedness within your own walls, but when you spill out into the world at large, there are many people who aren't liable to chuckle and say, "Kids will be kids." ... I guess I'm just saying, fine, you can keep your drunken uncles, but if you wheel them out in public, it's your problem if they end up in the drunk tank overnight.

Honest question: does this kind of childish insult represent the accepted standards around here? If so, with what right does anyone look down at MetaFilter?

Grobstein: No problem, I can see how you might have misread it at first.

And having looked at the comments on that LA Times blog, it reads very much like the other thread here.

language hat #49: I think the best solution possible for that is the one the net seems to be evolving--lots of different venues for discussions, without the notion that one kind trumps the others. The world is better for having both loud biker bars and quiet coffee shops.

Phil #50: I'd hate to hear what you'd accuse me of fantasizing about, after seeing me drive on the Beltway. (How does that Woody Allen quote go? "I told him to be fruitful and multiply, but not exactly in those words.")

albatross #59: I think the best solution possible for that is the one the net seems to be evolving--lots of different venues for discussions, without the notion that one kind trumps the others. The world is better for having both loud biker bars and quiet coffee shops.

I entirely agree. Well said.

language hat@54: Me, I cut my internet teeth on GEnie's Science Fiction RoundTable, where they used to issue you a flamethrower when you logged on just so you'd start out even. But I am willing to believe that a certain percentage of people find Metafilter's rules of engagement intimidating and offputting, not least because much the same thing was often said of the old SFRT, back in the day.

(For that matter, I'm willing to believe that a certain percentage of people find Making Light to be intimidating and offputting, both because of the generally high level of play and the unwritten but generally understood rules of decorum that apply.)

But it doesn't do much good to tell somebody who's trying to run a coffeehouse that they ought to follow the market-square rules instead.

#12 Language Hat - Thank you for such a new lovely word - chary.

I like chary, esp. when it comes to commenting on fora.

;o)

Debra Doyle #61: But it doesn't do much good to tell somebody who's trying to run a coffeehouse that they ought to follow the market-square rules instead.

Very true, and I wouldn't do that. To each venue its own decorum!

Meta filter trikes me as being too much like school kids bickering at each other over their guesses about what the parents are discussing with teachers in the office.

Teresa@16: Thank you for posting the statement and starting the thread at BB.

I would also like to second Clifton's recommendation at #33: If you're going to "unpublish" something (whether temporarily or permanently), it's best to put something in its place indicating what you've done (which can be as simple as "this post has been removed by its author" or "this post is unavailable pending review by the editors") instead of having it look indistinguishable from a URL that never existed.

This isn't just a sop to the suspicious: it's a courtesy to folks who were linking to, or following links to, old posts that aren't there any more. It's compatible with the desire not to embarrass people you mention in #20 -- anyone specifically looking for the post can see that it's been removed, and can see who's responsible for that decision-- but it doesn't in itself draw attention from folks who weren't interested in the issue.

Sorry about that; it was indeed an LATimes blog that Fark had linked to.

What John Mark Ockerbloom said in #65. Silently breaking links to stuff you own is bad internet practice, however much right and power you may have to do so. I expected better because of the respect and admiration I have for Boing Boing on internet issues, and I'm disappointed that Boing Boing seems not to care about the damage to the broader internet that they created while exercising their undisputed sovereignty over their own realm.

For the benefit of people whose only exposure to MeFi is the boingboing thread, just so you know, this sort of thing is much more usual for Metafilter.

Serge 53: Thank you.

albatross 59: Thank you, too.

Phil 50: [somewhat different phrase, oddly enough also ending in '-k you'.]

LH,

I rarely read the Mefi comments, because the level of commentary is so off-putting. Fun links, yes, but I prefer a more civil discourse. You do that naturally, partially because of the subject matter of your blog, and so I read your commenters extensively. I read comments here. I skip the ones on BB and Mefi, and often when I dip my toes into those waters, I run screaming. It amazes me that even as a discriptivist, you can stand some of the language and phrasing common in the communities of both of those websites. MetaFilter is esp. bad about this and creates a problem for me as I won't wade through the crap to find the content. On the other hand, I don't believe there is any "content" to be had on the original mefi post on this subject.

Well, to clarify my earlier comment, I do not think 404 pages are breaking the Internet, oh noes!!

I simply think that a notice/placeholder would serve better to manage the general public's odd expectations about permanency, however unreasonable they may be.

I'm an old GEnie hand too, and was on the Well for ten years, which was frequently accused of being too rough-and-tumble but which had great conversations amid all the frank (and sometimes frankly nasty) talk. (And it somehow managed to have lots of active women, too.) On the open Web, I tend to prefer a lively but firmly and intelligently moderated conversational forum, because it's easy for assholes to poison an open place if they're not smacked down. But I agree with the value of having places with looser rules that are policed by little more than community mores, even if I think that's a very uneasy balance to try to maintain.

Which is a longwinded way of saying, I'm sympathetic to Language Hat and David's defenses of Metafilter, and am not making any assumptions about the community based on what I've read here. Just a few of its members.

#65 If you're going to "unpublish" something (whether temporarily or permanently), it's best to put something in its place indicating what you've done (which can be as simple as "this post has been removed by its author" or "this post is unavailable pending review by the editors") instead of having it look indistinguishable from a URL that never existed.

I don't know about the back end of Boing Boing, but I can tell you about the back end of MT as I see it here:

If I click "Unpublish" on a post or an article, it's still available to be put back in its same place, unaltered and unharmed, again with a single click. But if I replace the text with "This post has been removed by its author" the original text is gone and cannot be easily reconstituted.

I'm shocked and outraged at Jerry Pournelle's comments!

Oh, wait, that was a different fracas. ;)

I think things like this, once they achieve critical mass, are pure blogosphere spectacle. Almost none of us have all the facts, but almost all of us have /staunch/ opinions, and we'll argue and agree among ourselves until we're blue in the face.

I'm waiting for the wonk to write the inevitable article about how much money this scandal causes the country in lost wages or some silly thing. You know it's coming.

When Teresa makes a statement, instead of immediately jumping to "Cover up!" I'm inclined to take her at face value. I'm inclined to give BB the benefit of the doubt. The character demonstrated there over years counts for something.

It amazes me that even as a discriptivist, you can stand some of the language and phrasing common in the communities of both of those websites. MetaFilter is esp. bad about this and creates a problem for me as I won't wade through the crap to find the content.

Really and truly? If anything, a lot of folks at metafilter sometimes strike me as overly pedantic, too quick to worry over the niceties of language instead of just proceeding with the conversation. This is something I imagine language hat would back me up on.

But it's a diverse crowd. We also have younger folks; poor typists; folks for whom English is not a first or a primary language; even some (god help us!) linguistically lazy people who merely care more about making their point than they do about making it look pretty or feel pithy.

Which, I don't know. I can see it being off-putting at a glance, that weird mix of careful and not-so-careful writing, and if it's just that one glance and a shake of the head and going on your way, so be it. But I've loved mefi for a long time in large part because of the language of the site and the cleverness and expressiveness of its members.

That's something that, granted, rarely shines through its brightest during noisy, much-busier-than-normal internet drama threads like the one tied to this issue.

Scraps #72: Thanks, much appreciated.

T.W #64: My, another commenter who exhibits the very vice meant to be pinned on MetaFilter.

just so you know, this sort of thing is much more usual for Metafilter.

While that's true, I would also point to this sort of thing as examples of what I love about the place.

James D. Macdonald @ #73:

That's a very interesting point as to good reasons for simple removal vs. place-holder replacement. Actually, I find fascinating the simple mention that there's an "Unpublish" button. I had no idea...

Nice statement Teresa. I'm glad it's gone up, if only because I was imagining your frustration at seeing the option of quick measured response to this brouhaha slowly slip away.

As a note, David P. at BB has a wicked sense of humor today.

As another note, can anyone believe the nerve of zota over in the other thread? Goddamn. Sockpuppetry is one thing, but using the name of a principal in the argument at hand is maybe the lowest I've seen. I still wish it hadn't been closed off, but it was getting a bit more incendiary, I guess. Still, glad to see this one opened up. Makes me sad when threads are closed off in what I think might be premature defeatism and frustration. I guess because I haven't been reading the commentary anywhere but here (and the ridiculous post at Tomorrow's Futures) I hadn't yet had my fill, whereas Patrick was steeped in the thing.

Actually, I find fascinating the simple mention that there's an "Unpublish" button.

For CMS purposes, I'm a Wordpress guy rather than MT. There (at least in the current interface), there's no "Unpublish" button, but the same functionality is handled with a drop-down menu with the options "Published", "Pending Review", and "Unpublished". Pick an option, hit the Save button.

It's useful functionality in a number of situations (though I've only ever used it once or twice in a panic when I accidentally published an unfinished draft) and so a neologistic "unpublish"-as-verb usage makes sense and does go to explain the otherwise kind of doomy-sounding term.

Unfortunately, that doesn't make it sound much less doomy to folks encountering it for the first time in an unflattering context.

It's really hard to handle a situation without embarrassing the parties involved. This fits in well with my long-term observations that it is a lot easier to generate negative karma than it is to get rid of it.

If you do nothing, you feel embarrassed, and other parties may do more of whatever it was that was embarrassing you.

If you take action and say nothing, people will wonder why, and imagine all sorts of possible motivations for your action, many of could be much more embarrassing than the reality, so you feel even more embarrassed. Meanwhile, the other parties involved feel surprised and embarrassed by the whole thing, or at least they say so.

If you take action and say something, at least you have a chance of explaining it without going into all the embarrassing details. Also, you have a chance it will blow over faster. But there's no way to completely avoid the embarrassment.

Gursky 78: Yes, re zota. Just astonishing. I mean, I'd tagged hir as a troll fairly early on, but identity theft (of a sort) really crosses the line. I'm glad Patrick banished hir.

Thanks for the kind words, Teresa. And Josh, yep, in the version of Movable Type they're using, one of the status settings for entries is "Unpublished (Draft)". I can see how that might have influenced the languaged used.

#69 Xopher: man what. Seriously. I know you're not a Buddhist, but I think this is a situation where attachment is leading to suffering.

You don't understand what the blowup is about; cool. But saying "All these intelligent people who are mad are being stupid" is not cool: these are smart reasoned people and if they have a beef your job as a polite respectful person is to sit back and try to figure out, why do so many people have a beef?

Telling people to fuck off because they're like, "Whoa, dude, suggesting torture of the people with a beef, is that maybe too much?"... It's not the kind of play I expect from you.

Madeline @ 83: Except, well, it's more than a bit of a stretch to imagine that Xopher was actually literally suggesting that commenters be tortured.

Phil's condescending response was out of line, and Xopher didn't owe him anything in return.

There's been far too much posturing and faux-outrage over this issue already; let's not add to it unnecessarily.

Phil Armstrong #17:
I doubt it myself. Some people will contrive any excuse.

Posting in haste, jumping to conclusions or assuming the worst are not uncommon actions. Done it myself, regretted it later. But I'm trying to do better.

#65:Putting up a note that a post used to be here and has now been removed preserves history. That's a good thing. However, it's also the sort of thing that could easily spark an internet firestorm, especially if the note has a formulation like "this post is unavailable pending review by the editors." That statement inspires an obvious next question, so people will ask it. Of course, the internet firestorm could happen regardless of what the note says or whether there is a note or not, as it did in this case.

Not making silent changes is good practice. But how you make changes turns out to be rather tricky. (e.g., if you need to redact to avoid embarrassment, it would be bad if your note pointing out the redaction provokes the embarrassment you sought to avoid.)

Language Hat,
Metafilter gives me a bad impression every time and I will throw what ever stones I like at it. You being a preachy elitist at me does nothing positive.

"Preachy elitist"?

Sigh. Perhaps in retrospect I should have emailed Xopher directly rather than called him out in public.

Nat: To be absolutely clear, I certainly don't believe that Xopher intends to torture people for making comments posts he dislikes.

I do believe that a) simulated drowning is torture {wasn't there a making light thread on this very issue not so long ago?} and b) publicly fantasising about doing it to people gives aid and comfort to those who want to make such behaviour acceptable.

For these reasons, I belive that Xopher's comment was out of line. Telling me to f off in response is just the icing on the cake.

Is that darn Krell Machine going to blow up again?

Madeline 83: I never said any of that. I said I think "this whole thing" is stupid. I think the fact that some intelligent (and some less intelligent) people are wasting huge amounts of time and energy arguing about this is stupid.

Last night I left most of a large container of sour cream sitting out all night, so I had to throw it away this morning. That was stupid. Does that mean I'm stupid? Arguably I am, but saying I did something stupid on one occasion is not the same as saying I, as a quality, am stupid.

I HAVE figured out why they think they have a beef. It's been explained. I don't agree, but I don't think they're stupid (or even being stupid) for thinking it was not the best thing for BoingBoing to do either. I also don't think they're stupid for thinking it's not consistent with BB's ideals (I don't agree with them there either, but I don't think they're being stupid).

I think it's stupid to go screaming and yelling and bandying about words like 'hypocrisy' and issuing scathing denunciations and so on, over something that is AT MOST a peccadillo, and more likely has a perfectly reasonable, even kind explanation. I think it's stupid to leave the blogosphere metaphorically littered with corpses, so that vultures like "zota" can come and feed.

You were speaking about attachment leading to suffering?

As for the "torture" comment, did you really think that Phil's comment at 50 was sincere criticism? (For the record, I did not.) Did you not notice that Serge and albatross both pointed out that I was not advocating torturing them? Did you notice that in my post at 47 I said "some of the commenters on the resulting thread"—that is, not "suggesting the torture of the people with a beef"? To clarify, I meant the nasty zota-like troll-vultures.

If you read what I said there, I said "just long enough to trigger a dive reflex." Maybe you don't know this: the dive reflex kicks in instantly when cool water hits your face. If throwing a bucket of cold water over someone is torture, then so is what I said. I do not think so. Or maybe it was the humiliation? Sticking someone's head in the toilet is a way of reifying calling them a shithead (in other words "they ought to have their heads stuck in the toilet" is a metaphoric way of saying "what a lot of shitheads"). Or maybe I've got the whole thing wrong, and it was the spanking? Saying "they ought to be spanked" isn't advocating torture. For $DIETY's sake.

Add to that the fact that, had I the entire spate of trollish commenters before me, and my legion of hunchback guards said to me "Mathter, shall we thpank them? Or thtick their headth in the toiletth?" I would say "Thert—that is, certainly not. Banish them from Our Presence, but do not harm one hair of their heads." I was not seriously suggesting anything of the kind, in other words.

In case that's still not entirely clear, I fantasize about torturing very few people. Osama bin Laden is one, and even that hasn't happened in a while. The other one is my ex-boyfriend, and that's only because a) the "tortures" involved do no lasting harm, even psychologically, and b) he enjoys it so very much.

Nat 84: Thank you! "More than a bit of a stretch," absolutely. One might also say "patently absurd."

Phil 89: What, you again? Honestly. I wasn't talking about simultated drowning (or even non-simulated partial drowning, which is what waterboarding is), and you know it...or...I assumed you knew that perfectly well when you posted your response at 50, and gave it the reply it deserved. If you didn't, then a) my response above to Madeline should enlighten you and b) I withdraw the "-k you." And as for "the icing on the cake"—do you prefer ganache or buttercream? I can do either, and they both taste better than telling someone to f off, or (I feel certain) being told!

Xopher: I've always been partial to buttercream as it happens.

I'm glad to hear you weren't talking about fantasies of simulated drowning of any sort.

Sometimes it's worth it to read to the end of a thread in which one has no, nada, zero, zed, zip interest -- hell, I can't even figure out what the argument/discussion/spat/disagreement is about (and no, don't tell me) -- just to get to Xopher's post.

*waves* Yeah, Xopher!

Xopher @91, I agree with you and have said so twice now over at BoingBoing (not "I agree with Xopher" but comments whose intended communication was substantially similar to your point, although significantly angrier, more insulting, and less patient).

I've been disappointed in, and lost respect for, certain blogs and bloggers and quit reading them. If that's how you feel about BoingBoing, of course that's your right. But the dramatic proclamation of censorship and Orwellian revisionism is just ridiculous.

And I know your offer wasn't to me -- but when you are done with make-up icing, I'd like to put in a request for ganache please.

T.W #87: You seem unable to disagree without insulting someone. I take it, then, you stand in solidarity with Michael Roberts #36? (I'm still waiting to hear whether ML people consider that acceptable discourse.)

Oh! Oh! I see the problem now! I said dive reflex (OK, apparently it's really called the "diving reflex," but please note the phrase "Immediately upon facial contact with cold water") and was taken by Phil and later Madeline to mean the various drowning reflexes as described here.

With such a misconstrual, they were not being unreasonable to think I was being fairly outrageous. Good gods.

However, I thought Phil knew I was talking about the DIVE reflex—the one that a cup of cold water in the face can elicit—and took offense to his calling that torture. I do apologize, Phil, if only for not realizing from your other quite reasonable posts that you weren't the sort of person who would say something like that if you understood what I actually meant.

Lizzy 93: *blushes* Thank you!

Caroline 94, if I can get my act together there will be both buttercreams and ganaches at WorldCon. Are you going?

NB. Xopher and I have had a short email exchange in which it became clear that I had conflated the dive & drowning reflexes, and read more into his post than he intended. Our subsequent exchanges were exacerbated on both sides by this initial misreading.

I therefore withdraw my comment@50 above & apologise to Xopher.

On preview: I see Xopher beat me too it!

*Phil and Xopher join hands and sing boom-de-ah-dah, boom-de-ah-dah* :-)

And Phil...if you're going to WorldCon There Will Be Chocolate (if, as I said to Caroline, I get my act together in time).

I am pleasantly surprised to hear that MeFi has been discussing the "boyspace" issue. I tend to think of it as the "Jerkosphere" problem, because it's not really about anything particularly XY-like IMHO, it's a part of the general culture that is coded masculine and tends to be amplified online. But holy cats, there are certainly some mostly-female online spaces that are full-fledged parts of the Jerkosphere.

I guess I want to break the association between "acting like a boy" and "acting like a jerk". You can have boyspaces that are not part of the Jerkosphere -- and women shouldn't get complacent, because as the Law of Proctouniversality says, "There's a little asshole in all of us."

For me, though, MeFi will have to change a lot before I stop thinking of it as on the edge of the Jerkosphere.

<breaks out hug-o-matic>

Sadly I won't be going to WorldCon. But thanks for the offer! Chocolate always appreciated, etc.

I wouldn't even begin to claim to speak for anyone here but myself, but no, I don't think being deliberately insulting is acceptable discourse or behavior, here or elsewhere.

However, and I mean this in the kindest way it is possible to mean a gentle remonstrance, I also think the "you people..." construction implicit in the challenge to all of the commenters here to repudiate someone else's insults is skating right on the edge of what's generally considered acceptable here, though I am aware that is a community standard of Making Light, and not a universal one.

The thing I had posted over at BB (and will repeat here) before reading Anil Dash's comment was that it almost certainly was a personal situation of some kind.

Which means somebody's out there hurting about this - whether furious or sad - while a zillion uninformed people chime in with how terrible it is that *links* to someone else's stuff aren't online. <sarcasm>Oh the humanity</sarcasm>.

I have the greatest sympathy for whoever it is. I'm guessing the BB'ers are standing together as friends while they try to thrash this out without publishing the details. That they're willing to take the reputation hit rather than release any of the details and hurt someone worse? I'd hope my friends would do the same.

{shrugs off shiny metalized asbestos Michelin Man suit, wipes forehead}

Whew! Finally, a thread that isn't too hot to enter without heavy protective gear! I wanted to post on the BB thread, but couldn't think of anything original enough to stand out there.

Interesting things I've learned here that I've not seen elsewhere: Moveable Type and WordPress database functionality is such that unpublishing content is less damaging than replacing the content with an explanation about why it is gone. Thanks to James D. Macdonald @#73 and Josh Millard @#79 for those factoids. It also neatly shows why the creepy-to-the-uninitiated word "unpublished" was used without any creepy intent, and without realizing at first (or second, or third) thought that it would seem creepy. I'm sure there are technical terms I use without thought that would make others go "WTF?" that I can't think of right now because, well, I'd use them without thought... Not that explaining that in the BB thread would damp the existing flames much.

As for the bit here about shy people being discouraged from posting due to the boisterous nature of a conversation - that happens to me a lot when things get too heated. 'Tis why I'm commenting in this thread rather than the BB one or MeFi or other places.

I hope the hoopla gets buried off the BB front page soon so I can read nifty stuff without being drawn to the geometrically-increasing post number, which on ML and BB usually means "something interesting here". I also hope that everyone who is involved in this mess comes out of it not too singed. Yes, even the gasoline-flingers - burns ain't fun. It is at least kind of funny to watch the post numbering on BB jump around, especially when I hit refresh and the last post I read has a few new ones *above* it in the thread...

Oh, and Greg London is posting some *good stuff* in the high 300's/low 400's over there, reminding me of the "Blog." entry mentioned a while back.

A long, long time ago one of my pages/locations/identities on the internet was metafiltered, as one of two or three excerpts from an analysis of a social networking site.

At the same time as I was flattered and amused to see a small fuss being made over something I'd done on the internet, as the people began to play the "what else has this person done" game, I began to rush to take down a lot of images I had on sites related to that online identity, simply because I knew some of them were unflattering and... well... I know what happens to unflattering images of girls on the unfiltered internet. I didn’t think that ALL of metafilter would react negatively, but I knew that SOME of it would, and I did not want. Absent the dangerous pics of imperfect female, the discussion went well and concluded not unpleasantly. A lot of discussions on metafilter are very nice, and some are very bad and stupid, like many places on the internet.

The following is not a commentary on Metafilter itself, but rather on the quality and freedom of discourse on sites that are moderated versus sites that are unmoderated.

I can name you half a dozen places I used to frequent until misogyny got too high. One thing that would often drive me away were the horrible ‘cosplay commentary’ threads on a lot of fan boards. What started out as generic threads about skilled or unskilled costuming degraded into people spending pages analyzing every inch of the bodies of girls in found cosplay pics. I remember a side by side comparison between a pic of Kiera Knightly with a Pirates cosplayer. The Pirates cosplayer was an average-sized, normal-looking woman (ladies size 6-8, if I can hazard a guess). I would have said she was pretty. However the commentary on this picture implied that she was hideous and defective for making the attempt without being a size 2. I know from experience that if a girl responds to that kind of thing the ‘return response’ is usually “I bet you’re fat too, lol, lose 50lbs and{implied sexual act that will set the woman straight}.” There’s then about a 50/50 chance it will spark a lengthy derailing of the thread with a heated argument about whether or not asking people to stop active misogyny is censorship or not. Almost never will the “I bet you’re fat too” poster be universally repudiated by his peers.

That’s not free speech. That’s abuse. There IS a difference. It’s just like how freedom of action does not include the freedom to give someone electric shocks or Indian burns or inflict any other kind of physical pain.

I’m not saying here that Metafilter is like that all the time, or that a culture of abuse is typical of metafilter. I’m saying that the less moderation you get, the more you risk that kind of ‘speech control through abuse’ situation.

language hat wrote the following at 49:
"While of course more voices are better, it is impossible to have both vigorous free speech and the participation of those who are intimidated by such speech, and I value the former highly enough to be pretty sure it's worth the loss of the latter."

I disagree very strongly with the implication that this is the difference between moderated and unmoderated sites. This makes me incredibly angry, and I'm having to be quite careful with how I phrase my next few sentences to avoid sounding histrionic.

I'll go ahead and add my own opinion on moderation versus non-moderation: "it is impossible to have both unmitigated abuse and the participation of those who are intimidated by such abuse. I'm willing to give anyone a chance to participate without resorting to abuse, several in fact, but I don't believe that abuse is conducive to free speech."

Speech that is controlled by abuse and fear is no freer than speech that is controlled by deletion. A place where people are free to abuse others is possibly more ‘unfiltered’ but it is not more ‘free’ than a place where abuse (and only abuse) is filtered out. (Just as a society that punishes randomly punching a stranger in the face isn’t any less ‘free’ than a society that allows it).

I think there's a reason why alsafi used the term "speech-control" instead of censorship. Furthermore, I think that speech control is much more insidious and dangerous than outright censorship.

Imagine that every time someone said the word “tuna” they were punched in the face. They’re still allowed to say tuna, but with the knowledge that it will result in punishment. Is this censorship? I’m not sure, but it’s definitely speech control.

Now, say that every time someone says the word “tuna” they’re not physically attacked, but instead receive death threats, slurs, stalking, public humiliation, or revelation of the contents of supposedly confidential information. Is this censorship? The line is even blurrier here, but that is definitely speech control.

Some time ago I wrote about a few problem people on an otherwise positive forum I participated in. On that forum was a woman who utterly terrified me. Any time anyone disagreed with her opinions or questioned her actions she would utterly flip out, accuse them of harassing her, and bring her army of followers down on those people. Sometimes they’d become outcasts. Sometimes they’d quit the forum. Sometimes they’d just learn to never publicly disagree with her again. No post disagreeing with her was ever actually deleted, but over time it became the case that no one ever posted any opinions that dissented with hers.

While no one ever made any rules or deleted any posts, emotional abuse IS as valid a tool as a punch in the face. Hell, for me, it’s worse. If I knew I’d be punched in the face for saying “tuna” or that any post containing the word “tuna” would be censored by the government, I’d go around shouting it all day long and writing it on the walls. I can deal with a punch in the face. But the way that woman degraded and lied about the people who disagreed with her was very effective, and I was terrified of what she might do to my reputation – much more so than I am of prison, or personal injury. She ruined friendships, because she was an extremely convincing liar. I'm currently friends with someone who was once deep in her cadre, and he is very embarrassed by some of the things he did, as well as frightened of the kind of power she had.

I remember at some point there was an attempt (on a different site) to call her out for the things she had done, to combat her deriding, negative speech with more speech. It resulted in all participants who did not make themselves anonymous before posting being labeled as ugly and jealous if they were female or bitter stalkers if they were male.

There was very little moderation on that site, and there were a lot of other bullies. People who would respond to an opinion piece with phrases like “Anyone who thinks ____ should have {insert really horrible possibly sexual thing here} done to them.” The people who wrote those horrible things thought they were entirely harmless, and often gloried in the fact that the forum fostered ‘free speech.’ Anytime someone asked them, politely, to not say things like that they exploded in a storm of derision, flying the ‘censorship’ flag high and wearing their slurs and derision as a badge of honor.

To me this is a corruption of the idea of free speech. I think a society where you’re allowed to pants or spit on anyone you see with no repercussions is a corruption of the idea of a free society. To tout such places are MORE free than places where any opinion can be stated as long as it is stated civilly is, in my eyes, a fundamentally flawed argument.

language hat, I realize that your more recent posts have agreed with some of the more balanced statements regarding the fact that different venues are better for different people, but at the same time you never recanted on the statement that an unmoderated forum is freer than a moderated one. I guess I just wanted to make it crystal clear that I disagree with that, and why.

Sorry for the rant.

#96/98 Xopher/97 Phil Armstrong: Ok, that was pretty cool. :)

#91 Xopher: Sorry, I was taking your metaphor of "it's my right to burn my old love letters" to mean that you didn't grok the situation, which I'd put more as "it's my right to have my old love letters removed from the next edition of a love letter anthology without telling my ex-lover who I never actually broke up with, I just stopped calling". And yeah, I agree, there's more attachment and suffering on all sides than is best. I like the comments of Clifton Royston and John Mark Ockerbloom and so forth.

On a separate thread, one of the best fruit salads I ever made happened after a pineapple/mandarin orange/grape/banana/shaved coconut/sour cream mix sat in the sun for a couple hours and then went into the fridge. After a week or so the mixture fermented and had this amazing and excellent zizz to it.

For the main thread, seems that there's been a maturity fail on the part of someone at Boing Boing; if they thought well enough of Violet Blue to let her post, that past shared feeling should have indicated they tell her why their opinion had changed so much. Unfair to not give her a chance to learn from her mistakes.

Violet Blue never posted to BB. These were posts ABOUT her, and links to her work.

They were unpublishing their own content, not hers.

For the main thread, seems that there's been a maturity fail on the part of someone at Boing Boing; if