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.

I wish I could buy all the tiny nibbles commenters — and me — a drink, or some ice cream, or hand out free lube samples or something. knowwhatimean? I appreciate all the views in this thread; my marriage didn’t work, but I know ones that really do. it is what it is. I don’t know what marriage would *ever* look like for me at this point, but I bow (in a short skirt, of course) in the direction of those hot and heavy happy married couples.

now, I think I need to shake down a sex toy company for presents for tiny nibbles commenters. :D

*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.

Sounds like you had a blast…rock on!

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.

This is a direct quote from your earlier post:

‘It doesn’t matter what you think of something like marriage’

I simply posted a view with candor not at all intended to cool hot vibes. This site can handle an alternative view, I should think, with little effort.

Equality is cool. I just derive from a rather lonely perspective that marriage is highly over-rated. Nuff said… back to the festivities.