Boing Boing Mea Culpa
by Al
Xeni Jardin just posted her mea culpa to the Boing Boing readers today for the screwup around the deleted Violet Blue-related posts the other week:
Some of our community here at Boing Boing, and elsewhere around the web, viewed the post takedown as a violation of an unwritten rule of blog etiquette. Many more were frustrated with us for taking so long to respond, and being vague when we finally did. You, our readers, were angry because we weren’t communicating with you.
We’re sorry we didn’t communicate more quickly and clearly. We delayed posting in part because I (and we) were trying to avoid something I feared would become a petty, personal online fight that would violate the privacy of parties involved.
When it became clear this strategy wasn’t fair to our community, we were in a poor position to respond: a few of the Boingers were on vacation in remote places with their families, making coordinated communication and action difficult.
Finally, when we did post a response that drew heated comments, we didn’t have a way to coordinate with our moderators and join the conversation in a consistent way. We screwed up. And we’re sorry.
To me, it seems a bit of too little much too late. She should have done this right as the incident was occurring, not a couple of weeks later. She didn’t really say anything new either, since she made most of the same points in comments and the like when she and others eventually did start responding. I do recognize that it is their blog and they can do what they want. I’ve deleted posts here before too. Of course, I’m not the third most popular blog on the web (I have somewhere around 350 readers on a day to day basis). It is more of the weird, non-communicative ways that this was handled after it became clear that people were pretty annoyed by how they were dealing with things.
Of course, I and other former community members are still banned from posting comments on this or any other Boing Boing entries because of the overactive and thinskinned moderation crew employed by Boing Boing. No real explanations or chance of return either. I’m pretty disinclined to pay much attention to the site for this reason at this point. I notice that Teresa, their moderator, is repeatedly taking hits on her behavior in the thread so while I may have a minority opinion, it definitely isn’t singular if I see people regularly calling for her to be sacked.
It is a little annoying to see a post asking questions, as Cory did the other week on securing his computer, and realizing that you can’t respond because of the whims of support staff, not even the owners of Boing Boing. I expect that I’ll keep reading for his posts but I’m not submitting links there in the future. I expect, as much as this was a tempest in a teapot, that the BS around removal of posts will continue to be mentioned for some time to come. It did make the LA Times and other papers after all.
Comments
Teresa, their moderator, is repeatedly taking hits on her behavior in the thread so while I may have a minority opinion, it definitely isn’t singular if I see people regularly calling for her to be sacked
I’ve not really been following this story, but I do frequently read the comment threads at Teresa Nielsen Hayden’s blog Making Light, which are arguably the best comment threads in all of Blogistan. Anyone saying she should be fired is full of it.
She acts different in her own blog. A number of people have mentioned that to me.
I think she should be fired. I’ve seen her public behavior on Boing Boing and have exchanged quite a few e-mails with her since my own banning. She doesn’t have the level head necessary for the job she’s being paid to do.
You are free to disagree, my friend. :-)
I caught Xeni posting some total mis-fact at one point or another–I can’t even remember what it was now, but it was egregious–and I sent her email to point out to her what the true facts of the matter were. She never corrected what she wrote, nor even acknowledged the email.
I’m sure she’s a very busy person.
I stopped taking Boing Boing seriously about three years ago. This latest fracas only confirms the wisdom of that decision.
(PS: I’m out of town as of tomorrow until 8/2, in Portland, Ottawa and Amsterdam, successively. I should be back for most of August, and I’ll certainly be at LinuxWorld. Are you planning on showing up there…?)
No, I’m going to the Mozilla Summit in the last week of this month, coming back on Friday, camping on that weekend, and then going to Black Hat and Def Con the first week of August. I’m back for most of August until I go to Burning Man.