Entry tags:

authorwank, baleeted, censorship, metafilter, mods (not ours), publishing

Violet Blue: Not so wonderful anymore, apparently
It's already on clairvoyantwank, but with 1000+ BoingBoing comments and half the blogosphere a-titter, this wank has matured.

San Francisco sex blogger Violet Blue used to be chummy with the folks at Boing Boing, and naturally, they linked her a lot. However, she recently discovered that they "unpublished" all posts that mentioned her, effectively excising her from the internet's most popular purveyor of wonderful things. Last week, VB wondered what happened (and note that all links to her blog are NSFW). Valleywag, "Silicon Valley's tech gossip rag" (must be thrilling) picked up the story, and promptly started sensationalizing the shit out of it: Did the Internet's free speech guardian try to hush up a girl-on-girl love affair?, they wondered, and speculated on How [Boing Boing editor] Xeni and Violet's Boing Boing affair went sour." It gets Dugg, of course, and pretty soon we're hearing about censorship, Trotsky and "strangely unethical" goings on. Violet posts a tiny-violin follow-up and people start pestering the Boing Boing editors in comments to unrelated posts.

So finally, Boing Boing responds. They say they did the "unpublishing" a year ago. They say they notified Blue. And then, in (*checks bottom of page*) 1100 comments and counting, the shit hits the fan. People accuse Boing Boing of hypocrisy, 1984 allusions fly all over the place, and the Boing Boing comment moderater completely fails to hold the moral high ground as she dances around explaining what Blue did that was so "evil." It's a huge game of they-said, she-said at this point, and figuring out what the hell is going on is frankly less interesting than tracking the endless comparisons to Stalinism. Nothing is like the gulags, people. Nothing.

Now with highlights!

Metafilter commenter sends BB a note from Winston Smith
Scalzi gets his teal deer on, defending Cory Doctorow from the mean metafilterians
Boing Boing's haters are worse than Donald Rumsfeld!
Whether it is redaction, bowdlerization, expurgation, or censorship I see no place for it here."
Boing Boing hates your freedom, just like the Republicans. :(
The OED doesn't deserve this kind of abuse.
BB Moderator Teresa COULD say something mean about that evil, lying attention-whore ... but she won't.

(Post a new comment)

	dragonfangirl 2008-07-03 04:54 am UTC (link)
	The Blagosphere just makes me think of this: http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/blagofaire.png (Reply to this)

	wolfsamurai 2008-07-03 05:07 am UTC (link)
	The BoingBoing crew really knows how to bring on the righteous smugly superiour wank. From both sides. (Reply to this)

mcity
2008-07-03 05:51 am UTC (link)

It's like the Jark drama all over again, except it's not just fourteen year old girls drawing Inuyasha fanart who care.

Violet posts a tiny-violin follow-up

You rang?

(Reply to this)(Thread)

mcity
2008-07-03 05:54 am UTC (link)

I first heard of this when Violet plurked it the other day...it seems more than a bit weird....while it is certainly MT4 could have had some issue (I have many many many issues with MT4 myself and at times want to throw a brick at my monitor), BB not saying anything just makes whatever the deal is way worser than it should be. Straightforward explanations are always the best, esp. done right away.

I always wonder what sort of lives these people lead that require them to be so stingy with punctuation, and spelling words in full.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

Re: PS -

lottelita, 2008-07-03 06:05 am UTC

Re: PS -

ru_debega, 2008-07-03 03:49 pm UTC

Re: PS -

eleutheria, 2008-07-04 12:02 am UTC

Re: PS -

mydemand, 2008-07-04 03:47 am UTC

	msmanna 2008-07-03 08:27 am UTC (link)
	With this much secrecy and OMG-we-can't-possibly-say--what-happened going on, you just know the reason behind it is all going to turn out to be something so petty that even real thirteen-year-olds wouldn't bother to stamp their feet about it. (Reply to this)(Thread)

	tree 2008-07-03 09:40 am UTC (link)
	Agreed. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	pastri_archy 2008-07-03 11:28 am UTC (link)
	And I will laugh like a loon. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	smashingstars 2008-07-03 11:59 am UTC (link)
	Hoyeah, I was thinking this exact thing while reading the wank on BB yesterday, and I was rubbing my hands together in anticipatory glee for the day we find out what the backstory is. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	risha 2008-07-03 12:37 pm UTC (link)
	Exactly. You'd think that people would catch on after awhile. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	catmoran 2008-07-03 12:37 pm UTC (link)
	I'm trying to think of something that real 13yos won't stamp their feet about, and coming up empty. Rose aphids? I'm sure there are some 13yo gardeners out there. Home mortgages? Somewhere, there's a 13yo who's losing her text message plan because the family is cutting expenses. (Sorry, I do get your point. I think I need more caffeine. Carry on.) (Reply to this)(Parent)

	lady_ganesh 2008-07-03 05:58 pm UTC (link)
	Add me in the crowd of people agreeing here. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	lottelita 2008-07-03 06:08 pm UTC (link)
	I'm really hoping it's, like, "She borrowed $20 and didn't pay me back!" or "I got the clap from her!" (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

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miss_padfoot, 2008-07-03 10:55 pm UTC

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lottelita, 2008-07-03 11:14 pm UTC

vzg
2008-07-04 04:09 am UTC (link)

Having no knowledge of anything BoingBoing other than their "We're sorry you all got so riled up and hope you'll be nice to us... but we're still not saying anything!" thing... yeah. My reaction to reading that was pretty much "Oh. ...and why not?" I'm trying to imagine a situation in which it would be reasonable for them to keep concealing their reasons, and short of legal trouble (which I think people might've been able to uncover) I can't think of anything. Maybe I'm just not trying hard enough.

(Reply to this)(Parent)

	ereshkigal 2008-07-03 11:54 am UTC (link)
	Scalzi's being a really entertaining jackass in the metafilter thread. Seriously, his comments are a thing of beauty. No surprise he tried to go after the SWFA presidency, politics of any sort are definitely up his alley. (Reply to this)(Thread)

	damnedfallacy 2008-07-03 04:35 pm UTC (link)
	Completely OT, but your icon is a thing of beauty which shall be a joy forever. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	waltraute 2008-07-03 03:02 pm UTC (link)
	From the perspective of "You people have been on the Internet HOW long and you still don't know how it works?", this whole thing has been absolutely hilarious. But then I almost always enjoy it when holier-than-thou mods finally lose their tempers. (Reply to this)

	frequentmouse 2008-07-03 05:16 pm UTC (link)
	Someone not from BoingBoing airs their grievances against Violet Blue there It is still my contention that this is the most comprehensive case of multidimensional fail on record. (Reply to this)(Thread)

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lottelita, 2008-07-03 06:14 pm UTC

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bigbigtruck, 2008-07-03 06:30 pm UTC

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lady_ganesh, 2008-07-03 07:21 pm UTC

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photosinensis, 2008-07-03 06:15 pm UTC

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frequentmouse, 2008-07-03 06:30 pm UTC

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photosinensis, 2008-07-03 06:49 pm UTC

(no subject) -

miss_padfoot, 2008-07-03 07:00 pm UTC

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frequentmouse, 2008-07-03 07:14 pm UTC

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ryuutchi, 2008-07-03 07:15 pm UTC

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frequentmouse, 2008-07-03 07:20 pm UTC

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vzg, 2008-07-04 04:33 am UTC

	jkefka 2008-07-03 05:48 pm UTC (link)
	Well, this exploded rather nicely. Bursts of idiocy, the Orwell equivalent of Godwin (jurisimprudence, anyone?), flocks of teal deer stampeding over the comments, and the best part is it's slowly rolling into other internet hubs like Digg and only getting bigger from there. It's like a glorious katamari of wank. ... Na na-na na-na-na-na-na-na na na... (Reply to this)(Thread)

How off-topic is it possible to get? Let's find out! -

negativecosine, 2008-07-03 08:11 pm UTC

Re: How off-topic is it possible to get? Let's find out! -

insanityprelude, 2008-07-04 12:03 am UTC

(no subject) -

youngcurmudgeon, 2008-07-03 10:46 pm UTC

	jupiterpluvius 2008-07-03 05:55 pm UTC (link)
	I love the VioletBluePocalypse! HOORAY! (Reply to this)

photosinensis
2008-07-03 06:12 pm UTC (link)

From what I can discern, this is what happened: two friends and occasional fuck buddies have a falling out as people do. However, as these two are Internet celebrities, the catfight involves their websites. Unfortunately, at least one party seems to have forgotten how the Internet works in the fit of irrational butthurt.

<speculation>Given VB's stalker comments, it could be possible that Xeni may have expressed a desire for more than just "occasional fuck buddy" status and been rebuffed. At least, that's what "stalker" usually means where I'm from. I still don't know how Cory Doctorow fits in to all of this, though.</speculation>

So, this is basically defriending wank on a "serious" blog, I take it. At least, that's what it sounds like. Perfect reading for my LJ flist. "OMG U HORBITCH HOW CUD U DO THIS 2 MEEEEE?" and all that stuff, it's just funny.

(Reply to this)(Thread)

(no subject) -

lottelita, 2008-07-03 06:15 pm UTC

	frequentmouse 2008-07-03 06:32 pm UTC (link)
	On Wikipedia, BLP stalks you! (Reply to this)(Thread)

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seiberwing, 2008-07-04 03:03 am UTC

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frequentmouse, 2008-07-04 04:31 am UTC

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darksumomo, 2008-07-04 08:59 am UTC

	miss_padfoot 2008-07-03 07:15 pm UTC (link)
	Dude, everybody fails here. The BB readers are completely hysterical, and TNH fails at explaining what the hell is going on. What does Cory Doctorow have to do with anything, though? (Reply to this)(Thread)

(no subject) -

frequentmouse, 2008-07-03 07:28 pm UTC

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mydemand, 2008-07-04 03:54 am UTC

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lady_ganesh, 2008-07-03 07:35 pm UTC

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miss_padfoot, 2008-07-03 07:52 pm UTC

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cmdr_zoom, 2008-07-03 08:07 pm UTC

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waltraute, 2008-07-04 01:53 am UTC

	cmdr_zoom 2008-07-03 07:31 pm UTC (link)
	So, like so many other scandals, it comes down to sex and break-ups and hurt feelings? Ah, humans. (Reply to this)(Thread)

(no subject) -

photosinensis, 2008-07-03 09:20 pm UTC

	frequentmouse 2008-07-04 05:16 am UTC (link)
	and finally, some endogenous funny (yes, still waiting for yet more paint to dry). (Reply to this)(Thread)

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greenling, 2008-07-04 04:12 pm UTC

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frequentmouse, 2008-07-04 05:18 pm UTC

	smashingstars 2008-07-06 11:04 pm UTC (link)
	I went back to re-read some of TNH's comments and found that they're now disemvowelled. http://www.boingboing.net/2008/07/01/that-violet-blue-thi.html#comment-224144 I'm sure she did it herself once she realized how jerky she sounded. (Reposted for major linkage fail a moment ago.) (Reply to this)