July 3, 2008
As you probably know, I’ve been following the Violet Blue fiasco on Boing Boing (see here and here)–a fiasco encompassing a number of popular stops in the blogosphere and gravitationally attracted as if to a black hole in the Boing Boing post, “That Violet Blue Thing.”
I haven’t read all of the 1210 comments, but one common thread has to do with the future of Boing Boing. Some folks are jumping ship and vowing to boycott. Others sense a imminent blog implosion. The sense of confusion some readers feel about the choices made by the editorial staff and the way the situation was handled have called into question people’s beliefs and investments in Boing Boing. I have to admit that the more I think about it, the more I question my own investment in Boing Boing though not necessarily in the same way as some of these cynics.
I’m a habitual Happy Mutant that visits Boing Boing between five and ten times a day (at least). I go there in search of what is described by its subtitle, “Wonderful Things.” Sometimes I see cute things, interesting things, politically charged things, or things hard to describe. However, the one thing that I didn’t go to see was controversy centered around Boing Boing itself. It was a sort of safe zone where bad things were sometimes reported or commented on, but the bad things weren’t taking place “at” or “on” Boing Boing in the sense of it being this geographical space, refuge, or hideout. Unfortunately, the shit hit the fan at Boing Boing when whatever happened between the Boing Boing editors and Violet Blue. I don’t really care what happened (though, who isn’t curious at least a little bit), but I do care that their private spat invaded what I considered my safe hideout. Though, it’s selfish of me to claim Boing Boing as my exclusive safe hideout. The “Directory of Wonderful Things” is owned and operated by some influential persons in the technoculture world, and they certainly have a big stake and voice in the way Boing Boing evolves. And, there are all of the other readers with their own attachments to and ideological investments in Boing Boing. It was the clash of all of these competing grasps for what Boing Boing stands for, means to people, or “Boing Boingness” itself.
I can’t say that I know how this will all play out. Perhaps it will blow over and be forgotten except by a few keen persons, or Boing Boing will have to make some tough decisions and clean up the mess for those most affected by it (the editors, Violet Blue, and the readers). I doubt Boing Boing will cease to be (at least for the time being), but I do know that my safe hideout to explore wonderful things is a bit less shiny and less enchanting than it was a few days ago.
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News, Personal | Tagged: boingboing, fiasco, howifeel, violetblue | 
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Posted by Jason Ellis
July 1, 2008
Earlier today, Boing Boing moderator, Teresa Nielson Hayden posted this less than full disclosure response to their decision to pull some posts that mentioned the sex blog writer, Violet Blue (read her blog, tiny nibbles, here):
Speaking for all the Boingers–
Boing Boing has been caught in the middle of a real internet shitstorm and pile-on over the last few days. A blogger named Violet Blue noticed that we unpublished some posts related to her. Some people wanted to know why.
Bottom line is that those posts (not “more than 100 posts,” as erroneously claimed elsewhere) were removed from public view a year ago. Violet behaved in a way that made us reconsider whether we wanted to lend her any credibility or associate with her. It’s our blog and so we made an editorial decision, like we do every single day. We didn’t attempt to silence Violet. We unpublished our own work. There’s a big difference between that and censorship.
We hope you’ll respect our choice to keep the reasons behind this private. We do understand the confusion this caused for some, especially since we fight hard for openness and transparency. We were trying to do the right thing quietly and respectfully, without embarrassing the parties involved.
Clearly, that didn’t work out. In attempting to defuse drama, we inadvertently ignited more. Mind you, we weren’t the ones splashing gasoline around; but we did make the fire possible. We’re sorry about that. In the meantime, Boing Boing’s past content is indexed on the Wayback Machine, a basic Internet resource; so the material should still be available for those who would like to read it.
Thank you all for caring what happens on Boing Boing. And if you think there’s more to say, by all means, let’s talk. We’re listening.
Boing Boing’s “That Violet Blue thing” post today evolved into one of those unfortunate and bizarre Internet phenomena. Apparently, Boing Boing’s staff decided to pull some posts that mentioned Violet Blue, but they did this on the sly–a year ago. I don’t recall seeing any Boing Boing manifesto that states that they must adhere to some kind of openness or transparency regarding their editorial decisions. However, the debate over these post deletions have generated, as of the time of writing this, 518 responses in the comments. I can’t say that I’ve seen a post reach such a high number of comments in such a short period of time on Boing Boing since they opened commenting. There is a lot of crosstalk and many raised voices, and I’m concerned at how badly some folks are engaging and thinking about Boing Boing’s editorial staff making an editorial decision.
UPDATE:
Here’s the Valleywag article that toss some more gasoline on the fire. Internet netizens’ ability to uncover gossip and more-info-than-someone-not-involved-needs-to-know ceases to amaze me. Can the idealistic noobs in the audience please realize that the Internet involves money, real people with real feelings, and real people who make choices that turn out good or bad depending on the temperature of a cup of tea in an unassuming house (do houses assume things?) in Islington!
UPDATE 2:
As of July 3, 2008, Boing Boing’s “That Violet Blue Thing” has rolled off the main page and has 1210 comments–it really was the post that launched a thousand comments!
7 Comments | News | Tagged: boingboing, delete, editorial, violetblue | Permalink
Posted by Jason Ellis
Boing Boing Kisses and Makes Up
July 19, 2008Xeni Jardin wrote a post today on Boing Boing titled, “Lessons Learned.” I’ve commented on the Boing Boing explosion from a couple of weeks ago here, here, and here. It’s part apology, and part “here’s what we learned today.” As far as the Boing Boing community goes, I think it’s good that Xeni posted this. Also, it’s interesting how positive the majority of comments are to this post than to the original post that served as lightning rod to this mess. I wonder if folks had time to cool off, or if those anti-happy mutants jetisoned their escape pod to points of interest in the Internet Cloud that they found more amenable to their sensibilities. Anyways, I think Warren Ellis’ post, The Patchwork Years, is a good read and perspective antidote to comment wars and the general philocentric ennui on the net.