you personally have finally created enough trouble that I'm bored.
I take it this is bored in the Willow "Bored now" sense.
complaining about how someone else should be investing a shitload of unpaid labor fixing the problem is often going to make me think less of you.
This point overlooks the option of some altruistic and wealthy lurker offering just compensation to each of the FPPs willing to police the comments all day long. Let's start the bidding at a yearly salary of $1M for each FPP (Meekins excluded).
Maybe if I become really wealthy from sales of my novel. Would you like to review it?
I've said before that brilliant comment moderation is the unique strength of Unfogged. I've been fascinated to watch text mount such a powerful challenge, and intrigued by the response. It'll be interesting to see where this ends up.
At first I liked both politicalfootball's comment above and clark diversey's characterization of text as "would-be chaos magician".
Still, it's good to see the forces of neutral stepping up. I hope the blog will resume its normal life soon. Also, since I keep imagining LB as the anthropomorphic Justice, I've been wanting to make some kind of "awkward Blind Justice is awkward" joke at the start of the review catastrophe. Guess I missed my chance at that.
I take it this is bored in the Willow "Bored now" sense.
LB is going to flay text alive?
It is a serious amount of work dealing with a persistent troll. I deleted or Pauly Shored thousands (yes, literally thousands) of TOS comments before he finally gave up or died or whatever happened to him.
Once his term as Veep wound down, it wasn't fun for him anymore.
He's mentioned being unemployed and is pretty clearly on the continuum between not happy and not well. Lots of free time, and won't go away voluntarily I think.
Well, I'm still not really sure what's up. I don't think we need a *much* higher standard of behavior here, and I haven't always been Captain Civility myself, but it would be nice to be able to show up for the usual Morning Zoo without all of the Shock Jocks making/taking everything so personal. Fuck's sake, it's just a blog on the internet. I've been trying to keep my flaming (here and elsewhere) to a minimum for the past few years, because I realized how draining it was, and how much it negatively impacted my IRL relationships and stuff. I hope everybody here has some close friends and relatives that love them. If you're showing up here to just to vent and pick fights or whatever, maybe it would make sense to log off and spend more time with them?
Also, is CJB still around? I don't have his email or his full name anywhere and he hasn't commented under that handle in forever. I feel like I am failing people if I don't keep track of them. With all the deaths in my life recently, it really bothers me if I feel like I've taken someone for granted. Maybe this isn't "cool" or "all reet", but I do like all of you, even if your politics are pretty far away from mine. I mean, that's why I'm an anarchist, isn't it? I don't think anyone is particularly awful outside of social contexts that put them in an awful role. Previous vitriolic denunciations were an accurate reflection of my contemporary emotional state, but not always of my underlying politics and philosophy.
Fuck's sake, it's just a blog on the internet.
Word.
7: My one regret on the deletions front was when late one night I decided to respond to TOS with cut-and-paste Serdar Argic posts slightly edited to seem if they were attacking TOS as an Armenian ("TOSsarian"). TOS responded a bit out of character and as if taken aback (he protested that he was mostly of Scandanavian ancestry IIRC). From this I drew the conclusion that Serdar Argic > TOS in internet troll rankings (both in the HOF of course). I was going to put up a comment asking whomever to e-mail me before deleting, but the whole mess got zapped before I could do that. Ah well. I do consider it to be my best work on the internet.
13: There were occasional TOS comments where he seemed massively more lucid -- like maybe before the meds/intoxicants kicked in for the day. Always wondered what was up with that. Otherwise, it seemed like he was both sides of the Bob Black/Ivan Stang feud.
14: Yes, he had a spell at Berube's place as Ezra Hound where he was sometimes semi-coherent on some issues in academia for a brief period. But then I think maybe some Israel thing came up indirectly and he just couldn't hold it together.
Actually, I rather like the FPPs.
You could hire TNH to moderate?
This is amusing for reasons presently known only to me.
it's just a blog on the internet
Non-internet blogs are deadly serious.
It's also possible that it's not amusing, but no-one is in a position to disabuse you of the notion that it is.
Also, who or what is TNH?
What rolls down stairs, alone or in pairs, and over your neighbor's dog? What's great for a snack, and fits on your back? It's blog, blog, blog!
20: t's ls pssbl tht t's nt msng, bt n-n s n pstn t dsbs y f th ntn tht t s.
ls, wh r wht s TNH?
20 - Boing Boing moderator and science fiction editor Teresa Nielsen Hayden.
TOS seemed partial to me; perhaps he was unaware of my Jewish background. At any rate, I'm quite proud that he liked me best.
24: I was just chuffed on the two or three occasions that I merited a mention. And I'm not even Jewish!
||
Speaking of totally fucked up dialogues. Is this Susan Rice/Benghazi stuff among the most fucked-upedest ever? Fucking Maureen Dowd continuing with it, now that "I'm so moderate" Susan Collins has weighed in with concerns and questions. It's beyond insane on so many fronts. Sell the MSM and selected Repub Senators to the gypsies and be done with it.
|>
27: The thing I don't understand is, what's the purported benefit to the Obama administration of having "misled" the public about the attack? That is, why was it allegedly to the benefit of the President that the attack be a response to that inflammatory video rather than a terrorist attack?
Regarding the difficulty of shutting out a determined person, it was pointed out to me that there may yet be symbolic value in declaring a person banned/anathema/a wolf's head/an outlaw/etc.. I think there is something to that.
It is a trick. There is no correct answer. If they had given detailed, correct information, then Obama would be attacked for giving away secret info.
28: I don't understand that either. I think they assume that terrorism will lead a frightened populace to turn Republican as opposed to what you actually see in the data, a boost in support for the incumbent.
My favorite TOS mention was over at Bill Benzon's place New Savanna (TOS is J,):
( write about the whores on unfogged, Benzon: academic corruption in action, with their enabler "JP Stormcrow" (he was a blowhard on Berube's site as well-he's apparently some aged NY attorney--nearly 70 years old putting on the Tony Weiner act on unf. daily)Also here, where I got to reprise my TOSsarian line.
28: That's been puzzling me too. Also, whatever happened to "the fog of war"? People died in a fire, in a chaotic, riotous situation. It took a couple of days to sort out the actual antecedents of the event. Why is that a big deal?
24: Don't flatter yourself, sister, you're no Kotsko.
According to my right-wing cousin's comment on Politico last night (which gets automatically put on FB), Obama was staking his reelection on having made significant progress in eliminating Al Qaeda, and admitting that it was a terrorist attack would reveal that he hadn't achieved as much as he wanted us to believe.
28: There's nothing to understand. "Benghazi" is just the latest euphemism for "THE PRESIDENT'S A NI[CLANG]!" Previously: Solyndra, Alinsky.
32: You're holding up pretty well at that age.
That is, why was it allegedly to the benefit of the President that the attack be a response to that inflammatory video rather than a terrorist attack?
Because the president is a secret Muslim who wants America to lower its guard against the terrorists, obvs.
Now I want to go watch Blazing Saddles and mourn the fact that nobody can make a good comedy anymore.
33: And in fact per subsequent reporting, a lot of her initial statements on motivations were generally correct. But what do i know I'm just some 70-year old blowhard NY attorney writing on a blog on the internet.
apostropher and Ginger Yellow aptly pierce the fog of war with their niobium wit!
Comity! We are all puzzled!
Not my right-wing cousin! He has everything figured out.
28:a) Republicans lie all the time.
My best information
As I think I have said before, Benghazi was a torture shopped operated and protected by private contractors, overseen by the CIA and what's his name.
There were three fairly high-profile recent detainees. Their friends outside got pissed and either tried to get them out or just shot up the place for a statement.
The danger to the Obama administration, and the reason they emphasized the video is the revelation of a continuing policy of detention and enhanced interrogation. Republicans would love to force the Obama administration to admit this.
Pat Lang ...not much, but I don't care enough. I have given you enough keywords above.
Complicating the situation in Benghazi was the location there of a CIA base covered as other than that. These people were working on the very problems that eventually resulted in the attack and the deaths. Not surprisingly, the CIA has not been desirous of the revelation of the presence and status of its employees and so the declarations to the press have not been accurate in that regard.
And only discrimination against white men is keeping him from teaching public policy at a major university.
37: Oh yeah, I know. But last night My wife had the news on in the other room and when Diane Sawyer led the broadcast with it, I ran in frothing and yelling great obscenities at the screen like a maniac. I want to Obama to go on TV and say "Everyone shut up and quit acting like children. And by the way, the good news is that now no one has to pay any attention to the Angriest Leprechaun ever again."
Aack -- 34 was me. My iPhone dropped my name.
I've been amazed with how poorly the unfogged ecosystem has responded to text. Pretty much everyone here is somewhere on the range between seasoned traveller to hard-ass veteran in terms of internet commenting savvy, and should therefore know that you simply never engage with trolls, full stop.
But text reliably manages to hijack any thread he pleases, and has now had how many front-page posts dedicated to him? He wrote a book and it was reviewed and extensively commented on here? Huh?
47: Maybe LB could write his speech.
Also, the Benghazi phenomenon in the subthread is not entirely unrelated to the phenomenon in the main thread.
That's why I felt the need to clarify.
It does say something that we're now nostalgic for ToS. Some of us*, anyway--not meaning to downplay apo's great labors.
*And by some of us, I mean me.
Stupidest argument so far, from McCain (flagged by JMM)- We knew exactly what had happened in the Bin Laden raid within hours, how can you claim that it takes days to figure out what happens in a raid?
54: I think blogs run better when everything is made explicit. Also when there are swimming posts.
I'm ok with all of this if you'll review my book of short stories, coming out later this week.
It would be nice if I could get those winks again too.
And what might have gone down that night is the CIA calling out:"Our torture shop for Libyan natives is under seige by their angry relatives! Send a carrier!"
Parts of State and parts of the Pentagon might have said:"We'll get around to it."
Other parts may have said, "Hey that's my buddy and my cousin the ex-Seal doing/watching the waterboarding! Send a carrier!"
Whatever. We may never know.
Susan Rice may not be somebody you fight for with ardor. Part of what is going on is that she has made more enemies than the usual IR asshole.
50: Text had commented here for a very long time without behaving noticeably badly (abrasive, but not outside of any community norms that I recall). I'm not sure of dates at all, but he might easily have been here since before I showed up. He didn't comment for some time, and then came back acting weird and hostile. That got concern rather than an immediate 'fuck off' reaction, because he had years of positive history. (To be clear, I've never interacted with him much that I recall, but I'm fond of this place, and anyone who's spent years commenting in a non-damaging kind of way, I'll cut a lot of slack based on the relationship between them and the blog generally.)
And he came in very trollish, then calmed down to normally abrasive again, which was when he asked for the review. Again, generally, a long-term commenter asks for something reasonable, I'll probably do it.
A troll-off-the-street wouldn't have gotten the same sort of attention at all. At this point, I'm still curious as to what the fuck is going on with him, in a way I wouldn't be with someone I hadn't 'known' (not that I know a blessed thing about him personally) for close to a decade. I'd be asking if I thought there were any shot of getting a straight answer.
61: Oh, I see. I haven't been around long enough to know the backstory. To me he is just a troll-off-the-street.
Things are good with me. I have a very cute son and I am psyched about four more years of Obama. Bad faith reviews get trollery in response, but you knew that, and I knew you knew it, etc.
This is how things were in the way back, reverse name fellow. We wrote shorter and more pithily and had senses of humor. I was actually the most long-winded! Can you imagine?
a long-term commenter asks for something reasonable, I'll probably do it
Send me $20, please.
I'll send you $20 if you'll buy 20 e-books.
Doesn't the book cost $1? Isn't that how places like Regnery work to boost their sales numbers?
Is there any reason to believe the tolerably abrasive text is the same person as the determined troll text? Spoofing handles here isn't exactly rocket science.
Wow, I just went back and looked, I'm so glad I didn't read that thread although I feel like I missed some important developments.
Now I'm curious if I've de-lurked often enough long enough to cross LB's favors threshold...
Yawnoc, I don't think I've read your comments before, but rest assured that the text was always this abrasive.
Sorta-VTSOOBC: I was really saddened to go to someone's FB page and see all the supportive comments from friends. I wish that could obtain here, but obviously too much has been written already.
a long-term commenter asks for something reasonable, I'll probably do it
Current reading, entirely coincidentally: Order by Accident Origins and Consequences of Conformity in Contemporary Japan
Another way to increase group solidarity is to increase the extensiveness of normative obligations: the proportion of individual behavior that that group norms attempt to regulate. For any given level of compliance, the higher the extensiveness of normative obligations, the more individuals are doing to promote the group goals. A group can thus increase its solidarity by requiring its members to do more toward its goals. How might a group do this?
Think outside the box
The idea that text was always this abrasive, like the idea that comments before were always pithy and witty, is not true.
I have a proposal. I will stop talking about my e-book in comments if LB posts a rebuttal to her review that I will pen this afternoon. Subject to her review of course. I will not ask for extensions.
If I was less mean it's only because people were less stupid, neb.
Here, for instance, we find text being less abrasive and only intermittently witty.
Lt's fc t, lts f s prbbly hv fld pcs f wrtng sttng rnd. Y cn nw pt t ll n mzn fr fr, vn prnt dtns. Sm f t s prbbly ctlly gd. wll wrt gd fth rvws f ll styls nd gnrs nd snd thm t LB f tht s dsrd.
Clearly this will only be resolved when Ogged returns.
60: Obviously the person who should take the fall is the director of the CIA. If only there was some way to force that guy out of his job, while making it look like something completely unrelated, so as not to spill the beans on the Secret Torture Program(TM).
It reminds me of Watson on CT. Every post, he trots out some predictable "contrarian and erudite" brain dead conservative party line,* and there are immediately about 10 comments trying to convince Watson he's wrong. Half the posters have cottoned on and banned him, and when he's still allowed to post, I don't see why the generally intelligent and internet savvy commenters can't figure it out and ignore him.
*now that I think about it, maybe its Jonah Goldberg's troll moniker.
Y can be a vowel, like in my and in try... and in hazy and lazy... (sorry, kid's learning to read website song.)
75: Dude, if you'd asked to begin with, it would have been fine. Such as after the comment on the review thread where I said I should offer you a guest post. At this point, though, no. Say what you like in comments, though, so long as it's not unacceptably abusive of other commenters.
82: Swimming posts have untrollable juju.
89: In that the trolling is coming from within the front-page post.
I actually do not think that "just don't be abusive towards others" is the content of the only law, since persistent noisiness ruins the fun just as much. But that's just me.
Maybe when I get to the office I can ask Theresa to cool her jets.
I actually do not think that "just don't be abusive towards others" is the content of the only law, since persistent noisiness ruins the fun just as much. But that's just me.
Maybe when I get to the office I can ask Theresa to cool her jets.
I admires that you Whoops-ed that rather than silently correcting it.
I tried to cool my jet-tweaker, but the officer said I had to take it inside.
I've always sort of hated disemvowelling before. But this is good.
I admires that you Whoops-ed that rather than silently correcting it.
Well I does declares, JP, I thanks you kindly.
It's a PITA to use the admin interface on my phone, especially when I'm about to lose reception, so.
a really embarassing looking thread, to reprimand someone rightly or no, then disemvoweling the dissenting one
looks like so ugly disbalance of powers, admins around here could make such fine tsarist or bolshevik censors
this ganging up on someone alone disagreeing must be some kind of inherent quality of the advanced western culture too, i thought they do it only in kholkhozes
The ability to un-doublepost is my most treasured admin power. I would scorn to edit anything substantively, but double-posts and the occasional typo if I see it really fast, I love being able to change.
I thought you were going to please go away, read.
Look, you guys, I just put a full book out with no "e"'s! YOU ALL MUST BUY MY BOOK! IT WAS SO HARD TO DO! FUCK YOU ALL INDIVIDUALLY AND AS A GROUP! I'm in top form, why do you ask?
G. Pṙc never really got the recognition he deserved in his native [eastern european country; someone help me out here].
The dot diacritic over an r seems to be a mark in some systems of phonetic pronunciation, rather than an element in a particular European alphabet. Is that what you meant?
If not the answer is Frnc (but his parents were Plsh Jws).
The dot diacritic over an r seems to be a mark in some systems of phonetic pronunciation, rather than an element in a particular European alphabet.
I did not know that!
Not me. Like I said, there isn't a unified management here.
Orthographically, and 'phonemically', 'Prc' could be Czech.
Prcek = child/kid.
Prst = finger
Prd = fart
I see potential for a wildly amusing tongue-twister by grade-school standards.
The governance of Unfogged is basically that of the Culture - mighty Minds acting benevolently, independently, and accountable only to peer pressure.
Sausage in the graveyard;
Sausage and cheese;
Sausage in the frying pan;
Sausage please.
re: 124
The standard Czech one they give to foreigners is:
Strc prst skrz krk.
Which, to be honest, is quite easy by Czech tongue twister standards. I have no problem with that one.
The harder ones:
Třistatřiatřicet stříbrných křepelek přeletělo přes třistatřiatřicet stříbrných střech.
Pštros s pštrosicí a malými pštrosáčaty.
Řehoři, řekni ř. Neřeknu, Řeřichu, ty by ses mi řehtal.
Audio here: http://www.omniglot.com/language/tonguetwisters/czech.htm
[Not sure about some of the audio, there's different voices]
re: 124
There is a lack of fart ones, though.
The governance of Unfogged is basically that of the Culture - mighty Minds acting benevolently, independently, and accountable only to peer pressure
And sometimes going Eccentric.
Other people's blogs are best treated as found objects.
The real question is which of you commenters or front-page posters are responsible for driving long-time commenters insane? And do you do it on purpose, or is it an accidental side-effect of your other personality flaws?
Třistatřiatřicet stříbrných křepelek přeletělo přes třistatřiatřicet stříbrných střech.
That seems also as if it would be a finger-twister to type.
I hope text is not being subjected to disemvowelment for real.
On the topic of de-trolling- I'm a fan of technology solutions. I get the elegance of disemvoweling, but shouldn't it be easy to enforce don't feed the troll? The key is to not let a troll know they're being blocked or they'll try to go around it (hi read!) It seems like a relatively straightforward solution is to serve up different views to the troll and the rest of the world- capture a troll's IP from abusive posts, if http request to view a thread is from their address return the full thread with their comments so they feel warm and happy about trolling, for the rest of the world return the thread with the troll's comment line blank or Pauly Shore'd or whatever. The thing is the troll never knows if they're being blocked unless they keep multiple IPs to check for discrepant views, to them it looks like a very unified "don't feed the troll" response from the community. Didn't neb have a script to do something like this once?
I prefer to think he's just typing all his comments without vowels.
SP, hellbanning (what you describe) doesn't work in Moveable Type because it produces static HTML (so, everyone going to the page will see the same thing unless they have something like a Greasemonkey script running on their own computer that changes it).
I have faith in neb to find a technical solution.
Ia! Cthulhu Fthagn! Ph'nglui mglw'nfah Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!
141: It's possible! That's why I wondered. Anyway, TNH's moderation methods are way deprecated in my book.
There's an alternate view of the blog where SP pseud's been disemvoweled.
And here I thought I had invented a genuinely novel internet act.
And another one where possessives get all fucked up.
I'm trying to stay out of this, but I will say my recollection fits with 74. And at one point I had read the entire fucking archive (up to about late 2006).
There's a strain of thought that disemvoweling is eviler than deletion. I don't get it myself, but it's out there.
Coming in for a second to note that, since a few people have seemed interested, I didn't mean to leave dramatically.
Here are the reasons. It's tragic to watch someone who is clearly going through mental illness break down online, and not super enjoyable. The review thread was kind of unbearable in that way. Realizing that things were not particularly fun here was, for me was an incentive to try and break my own online addiction. That is probably a good idea for me for reasons independent of this particular troll. I don't have a feeling of being driven away. I also hope that text (the human being, not the online character) gets the help which he pretty clearly needs. I hope that no one else leaves, and I'll likely come back soon.
154.last: Bring cargo or die, motherfucker.
Disconsonanting just looks Hawaiian.
153: It would be irresponsible not to speculate.
Disemvoweling is the deepest mockery, in front of the face of the commenter as well as the rest of the community. It mocks while taking away the commenter's voice (sort of), a form of public pillory. It's far worse than mere deletion.
Somewhat tangentially, TNH's moderation tactics, at least on Making Light, go far beyond disemvowelment. I cannot stand her approach. I get all righteous against it, apparently. A peeve.
Count me as mildly against disemvowelment as opposed to straight deletion. If the comment is obnoxious just get rid of it rather than leave it as a puzzle to be figured out. I don't feel particularly strongly about this or even just leaving trolls alone. I have no trouble skipping trolling comments as long as usually sane commenters don't engage.
Also count me among those hoping that Halford both gets his online addiction under control and sticks around here, incompatible though those two things may be.
158: People can stop being deliberately annoying cunts any time they please.
150: And another one where possessives get all fucked up.
Wow, did I just invent a truly novel way to screw up a comment?
160: True. (Was that to me? Was I being annoying?)
160: To be fair, some may need the assistance of a 12-step program. We all like to think we can stop being cunts anytime we want, but sometimes we just have to hit rock bottom before we recognize that we are powerless over our cuntitude.
Not to speak for Apo, but I think he meant that the pillorying stops when the undesired commenting does -- the disemvoweled commenter is, after they know what's happening, doing it to themselves.
No. You don't bother me. But your concern for the dignity of annoying cunts is misplaced.
I don't think disemvowelling is evil, just stupid and childish. I invariably spend more time trying to reconstruct the troll's posts than I would have ignoring their plaintext.
The RSPDAC has had very poor luck raising funds.
It seems like a relatively straightforward solution is to serve up different views to the troll and the rest of the world- capture a troll's IP from abusive posts, if http request to view a thread is from their address return the full thread with their comments so they feel warm and happy about trolling, for the rest of the world return the thread with the troll's comment line blank or Pauly Shore'd or whatever
This is something that I thought of (I didn't know it had a name), but unless there's a movable type plugin for it (may be!) it would require far more mucking around with perl than I'm comfortable doing.
The thing about disemvowelment is that it's very easy for me to do. (It would also be easy to just zap the text of the comment, I guess.)
SP, hellbanning (what you describe) doesn't work in Moveable Type because it produces static HTML
That is true of our current setup, but it's possible to configure MT so that it renders the comments dynamically for each request. We used to do that, in fact, but it caused too much strain on our wimpy-ass servers at the time.
And honestly, text is currently only taking silver in that race.
I invariably spend more time trying to reconstruct the troll's posts than I would have ignoring their plaintext.
Sure, that can happen, but one hopes that when "reconstruct this comment" is a puzzle, the content, when reconstructed, has lost its power to inflame.
To be honest, I sometimes get paranoid that I'm being hellbanned here when actually I guess it's that I'm just not that interesting. I mean, the most obnoxious thing I've ever said on Unfogged could be measured in millimcmanusen.
I have a mild liking for disemvowelment in this context because I'm already developing a reflex of skipping over certain comments once I see the author, and this makes that easier.
If someone could come up with a technological solution that turns commenting into screenplay pages, I would spend a lot more time being a dick here.
The real question is, after David Graeber, who thought reviewing the work of someone who can comment on the review was a good idea?
Banning abusive comments and ignoring irritating or purposely unproductive ones seem like better than disemvowelling,* but again, it seems like even normally sane people have a hard time not engaging with an obvious troll, and more often than not end up derailing the conversation. I think this is a bigger problems at sites like CT than here, where people carry on multiple conversations in one comment thread.
*which is ineffective anyway, if the commenter knows Czech.
173: You want me to review your autobiographical fiction?
Banning is either taxing or technically complicated; ignoring is easier said than done.
The real question is, after David Graeber, who thought reviewing the work of someone who can comment on the review was a good idea?
The New York Review of Books?
Heh, I've had the paranoia Yawnoc describes, but I'm prone to assuming others dislike me. I comfort myself by remembering that I don't comment enough to merit such treatment.
154: It's tragic to watch someone who is clearly going through mental illness break down online, and not super enjoyable.
I understand that the combination of unemployment and new parenthood can sometimes, for some people, in some situations, be a bit hard on the nerves.
I endorse 174: facilitated avoidance.
||
OH HEY HELLO SUN! SUN! SUN SUN SUN!
|>
The New York Review of Books?
This reminds me of my all-time favorite slapfight in the NYRB's letter column: the author of a poorly-reviewed book snapped back at the reviewer that the review was better suited to the New York Times Book Review.
k-sky
The NY Review of Books does not appear to allow online comments to their book reviews.
173, 180: I've had days here when I feel like that.
183: no, but they do occasionally host intemperate exchanges in the letters section.
177, 180 are clearly ploys by the admins to string me along, in hopes that I'll have a psychotic break.
I mean, there is always a chance a living person can "comment" in some sort of general sense in response to a negative review. However, the instant-chat-like quality of online blog comments mean that you can get into real time insulting matches in a way you can't with mean-spirited letters to the editor or magazine/journal article responses, or even dueling blogposts.
The idea that text was always this abrasive..., is not true.
Seems very different to me as well.
It's tragic to watch someone who is clearly going through mental illness break down online
I was thinking the same thing and god I hope we're wrong.
The NYRB does or did at one point allow pseudonymous letters.
188: I understand that, in an attempt (some say misguided) to bring their longstanding tradition of exchange into the 21st century, the NYRB is working on enabling such real-time exchanges via a technological enhancement heretofore only employed at the SBRB (Standpipe Bridgeplate Review of Blogs).
182 is funny.
Regarding the Graeber exchanges on CT, there's no way I'd draw the conclusion that the problem was providing the author an opportunity to respond.
I don't think the Graeber thing was the result of real-time immediate commenting.
Also, I just noticed that the page title in the link in 191 is "Communication from Buttocks."
There wouldn't even be real-time immediate commenting without small circles of ex-IBM employees working in Bay Area garages on their laptops in the '80s.
I don't even see Yawnoc or Eggplant's comments.
196: We truly are in their debt.
191: as far as I can tell the letter-writer didn't really get her question as to evidence regarding aposiopenis answered.
This is all too glum. Let's make it a blogabration! A reaffirmation of all that is right and good in the Unfogged universe. Bookended by multiple meetups (well-timed for maximum introspective drunken conversational noodling, I must say) in key locations! We can play Twister, later! (link marginally NSFW).
Each and every day
Unfogged make me better
In every way.
I implore everyone to share how Unfogged has made you a better person today.
link marginally NSFW
Even at my libertine place of work, that ain't marginal. But maybe you have your Safe Search settings higher than mine.
202: Well, they're all merely engaged in an innocent game, for God's sake. But yeah, maybe strike the "marginally".
Well, they're all merely engaged in an innocent game, for God's sake.
Not all of them!
Now I'm getting the Martha Nussbaum thing. Does she really only have one friend? After all this marketing? I'm sad for her.
I looked on my phone as my phone isn't being paid. It's really not safe for work.
I just got the Nussbaum thing today, too.
With safe search set to strict, the first result is for the wholesome family film, Twister.
I've been getting it for several days. Surely soon she's going to show up with tens of thousands of friends, having finally answered a few weeks' backlog of friend requests.
I'm really disspointed that she didn't respond to my friend request. I really want to see pictures of her lunch and updates about her cats.
I've been getting it for several days
Go Tweety!
They have creams that are supposed to help with that.
Maybe whoever is really FB friends with Martha Nussbaum will tell her about this thing that's happening. Or maybe Martha Nussbaum really just joined Facebook, in which case she's inundated by friend suggestions but has no idea who any of you are (understandable), or maybe the real Martha Nussbaum is not on Facebook at all.
Q: Nice act. What do you call yourselves?
A: The commentariat.
Nussbaum for me, too. It's really odd.
For me as well. And her one friend is not the sort of person I'd have pegged as Nussbaum's friend, and doesn't seem to have a major internet presence under that name. So odd!
The Nussbaum thing is so bizarre at this point that the best I can figure is that someone else made the page and is doing this to embarrass her.
In fact, I wonder if that person in Hackney didn't make the page.
Halford needs to man up and comment 24-7. It's cute that he talks about internet "addiction", like there's something better that he should be doing with his time.
Is it time for another porn thread? I think it's the only solution. That or brutal counterinsurgent repression.
Almost disappointed to have missed the drama; not surprised the text review thread eventually went sideways. (It takes a thick skin to react judiciously to a bad review, and a lot of very good and very bad and very in-between writers just don't develop that. ) But I'm disheartened to see text acting out like a socially-isolated teenager on the verge of topping himself, and I hope the dude gets out whatever bad patch he's in without doing anything rash.
I was just itching to get that post in.
223: Did you see something in the review thread that was out of character for neo-text? He's been an asshole or (if you and Halford prefer) mentally ill ever since his return.
226: No, I just saw the expected, only moreso.
(A difference in degree that's becoming a difference in kind, I guess.)
... just that you personally have finally created enough trouble that I'm bored.*
Bored? Annoyed (or something like that) would seem to make more sense.
Being annoyed tends to get boring pretty quick.
Not that I have any idea if that is part of LB's complaint.
"Cacoethes" - an urge to do something inadvisable. A potentially useful concept for future meta-discussions of blog behavior.
Obviously, annoyed too, but I like conflict. Irritating people being combative are often entertaining, if there's something interesting going on. This has not been the interesting kind of kerfuffle, it's been unpleasant and dull.
The only thing worse than being bored is being boring.
We may forgive those who bore us, we cannot forgive those whom we bore.
This is no time to be getting all steamed up about La Rochefoucauld.
234
... but I like conflict ...
I will keep that in mind. This (overly long) article claims among other things that (in contrast to the past) elite universities are now discriminating in favor of Jews (in admissions) which seems like it might be a contentious subject.
The article also points out Asians are being discriminated against (like Jews used to be) but of course that is old news.
233: Thank you. I've been itching to dispute LB's description of this incident, both in the original post and in comment 61. Now that I know the word for that urge, and now that this thread is dead, I'll indulge myself in a little cacoethes.
Comment moderation on unfogged has always been superb - dealing with trolls by either eliminating them or co-opting them - but neo-text presents a unique problem. With ToS and read, you either have to ban them or give up blogging. Like those two, text wants to take over threads and make them all about him. Unlike them, text isn't 100% awful.
A less sophisticated moderation ecosystem (one that followed, say, my personal inclinations) would have eradicated neo-text as soon as he made his intent clear, which I think he did early, persistently and explicitly. LB and neb made a different, very generous decision - they turned over the front page to the son of a bitch, with the idea he could be rehabilitated.
This sort of generosity has been very typical of Unfogged, and contrary to LB's description of her own motives, this pretty clearly wasn't done out of a desire to avoid work. Reading a book and providing a thoughtful review involves a considerable investment of effort. I'd describe LB's effort as comment moderation by other means.
I also disagree with LB that there is "no unified management" here. Maybe there aren't board meetings among the front-page posters, but there's a pretty clear ethos that guides discussion - and it's a key part of that ethos to give a looooong leash to people like text. If this incident has finally reached a conclusion, well, it didn't take that long and wasn't too awful to get there. I don't begrudge The Management the effort taken to try to reform text; they've been very successful with this sort of thing in the past in ways that have surprised me. So this time they weren't successful, and I wasn't surprised. Oh well.
I'll indulge myself in a little cacoethes
My reading of the definition* is that "cacoethes" is the urge, which you had already "indulged yourself in", so I think it would have been more correct to describe your intent to act on that urge as "I'll indulge my cacoethes a little". But, glad to be of use.
*Of a word that I only became of this morning via OED's twitter feed (word of the day).
Just to be clear, I didn't write either of those. I have only ever commented as text and only ever will. This experience has taught me a valuable lesson, about which more later.
I also disagree with LB that there is "no unified management" here
The management is only unified during the precise moments that two or more front pagers are having sex with each other.
Or actually I made my first tiresome posts as textualist. I'm off to find a window repairer. One love, y'all.
Just to be clear, I didn't write either of those. I have only ever commented as text and only ever will.
Indeed: 243 was originally signed "politicalfootball".
The management is only unified during the precise moments that two or more front pagers are having sex with each other.
Only if they're having lesbian sex. Which apparently does not require that both be female.
250- Need to check the bylaws and rules of order.
248: What if one of the frontpagers is Meekins?
Have two front-page posters ever made out with each other at a time when they were both front-page posters? (Ogged, Kotsko, and I all made out while we were waiting for Weiner at that ill-starred Chicago meetup, but I wasn't a poster yet.) I … will keep my counsel.
I've never been a fan of the moderation policies at Making Out.
I thought the general rule was that to become a FPP you had to sleep with/make out with every previous FPP. That's why it's much harder to make the cut these days and will only become moreso.
I'd like to experience Making In.
258: Tracking down Bob and Meekins is the hard bit. Well, that and finding your way through the wardrobe to Narnia.
Are you implying that you're one of the easy bits?
Which I mean in the most positive way possible.
261: I can say without fear of contradiction that I'm easier to locate than Bob.
Re text -- there's no question he was something of an asshole in the thread on his book (which BTW I did buy, but have not yet read), and his style became tiresome even in earlier threads. But pouring your efforts into a significant written piece and then having it criticized publicly does tend to drive people a little crazy, so I think that one thread needs to be seen in that context. (Not that he gets to have a tantrum about the kind of criticism his work drew, since he seems to have asked in every possible way for a public review). He also made a switch to a writing style that involved lots of continuously repeated bids for attention over a whole thread, which even if no one post is all that annoying can disrupt an entire thread. That is a problem although something that seems not that hard to address unless the person really insists on continuing it.
Re grand statements about comment/moderating policy...I think that the actual front page moderators generally show the proper level of forebearance in actually deleting stuff (which I much prefer to disemvoweling or editing). But I also think that the community in general should develop a thicker skin. It's too common for people to start up what look like lobbying campaigns to get people thrown off, or just general attempts to get the group to pick up torches and chase a poster around. I am with LB in 241 that I like conflict and believe it is something to be preserved in making a blog interesting. Even when people do cross the line, most of the time they say things that are not hard to simply ignore, if only because it's obvious to both the target and everyone else that the poster has lost it and is acting like an asshole. I miss some of the folks we've lost, sometimes not because they were chased off but because they got tired of the atmosphere where other people were, and I'm glad we've kept people like Bob M. who seemed to be the targets of such campaigns.
anyway that's my two cents even if no one asked for it. I'm off to have lesbian sex now.
Arcadia, maybe, having quit this place.
265.last is possibly the wrongest thing ever posted on this blog.
so where is emvoweled text with his lessons learnt?
you can find me on twitter if you look very hard. but don't worry, I'm not quitting you.
Thanks for the purchase PGD! Anyone interested in some short stories? Hard copies now available, kindle downloads prolly in 6 hrs or so.
But I also think that the community in general should develop a thicker skin. It's too common for people to start up what look like lobbying campaigns to get people thrown off, or just general attempts to get the group to pick up torches and chase a poster around.
I think this is sometimes true. I am seriously conflicted about what to think about it, because I don't want to tell people with hurt feelings to suck it up and cope while they're being abused. But this is a dynamic I'm really uncomfortable with even when the target is behaving very badly.
I am seriously conflicted
Well, at least you like conflict.
so where is emvoweled text with his lessons learnt?
That, of course, was not actually me.
what if we had a renegade bane who only posted random nice things in order to derail?
I dunno, I think we'd all be more comfortable if she kept it in her pants.
And don't call me Shirley.
no, I think my comfort level would increase.
does that mean you want me to put it back in mine?
You'll have to feed and walk her, text. And clean up any messes she makes.
You'll have to feed and walk her, text. And clean up any messes she makes.
I will! This time I will!
Please stop deleting my mash notes, apostropher!
I'm the one deleting and editing you, read. Please go away.
It can never be—my heart belongs to another.
270: You see both sides of the issue. That's great! I love this blog so much.
Yes. Only it's not my heart but another body part, and it does not belong to her, she just uses it occasionally.
"My dong be-longs to you. Just watch!"
When you're old and you've lost your sting, you won't need the doggone thing!
she just uses it occasionally.
When the weather's hot and sticky that's no time for dunkin' dicky.
When the frost is on the pumpkin, that's the time for dicky dunkin'!
So what is the right time for those activities?
295: Are your reading comprehension and/or reasoning facilities impaired in some way that has so far escaped our notice?
I'm semi-on-board with the "thicker skins" idea, but with the caveat that all the "it's just a blog on the internet" stuff doesn't actually pertain. You could just as easily say, about any real world event "it's just a party at a house on a street" or "it's just a person saying shitty things to you". Who cares? It's just someone saying something!
However, for actual humans, people saying something can be really painful. It's okay with me for the consensus to be "people here say shitty things; buck up or get out"*, but the dismissive "it's just a blog" seems to be missing a lot of points. Yeah, it's just a blog on the internet. A blog on the internet where a bunch of people have made and maintained a bunch of relationships, some of them wholly internet-based. People saying shit on a blog on the internet has just as much potential for pain as people saying shit at a house party on a street.
*I mean, it's okay with me in that at least that would be internally consistent, and each individual person would be responsible for staying or not. I assume that a number of people I really like would take off, if that is the actual attitude of the quorum. Which I don't think it is, given responses to various trolls.
what if we had a renegade bane who only posted random nice things in order to derail?
It hurts a little bit that you guys seem to have forgotten me, but you're still the best. The BEST!
299: Forget you? Are you kidding? You're my inspiration!
298: My point in saying "it's just a blog on the internet" was more that people who are inclined to participate in flame wars could probably find something much more pleasant (for themselves) to do IRL.
301: I don't think IRL flame wars are very pleasant at all.
The poundin' of the drums, the pride and disgrace
301: Sure. But my impression of the anger/angst/hurt feelings is that they mostly stem from a (maybe mistaken, maybe misguided) impression that letting shitty things be said on a blog on the internet reflects an attitude that people saying shitty things on a blog on the internet is acceptable and people who don't like it should shut up and leave.
I personally think it isn't acceptable, any more than people saying shitty things in any other situation is acceptable. I understand that a bunch of "don't feed the trolls" dogma interferes with "support the targets of shitty things being said", but I feel like that tension is something that could handle some discussion, rather than just dismissal. (I'm not accusing anyone in particular of dismissal here. I'm just saying I think it's a topic worthy of more discussion and possibly some sort of consensus. Maybe.)
270. But with a stable population of maybe 40, adding one or two disturbed people who piss in the corners and cannot be evicted will destroy the place, as well as immediately deterring anyone new from entering.
305: I don't understand what "acceptable" means in this context.
Who knows. "A thing that happens that everyone agrees is part of what we expect, so we don't really talk about it" ??
Is the distinction between things insufficiently objectionable to do anything about, and things objectionable enough to justify speaking out against them?
I want to complete the post title as "look, text, and listen."
305.1: But I wasn't averring that SSTOTI is "acceptable", just that on the continuum of personal pleasure, doing just about anything in person with people you like is many, many mouse-orgasms to the good side of flame wars.
309: I guess? or maybe about objectionable things that have been demonstrated to hurt someone's feelings, vs. not? I think it's okay for the commentariat to get all het up about it when somebody starts personally attacking one of us.
311: I agree, but I also think that resolving and/or avoiding internet conflicts is an important part of many people's real-life happiness. Not that flame wars are good, just that a collective ignoring of meanspirited trolling is bad.
307: Acceptable would seem to mean something that is viewed as ok. I read LB's position as far as "free speech" as essentially a position that saying mean things is acceptable -- not as an endorsement of the mean things themselves but endorsement of the freedom to say them.
313: Acceptable, OK, alright, allowed, condoned, there are probably plenty more synonyms out there. But each of those has a wide range of meanings.
For example, the cold porridge and the hot porridge were not OK for Goldilocks, but she moved on to the just-right porridge, which was OK.
Trying to make people feel bad is not OK, so if you do it people will sometimes yell at you and won't want to be your friend.
When people get sick that is not OK so they go to the doctor or the ER or take medicine to try to get better.
When people die that is not OK but that just means that we're really sad about it, we don't actually have a plan to get rid of death. (But if you make someone die, that is a different kind of not OK that can actually get you punished.)
There are lots of other degrees and kinds of not OK. Conversations using vague terms like that will suffer from the illusion of transparency as everyone assumes they know what everyone else means by it. I could argue that something makes me feel sad, and it could be heard as an argument that it should make everyone sad. I could argue that people should speak out against something, and it could be heard as an argument for banning. I could argue that a practice would be desirable, and it could be heard as an argument that anyone who doesn't do it is doing evil.
313: I think LB's (and the general) position isn't so much that saying mean things is acceptable as much as it's what little we do here, we do for free (and most of the others do way more than I do and for a bit less than free) in our spare time between tasks at work and feeding the kids and living our lives. Refereeing those battles would be close to a full-time job.
I am willing to go asshole-to-asshole when I've been personally irritated past the asshole threshold. But I'm not doing it as a service to anybody else; I'm doing it because I'm an asshole by nature who mostly tries to keep it in check otherwise. I don't have the time or energy to be the parliamentarian or bouncer.
There have been times in the past when various conflicts have resulted in people leaving, but recent stuff seems to be more concentrated around personal insults and trolling than before. Plus outside of the trolling, this place seems calmer w/r/t substantive arguments.
To be clear, I wasn't saying anything in particular about behind-the-scenes moves, deletion, etc, so much as I was saying that I think a community response more subtle than "ignore" might be in order, sometimes.
315.1: Oh, absolutely. I am super appreciative of, sympathetic to, in agreement with the position that nobody is paid for the janitorial duties of cleaning up messy threads and that we would all do well now and again to show a little gratitude and respect for what you all do do. (Heh heh, do do... )
I may have overinterpreted LB's reference to free speech in the footnote as pointing to a second, additional position. I definitely didn't intend any implication that I thought you all had any crowd control duties.
Here's the thing, guys. I'm the bouncer. I didn't do my job for a long time. Sorry.
I am willing to go asshole-to-asshole
Laydeez.
No, when laydeez do it it goes in the other thread.
"Free speech" is a stupid way of talking about these issues -- I used it in the footnote because I was being flip.
I do think there used to be a lot more room here for a space in between "That was a shitty (cruel, stupid, evidencing factually incorrect beliefs about the world leading to moral wrongness) thing to say," and "That was such a shitty thing to say that the community should prevent things like that from being said, by driving the speaker out if necessary." And that there are a lot of interesting conversations to be had that involve some people saying shitty things -- if everything unpleasant, unjustified, or cruel is defined as intolerable, the conversation gets duller.
On the other hand, people have to define for themselves what they can tolerate, and certainly no one should feel inhibited about defending themselves or people they care about if they're being hurt.
Also, re Messily's comments -- in no way was I claiming that shitty personal insults to people on the internet is a non-harmful thing. However, once things escalate to a dispute there are two sides saying shitty personal things to each other. One side justifies it by claiming 'you said the shitty thing first' but that doesn't necessarily make it better, nor is it always true frankly. I was saying that by being a little more thick-skinned about escalating things to a full-bore dispute we would reduce the total number of shitty things said to people in this corner of the internet.
Really, my main point is well expressed by LB in 322.2 -- if we could hold the line that substantive disagreements about abstract issues that some people may find morally wrong or deeply misguided in a perhaps shitty way are not actually personal insults, and refrain from escalating such substantive disagreements to personal insults, we could have more interesting substantive debates and fewer personal quarrels.
323 and 265: I am tempted to dispute these, because I think you err importantly and I don't think you've entirely dealt with with E Messily's point.
But every time I think about it, I feel compelled to say this instead: You, personally, have been subject to the sort of abuse you describe, and have handled it in exactly the manner you describe, and everyone has been better off for it, just as you propose.
I will say that I think you miss the point in the context of text - a point that I think many people have missed, but that text himself very clearly gets. I'm not annoyed by text because he's been insulting - either to me or anyone else. I'm annoyed by text because he's deliberately looking for ways to sabotage the blog - that's the thing he shares in common with ToS and read.
Indeed, I'm only just now realizing why people think that text's behavior in the review thread was somehow discontinuous with his prior behavior. In that thread, he insulted people more directly, and perhaps with some genuine feeling. But he still maintained enough self-control that the insults served his well-established goal of derailing the conversation.
And as I say, text is clearly conscious of this, and has given it considerable thought - note 278, for example.
315: others do way more than I do and for a bit less than free
This seems backwards--you mean a bit more than free?
If every commenter paid a $100/mo to read the blog, you could afford to pay a full-time moderator to referee threads.
Oh, I'm talking generally. I'm puzzled by text, again, given the history before the obnoxious return, but you're right that he doesn't seem to be doing anything but derailing (and getting attention for his book, but he could have gotten more by being less irritating).
325: Someone who's both paying for hosting and moderating is working for less than free. I am not at the moment paying for anything, so I'm working for free.
his book (which BTW I did buy, but have not yet read)
Does an author prefer it when someone buys his book and does not read it or reads his book without buying it?
327: oh, got it. That seems like a backwards way of looking at it--from the workers perspective rather than the organization's perspective. From the blog's perspective, a person who was getting paid would be a person whose contributions are less than free.
If you guys wanted me to be nicer, making me read all of this tiresome feelings talk might do the trick.
LB, I guess you wanted me to hold my tongue until I could write a ridiculously overblown counterpoint to your ridiculously overblown hack job. But I don't have that much self control and you knew that. So when do I get to write my own hack job essay?
13: Text, you could have said anything you liked about my review or about me. (Again, within reason, I'm sure someone creative or aggressive enough could come up with something that would bother me.) (A) Mostly, I don't mind that sort of thing much, and (B) I'd think it was pretty unfair of me to write a negative review of your book, however requested it was, and not let you respond as you liked. I ran out of patience when you attacked enough other people viciously enough that the blog became all about you.
At this point, you can write anything you like. If you haven't annoyed any of us enough to get banned by then, you can put it in comments whenever you like. I'm not putting anything on the front page for you, because I've done you all the favors I'm ever going to barring a serious change in the amount of good will I feel toward you.
So when do I get to write my own hack job essay?
Feel free to write like the wind, ace.
Will it contain vowels?
I'll write one without vowels if you'll post it.
Seriously, LB how long do we keep up the drama? The review is more embarrassing for you than it is for me.
The review is more embarrassing for you than it is for me.
This may be the funniest thing ever written on this blog.
338: Yes. And I think the whole comment goes into the Death of Irony HOF along with a few choice mcmanusian masterpieces.
337.1 asks an excellent question.
338: I don't know. I'm still fond of some old chestnuts.
338.last: Smith and Carlos weren't all that right, it depends on whether you thought/think America was the scumbucket of the world and should be shamed at any opportunity.
Maybe not the funniest overall, but it is in the running for the most unintentionally humorous.
irony's not dead just because you call it like you see it.
yes, but ironing can make it hard to see the wrinkles.
I was very good, and correct, in that thread. It is recommended to lurkers.
would that it were easier to see them sometimes
348: is it true that more wrinkles in the brain indicate intelligence? better not do too good a job ironing your brain!
Is he live or dead?
Has he thoughts within his head?
I've ironed it so much now the creases are permanent.
351: As I feared. Sorry, my warning came too late!
Apparently, wrinkles make humans smarter than brutes, and not (except in extreme cases) smarter than other humans [SLNYT]. Einstein may have been smarter than the rest of us by lacking a fissure in the inferior parietal lobe.
A propos of nothing, here's an REM concert from 1981.
355: You're probably giving text a subtle hint that a long sleep might restore his brain to normal function.
It never had a normal function, peep. How about yours?
Who knows? It's tempting to blame it on the internet, but maybe it's genetics.
Between the internet and genetics I hope we'll find the answer.
You and I won't but maybe someone else will.
347: I was very good, and correct, in that thread. It is recommended to lurkers.
Shockingly, I too recommend it to lurkers.
So this was really all a fun titillating porn thread, right guys?
non-funny irony: the best thing text could do to improve as a writer is consider the reasons why other people think his writing doesn't work, rather than dismissing them. (Said after reading about half his book).
the best thing text any writer ever could do to improve as a writer is consider the reasons why other people think his writing doesn't work, rather than dismissing them
