I politely stated my opinion that it would not surprise me if someone would tone down their anti-M$ rhetoric in exchange for tens of thousands of advertising dollars. I also pointed out how Mr. Doctorow hadn’t made a single anti-M$ rant since they took on the advertising account – which was quite uncharacteristic of him.

My post was mutilated and then deleted. My posting privileges on the site were revoked. Several of Ms. Hayden’s blogging minions then came after me with rather personal (and quite unfactual ) attacks which I could no longer defend myself against. they were left up on the site.

Well frack that – I moved on and got my nerdy-news elsewhere. And I waited ..

Bwa Ha Ha ha ha!
Payback’s a bitch.
And they did it to themselves which is even sweeter (and entirely predictable).

You go violet!

also, today: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/07/business/media/07link.html?pagewanted=1&ref=business

poof! I was disemconsonanted after a thorough disemvoweling.

The fact that many BB supporters at the moment (and BB themselves) keep feeling the need to bring up that this is a “PERSONAL” project/blog/whatever is distressing to me.

It’s only personal in that, it’s owned by them. Which, great, do whatever you want with it. But don’t forget, the INSTANT you release something to the public, it is no longer your own.

Any writer worth their salt knows this. Any artist, any journalist, anyone who labors (even if only for love) and shares their work PUBLICLY must understand this. Or they better never step into the public realm.

Yeah, it was yours, until you hit submit. And then it became the product of the world. Which is odd because I thought that BB understood this with the constant ranting against Copyright. Yes, I know they are different, but conceptually the BB argument and mine are intertwined.

BB needs to understand that, this may have started as a personal thing, but it was only personal until the first person got their hands on the original stapled copy. And once it got online, it became even more personal.

And so, when they hide behind the “It’s our site, we can do what we want” defense, it smacks of naivety and makes them lose credibility.

Add to that the circular and vague explanation of their actions and it just widens the gulf between them and credibility. They’re not journalists. They’re bloggers. But they still have responsibilities. And the handling of this shows that they either don’t understand, or care for these responsibilities.

And that’s sad, because unfortunately, BB is one of the things that sets the standards for how the web and the people using it should act and behave.

*Goes like this:
Someone to someone else: “Put out! Put out! Put out!”
Someone else: :puts out:
Someone to everyone else: “OMG! Someone else is so gross! They PUT OUT!”
Everyone else: “EWWWWW! Stay away from someone else!”
Someone else, wondering: …wtf…?

Judging by one of the linked posts above, it looks like the most recent incarnation of The Reverse Cowgirl may be disappearing down the memory hole one day soon.

via Digg: http://digg.com/celebrity/The_Violet_Blue_posts_that_were_unpublished_by_BoingBoing

it has me wondering, now that we know it was Xeni who deleted the posts, if any other authors’ posts were removed in the purge.

and thanks everyone for the support and kind words. not too many of those about me going around lately. I’m making a point not to step into any of the allegations and character assassinations stuff. let me just say that insofar as “romance” goes, I was the pursued, not the pursuer. a lot of untrue things are being said about me, but it’s interesting to see who’s “teaming up” to vet their grievances with me or my work, and it’s certainly agitated my stalkers, who have been eagerly jumping in the fray. I am going to have a very interesting book to write from all of this. also, @ MichaelK — a close friend made a nickname for her a while back. he calls her The Obtuse Cowpat.

This morning when I woke up, my comment had been deleted. The comment immediately prior to it, as well as the one posted right after it, were still there.

I have no idea what it was that I may have said, what toes I may have stepped on, when I clicked that submit button last night. I’m a reasonable and open-minded person, not a troll, and instead of reacting emotionally as so many other commenters had, I was simply asking for more information before making up my mind on the matter. Clearly I said something the bb editors felt was out of line and so instead of responding to it, they simply erased it. And that was pretty eye-opening.

If Xeni would just pony up and clarify her rationale behind the move, I would be more than willing to consider it. But instead, all I’ve seen are vague inferences to Violet’s character as a person, strident claims that the bb editors are fully within their rights to do anything they want on the site without having to explain it to their readership, and self-righteous bullshit about how baffled they are that this has turned into such a big issue. bb has every right to self-edit, but they do NOT have a right to take an action like this and then act like wide-eyed naifs about the response. It’s insulting to the intelligence of the readers.

And for that reason, I’m taking a break from Boing Boing right now. It was a poor and foolish decision and I’m coming to realise that this may be the way they have chosen to approach the way they do business. For all their up-in-arms declarations of the rights of consumers and the common folk, they’re acting an awful lot like those corporate entities and organisations who refuse to submit to accountability to their core market. They have a certain journalistic responsibility which they have no problem holding others to – traditional and blog journalists alike – but which they apparently consider themselves exempt from.

What really gets me about this whole thing and it’s constant unfolding, is that, Boing Boing went and did their silly little interviews to TELL THE TRUE STORY…and of course, said absolutely nothing new. And ALL of this “shitstorm” could have been avoided if they were just like “Yo, we didn’t like X. We did Y. And you know, maybe we could have avoided Z. But we just felt right about X and Y.”

And wtf is up with their moderators. Damn. Talk about psychotic. BB needs some stelazine in the water stat!

Or making links in my archives go mysteriously 404.

My only participation with any of the participants in this spat is to link to them occasionally, I don’t really have a horse in this race except that I’m more likely to link to people I feel are worthy of promotion, so my stakes aren’t that high, but I’ve formed some impressions based on how people are acting and reacting, and your reactions do you credit.

With bonus use of Coop’s “just because” photo. Good grief.

I can’t help but wonder if it’s sincere or fear of getting rolled off the site themselves.

1) BB didn’t alert you and tell you they were removing all mentions of you from their blog. Even more so that they did it in such an amateur way, as if standards and practices, and basic web etiquette don’t matter to them.

2) You saw all of your posts were gone and didn’t just send a ‘what’s up?’ to the people at BB that you know.

I love what BoingBoing does. I love what Violet Blue does. This is all just to bizarre to comprehend.

I have no problem with discussion. I have no problem with you saying, “Sexist? I wonder why someone would think that. Does anyone have an answer?” But that isn’t what you said. You said, “There is no reason to think it is some sort of sexist thing.”

So, you know what? You can say you’re interested in discussion. What I see is that you’re interested in the discussion that you want to have and no other. You realized that you aren’t in control of the conversation so you left it with a nasty parting shot.

Well, at least you got the last word in.

You can’t dismiss sexism as a white male without providing something more. You can’t just shut down the conversation and say “clearly, this isn’t sexism, and I know because I’m a dudely dude” without getting some pushback. Sorry that the world doesn’t work how you might want it, but you aren’t in control of this conversation.

And, as soon as you realized it, you left. Well played.

Ursula K Le Guin, EVERY freelance artist that has a website of their work (yay BoingBoing’s support of that “silly” orphan works act) and…China.

:)

BB and it’s crew, for all their arguments about not being evil, and being open, etc. really is just so much horse shit. But really, when 90% of their posts are either “ZOMG STEAMPUNK!” or “ZOMG MY BEST FRIEND/MOM/CORY WROTE A BOOK!!11!!!” followed by some asinine comment about how no artist should want to make a living from their art, and anyone that does is a bad person.

Maybe you should be giving away your books for free. Maybe that’s what they took a set against. HOW DARE YOU CHOOSE TO PROFIT FROM YOUR EROTICA ANTHOLOGIES!!!

I digress though. BB doesn’t have any of the integrity they so desperately claim to cling to. And their most recent post talking about the “blog war” is just so transparent in it’s lameness. The fact that they’re unwilling to even contact YOU regarding what they perceive as your flaw…well…that just makes them…ZOMG CHINA!!!1!11!!

And all of this “Well it’s their private thing, they can do what they want.”

Well. Guess what. ALL OF THE INTERNET PROVIDERS ARE PRIVATE COMPANIES. Same with the webhosts. Same with most big corporations. And…if they pulled this kind of stunt…BB would be ordering petitions and bake sales. So wtf.

F ‘em Vi. You’re awesome. <3 You. And all the fluffy kittens in the world <3 you too.