William Gibson Completely Deleted from BoingBoing Archives
Valleywag just reported Boing Boing deleted every mention of William Gibson on the site. A list he wrote of “Top 10 Science Fiction Memes of 2006″ is now offline. They no longer link to his books. A few days later the podcast interview they did with Gibson was offline too. Only a “via” link to a site that’s not his own remains.
Ok, it wasn’t William Gibson. It was Violet Blue who was unceremoniously purged. But whatever it was she did that so grossly offended Boing Boing, it is entirely possible that Gibson, Douglas Rushkoff, Bruce Sterling, Lawrence Lessig, Steven Johnson or any other male Boing Boing favorite could say or do the same thing. Violet Blue is a published author too (who is only going to gain prominence now that Kate Lee is representing her.) If you believe Boing Boing would ever so thoroughly scrub their archives of any of these men, please leave a comment here. I am always welcome to dissenting viewpoints.
This is sexism. It’s also bad journalism. And it goes against the free interactive spirit of blogging.
If Tim Noah got on David Plotz’s bad side, and the Chatterbox column vanished, the whole web would know about it within the hour. Pitchfork cleared Nick Sylvester’s reviews from their site after it was discovered he fabricated parts of a Village Voice cover story, a move most would say was unnecessary, but in the end it was Pitchfork’s call. (CORRECTION 7/2/08: They didn’t. The reviews are still there. Here’s one.) You’ll still see Jayson Blair as a byline in the New York Times archive. They only pulled the stories containing lies. “The Jayson Blair stories are going to (stay) in the archives,” Craig Whitney, standards editor for the New York Times told OJR. “We can’t pretend he was never here.” (He also discusses constant requests from divorced couples to nuke their wedding announcements.)
But no one is calling Violet Blue a dishonest journalist. She’s pulled from the Boing Boing site for some reason anyone several miles or more from Ritual will never know, (and doesn’t care to know either.)
And in one way what Boing Boing is doing is a lot worse than MSM pulling the plug on someone. It’s a snag in the blog quilt at large. Say I linked to a Violet Blue Boing Boing post using the old blog cliche “read the whole thing.” That post is worthless now, as is any external commentary on the content that Boing Boing deleted.
As Rebecca Blood wrote in her outline of weblog ethics:
Changing or deleting entries destroys the integrity of the network. The Web is designed to be connected; indeed, the weblog permalink is an invitation for others to link. Anyone who comments on or cites a document on the Web relies on that document (or entry) to remain unchanged. A prominent addendum is the preferred way to correct any information anywhere on the Web. If an addendum is impractical, as in the case of an essay that contains numerous inaccuracies, changes must be noted with the date and a brief description of the nature of the change…
The network of shared knowledge we are building will never be more than a novelty unless we protect its integrity by creating permanent records of our publications. The network benefits when even entries that are rendered irrelevant by changing circumstance are left as a historical record. As an example: A weblogger complains about inaccuracies in an online article; the writer corrects those inaccuracies (and notes them!); the weblogger’s entry is therefore meaningless — or is it? Deleting the entry somehow asserts that the whole incident simply didn’t happen — but it did. The record is more accurate and history is better served if the weblogger notes beneath the original entry that the writer has made the corrections and the article is now, to the weblogger’s knowledge, accurate.
History can be rewritten, but it cannot be undone. Changing or deleting words is possible on the Web, but possibility does not always make good policy. Think before you publish and stand behind what you write. If you later decide you were wrong about something, make a note of it and move on.
This is a discussion we need to be having. Already blog archives are rarely looked over by the authors or major readers of a site. But they are found by people googling something specific.
Evidently, this isn’t the first time Boing Boing has removed a post because of a perceived microfeud. In February this year, Rex Sorgatz wrote, “BoingBoing linked to me yesterday. For 10 minutes. Then someone apparently told them that I’m the guy who hates on BoingBoing. Post deleted.”
From the post in question:
One of these days I’m going to do a take-down article on a sacred cow of the internet: BoingBoing. I’ve already got a few ledes written: “BoingBoing, the pretend-thinking-man’s Fark,” “BoingBoing, your source for two-week-old links,” “BoingBoing, keeping post-hippiness alive since 1991….” And so on. Truth is, I like Cory and Xeni and the gang — they’re swell people. And I bet I’m the only one here who owns every single issue of bOING bOING — the magazine. But BoingBoing is clearly the most over-rated blog on the internet (which is easy to declare, since it’s also the third-most-popular).
Those are the words of a disgruntled fan, not a hater. There’s nothing there that wouldn’t get published in a print magazine Letters to the Editor section. Seems like Boing Boing should listen to Will Leitch’s parting words: “Someone Hates You Online. Try Not To Be Offended.”
Like Jim Harper at Tech Liberation Front, I get annoyed when people use “Big Brother” to describe non-coercive private actions. BoingBoing, as a private entity, is entirely free to censor their own material. They get a lot of flack for their overly eager moderating policy, but for the most part it seems to keep the trolls at bay. (Although, here’s an example of a heavy hand.)
But, Boing Boing hates corporate censorship too. They made a huge fuss when SmartFilter blocked their site for its “nudity.” And rightfully so. The story even ran in the NYT. The most interesting point coming out of the Valleywag story, was a comment from one of Cory Doctorow’s former students:
I find this extremely disappointing given that Cory Doctorow was a visiting Fulbright professor at the USC Annenberg School of Communication in the Public Diplomacy program. Needless to say, there is a great deal of irony in Cory assuming such a “public”, democratic position, and yet for BoingBoing to censor voices like they seem to be doing.
I took Cory’s graduate seminar, which was a life-altering experience, but he clearly is stuck in larger “networks”, I guess.
Another blogger writes she’s angry “because I know that — because Boing Boing taught me — that we’re supposed to call out sites that do shit like that. So that’s what I’m doing.” Unfortunately, it’s unlikely any other bloggers will. This is a big fish in a small enabling pond situation. Most bloggers will ignore the story because they want to keep in Boingboing’s favor. Big media will ignore it, because they think it’s insignificant Mission District coffee shop gossip. Banning Violet Blue doesn’t exactly merit a Vanessa Grigoriadis expose.
However, this unfortunate incident is now noted on the Boing Boing Wikipedia page (”Sex blogger Violet Blue has, in the past, been regularly mentioned in Boing Boing, including a being the subject of a Boing Boing Boing interview. On the 23rd of June 2008, Blue posted on Tiny Nibbles that all posts making mention of her had been deleted from Boing Boing, without explanation. Boing Boing has refused to comment at this time.”) In the meantime you can hear the podcast on The Internet Archive.
So what might really be behind Boing Boing’s people purges? Fear of the inevitable. In cycling the person racing ahead of everyone else has to work the hardest. The person behind has an aereodynamic advantage from the drift, meanwhile the rider ahead has to work as much as 35% harder. That’s a great metaphor for everything — especially in technology. The leader is always the one who sweats the most. Because everyone can see where he is heading, but he can’t turn around to look at what’s coming from behind. There’s going to be a website that will do what Boing Boing does now, but better. Whomever develops it, is likely watching this event closely and vowing never to make this kind of mistake.
Images from “The Commissar Vanishes: The Falsification of Photographs and Art in Stalin’s Russia,” by David King
Update: 6/30/08 Finally the media is commenting on this. The LA Times blog has a pretty long piece on what happened:
No one, including Blue herself, has any idea what’s behind the scrubbing. BoingBoing has been conspicuously silent; despite considerable confusion in the blogopshere, the site has not posted about the issue or said they planned to. Blogger and long-time BoingBoing contributer Xeni Jardin did not respond to an e-mail from me, and several other bloggers and writers reported non-answers too…
It’s bizarre that BoingBoing has failed to take any steps to clarify the situation.
For one thing, post-snuffing is usually “a serious no-no,” said Eve Batey, Blue’s friend and Chronicle editor. “That’s just against the rules of the blog world.”
But there’s also the fact that BoingBoing has often presented itself as a stalwart of cultural openness. Doctorow himself is a well-known copyfighter — a crusader against restrictive intellectual property laws. He has removed a post at least once before — when writer Ursula K. Le Guin asked that an excerpt of her book be taken down — but he immediately wrote a long, apologetic explanation of the incident.
I really hope Wired News and others continue to cover this story.
Update 7/1/08: If you are reading this for the first time, understand you’re a little bit late to the conversation. I wrote this post on Saturday. I first read about the deleted posts on Valleywag last Wednesday. I wrote this post because no one was talking about the issue, I would have been happy enough staying out of it, had other blogs and news sources commented on the Valleywag post. Since Monday, mainstream media picked up the story and today Boing Boing finally made an announcement, admitting the posts were deleted an entire year ago.
In the comments, Suzie Q writes:
Here’s the best theory I’ve come up with - and DO feel free to send this around the blogosphere, since hitting on the wrong answer will get the real answer just as surely as hitting on the real answer will get no response - it all comes down to this article on friend-of-boingboing Amanda Congdon:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2007/04/05/violetblue.DTL
This is a pretty blatant slam on Congdon for dishonesty regarding her corporate sponsorships, and may in fact have been related to Congdon leaving ABC ( I believe I heard a rumor about them getting upset when they found out about the side vlogging).
Essentially, Violet Blue possibly got Amanda Congdon fired, or at least that’s what it looks like. I would imagine that very likely, VB found out about this in a Boing Boing-related way. It could even be that VB didn’t get her fired, but betrayed their trust in revealing the info about her.
Which is why they’re not saying what the reason is. Because it’s actually the only thing that would make them look more hypocritical… because it’s anti-transparency.
But note that the only hint we get in their note of explanation is that VB’s posts were removed about a year ago - and this was the only really noteworthy thing she did around that time; at least, publicly.
Of course no one really knows what is going on here, but maybe this is worthy of a Vanessa Grigoriadis expose after all.
Another update: “violet blue boing boing” is #31 on Google Trends today. “Violet Blue” is #12.
Update 3: Here’s the post about Rex that was deleted.
Update 4: LA Times Web Scout this afternoon:
In its explanation of the Blue purge, BoingBoing cited what it called an “erroneous” claim that it had removed 100 Violet Blue-related posts. They did not name the allegedly erroneous post as mine or even bother to link to it, so let me name the post: it was mine, and I linked to it earlier in the sentence. Notably, BoingBoing did not offer the correct number of purged posts (saying only that they had “unpublished some posts relating to her”). Also, someone from BoingBoing refused to tell me how far off my count of 100 was.
Let me correct the record. With some help from Violet Blue herself, and her boyfriend, who stayed up late last night writing a script to scan the WayBack Machine for Blue BB posts, I can present this spreadsheet.
It contains 72 BoingBoing posts containing the name of Violet Blue. I found one duplicate in the 40 or so that I spot checked. This was not a high duplication rate, and Violet’s boyfriend, she said, had written a second script to eliminate duplicates. Maybe it missed one or two. So maybe 72 is slightly high.
In any case, let’s say that more than just “some” posts were removed. And let’s also note that this search only went from January 2005 to August 2007, when the archive ends. Further, BoingBoing’s Internet archive has many different gaps in it where other Blue posts might have been sitting.
In sum, I was remiss to take at face value Violet Blue’s number of 100. I should have said at least 70.
I apologize for the imprecision.
Update 7/2/08: Zenarchery articulates why this is a great breach of ethics far better than I did.
Also, I’m no longer allowing comments to this post
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74 Responses to “William Gibson Completely Deleted from BoingBoing Archives”
Posted by: null - 06/29/2008
“So what might really be behind Boing Boing’s people purges? Fear of the inevitable. ”
That inevitability is long time coming as you, obviously Googling through archives as you say, linked to a two year old weblog post.
Anyway, next time I delete an entry from my weblog I’ll be sure to send you a note so that you can write a two thousand word essay on how I’m violating “the free interactive spirit of blogging.” Seriously?
Posted by: Ablestmage - 06/29/2008
I agree with null. Seriously, get over yourself. I’m getting around 3k hits/wk, but it’s because of content that I enjoy posting, not some anusclown’s concept of journalistic integrity.
“This is sexism. It’s also bad journalism.”
Give me a break. That’s your over-active, prideful assumptions running rampant. You didn’t even ASK, you just guessed and ran with it. You used quotes only from people that agreed with you. That ain’t journalism.
Posted by: joanne mcneil - 06/29/2008
null’s right in that i meant to link to something entirely different there in that quote, but i’m not going to bother changing it now
but as for Ablestmage: her posts are off the site and Boing Boing’s saying nothing. When they deleted every post mentioning Ursula Le Gin, they told everyone. it’s a story that this goes without comment. also, were any blogs defending the deleted comment, i would have linked to them
Posted by: Karl Hardhead - 06/29/2008
Maybe if she is of an ethic group, you could call it racism AND sexism. And if she is poor or rich, you could call it classism, too! SWEET!
Or, maybe we should find out if it was a technical error. Or that they are crazy like foxes and trying to get a fundamentalist christian archive to accept them and then they add all her posts back, along with and advertisement for the bluest book she has ever written! What publicity!
Maybe we should find out what really happened before running around yapping like a pensioners terrier.
Posted by: Mr. Bloggez - 06/29/2008
tldr
Posted by: thomas - 06/29/2008
how many times is bb mentioned in this damned article? nuke the fridge, already. i can’t scroll to the last read bb article in google reader. actually, yeah they’re great kids, but their mantras and microcosms are very tired, and i guess that’s a traffic source, so hey, what do I know?
Posted by: Nick - 06/29/2008
What’s great about this post is how you jump to outrageous, reactionary conclusions without knowing any of the details of what you’re discussing.
Posted by: David B. - 06/29/2008
I’ve never seen more censorship on a major blog of the most vindictive kind than with Boing Boing - I look at the Gadget site every so often, but never comment anymore and have stopped visiting the main site all together.
they’ve turned into eBay - the axe falls for some perceived offense and there’s absolute silence afterward - - from a blog with that many weekly mistakes, misquotes, and sometimes sheer ignorance in their material, it is kind of shocking…
Posted by: dana s - 06/29/2008
No body in these comments are actually responding to the point of discussion here. How is anyone supposed to know why the deletions occurred and since they did in fact occur it leaves the question open as to why (which is what the original post is about).
If blogs have the potential to replace other forms of journalism, it is hard not to notice the decrepancies that exist between the new media and the old. It’s a valid point of conversation no matter how you look at this, why a news source would erase material with no explanation.
Posted by: Slash BB - 06/29/2008
I have to agree with David B. I know of people whose comments were censored and they were NOT flamers, etc. BB has also has taken stories found on other sites, thanks the person who tipped them, and doesn’t credit the site the tipper found it on. There was another instance in which someone gave them a tip and they thanked this person without a linkback to their site. I could go on and on but fogettaboutit…They’ve pissed off quite a few bloggers, but most will not say anything because as Joanne point out, “Most will ignore the story because they want to keep in Boingboing’s favor..”
This is about blogging etiquette. BB would do well to remember the saying “you’ll see the same people going down the ladder that you do going up.” Let me just state that I’m a fan of Doctrow’s work, but I find the hypocrisy in putting up posts about censorship, then censoring people and deleting entries without an explanation, absolutely ridiculous.
As for the comment about “not knowing the details of what you discussing”. This is because the people at BB aren’t discussing it. That was the point of this article. Why AREN’T they? (/BoingBoing)
Posted by: Mike - 06/30/2008
My favourite smackdown, simply for its ability to turn BB geekiness and self-righteousness against itself was Cory’s planet burning adventure: http://www.freesteel.co.uk/wpblog/2007/03/the-fossil-of-doctor-carbon/
Posted by: Erin - 06/30/2008
I agree with Dana S., if people are so offended by this post then why not disprove it rather than screech and namecall?
It seems foolish on Boing Boing’s behalf that they could do something like this to such a high profile person and have no response.
Posted by: meh - 06/30/2008
sexist? how so?
Posted by: not_scottbot - 06/30/2008
Anyone really surprised?
Boing-Boing is a place where a banned poster ended up sending various documents to prove her actual existence to several of the site’s owners (why she bothered remains beyond me), after her comments regarding censorship were deleted by the moderator, since in the eyes of the moderator, only sock puppets complained about comment removal. After proving her existence, what she got from the moderator was a reminder to check her spelling more carefully when sending in complaints about being deleted.
Even more amusing was the assumption that someone decrying deleting comments related to censorship deserved her words being deleted, because some wicked people hate Cory, who was not mentioned in her comments at all. Though you have to trust my memory on that - most of the thread was deleted.
After that, it was easy enough to ignore them. Hypocrites are simply not worth anyone’s time.
Though I still have fun performing my own pblc rtl dsmvwlng, as a reminder of how powerful a dark lord of the Internith can be. The very hint of such a hydra headed force was enough to cause the Internet’s self awarded best moderator to start deleting and banning anyone suggesting that deleting and banning is really not a way to hold a meaningful discussion about censorship.
That Boing-Boing has now expanded its reach to include deleting itself provides a bit of sadly smug satisfaction - it was simply a matter of time, after all.
Posted by: MattyG - 06/30/2008
Blogging “jumped the shark”/”nuked the fridge” (ooh I’m so hip!) sometime back in 98, when everybody started doing it (thanks weblogue, thanks newspro/coranto et al). It would be nice if everyone stopped taking themselves so seriously, and just admitted that blogging is what it is; nothing more and nothing less.
“That ain’t journalism.”
Never was a truer word spake.
And if violetblue really wants to get those words out there.. what’s stopping her? Surely nobody has registered “thesecretdiaryofvioletblue.com” yet. Post it; and if its any good, they will click.
Until some explanation comes forth, decrying the deletions as “sexism” is little more than trolling. For all we know it could well be some sort of stupid high school-esque BS at play - and even if it was, what would it matter?
Bah.
Posted by: Emily - 06/30/2008
Oh, that’s TOTALLY unexpected; sexism is called out in a post about many other things, and here come the concern trolls to pat you on the head and make sure you know how wrong you are.
There there, little girl, it isn’t sexism. I can tell, because I’m a Very Important Man.
Thank god we have you guys to explain everything to us bubbleheads.
Posted by: LN - 06/30/2008
That it’s sexism seems the least debatable point of this post. Boing Boing would never do this to a man of as high profile as Violet Blue. But she’s a sex writer, so what she writes about is considered expendable. Obviously, it’s not okay to delete anyone at all, but the arrogance of deleting an author is astonishing. Thanks for calling attention to this.
Posted by: ed - 06/30/2008
Let us assume that Violet Blue’s posts were removed because of some internecine struggle, which appears likely but nobody is talking. Should not Boing Boing, a website that regularly champions transparency, be transparent about its decision? This decision is really no less despicable in intent than the Bush Administration conveniently deleting years of emails from its archive. It is an inexplicable act of cowardice that deserves considerable examination. Probity must be pursued.
Bandying about the sexism charge is perfectly reasonable, because simply eliding Violet Blue’s entries without explanation suggests that her contributions are in some sense inferior to the other contributors. Like the uncultivated hayseed who looks at a rape victim and declares with bigotry in his heart that “the bitch had it coming,” the very lack of explanation suggests a similar tendency among Doctorow and company. Violet Blue should be vanquished away from the glitz, because she has her own Jim Crow fountain in the sex world to drink from. The failure of the above trolls to understand this valid corollary makes me sick to my stomach. Particularly when I suspect many of them devoted similar energies badmouthing the proprietor of xenisucks.com.
The blogging community must allow for reasonable disagreement and maintaining a history if it is to remain a legitimate medium. And it is disheartening to see that Boing Boing, knowing full well that it sets an example, has opted for whitewashing over integrity.
Posted by: Lee - 06/30/2008
BoingBoing annoys me in another way too - the blog crew act as if they want cultural ‘power-sharing’ but there’s very little effort to give real support to indie writers and artists. I’m not particularly impressed - or cowed - by popularity, even that of the ‘Internet’s self awarded best moderator’.
Posted by: Jason - 06/30/2008
Back in February, Boing Boing TV carried a funny Kung Fu spoof called “Kung Fu F*ck You.”
http://tv.boingboing.net/2008/02/22/kung-fu-fck-you.html
But they made substantial changes to the original. They edited it, removing around 25 seconds from the middle, excising the Kung Fu Master character. They blurred part of the titles to censor the f-bomb. And they packed in a bunch of ads around the movie.
I posted a comment linking to the original (uncut, uncensored, ad-free) video clip at the The Ministry of Unknown Science’s website, here:
http://tmous.com/media/MOUS_kung-fu.html
I invite you to compare the two.
The tone of my comment was mildly peevish (I believe I used the term “bowdlerize”) but by no means abusive. My comment was deleted. I posted it again. Deleted. I tried one last time, but my account was banned.
That left a bad taste in my mouth.
Posted by: theft - 06/30/2008
It’s fucking Boing Boing. That site has always been elitist crap.
You are correct, though. I am sure they would never do this to Gibson, Rushkoff, Sterling, Lessig, or whoever that Steven Johnson guy is. But are any of them honestly as irritating as Violet Blue? Pick someone halfway comparable, please. Can you imagine them removing every reference to Nick Denton? I can.
Posted by: Schmoopis - 06/30/2008
I think the claim of sexism (without supporting evidence) borders on hysterical. If she was black she would have undoubtedly claimed racism too.
Instead of posting a hysterical rant did anyone actually contact digg and ASK why this happened? (crickets….)
Don’t look now, the sky is falling.
Posted by: Emily - 06/30/2008
I think we might hit anti-feminist bingo here. Apparently pointing out unfair practices is, wait for it, ladies, HYSTERICAL.
That sound is me, hysterically laughing. Another attempt to stop a line of discourse simply because it points out that a woman is being treated more poorly than a man would be.
Posted by: Blake Robinson - 06/30/2008
OK, wanted to throw this out there. Just because they deleted here posts, doesn’t mean that it was necessarily sexism. It could have been any number of things.
It concerns me that whenever some action is taken against a woman or a minority it’s immediately attributed to prejudice when in this case, and in most cases where these accusations are flung, there is (at this point) no quantifiable evidence to support that any discriminatory line has been crossed.
Posted by: Anonymous - 06/30/2008
Kate Lee is no guarantee of prominence–trust me as someone who was represented by her. And Violet Blue’s sex-positive stuff is about as trite as it gets.
Posted by: you have to be kidding me - 06/30/2008
You mean, when something bad happens to just one woman it isn’t always sexism? Golly gee whiz, what a revelation! Next thing you’re going to tell me that it isn’t nature or nurture –it’s both! No one’s saying BB deleted Violet because she’s a woman. It’s that because she’s a woman that think they can get away with it. And the sad thing is, they probably will
Posted by: Klintron - 06/30/2008
It’s probably a bit premature to conclude sexism, but until BB comes clean and talks about what happened all we can do is speculate. I’m very curious to know what caused this.
And regardless of the cause, their actions are hard to justify. And if they had a really good reason, I’d think they’d say what it was, especially after the Vallywag mention.
The lack of accountability amongst bloggers, in fact absolute hostility towards accountability, has been on my mind lately. We often demand the same rights and privileges as journalists, but at the same reject the responsibilities. A blog with the influence of BB is particularly worthy of criticism. Why did BB erase Violet Blue from their archives? Why do they include “thank you links” to some people who send them links but not others? How do they decide what blogs to acknowledge in their “via” links? These are worthwhile questions to ask.
As someone who runs a blog that is comparatively small, but perhaps not insignificant, I know these are not easy issues. I wrestle with all types of these issues, and I’ve made some mistakes. But “it’s my blog and I can do what I want” is a poor response.
Posted by: Emily - 06/30/2008
It’s probably a bit premature to conclude sexism, but until BB comes clean and talks about what happened all we can do is speculate.
If it’s a bit early to do much but speculate, how about we speculate what we think is going on and you speculate what you think is going on and you leave the head-patting, of course it isn’t sexism quite out of it?
KTHXBYE.
Posted by: Klintron - 06/30/2008
Emily - I think the sexism angle is perfectly reasonable to discuss at this point.
Posted by: offended - 06/30/2008
claiming there is any sexist element to this IS hysterical. there’s simply no reason to infer sexism at all given the scarce facts. in this case 2 + 2 = 10 for a misguided minority (emily).
Posted by: zota - 06/30/2008
In the face of their continued silence, it’s a little abstract to debate the sexism behind this. For what it’s worth, Xeni posted a lot of the links to Violet, so she’s scrubbing her own posts or consenting to it.
But whatever the motivations and assumptions here, the glaring hypocrisy remains unchanged. The silent erasure of their archives spits in the face of almost every principle that’s been publicly stated by the authors at Boing Boing. All the stirring words about the sanctity of archives, defense of cultural commons, preservation of history, fight against censorship, condemnation of filtering, open communication channels… apparently it’s all horseshit that gets tossed out the first personally convenient window.
I really don’t care if this was Nick Denton or Violet Blue or Dick Cheney. I don’t care if this was a petty spat or a mission for a secret noble cause. If the all the rhetoric at Boing Boing is pure pantomiming link bait, them the principled people who have donated their attention, reputation and traffic to Boing Boing need to pull it back out.
Posted by: Klintron - 06/30/2008
Zota - if Xeni did it, that still wouldn’t make it not-sexist. That said, BB has a long history of supporting female bloggers and I think there’s something to be said for that.
For offended, et al. The sexism at play is not necessarily in the reasons for scrubbing her (which we don’t know) but the fact that they can a) get away with it (we don’t know that they’re going to get away with it, though) and b) tying into a, the level of outcry relating to it (it ain’t over yet, and it’s hard to say what the level of outcry would have been if it’d been someone else - Gibson’s not a fair comparison, but Rushkoff might be. What would have been the reaction then?)
That’s why I say it’s speculative. Would BB even have tried scrubbing someone male of equal fame from their archives? We don’t know because we don’t know what led them to try to scrub VB in the first place. And it’s hard to gage the power-dynamics at play here because as far as I know this is unprecedented (the only other case of them scrubbing someone seems to be a lesser known male blogger, and it was only one post).
Posted by: s.davis - 06/30/2008
Does the fact that I’m a male exclude me from being able to state that making accusations of sexism based on nothing is just plain stupid? Take a look in the mirror Emily.
Posted by: s.davis - 06/30/2008
Also, comparing Violet Blue to William Gibson? Would they delete Connie Willis? No, they would not.
Posted by: Emily - 06/30/2008
Calling me hysterical = “Shut up, you don’t know what sexism is, and I do.”
Telling me I’m sexist = “Shut up. By calling out sexism, you’re being sexist.”
Boy howdy, this is getting even better. Clearly, since neither of those things are classic tropes used to get women to shut up about sexism issues, I should… wait a second. I almost fell for that.
Yes, Klintron, let’s talk about sexism. But dismissing sexism, dismissing me because I’m pointing out the dismissal, and generally completely blowing off the topic as nonsense or hysteria is not talking about sexism.
Posted by: LN - 06/30/2008
s.davis — So it is completely okay to do so as long as it is a certain type of person? If you want to make the argument that sex writers are less important than science fiction writers, please go ahead. But that is loaded with a whole lot of other issues like, whether women tend to write about sex because it’s so much harder to make it as a woman in any other kinds of media.
By the way, you are commenting on this three days after it was posted. And a week after it happened. Would you even know Boing Boing deleted Violet Blue if you didn’t check Google Reader this morning?
Posted by: LN - 06/30/2008
Also, how is getting deleted from one of the top five most highly trafficked blogs “based on nothing”? Think of any media figure you care about. And imagine how you would feel if this happened to them.
It shouldn’t matter if it was Violet Blue or anyone. What BB did was wrong.
Posted by: zota - 06/30/2008
the level of outcry relating to it
It may not be William Gibson scale, but this is getting a lot of attention. I don’t discount the possibility of sexism somewhere in this decision, but at this point it seems kind of tangential. Boing Boing is scrubbing their own archives, period. If someone mistakenly thought they could get away with this because it was a woman, they’ve probably noticed by now that it didn’t work out.
Posted by: Klintron - 06/30/2008
@emily “…dismissing sexism, dismissing me because I’m pointing out the dismissal, and generally completely blowing off the topic as nonsense or hysteria is not talking about sexism.”
I didn’t do any of those things. You’re trying to change the subject and quickly becoming guilty of what people are accusing you of. I’ll be happy to get back to the matter at hand.
@zota - I hope you are correct. More and more people are starting to talk about it.
Posted by: Klintron - 06/30/2008
… though I’m not sure we’ve seen any of BB’s “in crowd” start to talk about yet…
Posted by: Emily - 06/30/2008
@Klintron: I never said that you had. I was taking your comment “Let’s talk about sexism” to mean that you felt like I was dismissing all talk of the sexist aspects of this and what might be going on.
Thus, I was pointing out that what had gone on above, that I had gotten frustrated with, was not actually discussing sexism but was a complete and stark dismissal that anything like that could have gone on, oh no, not them, surely not.
Do you see now? I wasn’t saying that you said those things, and I didn’t mean to imply that you did. I was trying to explain my previous comments. Let’s talk about sexism!
(Speaking of which, Violet herself linked to this post twice in regards to this situation.)
Posted by: Slash BB - 06/30/2008
This issue has been posted for days now and STILL no response from BB. MeFi’s got some interesting comments on it. One posted to Theresa Hayden’s blog where apparently Patrick Hayden is putting a spin on the whole thing. I haven’t read through all the comments yet but Patrick did say this:
“Regarding the Violet Blue stuff, I don’t have any personal knowledge of it, or even a very clear idea who she is, except that I know that the whole fuss has little or nothing to do with Cory. (The assertion above that BB is “Cory’s site” is false; it’s four people’s site. Yes, obviously, they all share some responsibility for it.)
I can think of a lot of reasons I might decide to delete a bunch of old posts having to do with a person I was previously friendly with, and who has since behaved in a manner that made me want to have nothing to do with them. I can even imagine being in situations where I was somewhat enjoined, by legal advice, common sense, or even my own emotional limitations, from wanting to talk about it. Making this sort of a thing a litmus test of “hypocrisy” is silly. People have a right to disassociate themselves from one another.
Mike Harris seems to be sayings that if I criticize a business or a professional association for un-transparent behavior, I’m obliged to live my personal life and run my personal web site by the standards we bring to shared enterprises. I may never decide to cut my ties to someone and remove references to them from my personal site, no matter what the personal circumstances. In essence, Mike Harris wants to impute a false equivalence in order to make sure that people who venture to criticize businesses, governments, or organizations are required to live their lives without the flexibility and slack that get extended to everyone else. This is an excellent way to make sure nobody ever makes any waves.”
Sounds personal to me. That’s still no reason for a site that fights against censorship and for transparency to behave in this hypocritical manner. They’ve also been deleting comments trying to engage them in a discussion about this at BoringBoring. Here are the links:
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/010393.html#010393
http://www.metafilter.com/72928/Boing-Boing-Finds-21st-Century-Trotsky
Posted by: s.davis - 07/01/2008
@LN - I said the accusation of sexism was based on nothing because the author of this article doesn’t know why Violet Blue was deleted in the first place. And at no point did I mean to defend what Boing Boing did,the Gibson/Willis v. Violet Blue issue was meant to illustrate that the reason Gibson isn’t deleted is because he’s a well known author, not because he’s a man. I’m not pitting sex writers against science fiction writers.
Posted by: Ian Betteridge - 07/01/2008
Caveat emptor: Cory is a friend, although I have no idea why the post(s) were deleted or what exactly is going on. And I have no intention of asking, either: it’s BB’s business what they do with their site.
You’ve got two arguments here, which you’re conflating. First, that scrubbing someone or something from the archives is wrong. Secondly, that BB did what it did because Violet is a woman.
But first, have you tried to contact anyone at BB to ask what’s happened? If not, then you’re simply assuming that this was a deliberate act. And no, “it LOOKS like a deliberate act” isn’t enough of an answer - at least not if you’re going to go and make pretty strong accusations.
Accusing someone of “bad journalism” while failing to do any additional research over and above reading a Valleywag story is pretty bold, don’t you think?
Secondly, suppose you’re right, and some blog-spat means that all of the contributors to BB have decided, en-masse, to rewrite history.
Your supposition that this is sexism would only be true IF Boing Boing had scrubbed Violet because she was a woman. Do you have any evidence for that, other than your *supposition* that BB would never do the same to an equivalently-famous man?
Please - evidence. If you have none, then your claim of sexism is unfounded, and this is just yet another blog post adding nothing to the world except a bit of noise.
Posted by: Ian Betteridge - 07/01/2008
Emily says:
“If it’s a bit early to do much but speculate, how about we speculate what we think is going on and you speculate what you think is going on and you leave the head-patting, of course it isn’t sexism quite out of it?”
How about we don’t speculate, and we actually find out what happened? It’ll cost you… oooh, five minutes to send some emails to Boing Boing’ers and one to Violet Blue. Leave it 24 hours, if no one replies THEN feel free to speculate.
And if you’re not prepared to do that, then your speculation just amounts to you making a supposition that supports your own prejudices. Sound and fury, but no content.
Posted by: Seth Finkelstein - 07/01/2008
Ian, note the update. People have asked. The Boingers aren’t talking.
Posted by: Ian Betteridge - 07/01/2008
Seth, *someone* asked. Joanne didn’t - or at least, when she wrote this vituperative post, she didn’t mention it.
Posted by: Robert - 07/01/2008
Just imagine if Berners Lee had written persistence into html or http — what a mess that would have been! The elegance of the web lies in its simplicity: it’s just links and text. Even leaving out state was probably a good idea. The questions of ephemerality and posterity were not answered by the protocol(s).
Posted by: Lahdeedah - 07/01/2008
Emily you are the one who is going on about sexism. Provide your argument for your position, or shut up.
I’m willing to bet you cannot provide an argument for your position beyond your incessant whining.
Posted by: A.R.Yngve - 07/01/2008
Since 1999, I have been posting some of my fiction on a homepage (the URL has changed every now and then; I’m on my third of fourth address).
Now, since it IS fiction, I don’t feel any duty to never change it; I find typos and fix them as I go along. That’s not even self-censorship. And as I keep doing this, I realize that electronic text isn’t as “solid” as printed text; it’s a different medium. (Come back, Marshall McLuhan! We need you now more than ever!)
Even if we had the strictest possible standards for altering a digital text, we’d never feel 100% “certain”: the very nature of the medium makes it “unstable”.
Now, I’m not saying anyone here is wrong or right, I’m just saying the possibilities (and limitations) of the medium generate its own rules. (Or: we have internet trolls because the medium allows them to exist. We have comment deletion because the medium allows it.)
Of course, this creates a basic insecurity: How should I refer to a text that isn’t entirely “set in stone”? For me it’s a trial-and-error process… and it’s a small comfort that also the “elite” of internet users isn’t entirely confident about how to use the medium at all times…
Posted by: Jeff - 07/01/2008
Picked up by the LAT and mainstream press blog Romenesko: http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=45&aid=146153
Posted by: Emily - 07/01/2008
Your supposition that this is sexism would only be true IF Boing Boing had scrubbed Violet because she was a woman. Do you have any evidence for that, other than your *supposition* that BB would never do the same to an equivalently-famous man?
That is a very very narrow view of sexism. You don’t get to set the rules at “If they would have done something similar to a man, that makes this not sexism” because there are worlds of grey in between. There are aspects of commentary, and how famous the person is, and how many people care, and who is reporting about it, and most importantly, why it happened.
Here’s the thing - I don’t know for sure that this is sexism. You know why? Because nobody knows what happened. But to bring up that it could be sexism isn’t, to my view, out of line. To dismiss that as complete and utter absurdity without even taking a second to consider that it could be sexism seems to me to be behaving like a scared, frightened person who is more worried about what the label is than what it means.
Emily you are the one who is going on about sexism. Provide your argument for your position, or shut up.
Another call to shut up, when all I’m asking for is for this particular argument not to be dismissed out of hand. You’d think that someone had been accused of something really awful here with the level of defensiveness that’s going on.
Guess what? It’s possible to discuss how this is sexist and how it relates to sexism without, for example, implying or stating that Cory Doctorow himself is sexist.
If you can’t see how that’s possible, well, I’ve got nothing for you. But I’m not going to shut up when all I’ve done thus far is ask that a particular aspect of this not be completely dismissed just because it makes some people uncomfortable.
Posted by: Ian Betteridge - 07/01/2008
Emily says: “Here’s the thing - I don’t know for sure that this is sexism. You know why? Because nobody knows what happened. But to bring up that it could be sexism isn’t, to my view, out of line.”
I don’t have a problem with someone bringing up that it *could* be sexism. But Joanne isn’t saying that it could be sexism - she’s saying that it IS sexism. That’s very different.
I take sexism seriously, which is why I think Joanne should have thought twice about making this claim. Bandying around serious accusations like sexism when, as you rightly say, no one knows the full facts seems to me to be somewhat irresponsible.
Note that I’m not telling anyone to “shut up” (that was someone else). But if you’re going to make serious accusations in the absence of facts, I think that needs responding to.
Posted by: Ian Betteridge - 07/01/2008
Emily, apologies for not reading on beyond the bit where you quoted me - but once I did, I thought that I ought to question this point:
“Another call to shut up, when all I’m asking for is for this particular argument not to be dismissed out of hand.”
I think the problem here is that Joanne doesn’t really have an argument. She’s stating that this wouldn’t have happened if Violet was a man (assuming they’re of equal stature/reputation/etc). However, there’s no real evidence for this, beyond the fact that it hasn’t happened to a man.
But as far as I’m aware, it hasn’t happened to anyone else at all - and making a presumption of sexist action on the basis of one case, where none of the reasons for (or details of) the action are known is a pretty strong presumption to make.
Of course, if you’re happy to presume that any and all actions taken where a woman is the party involved are sexist unless proven otherwise, that won’t matter to you. But I tend to believe that actions should be presumed innocent unless there’s evidence otherwise. Your mileage may vary, as they say.
Posted by: a.bloke - 07/01/2008
it’s because she has green eyes. if it was a blue eyed person they’d be acting very differently, they’re prejudiced against green eyed people.
Posted by: Klintron - 07/01/2008
For those claiming that it isn’t a big deal that BB took the articles down, consider what would happen if the Nation deleted all its articles about Cynthia McKinney from it archives or if Wired deleted all its articles about Lucent and Alcatel-Lucent from its archives. Without explanation.
Posted by: Slash BB - 07/01/2008
Many people have emailed BB about this. There have been no replies at all. All comments made about this issue on BB have been deleted. Even on the thread at the Hayden’s blog, the question of why these posts were deleted wasn’t answered. And yeah, they don’t have to say anything that’s their prerogative. But think for a moment about how most people feel when they’re ignored or someone acts indifferently towards them. It comes off as if they’re not important enough to respond to. Which can appear in the eyes of the ignored as an insult, even if it wasn’t meant to be. BB is ignoring their reader’s and contributers request for an explanation. These are the people who helped make the site as popular as it is. This is just wrong. “This is a personal matter and we prefer not to discuss it”, would at least be saying something.
Remaining completely silent about it (for a week now) was a wrong move.
Posted by: Slash BB - 07/01/2008
Update: BB finally speaks:
http://boingboing.hexten.net/2008/07/01/that-violet-blue-thi.html
Posted by: Emily - 07/01/2008
Of course, if you’re happy to presume that any and all actions taken where a woman is the party involved are sexist unless proven otherwise, that won’t matter to you.
That was already addressed, above, with the sarcastic comment:
You mean, when something bad happens to just one woman it isn’t always sexism? Golly gee whiz, what a revelation! Next thing you’re going to tell me that it isn’t nature or nurture –it’s both! No one’s saying BB deleted Violet because she’s a woman. It’s that because she’s a woman that think they can get away with it.
I have never said that any and all actions taken against a woman are presumed sexist.
I think the problem here is that Joanne doesn’t really have an argument.
So far the comments in response to this have been “Shut up, it isn’t sexism” and “You’re stupid, this isn’t sexism.” And one person took on the task of informing me that the only way it WOULD be sexist is if they would not do it to a man.
I’m responding to the people who are responding in that way, who are dismissing it. If you want to have a conversation about sexism and its various pervasive forms, and the ways in which Violet Blue as an author is being dismissed by being “sex writer Violet Blue”, used as a diminutive, let’s have that conversation. Start it. But don’t get on my case for throwing down with the kind of intellectual giants that come up with “Look in the mirror, you’re the one who is sexist” when I point out their complete and utter dismissal.
But Joanne isn’t saying that it could be sexism - she’s saying that it IS sexism. That’s very different.
Yes, and when women are very declarative and strong in their words, they get called out and talked down to and dismissed for it. They have to say things like “I think it is this way” and “it might be this way” or else they’re being too forward and that can’t be tolerated.
Most of this article, except for the factual bits, are HER OPINION. So she says it’s one way. If you disagree, bring up why you think it isn’t. Don’t just dismiss the viewpoint because of her declarative statements and the Big Scary Nasty Label of sexism.
Posted by: Emily - 07/01/2008
a.bloke: it’s because she has green eyes. if it was a blue eyed person they’d be acting very differently, they’re prejudiced against green eyed people.
Ha, ha. Yes, you’re so right, there is no system of sexism designed to keep women from certain things and push them toward certain things. It’s a completely arbitrary decision, and men and women aren’t treated completely differently in this society.
If I get contacts, will you pay me the same as a man my age with my skill level? Pretty please?
Posted by: Ian Betteridge - 07/01/2008
Emily, first of all I’m only going to comment on your comments about my comments (if that makes sense!) and not anything else. I’m not going to defend people who post things like the comment about eye colour, and so on. Those kinds of posts just trivialise what is a serious matter.
That was already addressed, above, with the sarcastic comment:
Sorry Emily: I tend to filter out sarcasm. It’s one of my better habits.
I have never said that any and all actions taken against a woman are presumed sexist.
Good, I’m glad there’s some common ground here.
I’m responding to the people who are responding in that way, who are dismissing it.
Yes, I’m afraid I’m dismissing Joanne’s argument because, as I’ve said before, there is no argument there. There is no evidence. Joanne clearly states that this is a case of sexism. I’m not “calling her out” on that: “calling someone out” is a horrible little piece of macho bullshit language and I avoid it like the plague.
What I am saying is that if you are going to make serious accusations - and accusing someone of sexist action is, as I’ve said and I think you agree, a VERY serious thing - then you should have some evidence to back that up.
Most of this article, except for the factual bits, are HER OPINION. So she says it’s one way. If you disagree, bring up why you think it isn’t.
If someone wants to level a serious accusation at someone, it’s down to them to show the evidence they’re basing that opinion on. If they have no evidence, then it shouldn’t be a surprise if they get questioned about it.
Emily, correct me if I’m wrong here, but you believe - as I do - that sexism is something very serious indeed. However, you also seem to want to allow people to accuse others of this very serious thing without real, tangible evidence. If you step back for a second, can you see why I might find those two opinions difficult to reconcile?
Posted by: Susie Q - 07/01/2008
Here’s the best theory I’ve come up with - and DO feel free to send this around the blogosphere, since hitting on the wrong answer will get the real answer just as surely as hitting on the real answer will get no response - it all comes down to this article on friend-of-boingboing Amanda Congdon:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2007/04/05/violetblue.DTL
This is a pretty blatant slam on Congdon for dishonesty regarding her corporate sponsorships, and may in fact have been related to Congdon leaving ABC ( I believe I heard a rumor about them getting upset when they found out about the side vlogging).
Essentially, Violet Blue possibly got Amanda Congdon fired, or at least that’s what it looks like. I would imagine that very likely, VB found out about this in a Boing Boing-related way. It could even be that VB didn’t get her fired, but betrayed their trust in revealing the info about her.
Which is why they’re not saying what the reason is. Because it’s actually the only thing that would make them look more hypocritical… because it’s anti-transparency.
But note that the only hint we get in their note of explanation is that VB’s posts were removed about a year ago - and this was the only really noteworthy thing she did around that time; at least, publicly.
Posted by: a.bloke - 07/01/2008
@emily - i would never employ you because of your unhinged angry personality, am i sexist?
Posted by: lw - 07/01/2008
Violet Blue wrote a column critical of Amanda Congdon about a year ago. Congdon shortly afterward didn’t get a contract renewed at ABC.
Posted by: A.R.Yngve - 07/01/2008
Do go on.
Posted by: Emily - 07/01/2008
a.bloke, if you think you can tell anything about how angry I am by the words on a page, you should get a job as a psychic.
Ian,
Emily, correct me if I’m wrong here, but you believe - as I do - that sexism is something very serious indeed. However, you also seem to want to allow people to accuse others of this very serious thing without real, tangible evidence. If you step back for a second, can you see why I might find those two opinions difficult to reconcile?
This is the part where I start banging my head into a wall because you’re being so earnest and so earnestly doing really dismissive things.
Let me try to explain, and I think I’m close to done on this.
Person A: I think this is sexism.
Person B: What makes you say that? I don’t think it is at all.
Person A: Example X, instance Y, item Z
Person B: Ah, I see. I think that Example X isn’t actually a factor because…
etc.
That is how people who are actually discussing whether or not something is sexist interact with one another.
What I saw happening:
Person A: This is sexism.
Person B: No it’s not you idiot.
Person C: That’s hysteria talking, you crazy woman.
Person D: It’s only sexist if these strict rules and regulations are followed. Let me show you my flowchart for Is This Sexism?
Person E: Don’t dismiss it just because the label is ugly.
Person B: You’re an idiot, too.
Person C: You’re hysterical, too.
Person D: You have no idea what you’re talking about, little lady. Let me explain to you.
Do you see the difference? There was no dialogue. There was no situation that fostered an environment where Joanne (pardon my presumption here for a moment, I am going on what I feel might happen) felt as though any evidence she had would be listened to or regarded.
If someone says something that you think is wrong you ASK THEM why they think that. You don’t say “You’re wrong, you’re stupid, you’d better shut up.”
And, as a final note (at least for now), holding up the idea that sexism is Serious Business and we shouldn’t throw the word around willy-nilly is yet another tactic that is used to shut women up when they want to talk about the sexism that’s going on.
Whether or not what happened here is sexist isn’t the point. Every single argument that I have responded (and at least one that I didn’t) that was a variation on “Shut up, it is NOT” IS THE POINT because the idea is to shut me up rather than have a conversation about why I’m wrong.
Posted by: Ian Betteridge - 07/01/2008
Emily, I agree with you. But there’s a problem, because this step:
Person A: Example X, instance Y, item Z
… is missing. There is no instance Y or item Z in what Joanne is saying. All there is is:
A: Violet is a woman
B: Boing Boing have removed Violet’s posts,
C: Therefore, Boing Boing are guilty of sexism.
All that amounts to is “Example X” in your description. There is no other evidence than that. And that isn’t sufficient.
There was no situation that fostered an environment where Joanne (pardon my presumption here for a moment, I am going on what I feel might happen) felt as though any evidence she had would be listened to or regarded.
I’m sorry, but if someone is making accusations then it’s their job to present the evidence upfront. Or are you saying that Joanne was intimidated into not presenting her evidence prior to her post? Given the tone of her post, she doesn’t sound like the kind of person who’s easily intimidated - certainly not to that extent.
Whether or not what happened here is sexist isn’t the point.
Actually, that is the point. Very much so.
Every single argument that I have responded (and at least one that I didn’t) that was a variation on “Shut up, it is NOT” IS THE POINT because the idea is to shut me up rather than have a conversation about why I’m wrong.
Well, certainly from my perspective, I’m categorically not asking you to shut up. In fact, what I’d like is for you to say more - to expand on why you think Joanne has a case. Or, for that matter, to say that you don’t think she does.
And what I am most curious to listen to you talking about is why you think you’re right. Expand a little on that, and we’ll have a conversation going, and I think that would be a good thing - don’t you?
Posted by: dave wt - 07/01/2008
So because I’m a guy will you take me seriously for saying yeah it quacks like sexism? All Joanne wrote was she can’t conceive of a situation where Boing Boing would do this to a male public figure. Neither can I. But maybe there needs to be another term used … is sex-writer-ism ok with you? Or is that going to fuel another 50 redundant flames?
Posted by: Ian Betteridge - 07/01/2008
Dave says: All Joanne wrote was she can’t conceive of a situation where Boing Boing would do this to a male public figure.
But why can’t you conceive of it, Dave? What makes you think that?
Posted by: Joanne McNeil - 07/01/2008
Um, I may close the comments tonight because they’re really going nowhere now (and no this isn’t hypocritical of me, if you read my post I had no problem with TNH moderating… although what’s come out since Saturday is making me wonder.) I did what I intended to do and that was to bring attention to what I saw as an under-reported issue. It seemed it was under-reported because the person deleted was Violet Blue, which is why I titled this as I did. As so many people besides me have written: it shouldn’t matter who they did this to, it is wrong any way. And it might seem more wrong to more people were it to happen to someone other than this particular woman.
Whether it is sexism is debatable. Which is why I opened it up to debate in the second paragraph there. I still haven’t seen any satisfactory counter-argument. Ed, a man, who noticeably received no response, said it best here:
Bandying about the sexism charge is perfectly reasonable, because simply eliding Violet Blue’s entries without explanation suggests that her contributions are in some sense inferior to the other contributors.
Feel free to google the hundred thousand op-eds from last month on the topic: Did HRC experience sexism during her campaign or is it just because she is a certain kind of woman? Because that kind of relates to this. Ian since you are in the UK you probably haven’t seen most of them.
No comments for the dudes who seem to think I really believe Boing Boing said in a team meeting: “Hey Violet Blue is a woman. We don’t like women. Delete! Delete! Delete!”
Posted by: Belvoir - 07/01/2008
Mr. Betteridge, you’ve already claimed you are friends with a figure in this, you’re hardly neutral. But deliberately ignoring Emily’s points, and commenting on comments of your own commenting is unbelievably tiresome. You must love the sound of your typing fingers.
Speculating about whether sexism MAY have played a role in this purging is not “a serious accusation”. Wondering about a possibility is not an accusation.
And in any case, I don’t myself believe sexism had a role, there’s plenty of other scenarios. In any case, do give your pals at Boing a high-five. They’ve awarded Violet microfame, and tarnished their brand, with condescending smugness towards their community. Well done.
Posted by: Slash BB - 07/01/2008
I’d just like to give a big shout out of “thanks” to Joanne and the other bloggers who brought the story out onto the blogosphere. It takes a great deal of courage and a very tough hide to take on the monster that is BoingBoing. Kudos!
Posted by: Emily - 07/01/2008
Ian:
because this step:
Person A: Example X, instance Y, item Z
… is missing.
Actually, what you cut out is what was missing - Person B responding to a statement by asking “Why do you think that?”
That is what is missing. The fact that Joanne is a female writing about this and the vehemence of the responses to her post is the entire point of what I’ve posted here. You don’t seem to be interested in understanding that.
Posted by: Jeff - 07/02/2008
“Pitchfork cleared Nick Sylvester’s reviews from their site.”
No they didn’t.
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