Comments on: Steampunked – BoingBoing disemvowels my homie!

By: richardn

richardn — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 07:51:00 +0000

I was indeed very surprised to be cut off without warning.
For those who have already asked “what does it take to offend BoingBoing?”, well the first post I made [as nomoreclockz] was:

“Cory, whatever Roger Wood has on you can’t be worth this total and tireless dedication to his promotion.
If you genuinely enjoy his gaudy pastiche [insult to horology that it is] than at least have the decency to quietly place his advertisements on the sidebar.”

and later…

“Hi Jenm, it’s not so much Roger’s clocks that I dislike [I’m a bit of a “form follows function” guy so, no, they don’t appeal to me as such].
My main beef is with Cory’s continual and repetitive promotion of them.”

So, there you have it, scary stuff I know.

Thanks Mark for having the courage and intelligence to completely blow all of this totally out of proportion.

Hooray Intertubes!

By: richardn

richardn — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 11:45:40 +0000

After a little digging… we find Cory saying, “Take my friend Teresa Nielsen Hayden, who moderates the sprawling, delightful message-boards on Making Light, a group-blog where the message boards run the gamut from the war in Iraq to Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan-fiction, and where they discussion is almost always civil.

Teresa is a troll-whisperer. For some reason, she can spot irredeemable trolls and separate them from the merely unsocialized. She can keep discussions calm and moving forward. She knows when deleting a troll’s message will discourage him, and when it will only spark a game of whack-a-mole.

Teresa calls it “having an ear for text” and she is full of maddeningly unquantifiable tips for spotting the right rod to twiddle to keep the reactor firing happily without sparking a meltdown.”

I see now that I’ve been modded by a pro - no contest - she obviously knows me better than I know myself.

But wait there’s more…

“Teresa invented a technique called disemvowelling — removing the vowels from some or all of a fiery message-board post. The advantage of this is that it leaves the words intact, but requires that you read them very slowly — so slowly that it takes the sting out of them. And, as Teresa recently explained to me, disemvowelling part of a post lets the rest of the community know what kind of sentiment is and is not socially acceptable.”

She invented it?! I’m almost… honored…

Oh well, I’m evidently an “irredeemable troll” and that’s that I suppose.

By: mark

mark — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 13:26:53 +0000

What’s super shitty about the inappropriate use of disemvowelling is that it tends to be associated with abusive ranting morons, so anyone who saw your mutilated comments might reasonably assume that you said something highly offensive, when you were at worst mildly snarky.

Reading those pathetic follow up comments (”Haven’t you got anything better to do?” asks TNH– real cute coming from someone who has just exercised their divine right to fuck over your posts) I’d like to figuratively cockpunch a few of those people myself.

By: Scott

Scott — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 23:49:27 +0000

Speaking from an outside observer, this is an example of very, very poor moderation and smells of a group who feels they can do no wrong.

Thank you for reposting the comments here Richard.

By: aniz

aniz — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 01:38:57 +0000

This is an example of strong group cohesion gone misdirected. The group has become so strong that they’ve a) forgotten the initial mission statement and b) become a force unto their own. Hey Boingboing, maybe it’s time for some self-reflection - re-affirm your true values?

By: Shaun

Shaun — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 05:18:13 +0000

Frankly I’m surprised anyone thought it was a good idea to give a moderator carte blanche to vandalise any comments she disagrees with or simply takes a disliking to, particularly when the moderator in question makes the average airport security guard look like a good-humoured and reasonable chap.

By: richardn

richardn — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 06:03:46 +0000

Well, after creating a new user “dontdisemvowelmebro” and apologizing I have just been censored and blocked again - so have a few others who have voiced concerns about the aesthetics of clocks.

It’s fairly clear that Teresa Nielsen Hayden and others of BoingBoing are able to maintain order in their comments by exercising exactly the same kind of censorship and restrictions on free speech that they so often claim to detest in others.

I have been a daily reader of BoingBoing for years and as far as I’m concerned they just performed a private shark-jumping for me to enjoy.

Irrelevance stalks us all.

By: mark

mark — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 13:10:54 +0000

Oh god those smug fucks are still going… Although I have suffered zero personal insult (having not been directly subject to the treatment) I think I now detest Boing Boing, having had this insight into their comment section (I think the last time I looked it was when I posted a “please no more clocks” comment of my own some months back, but I never checked back to see it shredded thus).

By: mark

mark — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 13:13:16 +0000

to clarify, it’s the disemvowelling that I find most inappropriate– it’s the equivalent of playing fart noises over a radio call-in guest.

By: richardn

richardn — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 13:46:12 +0000

I’ve given BoingBoing a fair bit of thought in the last few hours and something is now very obvious to me that wasn’t so before - since I embraced RSS aggregation through Google Reader I have been running around a day to a day and a half ahead of BoingBoing in the vital “hipster meme of the moment” for which I used to rely on boingboing itself. I feel that I’m quite capable of detecting the next “all your base”, “LOLCatz” “XKCD” wave without Cory’s, Xeni’s or Whoever’s assistance.

BoingBoing looks about as relevant to me now as Yahoo does [Oh wow this soooo much better than search! Humans indexing the intertubes!]

So, yes a big old fuck off to the lot of them!

By: JR

JR — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 15:53:00 +0000

I never did like BB so much, though I never delved a great deal (probably ’cause I never liked it so much!)
Always seemed a bit smug for my taste.
Having read the thread in question I think that re censorship and general coolness they do need a good, solid, protracted cockpunching.
That “this is Cory’s livingroom, he does what he wants” argument is very flimsy.
If one doesn’t want comments in the livingroom one shouldn’t have a publicly accessible livingroom, blackjack in the umbrella stand (why not just come out and say shotgun under the counter?) notwithstanding. Last I heard gaffing the mouths of one’s guests was still frowned on by the proponents of free speech.

I must try the Google Reader embracement. I’m so not up on the memes.

By: edam

edam — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 22:31:03 +0000

A most entertaining adventure, happily concluded with the satisfying declaration of BB’s irrelevance. Even more satisfying than a cockpunch methinks.

By: Shaun

Shaun — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 23:26:14 +0000

What annoys me is that over at Boing Boing, people like to laud TNH as some kind of ‘troll whisperer’ who, with some kind of Minority Report-like gift, can spot a troll in the making.

‘For some reason, she can spot irredeemable trolls and separate them from the merely unsocialized,’ ethuses Cory Doctorshittyclocklover.

Yes, just as I can stroll down the street and expose people who are in a bad mood simply by slapping them forcibly in the back of the head, so too can TNH expose troublemakers by smugly vandalising any comments she takes a disliking to. If the poster takes umbrage or merely expresses surprise, TNH hoists up her belt, places one hand on her hip, the other on her baton, and thinks “Yes sir, I’ve still got the knack!”

By: Liam C

Liam C — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 18:01:18 +0000

I don’t believe I’ve ever heard the term “cockpunch” before, but I believe it may now become a regular part of my vocabulary. With regards to BB, this type of smug elitism in comment management is simply nauseauting.

By: richardn

richardn — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 23:35:53 +0000

Oh for crying out loud! Is this person trolling me now?!
What the flying flip is going on with Teresa Nielsen Hayden?
“From time to time we’re going to be promoting especially wonderful comments (for all values of “wonderful”) to the front page.”

This is like Fox’s “fair and balanced” - we delete comments we don’t like and promote things we do to the front frakking page.

BoingBoing delivers a whole new reality distortion field.

By: mark (alt)

mark (alt) — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 05:08:28 +0000

More BoingBoing douche-fliddlery:
http://s4xton.com/1685/an-example-of-creative-commons-not-working/

By: Shaun

Shaun — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 11:45:06 +0000

Heh. I notice that TNH was quick to delete the comments that several other Boing Boing posters left in support of Aaron’s concerns.

By: mark

mark — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 21:58:32 +0000

Alternative clock making done right: http://www.flickr.com/photos/seangallagher/sets/72157604323095889/

By: Joe

Joe — Thu, 08 May 2008 08:20:51 +0000

Yeah, I’m getting really tired of BoingBoing as well. THN is very heavy-handed, and I would delete my account - if they actually had provided a way to delete accounts. I’m so sick and tired of BB and their trigger-happy system of shooting down any comments that disagree with them.