BoingBoing bloggers talk about Violet Blue controversy's implications

BoingBoing: Mark Frauenfelder, David Pescovitz, John Battelle, Cory Doctorow, Xeni Jardin. (Photo: Bart Nagel)

The previous post was focused on the circumstances around BoingBoing blogger Xeni Jardin's unilateral removal of dozens of Violet Blue-related posts over a year ago. This post, which excerpts from the same conference call with Jardin, David Pescovitz, BoingBoing Gadgets editor Joel Johnson and Federated Media CEO / BoingBoing business manager John Battelle, relates to how BoingBoing's editorial policies have been affected by the controversy.

Xeni Jardin: The crux of what happened here is that BoingBoing began as a personal hobby. If you count the years, BoingBoing has not been a business a lot longer than it's been a business. It's been a "thing" since the mid-1980s when Mark [Frauenfelder] and Carla [Sinclair] started it as a fanzine....

When we first reached out to John [Battelle] to help us think about ways to make money to cover our hosting costs, one of the first things he asked us was: How do you guys manage your editorial process? I remember that he was taken aback by the fact that we don't coordinate with each other before we post things.

David Pescovitz: We don't have beats, we don't have assignments or anything like that. We just post about whatever happens to interest us at any moment. Even as it's grown, that complete editorial autonomy has remained.

Xeni Jardin: Often, because of that autonomy, over time I might publish something that Pesco published three weeks ago or three years ago and maybe he or a reader will poke me and say, hey, he already posted this -- you gotta take that down. And that's the cost of what we do autonomously and asynchronously and in four or five different time zones.

There wasn't some kind of sinister plot here. It's just kind of how we did things. And we're realizing now that we might want to take a different look at that, and maybe we have to have a process or a policy.  We realized that this has become a thing. But at the time, I did that for personal reasons, and for a back story that will always remain private. 

John Battelle: What we have here is a balancing act between what has made BoingBoing so good, and increasingly, listening to a community that wants BoingBoing to stay good. What's made it so good is that it's kind of an asynchronous jam between four musicians, without being in the same place or looking each other in the eye. 

Anything that we might change that affects that magic, we really have to think about. And what the community has asked us to do is think about it. So the [current] de facto, undiscussed, presumptive policy, which we recently just declared as part of this whole dust-up, was: Every individual has the right to do whatever they want to do. They can post anything they want, about anything they want, whenever they want without asking permission, and if they want to change those posts or take them down, they can do that too.

Our learning from this is that we need to step back and have a conversation, listening to all the feedback we've been getting, and see if we need to review this approach and change it. And that's exactly what we're doing.

David Pescovitz: There are over 800 comments [on the BoingBoing thread about the issue]. It's been really, really hard and painful to read those comments. But they've also had a big impact on me. It made me realize how much our community has invested in BoingBoing and how they see us, which in some ways is as important as the way we see us. Frankly, even the vicious attacks and the screaming and yelling, as well as the critiques and the support -- all of that has made me rethink this whole issue. My perspective on this has shifted quite a bit since it began.

I'm not going to say -- I haven't determined -- whether I agree or disagree that Xeni should've unpublished the posts. What struck me was that a lot of people who are part of our community felt that we weren't communicating with them as much as we should. And being told that by somebody who's part of your community and appreciates the work that you do means a lot to me.

Joel Johnson: The community expected us to react with the speed that they reacted. To some extent, it's been eye opening for us to see how much this issue mattered to them. So instead of trying to just blow it off, we're trying to listen to what they have to say. But people's opinions are wildly divergent, so it's taken us a lot of time to process all of that.

David Pescovitz: In all the years that I've been involved in BoingBoing -- since it was a print zine that was photocopied and stapled together, we haven't had anything like this happen. So we feel really fortunate the BoingBoing has grown into what it has been. Believe me, we're not taking this lightly.

I think this is a really interesting moment. The reality is we didn't take down somebody else's site, or prevent someone else from having a voice. This is from our own site. This is a really basic question that gets at the core of people having the capability to tell their own personal narrative, and democratization of media: Should you have the freedom and the flexibility to do what you want with the work you create? And I thought I knew the answer to that. Now I'm not sure that I do.

John Battelle: The takeaway is that this has raised an important issue that we're very focused on working through in a way that's transparent and takes in the input of our community. But it's not a simple black-and-white thing. There are larger issues that need to be addressed and considered. It's entirely possible that the end result is that nothing changes in the way BoingBoing is made, and it's entirely possible that the end result is that something does. We wouldn't just make a snap decision based on a blog storm, but rather step back and be very considered.

Joel Johnson: This is all uncharted territory for us. We try to do what we think is right. Sometimes that works out better than it does other times. In a situation like this, we made a decision and stepped back and said we're not entirely sure we're happy with that decision. And so now we have to figure out what, if anything, we have to do to change.

John Battelle: Isn't it also the right of the person who put it up to take it down? If you were truly the owner, I think one could argue unequivocally that you had that right. The question is: Do you damage the community in doing so? And are those rights involved in that damage more important than the rights of the creator? That's exactly the essence of what we want to come to an understanding about.

Previously:

BoingBoing's Xeni Jardin on unpublishing the Violet Blue posts
BoingBoing and Violet Blue: Game Frakkin' Over
Violet Blue still in the dark about her 'behavior'
Regarding BoingBoing's factual dispute on Monday's Violet Blue post
Violet Blue scratches her head over BoingBoing purge

Comments

[jody]

If the position of Boing Boing is that they can do what they want with their own blog no matter the circumstances, then they have lost all credibility to speak on matters of Digital Rights Management, freedom or censorship. In particular, the Electronic Frontier Foundation should sever their relationship with Cory Doctorow now if he supports this position.

The degree of personality projection that has been ignited by this brouhaha is staggering.

The spectrum of ideas that constitute what we call DRM, freedom and censorship include both sides of this debate. Clearly, BB has as many defenders as critics on the issue. The strident folks have no more claim to the whole pie than the relaxed-view crowd.

Being forced into creating some kind of policy so as to placate the histrionic projectors of their own prison of "shoulds" is the price you pay for popularity with the beautiful nerds, or at least those whose crystalline perfection of ideological purity gives them hours of joyful witness.

It's really a matter of seeing a blog as something published rather than something viewed. You can't "unpublish" print, but you can re-cut movies by adding and deleting scenes, effects and dialogue. We read our blogs on screens for the most part, making them viewed as much as read. A blog can be changed where a newspaper cannot. It's arbitrary to hold a blog (or other forms of new media) to the standards of print journalism rather than those of motion media when it clearly shares the characteristics of both.

Unless you have a burning need to be the arbitrator for all on the issue. Being one of those on other issues, I can understand and relate to where the outrage is coming from. But in this case it's clear that BB is an ongoing electronic work (read: viewed like an internet TV show with words as much as read like a newspaper) of a small group of editorially independent writers who post about what they find interesting. A lot of us happen to agree with this expression of their interests, but that doesn't mean anyone has any right to expect them to agree with our ideas of what's this and what's that, right and wrong, etc.

[Tim]

You can retract a newspaper article, but the original printed version is still present in the archives, my grandfather's basement, the bottom of a million birdcages, you name it.

So I repeat, you can't unpublish a newspaper article.

[Daniel]

"Unleash wrath at public targets, throw hissy fits, pretend to be morally outraged, pretend to be superior..."

Uh, Samantha, who are you describing? Critics of BoingBoing ... or the BoingBoingers themselves?

[natgrl]

I too am wondering where Doctorow is in all of this. It's usually his posts on government issues and copyright that I've followed - and the unfortunate unprofessionalism along with the terms "unpublish" and "devowel" (honestly, so many easy Orwell comparisons there, no one thought about how it sounded?) - well, do I now consider the Boing Boing site a personal blog only when posts are made by certain authors? Do certain bloggers there get held to different standards? It's one thing if you're only going to be posting kitten videos and gadget fun - it's another thing if you want the rest of the web to take you seriously and you want to critique other sites for removing their conent. Especially since it appears that all the bloggers there need to take a good look at the amount of site hits/viewers (as in, you have an audience) and then the fact that they get a paycheck - and then perhaps have a moment where they assess their performance as paid employees.

When I've spoken/written to others about this most of the more jaded ones tell me that they haven't taken Boing Boing seriously for some time. This makes it hard for me to have any arguement that they should.

[Larry Fischer]

@Todd Dailey : Are you seriously comparing Boing Boing to the LA Times? Since when did Boing Boing become a news site? As it says at the top of their site; "A Directory of Wonderful Things." Personally, I don't see any problem with them removing previous posts, whatever the reason.

[buddhanarchist11]

Heya Norquist9: perhaps it is you who needs to get a clue. When I went to BB this morning, Joel Johnson, one of the BB crew had left this comment (comment 1106)-- it was the last comment on the thread at the time. I took him as being serious, and beleived he was closing the thread.

#1106 POSTED BY JOEL JOHNSON , JULY 2, 2008 4:09 PM
Also, I'm going to try to shut down the comments but I hope it doesn't accidentally remove them all. I only wish I were joking.

But if they blip I'll bring them back.

Take a look at this
#1107 POSTED BY JOEL JOHNSON , JULY 2, 2008 4:23 PM
Heh, I guess I may not know how to lock the thread.

So get your facts straight, buddy.

Larry Fischer: Yes, we are comparing BB to a news site. Cory and Xeni work as journailsts (The Guardian, and NPR, respectively) and they cover extremely serious topics such as Tibet's liberation movement, internet freedom/freedom of speech, amongst others. They oftentimes post links to their own journalistic work on BB (particualrly Cory). Are we to treat them not as journalists while on BB, and then when we click one of their BB links to one of their articles, say, on the Guardian, *suddenly respect* them as journalists? Not possible. Reagrdless, their ethos is certainly one that looks down on things such as 'unpublishng' and they have then done it thesemselves. Do they have a right to do this? Ofcourse. But does it make them inconsistent and perhaps hypocritial? Yes.

[Rob]

"So get your facts straight, buddy."

Except they didn't actually shut the thread down, so you're still wrong.

The sense of entitlement is *staggering*.

[buddhanarchist11]

Rob
AS this is a post about BB and VB, perhaps you would like to make some sort of comment about them, and the elements of the story?. As for my sense of "entitlement" (whatever that means in this context?): if you would bother reading the posts, you would see that Joel at BB indeed did try to shut down the post, (as I said), and as that was the last post of the BB thread when I read it, it validates why I stated that "BB has shut down the post". BB did indeed try tto shut down the post. Right when I was trying to comment. So I will say again, get your facts straight. Regardless, what are your thoughts on BB and their decision to "unpublish"? It is the topic of this thread.

[Al Billings]

As to where Cory is in all of this, since people ask, I did exchange e-mail with him on Wednesday. I've corresponded with him occasionally on other issues and was raising something tangentially related to all of this with him. When he responded, he stated that he was on vacation with his family and I got the impression that he was only online briefly. I assume he's buried in e-mail about this but mostly offline, which is why he wasn't interviewed with any of the others. Maybe he'll have more to say when he's back but, if I were him, I'd let others deal with it while spending time with my family.

[Zeeni Garden]

"Unpublish" -- that's gotta be the word of the year for linguists & word watchers everywhere.

Yeah, Nixon "unpublished" those tapes.

Um, the White House "unpublished" those emails.

And Boing Boing, the voice of Freedom of Speech everywhere, pledges allegiance to the Ministry of Truth and Bullshit.

It's not READERS and CLICKS that pay for those ads, NAH! It comes out of those DEVOTED SUPERHEROES OF FREEDOM OF SPEECH EVERYWHERE, the Boing Boing staffers' pockets themselves.

How truthy.

Winston Smith,
Ministry of Truthiness

[Becker]

"Cory and Xeni work as journailsts (The Guardian, and NPR, respectively)"

Yes, and it's impossible to take anything they say seriously in those venues, either.

[Just Joe]

Joel stated, "people's opinions are wildly divergent, so it's taken us a lot of time to process all of that."

How can the BB crew expect to understand all of the community's concerns when their moderators continue to censor comments related to the issue? BB went from a shining star to a joke, overnight. I hope they can make the significant changes that are necessary to regain their place on the podium.

Until those changes come, please include me in the list of daily readers that will no longer frequent the site.

[JJJ]

boingboing used to be one of my daily visited sites. However, I've found the site has become more and more unbearable-- and this is really the last straw. When you have unmarked sponsored post, I think you lose the ability to call your blog a "personal" blog. I don't even care that much that the posts were deleted (though I will admit I enjoy VB's column in the SF Chronicle)-- I'm more disgusted by the lack of transparency. When media outlets retract a story for any reason, the retraction is announced. When corrections are made, they're announced. If something truly us no longer "wonderful" enough for your directory of wonderful things, why would you NOT want to notify your readership? If boingboing doesn't want to hold itself to the same journalistic standards as a print newspaper, consider this--even stupid celebrity gossip blogs will preface changes to their posts with an EDITED label.

I, for one, just removed boingboing.net from my bookmarks-- they've lost another reader in me.

[Anthony]

"Heh, its interesting me that even when the BB staff are clearly trying to be forthright and explain what was going on, people are keen to pillary them." - Harold

Dude, what are you talking about?
Forthright? This nonsense is anything but.

One of the biggest things that a lot of us want to know is what exactly Violet Blue did that was so awful that all posts about her had to be "unpublished" from the site. There has been absolutely no transparency on the part of the BB staff regarding the issue that started all of this. PERIOD.

The fact that the LA Times staffers who had the opportunity to ask about this merely pussyfooted around the issue instead of directly asking is pathetic.

[zosima]

"The reality is we didn't take down somebody else's site, or prevent someone else from having a voice. " -- David Pescovitz

Wrong. They removed not only Xeni's work but also all the comments on the pages that we put there by other people. If we assume 20 comments per post * 70 deleted posts, that's 1400 people silenced. Those numbers are certainly an underestimate.

Moreover, BoingBoing maintains an absolutely draconian moderation policy. Their moderation policy ranges from editing peoples comments, to disemvoweling them, to deleting them after the fact, to blocking them entirely.

BoingBoing talks about the importance of free speech and community, but they regularly treat their community like cockroaches; stepping on them one by one, or exterminating them en mass.