@ZombieBabyDiego, that's two warnings. Don't be a douche, or I'm banning you.

#4 chromal, the space bar is your friend. It's considered very bad form to show up in a thread solely for the purpose of saying "this sucks" or "i don't like this."

Don't be rude, dude.

Ah, I screwed up. I've removed the speculative reference from the blog post, I have no idea what codec or format they might be planning to use. Nice of them to give their fans a headsup, though.

Welcome aboard, Lisa! Guestbloggging is how I ended up here, myself! ESCAPE WHILE YOU CAN OH MY GOD THEY'RE COMING TO GE--

It reminds me a lot of the Kool-Aid commercials! I loved this and watched it like 900 times really fast back to back.

d'oh, yes, fixin!

@jonnygoldstein thanks, fixed

@#5 anonymous, if I ever bump into that guy who said Aldrin faked the moon landing? Might just knock his lights out myself, just on principle.

@Gary61, I have a lot of respect for Dr. Aldrin. Part of why we chose to present his views unedited, and at length here -- with the "greek chorus" interjected for comic relief -- was to illustrate how sometimes figures like Dr. Aldrin who have forceful, unusual, and strongly held beliefs are often dismissed by a public more concerned with mundane, easily understandable things. Like -- skateboarding dog videos. Or LOLcats. Or diet coke and mentos explosions.

Maybe some of his ideas sound crazy to some people. He doesn't apologize for the fact that these ideas might sound strange. Hell, the very idea of going to the moon sounded totally nuts to people -- before he did it.

I understand that some people who respect Dr. Aldrin may have been offended by today's BBtv episode. This made me really sad.

Our intent wasn't to disrespect or ridicule him, or his ideas, but rather to poke fun at the reality we face when presenting far-out, innovative, or unpopular ideas in this medium. Contrary to popular myth, the internet doesn't always welcome newness.

And online, every asshole with a keyboard has an equal voice to yours. Even if you've been to the goddamned stars, and they've only been as far as, I don't know, Starbucks.

Some of the people I revere most in history were considered kooky or just plain wrong by their peers or the public during their lifetimes.

What's that old adage you hear in space exploration circles? First, the world tells you you're nuts. Then, they say you can never do it. Then, they say it will cost too much. Then, when you do it, they tell you they're so glad they had that idea first.

Buzz Aldrin is a personal hero to me, too.

I hope that folks who see this video and consider him and the other First Men sacred will understand the spirit of respect and playfulness with which we've presented this.

I hope that if Dr. Aldrin views the episode, he'll feel the same way. He is a man of great humor and generosity. He takes his beliefs about space exploration and development seriously -- but himself, not so much. There is much to admire in that human quality.

Hi, @teddanson -- I know, it's frustrating for us, too. We're working on some issues with our video hosting provider. Don't hate the player, hate the host, or something like that. We hope to provide a better delivery experience for you soonest.

Thank you for your astute observations, Falcon_Seven. Whenever we find this elusive "Zeni," we will pass on this important message.

@#4 help i cant comfirm my username themelonbread,

In Soviet Russia, children walk barefoot uphill in the snow for the honor of wearing cucumber masques on internet television. Just check wikipedia, it's all in there.

Klaus is self-exploitative, if anything, and gave his full, enthusiastic consent to our following him around in his daily life with our cameras. We prefer to think of these webisodes as less of a "reality show," and more of an "observational documentary series."

@Hagbard, T-H-N-K Y-!

The discussion of malware in this post and the one immediately preceding it is not racially motivated. There is ample factual evidence to support the notion that there is a high spike in China/Tibet related malware and other internet malfeasance right now, same goes for Russia/Georgia.

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/08/12/update-on-chinatibet.html

I think you're reaching for an argument that is not supported here.

@ #11 Jack, perhaps you -- and any others who felt this was alarmist -- would have reacted differently if I'd combined this and the immediate post which preceded it in this same topic, all into one post. I'd just blogged about very real in-the-wild (and innovative) uses of malware by do-no-gooders within China.

There is absolutely a huge boom right now in malware related to the China/Tibet conflict, and also Russia/Georgia. Some may be linked to official sources, but a lot is not.

These two posts were intended as a sober, non-hysterical evaluation of what some of the most recent examples are, and the questions some folks on the other end are asking when they experience anomalies during a time when greater caution in some situations is totally warranted.

The headline is a question, it presents a user's testimonial, and within about 30 minutes, a counter-analysis (which would have been posted at the same time, but I was waiting for permission to publicly identify the researcher).

I know it's fun to say "girls don't know anything about this stuff," or "you're being hysterical" but I don't feel like that would be a fair criticism here.

A hysterical post from me typically starts with the headline ZOMGZOMG KOMUNIST CHINA IZ EATIN THA BABIES IN OUR LAPTOPS RUN FOR YR LIVES ZOMG!!!!111 DIEEE!!!.

@Aimless, it's absolutely guerilla. The point here is that the told required are cheap and easily available to non-pros, and people who don't have a lot of experience with art or craft. She's not in an institution, she's in her kitchen. It's an easy, cheap way for young subversives to disseminate counterpropaganda fashionably. Or whatever they want to do!

@Dana, LULZ! und zo weiter!

@#4nprnncbl, one of my most vivid memories of traveling in Africa was walking down rows of street vendors in Accra, Ghana, asking the DVD guys if they had "Dangerous Blind Man" in stock.

An american expat in Accra had tipped me off to this film as a good place to start, for Nollywood (and broader West African contemporary popular film) literacy, and I had to hit up a bunch of vendors before I finally found it!

Interesting to me was the fact that US blockbusters were *not* the hottest sellers in that market... the street vendors made most of their dough selling Nollywood and Ghanaian fare.

XJ

"Dangerous Blind Man" and "Dangerous Blind Man II" are a couple of my all-time faves. A movie so nice, they had to make it twice!

DBM-1 is up on YT in many parts...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zcpgqc7LhS0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBJ69hGAD1o&feature=related

und zo weiter...

@#3: They rock! And rock is America. And if you don't like that, we have a million red, white, and blue babies who are ready to destroy you.

@#13 funkfunkfunction:

to remove as much human influence as possible, that is to 'compute' the chocolate, is again very silicon-valley-dot-com. The assumption is that if can only reduce the process to series of equations THEN we can have a perfect product

Yeah, only that's not what these guys are doing at all. I don't know if you had a chance to watch the videos in entirety yet, but the point here seems to be using science and smarts to create a better product, and make better use of human intelligence and labor, all the way from the crop to the bar. The stuff tastes great, what they're doing is interesting and innovative, we thought it was an interesting story. The notion that the TCHO folks are trying to reduce this to a totally automated process with no human sensory intelligence in the mix is just misinformed.

As for Rick, I called him a douche because he was being a douche. We like having constructive conversations with people here at BB/BBtv, even when there are disagreements. That wasn't what happened here. But he's welcome to return in a better mood, and as you can see, his comments stand visible, so all is well with peace and justice in blogistan.

@#1GEORGERUIZ: Thank you so much. (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

@#2#2Carroll, thanks for the kind words about the conent. So, the sound issues are known, we had fucked up equipment for this shoot, and the team did the best they could. Appreciate the tech notes, but the guys know all of this -- and this was the best possible under circumstances, we've dealt with the issue for shoots moving forward. Bums us out, too.

#3 eat more chocolate, it'll cheer you up!

#4 bruhinb, we LOVE hearing that. I'm glad you feel we're doin' something right!

@#1 Travis Ried, so glad you liked this episode. I know, I too was wondering where that fellow's accent came from! Todd or Eddie, do you know?

@#2 Susan Oliver, I did not know this. amazing.

@#3 Flying Squid -- WHOAH THERE MISTER CRANKYPANTS. We is having fun with TALKINGS. I believe your gaskets may be wound too tight! Try more lube.

@#4 Noen, brilliant. I think we may need to develop a miniseries on BBtv around gaspunk.

@#5 Travispulley, wow again. When the guys in this episode were talking about how fast the ships were built, I couldn't help but wonder about safety issues -- I am no expert in this realm, but what you're saying makes a lot of sense. How awful.

@Mattxb, very cool -- I really love their work in this piece, and am downloading more as I type!!

I went to see DARK KNIGHT over the weekend, and was stunned by Heath Ledger's performance (and loved the movie in general).

I kept thinking, when the Joker was on-screen -- that he was like the ultimate archetypal patron saint troll of all trolls.

The Joker: [speaking to Two-Face] Do I really look like a man with a plan, Harvey? I don't have a plan. The mob has plans, the cops have plans. You know what I am, Harvey? I'm a dog chasing cars. I wouldn't know what to do if I caught one. I just *do* things. I'm a wrench in the gears. I *hate* plans. Yours, theirs, everyone's. (...)

(...)You had plans. Look where it got you. I just did what I do best-I took your plan and turned it on itself. Look what I have done to this city with a few drums of gas and a couple bullets.

(...) Introduce a little anarchy, you upset the established order, and everything becomes chaos. I am an agent of chaos. And you know the thing about chaos, Harvey? It's fair.

FIRST!!!!

@#52 and others...

Then, clearly there is T. puerilis, which isn't quite the same as T. trivialis, and T. dickwad, of course. Closely related to puerilis, but older, and lacking a certain charm.
Some of the folks profiled in the article are larger and darker beings, T. luciferi? Or maybe we should honor Heath Ledger, Trollius ledgeri?

Hah, I'll have to ask Ape Lad if he'd consider drawing some diagrams of the different troll species you guys. Let me know what the correct presentation of the species and genus should be, and I'll correct my presentation there in the body of the post.

Antinous, I am the only one around here who wears the Stalin 'stache, bub. You can be Trotsky or Idi Amin or Papa Smurf.

@#10 Takuan, I think you're right, and the tribe really must survive. We should just start killing trolls instead of removing vowels. Cool, thanks!

@#32:

Four.

L

O

V

E

@#2 BC2, those are not bad ideas, either. Disemvowelling works pretty well for us for now, at least better than other tools we have available. But I don't think any of us believe that this is the only conceivable technical/tactical solution. We might shift to another approach down the road.

@#1 Antinous:

Agreed. I think there's a pretty huge gap between the sorts of folks who might pop up on a BB thread to say "Steampunk is gay" or " U R DUM" and the sort of person who terrorizes the parents of a teenager who shot himself. "Troll" really does encompass a wide range of antisocial behavior, from that which is rude to that which is (or should be) criminal.

@#9 d'oh! of course it is, it is late and i am sloppy.

I know right? WHERE ARE YOU MY RATTY-ASSED COMPADRE!

@#13 Pesco, you sure make the whole crew over here in the 310 feel proud. Thank you. :) And I can't wait for us to produce more of these, with more voices in more places, and sketch out ideas like the one you just articulated to make all of the resulting work more "explorable."

Hey getback,

scroll bar is your friend.

@#5 shaun_scotland, heh! So, we did bring down a few XO laptops (One Laptop Per Child), and while that is not solely a gaming device -- it did end up being used that way by some of the kids!

@#6 DaveBonta, wow, I hadn't heard of this group before. thank you so much for posting that.

@all, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts, and I will pass them on to the team here, and the folks in the pueblo, too.

@Agent 86 thank you so much. Most of the video shot by the people in the pueblo involves people speaking only K'iche, and we did not end up having access to a K'iche speaker during the final production stages for this episode, so we left those bits of ambient dialogue un-subtitled. Maybe we'll go back and do that, though, and for sure we'll want to next time.

@elgrupolimon, le agradezco mucho; on behalf of the whole BBtv crew thank you for watching it and we're so glad you found it of value, as we did.

I, for one, am eagerly awaiting the launch of a new perfume named EAU DU MARS. Or Chanel No. 4 for short.

@Antinous, yet another awesome question... paging Bob Jaroc! :)

@Pesco, So glad you dug it!! I wanted to see it in super-mega-ultra hidef, too. Bob and Plaid did amazing work, I love the sense of space and presence this evokes. It reminded me of dreamy half-memories of places I've passed through... just a really sweet short.

@Antinous, that's a really interesting question and I hope the filmmaker has a chance to pop in and reply sometime. I'd like to know, too.

@Dana -- wait WHAT? Nobody told me that! I thought the guy singing Numa Numa on those headphones was George Lucas. That's what you told me when the elevator started moving. I took you so seriously.

@ultrabob:

I don't think the description fits the piece very well.

Ah, hmmm -- that was my clumsy attempt at summarizing the piece, that was not the actual title of Mr. Jaroc's work. I've updated the post title so that it might better reflect the content of the piece.

As for the second half of your comment, I disagree strongly with all of that. We here at BBtv felt it was a strong piece, a beautiful, impressionistic piece, and that Jaroc treated the subjects and the subject matter at hand with respect and creative depth. This was more of an ambient work, and not a traditional documentary piece -- I think you just have to let it be what it is, and appreciate it for what it is. I loved it, so did my colleagues here, and that's why we were honored to present it through BBtv.

It was tiresome.

The space bar is your friend, grasshopper. All of us on this end felt otherwise, and arguing over such matters is the folly of internet sillyheads, so let us not do so here.

Hi Yamara! I did not make this short film, and was not there. That'd be a question for Bob... we'll ask him to weigh in!

Reading this headline I thought, wow, Todd's a little old for a quinceañera, but better late than never! You go girl.

Hey Adam -- where are you seeing that url in this post? Everything's working AFAIK, I don't see that url anywhere.

@#2 HAHAHAHAHAHH

@#8 jlborghead, fixed! Thanks!

YAY KEN! THANKS CHRIS! W00T!!!!

@#4, actually, that's my serious face.

@#117 Takuan and others who've posted here about that side of the adoption story -- nothing I've said in this thread should be interpreted as an attack on the positive intentions of individual people who adopt in good faith.

This is a very sensitive topic. But a condemnation of the corruption in this system does not equal a condemnation of good-hearted people who want to help kids who need homes.

And: What is most telling about this article is that it's presented by the Guatemalan govt as the "first irrefutable evidence."

Part of that is the rampant corruption and systemic impunity; but part is that until recently, there were no DNA lab facilities in the country. Any DNA testing had to be sent out of the country...

Science doesn't lie. At least, not as easily as people do. This, to me, is a fascinating example of how technology can aid in a complicated real-world problem.

Hey Antinous, thanks for posting that. This type of crime is not uncommon, from what human rights workers there have told me during previous visits to the country.

I met and interviewed this one young woman -- maybe 19? 20? -- who was at this women's shelter in Guatemala City, getting help to deal with the police... her baby had been stolen from her in the street just days before I met her, she was in shock, it was indescribably sad. Doubly so because the criminal justice system in Guatemala is heavy on the "criminal," and, ah, pretty lightweight on the "justice" part.

The presumption by those helping her (with good reason) is that the child would be sold by middlemen into the *very* loosely regulated and easily exploited adoption system.

Some of the people I interviewed referred to black market adoption as "Guatemala's most lucrative cash crop," next to the drug trade.

I've heard anecdotal stories that sound very very similar to the BBC article, too.

The link between the corrupt underbelly of the adoption system there and organized crime -- which is in turn linked to the leftovers of the death squads, and rampant narcotrafficking -- is direct.

Again thanks for posting this, I hadn't seen.

@#105 ValledeBravo, pues gracias hombre! That's super cool. My spanish actually sucks but I try. I get frustrated when i can't say exactly what's in my head, so things tend to come out simpler. Anyway, very kind words, and I am super glad you found the video worth your time.

@#21 AirPillo, hm, that doesn't sound good.

we'll take a look at that.

it's not a malicious secret premeditated plot to piss off our viewers -- more likely a technical issue with the service provider that outputs and inserts the ads.

Koolkev! step away from the Koolaid.

The sideways reference to the kidnapping fear might have been more direct if it weren't for the sponsorship, might it not?

Commenter, please. No, the sponsor didn't influence this. Despite rampant, primitive gringo superstitions, Microsoft neither sells nor eats babies, so this piece did not run contrary to their business interests.

Look, this is a short form video piece, and the focus was on another story, and this was a tangential reference to help provide context. I do plan to revisit the adoption dilemma in detail. This was an editorial decision, you can't tell the entire history of a people in 5 minutes.

Consider cutting cost and finding different sources of funding.

Dude have you seen what's in our fridge? Or the state of our chairs? This isn't 1999, we're not editing these on gajillion dollar AVID bays, and the only lines of coke in our office are assembled from crushed diet coca cola cans, when we get bored and our OCD comes out.

This is a lean, mean, indie operation, and we produce what we do for as little as we can, so we have maximum freedom (and we do have maximum freedom, it's pretty awesome).

Xeni you have a world wide audience and a unique personal appeal. Don't dilute it if you don't have to.

Hey, look, thanks for the kind words, and I really am glad you enjoyed the piece. But nothing here has been diluted. All is well in the state of Boingdom.

@Derek (who is BBtv's segment procuer), +1 to all of that.

@Rick: Sir, you are a douche. Seriously, I'm not gonna tackle your comments in detail because everything you've said is wrong. You're here to fling poo at something produced with sincerity and enthusiasm, and that is classic internet bully behavior. If you have something constructive to say, do come back when you've changed your attitude, but otherwise: bugger off. You're wasting my pixels.

@#81 ANSEL, you are absolutely correct. +1 to all of that, and most of all -- the last line of your comment. I hope to explore more of this in future episodes.

also kittens.

Teresa is a wonderful moderator, and a true Boinger. Everyone hating on her here can suck it AFAIC. If I am disemvowelled for being so crass, sobeit.

@#68 Eustace, suit yourself, you'll be missing good stuff, and Microsoft isn't placing restrictions on what we do here.

The BBtv World video series will continue as an ongoing feature beyond the term of their immediate sponsorship, with other sponsors to follow, and we intend for it to be something that makes everyone proud.

@everyone, I forgot to add this before, but just amdended the post to point out that...

...some of the footage used in this episode was shot on micro-mini digital camcorders donated for review purposes by Pure Digital Inc. (the Flip camcorder) and RCA (RCA Small Wonder).

This is no egregious product placement, we were really wondering how small, cheap video devices might make it easier to tell small, intimate stories -- and make it easier for us to put the storytelling in the hands of the people in each place. More on this in future episodes and posts...

@#64 cbarreto, ah wow, thank you for your comment! Really fascinating food for thought. I take it you are in brasil... we also have some episodes planned from there (shot by other people, not by me).

BTW, alcohol, cocaine and lack of schools are dooming the future of South American native populations.

Wow. [nods]. I believe it.

@#61 Antinous, that's gonna require a 6-unicorn chaser in my head now. THANKS. a head which has its scalp intact i might add.

@#56 Tavie and others who wish to help:

I spoke at length with the directors of the nonprofit referenced in this video (I am part of that organization, too); the decision from the pueblo was to just give this a little time, then share more details on the place, the people, and the specific ways people can help.

When Boing Boing points traffic and attention at something fragile like this, something in a relatively young developmental stage, the flood of attention -- well-meaning though it may be -- can be too much all at once. It is important that the structure of the organization be solid, and ready to handle an influx of donations from foreigners, or offers of volunteer help, before we shine a nuclear-powered floodlight in that direction.

For now, the intent is just to tell their story honestly and with respect. There is much gratitude and respect for your response, and I will personally relay these comments (translated to Spanish) to the families, the elders, and the young people whose stories are told here. I'm emailing the pueblo tonight. :)

@#51 L_Alvarez,

Le agradezco mucho por sus palabras; nos dan mucho honor y orgullo.

Ojala que los videos que vamos a producir en las semanas que viene -- de Guate pero tambien de otras partes del mundo -- les brindan un conocimiento de cada lugar, de la gente, y de la vida tradicional en cada lugar.

Si, vamos a seguir. Y vamos a explorar todo que es posible. Con mucho corazon, mal'tyox.

XJ

@#54 cbarreto, I am not aware of corn being used for this purpose in this community at this time.

Alcohol is a whole separate topic... bottles of rotgut white rum are readily available and affordable in the little market in the center of the pueblo, and alcoholism is a huge problem there which claims many many lives... but affordable antibiotics and safe drinking water are not readily obtained.

So, yeah, no need to homebrew the stuff.

Thanks for weighing in, everyone!

@#33 hodgestar, ah, I can see what you're saying. So, specifically: Benin, Togo, Nigeria, and Ghana. Four West African nations. Those are the countries we have footage from, those are the countries we have episodes possibly planned for within the coming weeks. I was writing my comment in haste, and didn't mean to commit the common, ignorant sin of "Africa = one homogenous nation."

@#30 martha_macarthur, hah! :-) I bet he'd be tasty, too. JOKING.

@#31 arkizzle, @#35 ninnyfriedcheez -- that's really interesting feedback. OK, so maybe we will try to do somewhat longer blog posts to accompany these episodes, to provide more context. Longer than regular BBtv blog posts.

@TNH -- you are right about the stone metates. I've spent time with families who still use these, and it's worse. As you mentioned, also hard on the teeth because of stone grit in the meal. Daily life here is just a hell of a lot of hard hard work.

@TNH -- wow, I did not know the other meaning of the word "marrano." I will say that when my spanish was even crappier than it is now, I once called a pig a "coche" in Guatemala (that's a regional slang word for pig in some other countries, cochinita, cochina, coche for short) -- and someone asked why i wanted a car. Coche means car in Guate, pig elsewhere. It was funny at the time.

@#47 HeroicUnderstatement thank you very much!

We really appreciate all of the ideas, criticism, and feedback everyone. So grateful. :)

@#26 arkizzle, cool, I'm glad you find that part of the story interesting. I think we'll be doing simple pieces to start off with that just give you a "sense of place," kind of a "one-note" piece? Then I want to expand to tell specific stories in a lot more depth, such as that one, really including the voices of the people themselves. Maybe some investigative works, too.

News is old news. Unfiltered experiences of the world, through the world's eyes, as it were -- that's what I believe is truly new.

@Rob, I wanted the entire episode to be that little damn pig, I loved him so much. If I'm gonna kidnap any living thing from that pueblo, it's gonna be that li'l red marrano.

@Takuan, thanks. Mob justice is part of rural life there, but the context is more complicated than it seems at a distance.

The kidnapping thing wasn't so much a joke, as -- everywhere I walked, with and without this posse of girls, younger children ran screaming from me. Guatemala is one of the top "sender" countries forforeign adoptions, second only to China IIRC, and there is much corruption and injustice in that system. A lot is broken. There are well-meaning people on the adopter side, but direct exploitation is prevalent, and the Guatemalan justice system is deeply broken. And the communities where all of this impacts the social fabric the most are the poorest ones -- like this Mayan village.

So the story is complicated, but they are actually running with the total, committed belief that this gringa is going to shove them in a sack and sell them off to a buyer in Miami or Sausalito or whatever. It's really sad, the whole system, because as you can see the lives there are pretty tough.

I believe that helping these communities become economically self-sustaining is a better way to help than just adopting kids en masse, and helps preserve the cultural and social fabric.

Some of the adults in this village told me they refer to this phenomenon as "el robo de los ninos," the theft of the children. They see this as like -- the Guatemalan civil war killed one generation of the indigenous population, now poverty and racism and the adoption industry in this place where injustice is prevalent -- that's robbing *this* generation.

XENO you are being disemvowelled because you are being a douche.

Takuan, I hope you like it, and I'd love to hear your thoughts. We really are experimenting with something new here.

Xeno, go suck on a stale tortilla. Here's how much restriction Microsoft placed on the editorial content in this mini-documentary series:

zero.

I've worked in a number of different news organizations, and I can tell you it's rare to be able to produce exactly what you want, exactly how you want to, without sometimes clueless editors or sales people breathing down your neck.

I can say with a clean conscience that we are under zero pressure from this sponsor to alter or edit what we say or what we feature here. Do you realize how totally fcking awesome that is?

Online video is not cheap to produce, edit, host, or distribute. It's not the same as writing blog posts. And it's not like we can take the BART train for $3 when we go to these different remote places around the world we're gonna feature.

We rely on sponsors to make this project possible, and when a company steps up to do that with no strings attached, and helps me and my colleagues fulfill something like this, something that has been a personal dream for years -- I personally feel a lot of gratitude for that opportunity. These guys are being completely cool with us, and they are supporting something that matters to me and my partners. It's fine.

These stories and places and people are important to me, and I hope they will be important to others. We are exploring and experimenting with this medium, and I am grateful for the sponsors that step up to give the project the lifeblood it needs to survive.

Hey, super sorry about that -- will be fixed shortly, meanwhile here's the url for that file:

http://video.boingboing.net/video/17509/bbtv_2008-07-22-022127.mp4

@#1, that's awesome. These guys are the genuine article, and I can't stop playing this episode loud with headphones.

@#3 David Herman, ahhh, you may be correct!

Wow, the junkie tonguetwisters/limericks are pretty awesome, people. Keep 'em coming, they might merit a whole new post!

@#12anthony, "She sells speedballs by the seashore."

Carr's book is the sort of thing the phamous phony might have produced if he wasn't (a) lying and (b) a shitty writer.

I'd suggest anyone thinking of whining about a newly glutted junkie genre in this thread simply read the book, then come back and tell me if you still feel the same way.

#464 Tom Neff and #466 Peco, +1. also GO METS!

@#6 Thorfin, am well aware of that. It's humor!

If all of this results in a party with theremin, bongos, a game of mad libs with disemvowelled comments, and Kerfuffle Kupcakes, the Great Unpublishing Debacle of 2008 will not have been for naught. Thanks for getting things back on track, guys -- back on track to SILLYTOWN.

#443 icky2000 and others, thank you very much for your kind and reasoned comments. Their impact is greater than the blathering of a hundred fly-by trolls.

#439 takeshi and FidoOne #438, wow. Thank you for making me think about something in a new light. I'm printing both of these out and tacking them to the wall near my desk.

Hi @#414 azimos,

I took BB pretty seriously. Maybe that was premature.

I don't speak for Mark, but I think his remark earlier may have been intended with some humor. This is still, fundamentally, a shared personal blog where people who care passionately about Big Important Things, and are delighted by Silly Cool Things, and observe and find themselves fascinated by lots of other things -- this is where we catalog all in the world that summons our attention and curiosity. So, sure, for me sometimes that means things of gravitas. Aaaand sometimes that means Bigfoot tea cozies.

BB is not a news organization. I have worked for news organizations, and BB is not the same kind of beast, nor do we produce the same output. Nor are we obligated to adhere to the same sort of structure or practices. BB is just a different kind of entity.

The balance on the immediate issue, and many others, is how to clearly communicate what our practices and process is to those in our community who care about those matters -- without becoming an overly bureaucratic, stiff organization where everything is bound by policies and legalese and strictly defined limits in every direction.

I think that sort of contract is what I need to see if I'm going to be comfortable letting this whole thing go.

We don't feel that way. I think there are other approaches that will work for us, and our audience/community. I'm sorry that makes you feel uncomfortable (no sarcasm intended, truly), but I think you'll find that we tend to sort these things out in a way that ends up being fair, honest, and forthright, even if it doesn't begin as a perfectly choreographed series of dance steps.

@ #413 simra, thank you very much. We have moved on. To creepy furries.

@#412 negentropic, the mods are all resting, and I'm headed that way too.

This thread was not intended to be flypaper for trolls, and under other circumstances your rudeness and spiteful, demonstrably false attacks would be responded to more directly.

But it is late, the thread is long, and as you were saying, you were on the way out.

Bon voyage and bonne nuit, bub.

@#409 negentropic, don't let the door hitcha where the good FSM split ya. And good luck with those Kantian induced ethics.

Hi, @#406 azimos,

I feel like this belated apology is a step in the right direction, are you guys planning to follow it up with an official posting on what you decide?

I am not apologizing for taking down the posts, they're my own work, and the reasons were compelling. But as I explained in the post, I, and we, see that we needed to have a better system to consider, together, as a team when and if an extraordinary set of circumstances compels one of us to consider something like this in the future.

As I said above, I/we realize we didn't handle the external-facing part of the blog-storm as best as we could have. I'm sorry about that, and I think we've learned a lot from this experience.

Is this ever going to happen again?

I sure hope not, and we're certainly not planning on it. But we've discussed (very unlikely) scenarios in which one of us might be compelled to consider something like this, for many different reasons. We'd handle the internal communication process differently, we'd handle the external communication process differently, and trust me, this would not be a decision taken lightly. But we don't want to absolutely, completely, no exceptions ever -- rule out the option for authors to edit or remove **their own work** from public view.

Honestly, I think all of this has been pretty well covered in the post, and in the comments from me, Cory, Pesco, Mark, Joel, and Teresa here.

I'm just not sure where you guys are going with this at this point.

um...to bed.

@#15 insect_hooves BAHAHAHAHAHAH

@#16 mdhatter BAHAHAHAHAHAH

@#398 Ulrika Zugzwang:

This relationship enabled their participation in Boing Boing as an editor. When the relationship ended, their contributions ceased and I deleted their posts.

Hoo boy. So there are a number of misunderstandings evident in your comment, but they all seem to stem from the most fundamental one:

This person was never an editor/author/member of Boing Boing.

Clarification on my comment #394:

We did our best to accommodate the nuances each person felt best represented their point of view, and we were (with the first post) trying to avoid a petty personal battle.

that was badly written, I did not mean a "personal battle" among BB editors with one another, but a "personal battle" in public with other parties, as in, a blog-drama/internet combat telenovela.

@#392 Tom Neff, +1, enthusiastically.

I think all of that makes very good sense, and those exact things are some of what I -- and we -- have learned from this. I really appreciate both the content and tone of your comment, thank you very much.

#389 posted by HarshLanguage,

Sadly the first, belated public explanation (I'm not sure it was even written by a regular Boinger) was in that defensive PR-double-talk style that is so aggravating. It just made the problem worse.

(...)

Perhaps the wrong person is writing your collective statements about issues like these.

Hehe! So, your point is a serious and sincere one, but it's funny to read, because the post was written collaboratively and approved collaboratively by all of us. Not a PR consultant or a brand manager or a Crisis Management Life Coach (TM or anything like that.

And that's what I/we were getting at in this post. We didn't have such a great system in place for handling fast, coordinated response to things like this, so we fumbled a bit. We're not a big corporation.

The frankenvoice you're describing is like what would happen if you took scans of all our faces and mushed them together in one of those face-morphing software apps. You'd end up with something that was technically all of us, but looked unfamiliar.

We did our best to accommodate the nuances each person felt best represented their point of view, and we were (with the first post) trying to avoid a petty personal battle. It's hard for 5, 6, 7 people who all have very particular voices to agree on exactly how to articulate something like this, under intense fire, under what felt like intense time pressure.

We weren't trying to speak like publicists, we were trying to figure out how to address something sensitive and volatile, and do so ethically, responsibly, and in a way we would not regret later.

We fumbled in communication, as I said above. But we did not behave, individually or collectively, in a way that violated what I feel is a personal moral code. We did no harm to any person. I can live with that.

FIRST!!

Man, Boing Boing has totally jumped the shark.

@#333 sumer88, I imagine BBTV RANT THEATER, based on unpublished troll comments, looking like Fat Albert and sounding like the Chipmunks.

#351Pesco is right. Comments like this, and some of the other silliness I'm reading here, totally make me want to go like this, and I am not kidding.

#339 Nelson.C, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to have sounded defensive, it's fine -- I'm just saying the thrust of that final graf was mistaken. The bigger point is that I appreciated your kind and reasonable approach. I think your idea about including a short expression of data along with the removal is not a bad idea, we've been batting that idea around, too. Funny to see some of the ideas we generated internally also express themselves "in the wild."

Also, Mark Frauenfelder wins at this thread.

#333 sumer88, WIN. We are so getting right on that, first thing Monday.

@ #327 bad pxy: yes, +1 to all of that, thanks for the kind words.

We deliberately did not say "here is our new absolutist policy," because every situation is different, and because we (I anyway) sort of abhor policies where they are not needed.

As I said in the post, taking down content for non-usual reasons is **extremely** rare in our archive of 48ishK posts (have to check on current total, including BBg and BBtv). None of us have ever done so for trivial or petty reasons.

We have agreed on good practices we will follow if such an extraordinary situation occurs again. I frankly hope it does not.

@sumer88,

the trash can idea is interesting, could also be kind of cool in terms of comments that have been moderated/rejected.

Wow, I had never thought of this. Boy, we sure could make some fun episodes of BBtv's SPAM THEATER out of this, only they'd be, like, TROLL THEATER. People say the darndest things in comment threads sometimes. We could build BBtv scripts out of this stuff and never have to come up with original material again!

@#312 mdhatter, I rather like the notion of unicorns on 410 error pages. I might take down more posts if we did that, though, just to see more of the pretty unicorns.

@#314 John A Arkansawyer, those are really interesting points. you are right, I didn't mean to imply that the Wayback Machine was an outsourced archive service, but my point was simply that there were ways for us to have foolishy attempted to "vanish" information from Wayback or Google, and we haven't.

@#315 Nelson.C, regarding the first graf of your comment: that is exactly what happened, at one point during the post review process. The oversight was corrected, and I regret that error.

Regarding the second graf of your comment, here you are mistaken. I am sure you are commenting in good faith, and I respect why you perceive the situation as you do, but feel differently.

What's this "kerfluffle" I keep hearing about? I thought it was "kerfuffle." Grammar police where are you! Teresaaaaaaaaaa!

If it's a kerfluffle, any person who keeps beating it to death and won't let it die is a kerfluffer.

@sumer88, that's one option, yes. Some also spoke of a sort of changelog that folks could subscribe to, sort of like a ringside seat into a trash can? Where all you see is the omitted or destroyed scraps. Even if only as a technical feat, and a kind of internet art project, that piqued my imagination.

Part of what we're discussing here is BB's internal editorial process (or lack thereof), and part of what we're discussing here is what info we share, and how we provide it, to our community/audience/readership/6 gajillion best friends.

So, while being compared to leeches and Robert Mugabe and whatnot is all very exciting for a girls' ego, and all this discussion of potato salad and beer is making me hongry -- here's part of what I was hoping might happen in this thread:

How much detail, how much of an inktrail, do people actually want from blogs? Leave aside BoingBoing, even, or not, I am more thinking aloud about blogs in general.

For instance: Kottke, I believe (??), used to or still does have a style convention that involves striking out every single error or change, no matter what (think: even punctuation errors).

We here tend to strike out only the edits that substantively change the body of the post (think: errors or omissions).

Any changes we make are readily visible in the RSS feed. Any deletions or unpublishings -- in short, any takedowns of entire posts -- are discoverable through the Wayback Machine and other methods; we certainly don't try to hide that, or make anything "vanish."

How much detail do people really want? And what are some thoughtful ways to provide that, technically?

Woohoo! It's a Friday afternoon troll party up in here! Did somebody say something about potato salad and beer? Takuan, put something on the turntables!!!

WOW. Yes, it was later than that, but was in the '80s. AMAZING Gar! Just amazing. :)

I did not live there, but I spent some time there off and on when I was a wandering teenager, looking for community, for solace, and for direction and meaning in my life.

The community was kind and welcoming, and the experience I had there was a valuable, calming force in my life at a time when most immediate influences were destructive. It's fair to say the place changed me, and I turned out okay.

I am very sorry that she has passed away.

Gareth, I did not know you had personal history there. I hope you will share more of this online sometime with the world.

@#144 Another Aaron, please think of the Kittens.

@141 aldasin, I suspect your comment is more of the poo-flinging variety, and we'll let a little more of that stick to the walls of this particular thread than we normally would, so perturbed folks can get that out of their system.

But I'll take this opportunity to mention something I feel is of value.

One of the benefits of Boing Boing's creative commons license is that anyone who wishes can access (or not access) our content in particular ways, and remix to their heart's content for noncommercial uses.

There are some rather clever apps and webservices out there which make it possible to read an entirely Xeni-free version of Boing Boing, or [name your unfavorite author here], or automated ways to avoid posts that mention certain subjects and whatnot.

I think this is part of what being a "good citizen" publisher on the internet is, and it's why we've adopted this licensing method for all that we've done, including Boing Boing tv.

There's also this thing called the "space bar," which I find helpful when visiting websites that contain some things I may not want to pay attention to.

HPPY BRTHDY CRY DCTRW!!!!

@#64GuySmiley, it's okay. He's with the band.

@rstevens, hahahahah. Hey shouldn't you be doing something else, like drawing?

Gah, I can't even spell the name of my own blog. BING BONG. There.

@#28 Ken Snider is the best sysadmin in the world, and quite possibly one of the best humans in the world, too.

@#25 sushispook, the experience has given me a greater fascination for larger incidents of conspiracy theory. I am now even more confident that well-trained attack gerbils did not bring down the twin towers with republican laser beams.

I would also like to point out that contrary to reports on some MySpace pages, there were ZERO Mossad agents in the building when these Boing Boig posts were unpublished.

Takuan, we can always count on you for meaningful musical interludes. Thanks, bub. :)

@Michael, maybe clever 404 pages (or informative ones!) would be helpful. Someone in the other thread posted some hilarious collections of good 404 page designs.

@timw, I think its' fair to say that we should have explained what we meant by "unpublish" in the initial post when we first posted it, but that term has been explained many, many times since. It's not an "Orwellian" neologism, it's the name of a button in movable type that allows you to remove a post from public view, or take it down, *without* deleting it. So if you want to republish, if you evaluate things and change your mind, you can later on. In this case, the original decision stands.

Wow, DAVEGROFF, that sounds amazing. It's such a perfect fit for Barminski/Louie's visual style, I love it.

@zuzu, re: the music clip credit issue: sometimes we do, and we did more often in the show's earlier days. But if we do not credit, it's because it's licensed music from a stock provider.

@ all -- I'm so glad you dug this episode!

@#1, ok, update! the music is the audio equivalent of stock footage, we buy a license from this company and use selections from their library to fill out our episodes. It's nice stuff!

@#2, I am a maroon. I will add that to the post right now. We love Syd too. Episode #3 is coming up soon.

dude... guys... seriously... [sigh].

@#11 Mark Frauenfelder, ROFL! or better yet, starring Barney...

@#12 Pomegranate02, non-issue, most of the people who douche out on me are American. I'm gonna do an Esperanto one to take care of those guys soon enough, and maybe "gracias por no ser una puta" for my hispanohablante buddies. We are the world!

you guys! you're thinking way too hard here. cripes! Here in southern california, the phrase is popular within a certain social strata of boarders and surfers, and is funny just for having been said. I dunno. rule of the internet: do not over-dissect humor.

@eecue, indeed he is, all of this and more. I ran out of pixels for all the things Boogah is. They're all swell, though!

Don't be fatuous, #9zENithFisHstiX.

@#3 OP, Gah, headline goof. I will slay the hamster responsible for that error. Fixed.

@#4, OMG thanks for reminding me of him. "Of all the things I like to do, and there are hundreds!, in this business of demonstration...."

This is journalism to you? (rim shot)

d'oh thanks adding

Hey #15TRIX,

"sensual" and "hedonic" are related, I agree, but they do have different meanings (I'm looking at both definitions in Websters right now). I understand why Timothy chose that word, and refers to it in the context of explaining the science and the subjective experience of consuming chocolate.

I hope you dig the next installments! We'll get into the machines and a taste-test next.

Bahahahaha! Why, I do believe I know that guy, the guy who pwnd the TV guy!!!! Super hilarious, and super well done.

[ munching on, um, a review unit of TCHO chocolate here in the BBtv studios... nom nom nom... god this stuff is good. ]

UPDATE: aaaand we're all set, as far as I can tell. Audio should be working just fine, and the MP4 and Flash should be working just fine. Sincere apols for the technical problems today, guys!

Ugh, @#8, #9, you are correct, and this is a known issue. I'll post an update as soon as this is fixed.

Looks like the video's working fine in both formats now, sorry for the hiccup.

Yes, yes -- here's the MP4, if you're experiencing Flash problems they'll be fixed in a few minutes, but the MP4 works perfectly!

http://video.boingboing.net/video/16769/bbtv_2008-07-11-035559.mp4

Apols guys!

@DOOMSTALK -- yes, there's a temporary video glitch here, should be cleared up in about 10 minutes from the time I post this comment. Details: the video was inadvertently coded at a really high bitrate, which would cause problems for some viewers, so the folks who handle our video publishing are re-encoding on the fly. Eventually we hope to have variable bitrate, so this won't be an issue. Sorry!

@#58, goddammit i thought i unpublished those. Pure win, goes in the VIP circle.

#7GreyNotGrey, not bad! But could you, I don't know, go a little more peanut butter jelly time with it?

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/banana

It's interesting, and I wonder why AI or the agency involved haven't explained further. But this sort of thing is not without precedent. Perhaps the agency created it as a proof of concept and released it as approved work to the ad competitions who later put it online; perhaps this was organized by an AI branch in a specific country without permission from the mothership.

As a piece of graphic design work. it's (to me anyway) super interesting and effective.

That's why I posted it.

Hey guys,

I think within an hour or so of first posting this as having been attributed to AI, I read commenters pointing out that this smelled like a hoax; I immediately updated the title and body of the post to reflect this doubt. I contacted AI, and others, to validate; and when this was confirmed today I updated the title and body accordingly to reflect that.

This is what we do when there are questions about the source or validity of material we've posted.

XJ

@#7Panserbjorn,

Actually, we totally PAY people to call us Bing Bong, on television even.

http://tv.boingboing.net/2007/12/07/gabe-and-max-answer.html

-- Xeni "just-plain-weed" Jardin

I think it's fair to say, based on McCain's previous statements, that he's in full support of this path, too. I have confidence that either Obama or McCain would be equally prepared to douche out on liberty.

@#4, an old Guatemalan saying:

Presidential elections are about quien es mas mentiroso que el otro...

"who's the bigger liar."

@anonymous243, if you are in fact a representative from Amnesty International, please ID yourself? I've emailed several folks at AI for clarification on this issue, and have not received a reply. My email is xeni at xeni dot net, I'd appreciate a response from a non-anonymous, verifiable source.

@#55 = teh win.

WON'T SOMEONE PLEASE THINK OF THE NIBLETS

@#19, +1 to that! Farai FTW!

@ETAWAT, well, that's good to hear. We are doing longer-form episodes, and if the feedback continues to be positive, we'll keep experimenting with that. There is sort of a floating rule that everything must be short-form, 1-3 minutes... maybe that is changing. Maybe it can be longer when it's not a dog on a skateboard or diet coke and mentos.

There's a bunch more coming! Two words peepul: LEGO. SPINNER.

Dude, 8 minutes on the internet is feature-length! :)

So, we are actually parsing out the epic and excellent interview Joel did with Syd in a few episodes. We figured this would be more appropriate for the medium. Stay tuned, there's a lot more coming. I hope you like it.

It would have been more epic if it was a hamster spinning on a Lego escalator in a field of animatronic strawberries on the moon with sparkle dust, but we take what we get from YouTube, bub.

@#26, @#27, thanks guys I've updated post!

@Tsarwonderful, @MADPRIME, good food for thought, guys. Ethan's essay about Rebecca's work at Global Voices, and how to bridge those communication gaps -- really good stuff.

I've asked AI to comment on the ads; I'm pretty confident they're a stealth-campaign by other folks. Compelling ideas either way.

@#12, You are entitled to your opinion, but I find it offensive. The subject matter at hand involves something specific and real; saying that a blogger taking down some of her own work is like torturing or "disappearing" thousands of human beings is offensive to me, and it's also offensive to people who are the victims of such human rights abuses.

This sort of polemic amounts to trolling, no different than invoking Godwin's law. I'd like us to keep the quality of this thread more civil and respectful.

@Satan, I'm not going to be baited into an unpleasant exchange here. If you have something thoughtful to say about this, by all means do so. Otherwise, take it to the appropriate thread, or another site.

@ #1, #5, #7, thanks for the heads up -- the source for this item is someone who reliably sends us interesting material that checks out as valid; perhaps this was a stealth campaign or from another source. I'm checking in to it and will update the post.

@#6 Satan, that sort of silly melodrama has no place in this post. If you have something specific and thoughtful to say, you know there's another thread for that. But to answer your question, let's see: torture, forced detention, extrajudicial execution, denial of due process, imprisonment without trial, beatings -- yeah, that's *exactly* like a blog editor taking down some posts she made herself about Hello Kitty dildos, and a bunch of drama queens having a fit about it a year later.

Seriously, your comment is offensive.

@#4, I think it's fair to say that I, and others or most if not all of my colleagues here at BB, also have a strange affinity for Dyson's work.

I don't buy the allegations you're making about Kelly's work, or Dyson's, and am somewhat offended that you'd type that here in such a casual way.

Don't come here to make vague character attacks, you're welcome to use your own blog or another forum for that.

@#4, image referenced now in post.

@#18, oh, I didn't -- merely that emo demons would be likely to take up their cause. In hell.

@#18: Deconstructing the funniness or lack thereof in black-comedy-verite on the internets is like arguing who's more evil, Darth Vader, Stalin, or Hitler. Pointless. If you don't get it, and don't dig it, the space bar is your pal.

@#14 Bouncy Bouncy:

Why does Boing Boing lower itself to it?

Because a YouTube video of a dude shooting himself in the gut, then holding up a woven bamboo pizza dummy for a robbery re-enactment, while the Casey Kasem guy narrates in dramatic deadpan and scary music plays, is awesome.

@#4, epic win.

@MrGone1980, that guy looks a bit like a younger, angrier Wilford Brimley. But then, I'm sort of obsessed with Wilford Brimley right now.

@zuzu, I can't do that. His head has been unpublished.

@burnchao and others, I am very proud to call Teresa Nielsen Hayden a colleague, she's handled this with dignity and sincerity throughout.

All of us here at Boing Boing are human beings; but she's that and more.

Again, stay tuned, more from all of us when the holiday's over.

XJ

Hi folks,

Hope everyone in the US is having a mellow holiday, and that everyone else is having a good day, too, even if they are deprived of the fireworks and the BBQs.

A few things.

Many people in this nearly-1500-post comment thread have weighed in with very thoughtful observations and questions. Thank you. I know there are still some misunderstandings floating around, and we (BB, not me as the "royal we") need to address them. We're planning to do that.

Please be patient with us. Today is a holiday, and I'm spending it with my family and friends, mostly offline.

Cory and Mark happened to both be on personal vacations, mostly offline (in Mark's case, entirely offline) all week while this stuff blew up.

When something happens that affects all of us individually and collectively, we try to really think through things together, and process it together, and do the right thing together. In this case, we were delayed by a number of factors, but we will swing back and address some of the unresolved issues, soonest.

One asteroid I'd like to blast apart right now with a truth-laser: um, contrary to what like 5 people complained to me today, in person, on the phone, and over email, um... how do i put this... well, this comment thread is not shut down. And we're not planning to shut it down.

We considered doing so the other day because we were dealing with a short-term crisis, but as you can see this is not the case, and plans are to keep it open indefinitely. That could change I guess, so please don't crucify me if one day we have to for some unsual set of reasons, but I don't think we'll close it any time soon.

Anyway, thank you so much for being engaged with this discussion, and please stand by, we'll be back soon.

XJ

@krollspell,

From the video, paleta is the foreleg of pork,

Hahah another example of my mexispanish-induced confusion. I was like, "they're not returning a popsicle! what the hell."

#1431 Burnchao, I really appreciate the fact that you care enough to keep contributing to this conversation, but please, calm down. You are entirely mistaken.

The Boing Boing Boing audio podcast archives are just fine. I'm not sure why you think the podcast episodes are no longer available in part or in full, but a quick Google search or a peek at our MT interface indicates they are all very much alive and well.

It is late; you have been very very active in this thread; it might be a good idea to take some time out and re-check your observations more carefully before posting seemingly panicked, factually incorrect contributions to this already very long thread.

They're having a whale of a time.

No hay de que, dude.

@Tenn: bring on the bacon-eating puppes, yes.

@zuzu those puppies were the best thing ever. I might post that like 10 times again.

@ #1394 Nelson.C, we considered closing the thread (and at one point when things were going totally nuts, tried but fucked up!), but it felt more appropriate to leave it open, given the nature of the subjects people were talking about.

As long as the dialogue remains more or less civil (okay, internet-civil, anyway, which may be a few notches down), it's fine by me.

Besides, I'm mining this thread for kitten/puppy/duckie video links now, and momma needs some urls.

@ themindfantastic, we might just have to try and pull that together for BBtv.

#1El_Cid, oh, thanks! I don't know much about food culture in Spain, and I felt like I must be missing a lot of the extra humor here as a result, even though I do grok the language.

Heh, guys, take it easy on the mods. They've had a really hard week. Maybe someone misunderstood something. Anyway. HEY LOOK KITTENS

Dude these guys made it so you can play DOOM in the sky, on the back of the airplane seat in front of you, for free, while being bathed in magenta mood lighting and listening to ambient techno muzak and IMming people on the plane. That's awesome. Cmon.

Hi #1349 Bruce Arthurs, and #1354, A random John, the definition of the term "unpublish" has already been defined in this thread several times, please skim before commenting?

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/07/01/that-violet-blue-thi.html#comment-225558

It's not doublespeak, it's a technical term with a different meaning than "redacted" or "deleted", I was only trying to be precise.

Guys, believe me, we've been asked to run ads as episodes, and accept payment or other compensation for stuff that runs on BBtv.

If you knew how hard we've fought back on that issue, and will continue to, I think this would make more sense.

So, no, honestly it's not an ad, but it's about a company that does (IMO) some pretty cool stuff for an airline, and we do have a relationship with that company, so I disclosed that in the post. It's probably not a "NPOV" piece, because I think the stuff is interesting, if that makes sense? But you're implying that we're doing this as a sneaky ad campaign or as a publicity favor that we're being paid for or something unethical, and I'm saying: nope. Internet in the sky, open source game invitationals, themed dub music in the toilet to relax people, social networking, e-commerce food, that stuff seemed interesting enough to us, as did just literally wandering around the airport to look at how stuff works.

@alisong76, the coconuts slayed me, too.

Hey, @Burnchao, you're totally wrong here:

You have a personal blog at Xeni.net. David has one at Pesco.net. Everyone has their own personal blog, and it ain't BB. BB is your job. At BB, you are an editor, you receive a paycheck for it, yada yada.

BB is very much our personal blog. We each have vanity sites where people can see our bios and stuff, but that's not a blog, dude. I don't happen to maintain a blog anywhere else, nor does Pesco.

This is our living, but it is also absolutely personal, this is our home base.

@JJ, nothing would make me happier than to see this thread degrade into a bunch of links for YouTube videos with dogs humping various things that ought not be humped. I salute you.

Whoah that's awesome.

@Derek, wait, where are the nazi monkeys? Johannes, did you send Derek Nazi Monkeys and leave me out? Fck you guys! I want nazi monkeys too!

@hpr122i:

It may be useful to add some kind of marker next to their comments so that people can know who they are.

Totally, I think we're already in the process of modifying things so that this is the case. you're absolutely right.

@p00pyhead I wish Movable Type allowed us to stick kittens next to comments we felt a fondness and enthusiastic agreement toward. I would give you a lot of kittens.

@Lindsay Beyerstein, they were under my byline, some of them were about her work, others were not but included a reference and a link as thanks for a tip.

@everyone, +1 to what Pesco said about the nature of other deleted or unpublished items. We've made many errors, addressed them publicly, and left posts intact; we've changed our mind about things, and left those posts intact, too.

Part of the issue here, as we're realizing, involves the power of a link -- which, if a blog has large enough footprint, can involve money.

@1200 (!!!!!) Lindsay Beyerstein: Thank you for the thoughtful spirit behind your comment, but I have to point out that your arguments are predicated on the misunderstanding that this person "did work for" Boing Boing, was an editor or author for Boing Boing. This is not correct. The posts that were removed were posted by me, at the time (about a year ago) I considered them representative of my voice and my work and my person, and felt it was within my right to do what I wanted with them. I do hear and understand all that has been said here about BB being a bigger thing than a personal blog, and I get that. I'm just trying to explain the initial context, and point out a frequently-repeated misunderstanding about the nature of what was unpublished.

@Burnchao, I appreciate that, but please also try to have a little empathy for the difficult job of Teresa, Antinuous, and the other BB moderators here who have the unlovable job of being cops/traffic guides/insert your analogy here, but it doesn't always involve hugging and kittens. Nobody likes the cop. They're people too, not just nyms, and everyone here cares a lot about Boing Boing or we wouldn't be at 1200 comments in this daggoned thread.

Mostly what I'm still kind of baffled by was the notion that we're censoring someone else's voice, or flipflopping on our ethics. I made a choice to remove a small amount of my own work from public view a year ago, and nobody cared. Yes, we understand that BB 2008 isn't the same thing as the personal blog that launched in 2000, and we're thinking all of this through, to see what can be learned. But nobody likes to be bullied, and we want to take time to think about what's best for this thing we love so much, and for readers we respect, and those we have yet to meet.

@#1194 priyanga, please don't trash Teresa or the other mods. As far as I'm concerned, they're 100% real Boingers too. They have a job I would not want, and would suck at after a few days anyway, I'd lose my patience. Please try to understand.

@Burnchao, I don't know what "disappeared comments" you're referring to, I just know that I've seen some complaints of this kind by commenters who knowingly violated our stated moderation policies by posting off-topic stuff in unrelated threads, knowing the comments would be nuked, but being jerks about it. So, consider the source. I don't even know exactly what you're referring to, I'm just saying it doesn't add up.

you* got caught

The posts were down for more than a year, nobody cared, one person started a shitstorm over it, this isn't a "gotcha" moment but it's something that makes sense to think about collectively now that it's become such a huge frakkin' deal.

#1189Yannish: That's the thing, though. It's not a newspaper, and never will be. BB is evolving into something bigger than it began, but there's no blueprint for exactly how to manage those questions, so we're figuring them out.

@#1190 hpr122i, with this question about commenters who want to be unpublished/deleted/scrubbed from our servers, our approach has been -- as it is with every new thing like that -- not "what would lawyers do," but "how can we not be douchey here."
I think we're leaning toward a policy like MeFi's.

@#1186 cprincipe, we've already explained in this thread a few times I think, but maybe you missed it, it's a long thread.

unpublish is the precise term (on Movable Type, anyway) for removing a post from public view and traffic, without destroying its record in our internal archives. unpublish means one thing on MT, delete means another.

@Burnchao, if your intent here is to have a reasonable, civilized conversation, I'm very happy to engage. If your intent is to insult or be snarky for the sake of pixels, I don't think that is a good use of your time, or mine.

#1181Ulor: yes, I believe the moral of your story is a true one.

#1175 oheso, Cory's actively engaged in this, but he's on vacation with his family, and mostly offline.

#1180 oheso, I'm still confused about the claims of "deleted" or un-approved comments, I'm not clear on the specifics of what you're referring to. But I know the mods are doing their best to keep this unprecedented thread civil and adhere to the loose but good-spirited guidelines we follow, and I don't doubt their good intentions and hard work here. I'll let them reply as soon as they can (it's late at night where some of them are, please be patient).

#1179 locolobo729 and other first-time commenters, thank you for weighing in.

@#1176 Burnchao:

I read elsewhere of other unpublishing incidents...

So it's an entrenched belief/policy.

Well, no, and you might do well to consider the source/s.

There is no secret sinister plot to whitewash large batches of our archives, nuke unfavorable reader comments, or sneakily tweak our policies or FAQs.

As you can see from the extremely large number of comments in this thread, a number of which are critical of one thing or another, we're not afraid of open dialogue.

I'll try to stay engaged in this thread a while.

#1171Burnchao,

which means 7 people spent the last year "evaluating what to do."

No, it absolutely does not, though I can see how that might have been stated more clearly, and understand the confusion as I read your comment here.

@1165 Burnchao:

How long have you guys been publishing one thing, then altering it to appear as a completely different stance?

Well, never. C'mon, chill, you know that entire graf isn't a fair or reasonable thing to say, though I understand why it might be an appealing thing to say in this thread, given the high sense of drama at the moment.

@Ethan #1162:

I think it's a debatable point whether creators (and commenters) have the right to unpublish their earlier works/statements. Once something is released to the public, in some ways it belongs to the world.

Yeah, I know. That's the question. It's an interesting one, and we're thinking about it out loud here. That isn't corporate-speak or me being cute, it's an honest statement. Clearly there are all sorts of reasonable factors that might cause anyone to edit or no longer publish material you've posted previously. What are the guidelines, how much do you (we) need to discuss and draw attention to when we do so, or are we never ever to remove or alter anything we publish ever?

removing comments does damage the thread of discussion.

Right, I can see this, also. But then, the commenters have no rights to the creative input they've authored, one might argue. What if a commenter (and this is an actual example we have on the plate right now) used their real name and is freaked out about all the traffic and googlejuice? Do you alter their name? Remove as requested? I don't know.

@Travis08 (#1139), what Pesco said, above: there's a fixed number of posts on the front page (30? 40? whatever it is, it's fixed). I'll "Feature" this thread, so it shows up in the "Featured Posts" section and stays easily a