C. Wingate:"Also, it seems to me that it has been established here that your views allow a lot more vituperation than mine do."Care to explain that in more detail?
DSP, it's taken far too long to notice your comment. You're welcome. My god, are you welcome. And you've made Jim Macdonald very happy.
Good thing I hit "reload" before posting a reply to Joel Polowin. Jim had already posted his own answer: same information, but more concisely written.
Nicole @86, just because he's guaranteed disemvowelling doesn't mean you can't make fun of him.
Hi, Holly. I had one of my relatives in mind when I typed that word.
For years now I've been watching the noncrazy nonright tone down its language in an attempt to be nicer, less divisive, more bipartisan, et cetera and so forth. It hasn't done a lot of good, and all too often the crazy right has taken it to mean "Hi! Come walk all over me!"
For the record, what I meant by "hicks" was the class of citizens who are invincibly ignorant and proud of it. Their most basic and cherished belief is that whatever they already know is sufficient, even if it's wrong, and their opinions are as good as anyone else's. I wanted to suggest that their understanding of the matter is neither laudable nor sufficient.
Avram @37, I'm sure it would have been wittier.
John Stanning @9, thanks for the tip on Google link formation. I've saved it to Evernote, which is my favorite new application in years.
Try the link now and see if it works.
Testing new phone: woo! ML comments from burger joint in Brooklyn.
I know. I just want to fantasize about blistering the ears of whoever did this.
Patrick had me change a different major password over the weekend, on the grounds that there'd been a dicey-looking access of one of my accounts. I think it's time to change every password I have.
David Harmon @497, what was that about a phone number in Detroit?
I hadn't realized that the fellow in the kilt started out trying to hit on you. I thought he was initially lost, identified you as a friendly soul who spoke English and could give him directions, and thereafter didn't have enough sustained concentration to remember that you were the respectable female who was telling him how to get back to his hotel.
I loved your summary of his cluelessness: "This is a man who has been unable to get laid in spite of the fact that he has money, is staying at a hotel in Amsterdam's red light district, and is wearing a kilt."
I've just posted a gross of open thread.
Serge @10, it was the first thing I thought of when Nancy Hanger told me she was related to the Virginia Carters.
Joel @17, is it possible that the Civil War/rabbits thing has already been done? I'm fairly sure I remember a photo of a couple of homeschooled girls who'd built an enormous diorama of some major Civil War battle, including thousands of handmade uniformed figures. The part of the memory I'm uncertain about is that all the figures were some kind of animal; might have been rabbits.
My immediate problem with the idea of recasting the entire war with rabbits is that Wilderness I & II and Franklin stop working.
(And what kind of mental filing system do I have that can't remember numbers, but apparently has no trouble running instant cross-referenced searches on Civil War events that would be significantly affected if all the participants were turned into rabbits?)
Lighthill, when part of your job is blocking trolls, you get familiar with IP addresses. They're insufficiently particular when you're trying to stop an individual's misbehavior, and way too specific when they're being used to chip away at pseudonymous privacy.
I'm mindful of various recent findings about how personally identifying other non-personally-identifying information can be. I'm also aware that if you sifted through who links to me, and you knew my IPA, there would be a single answer to who I might be.
John Stanning, see my first comment in this thread. Are your pseudonymous accounts known to anyone who also knows your real name? Do they friend, and are they friended? If so, they're probably already compromised.
The scenario I can imagine for the future is one where ISPs easily give up user identities, on the grounds that everyone knows who they are anyway.
Mezzanine, I've been running into the same problem. I seriously thought about writing an entry about it a few days ago, when CNN wouldn't let me comment in its threads without either signing up through Facebook, or agreeing to its odious terms of service.
In fact, I think I will write an entry about it, right now.
Why I don't like Facebook: It almost doesn't matter who you friend or don't friend. If enough people in your social network identify you as a friend, you're snared in a web of context. The list of people who've friended me is as precise an identifier as a full set of my fingerprints. I don't fancy having that data crossbred with lists of subjects I've researched on Google, books and music and movies I've bought online, blogposts I've recommended to friends, newsgroups to which I once posted on Usenet, videos I've favorited on YouTube, census results, voter registration lists, or credit reports.
The Facebook photo system is an anonymity and pseudonymity buster all by itself. The ability to caption photos is the ability of your aunt or your highschool buddy to attach your real name to a photo that's elsewhere labeled with one of your online usernames. The ability to tag other people's photos multiplies that ability. We are reaching the end of the era of anonymity or pseudonymity as an available default mode.
Mark @58:KayTei @ 55: I don't know whether you were lurking here last September for the Bully Pulpit post and lengthy discussion, but it seems apropos. For the nonce I will merely observe that the only successful approach I have personally seen demonstrated is hit them back harder.I had plans for various contingencies when I was moderating BoingBoing. One of the scenarios was a large-scale invasion by 4chan or some community like it. My plans didn't involve hitting them harder, or hitting them at all.
Instead, V'q unir bcrarq n arj sebag-cntr ragel fnlvat "[anzr bs pbzzhavgl] Ivfvgf ObvatObvat!", znqr vg fgvpxl fb vg jbhyq fgnl ng gur gbc, naq fgnegrq ercbegvat ba gur rirag. V jbhyq whfg nf vafgnagyl frag rzretrapl zrffntrf gb gur Obvatref, nfxvat gurz gb pbzr uryc oybt vg naq cnegvpvcngr va gur pbzzrag guernqf, naq gb gur bgure zbqrengbef, nfxvat gurz gb cyrnfr pbzr znvagnva beqre va gur bgure guernqf.
Ng gur cbvag gung vagrerfgvat pbairefngvbaf oebxr bhg va gur pbzzrag guernq, V'q rvgure ercbfg tbbq ovgf va gur znva ragel, be fgneg ercbfgvat gurz nf fvqrone ragevrf. Nyfb va erfcbafr gb vagrerfgvat pbairefngvbaf unccravat, V'q fraq bhg n dhvpx cerff eryrnfr gryyvat crbcyr jung jnf unccravat, naq dhbgvat fbzr bs gur orggre yvarf naq rkpunatrf.
Vs bhe ivfvgbef jrer gnetrgvat n cnegvphyne guernq be guernqf, V'q fuhg gurz qbja. Boivbhfyl, fbzr crbcyr qvfnterr jvgu zr nobhg guvf, ohg V guvax ubfgvat n cvyr-ba vf n ovttre zvfgnxr guna nal cnfg zvfgnxr gur cvyr-ba vf fhccbfrq gb nqqerff. Gur fubeg rkcynangvba vf gung cvyr-baf ner abg n jnl gb yrg gehgu eha ybbfr; gurl'er na ratvar sbe trarengvat snyfrubbq naq onq orunivbe.
Svanyyl, V'q gel gb znvagnva abezny pbairefngvba naq abezny zbqrengvba va gur bgure guernqf, naq V'q cbyvpr gur fcrpvny-bppnfvba guernqf sbe frevbhf bofpravgl, bgure vyyrtny be bowrpgvbanoyr fcrrpu, naq bgure rkcybfvir qrivprf.
Vs gung jnfa'g rabhtu, V'q guvax bs fbzrguvat ryfr; ohg V guvax gung jbhyq or rabhtu.
What are the principles in play here? First, don't be fun to torment. You can't always keep other people from tormenting you, but you can do your best to see that it isn't fun for them in the way they're expecting.
Second: everyone who voluntarily enters into an interaction has a script. If you're at odds with their agenda, and you let yourself get dragged into their script, you'll have their interactions and come to their conclusions. The only way to avoid that trip is to not get on that train. One of the biggest benefits of reporting what was going on would have been to reassert BoingBoing's primordial script: "Here, let me show you something cool."
Third: Don't give orders you can't enforce, don't fight if you can't win, and don't start an exchange of artillery fire when you're standing on your own front porch.
Fourth: All other things being equal, it's often the case on the internet that whoever has the most fun, wins.
Daniel, I was about to make the same point. Jessi is eleven years old, so she can't be assumed to play under the same rules as Gawker, /b/, or her parents. I also don't like giving tacit assent to 4chan's "Anyone who does X is obviously asking for it." It's too much permission to make dependent on the user's fine critical judgement and telepathy.
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2010 | 354 |
| 2009 | 340 |
| 2008 | 382 |
| 2007 | 767 |
| 2006 | 958 |
| 2005 | 622 |
| 2004 | 739 |
| 2003 | 1010 |
| 2002 | 370 |
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