BoingBoing's Xeni Jardin on unpublishing the Violet Blue posts

BoingBoing's Xeni Jardin  (Photo: Robert Sachs)

Myself and L.A. Times blog editor Tony Pierce spoke earlier Wednesday to BoingBoing bloggers Xeni Jardin and David Pescovitz, as well as BoingBoing Gadgets' Joel Johnson and John Battelle, the chief executive of Federated Media and BoingBoing's business manager. It was a long conversation, so I'm going to split it up into a couple of issues-centered posts. This one touches on when and, to a lesser extent, why the Violet Blue-related posts were unpublished.

What can you say about why the posts disappeared?

Xeni Jardin: When I decided to unpublish these posts -- and I did that -- it wasn’t like there was a policy or practice in place where we would all confer with each other before we posted something, so I didn’t confer with all of my editors before taking it down.

Did you think people wouldn't notice, or if they did notice, that they wouldn't care?

XJ: God, I don’t know if I really thought through all of that. I just really didn’t. It’s hard for me to articulate exactly how weird this is. Suddenly it became this big huge thing with all this public scrutiny and all this speculation. But at the time I just wanted to take this material down for a host of reasons that I don’t want to talk about in public because I don’t think it would do this person any good. We don’t blog in detail about every minute decision we make about what to publish and what not to. 

 ...There wasn’t an attempt to hide it. And I didn’t bring it up again in part because it involved some personal, private stuff that I don’t tend to get into. Like whether someone’s character is this or that, or whatever kind of personal dirty laundry was involved.

Regarding the decision to remove:

XJ: My biological father who died when I was a kid was a painter and a print maker.  He went through different phases in his creative work. A lot of what he did was paint very beautiful photorealistic portraits of nude women. Sometimes he went off into experimental territory that he was embarrassed about... sometimes he would just grab batches of the stuff that was crappy as years went on, and go to the backyard and burn it. And it wasn’t that he was censoring himself, and God knows nobody else was censoring him. It was that this was his creative work. This was art. And he felt like some of it wasn’t representative of who he was anymore and he didn’t want it to be available to the world to see.

That’s how I felt with this situation. (I mean, there were other reasons for removing the posts.) But –- it was my work. And I felt like: This is my work, this is my blog. This is not the same thing as Wikipedia or the paper of record. It’s BoingBoing. And I have the right to take these things down while I think about whether I want them out there or not.

And on factors that influenced the decision not to broadcast it:

XJ: Please try to bear in mind, a year and a half ago when I unpublished this stuff, it was a time when there were a couple of hate web sites specifically about me.  Kooky, creepy Internet guys were posting all sorts of grotesque, sexually explicit stuff about me, and trying to find photos of my house and information of my family.  Really gross stuff that frightened me.  When you’re at the receiving end of that kind of attention, would you voluntarily go out with private information in something that just felt sensitive and felt like your private editorial prerogative?  It would be the last thing you’d do in that situation. 

More here about the what this means for BoingBoing's posting policy and its future.

Previously:

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

[db]

BoingBoing started as a print magazine, and I recall (though I'm not sure) Mark saying the BoingBoing web site is just the modern manifestation of the original magazine.

If this were the printed magazine, the option to "unpublish" would not be available. I'm interested in hearing about what we've gained or lost by this new ability to "unpublish".

Xeni's father never distributed his paintings of naked women (why was that detail even relevant?). And a painting isn't really analogous to a blog such as BoingBoing. So I'm not sure an artist destroying his own paintings is quite the same as removing (ahem, "unpublishing") information from the online version of what was once a printed magazine.

BoingBoing is one of the most popular sites on the web. I have also read it generates a significant income for its principals, and significant traffic for those sites it links to. I'm sure, like the Daily Show on TV, BoingBoing provides many of its visitors with a lot of news they find significant. Despite Xeni's humility, BoingBoing is an important media outlet. So the whole
notion of "unpublishing" and its effect in the future of "publishing" is important to consider.

Just to note, I *love* BoingBoing. I usually check it several times a day. I'm an active commenter, have submitted many suggestions, have spoken with more than one of the "big four", and wish them all continued success. But let's not pretend this is not an important web site.

How might BoingBoing's decision to "unpublish" a significant number of posts concerning a popular columnist and blogger change journalism? Or online commerce? Is it a significant development? What do we, the consumers of this information, gain? What do we lose? Does that even matter? Why? No really, why?

[Larry]

"Unpublished?" What language is that? Does it by any chance mean "deleted?"

[John Aho]

I almost think it would have been better to create a "purgatory" section of boingboing and put the worst of submissions there. That way if you change your mind about something you can re-classify the post/item/story into purgatory.

I understand that the decision was based on personal reasons and I support the result of Xeni's actions if not how they were conveyed. Maybe treating this with a lot of humor would have been better. A little video clip with a send off of a box of stuff with fire would be funny, at least to me.

[Rob Myers]

db: "If this were the printed magazine, the option to "unpublish" would not be available."

Print publishers stop printing new copies of books and magazines. So the option to stop publishing, which is what Boing Boing did here, would certainly be available with copies of the printed magazine.

Larry: ""Unpublished?" What language is that?"

Apparently it's the button on BoingBoing's weblog software ("Movable Type") that stops publishing the article on the web but doesn't delete it from the database.

[Rob Beschizza]

The "unpublished" phrase is an unfortunate one, but it's actually just a technical term in blogging, newspeaky overtones notwithstanding. It means a post is still in the system, but not currently publicly-accessible. More like limbo than deletion.

[Penny]

Did Carly Simon write "You're So Vain" about Xeni Jardin? Judging from the photo above, I'd have to say yes...

[Seth Finkelstein]

Point of information - Regarding "a year and a half ago when I unpublished this stuff", Violet Blue was still considered Boing-worthy as late as 2007-07-27, in a now "unpublished" post about "Short link amuse bouches for Friday". Her offense must have taken place after that date.

Further evidence suggests the "unpublishing" took place at least after August 21, 2007, because of the post "BoingBoingBoing #15: William Gibson"

http://web.archive.org/web/20070827074049/http://www.boingboing.net/2007/08/21/boingboingboing_15_w.html

(was a whole post removed because Violet Blue's name was in a list?!)

[Alice]

Upfront, I don't read Boingboing very much any more. Replaced it with Digg for my "Odd" news of the day. Nothing against the site, just better alternatives out there.

Goodness, the narcissism is running hot and heavy here. What her father being dead has to do with her "Unpublishing" posts on a widely read culture blog without even consulting her fellow editors, I don't follow.

And what a grubby, horrid word that is, "Unpublished". The internet is the public square of the 21st century, it's out there and open. If you don't wish to be part of it, don't be. But deciding to rescind your involvement and then getting defensive when people notice? Again, narcissism.

Her replies smack of evasion and equivocation. What do the creepy guys trying to cyber-stalk her have to do with this? That and the "Oh, by the way, my dad died when I was a kid" sound like someone trying to wrap themselves in excuses after doing something stupid and being caught at it.

And it was stupid. Boingboing has made it's bones by being at the forefront of free-speech and shared culture issues. This decision by Xeni took an axe to that reputation. Bad move.

[db]

Rob, I hear you, but to stop publishing a print mag is a bit different than "unpublishing" a blog article. Since BoingBoing, in its current form, is only available online, this is a bit more akin to a magazine publisher going to every person with the copy of the magazine and ripping out the offending pages, and then saying "You can go down to the library if you want to see them." Is this the future? Is that desirable?

Certainly BoingBoing has every right to refrain from future posts about Violet Blue. But, for good or ill, this is rather different than that.

[ReallyEvilCanine]

"Myself"???
It's "L.A. Times blog editor Tony Pierce and I" you illiterate muppet! The word "myself" is reflexive. Using "myself" does not make you sound clever or important. It makes you look like an idiot trying to impress people with your incredible literacy skills when you are, in fact, demonstrating just how incompetent you are when it comes to basic language usage. You display your desperation for the esteem you think you'll earn by using more profligate oratory.

Doesn't the LA Times have a slot man anymore?

[batgrl]

"Print publishers stop printing new copies of books and magazines. So the option to stop publishing, which is what Boing Boing did here, would certainly be available with copies of the printed magazine."

Problem with that comparison is that such stopping of the publication has to be done quickly. Once weeks or months have passed and the print publication is in the hands of the public? Too late. And at this point the information would then be quickly placed on the internet for the public to see as soon as the organization tried to withdraw it from circulation anyway - as can happen if even a few copies get into public hands.

I'm still confused as to how the bloggers at a Group Blog could consider the "it's my blog" response an argument. Is Xeni so out of touch with Boing Boing that she's not reading what the other bloggers are writing? Or is it simply that I have to take only Doctorow as the one who's following deletion issues in other sites/media, and just ignore the other bloggers there? And just assume that the rest of the bloggers just don't understand what's expected of them by the audience? Which is, if you delete a chunk of stuff, let us know "it was unimportant personal junk and its my blog, so I figured I could do that" or "we removed this content due to legal reasons and can not comment further" - and then I'll know what was intended. There were ways to handle this without telling us any more about whatever relationship did or didn't happen.

[Lewis Haidt]

This actually helps clarify the situation and shows the Bb'ers Silicon Valley myopia and naivete.

Having worked for a big-shmo agent at the William Morris Agency, clearly Violet and Xeni were engaged in some type of nasty, personal fight, similar to what happened regularly between my boss and studio heads, not to mention how much he hated his rival agencies, some producers, agents at his own pad, etc.

It's strange that Xeni literally knew she was the "target" of some psycho, but would not be the "target" or "center of attention" of so many people who are so over-attached to BB; some who are not only over-attached, but cowards (stop using the word trolls) and losers who make up for their pathetic lies by zooming around the Net with psydonyms (too late) and their asshole comments.

I support BB's right to remove these, but to not have a process in place even a year ago when their media stature was clear is kind of incredible.

Talk about an Echo-chamber bubble!

[zosima]

"When you’re at the receiving end of that kind of attention, would you voluntarily go out with private information in something that just felt sensitive and felt like your private editorial prerogative?" -- Xeni Jardin

I don't buy Xeni's excuse. How does explaining that she decided to "unpublish" her work put her at any personal risk or expose any private data? Moreover, Xeni is hip to the internet, its not like internet creepiness is anything new.

Also, her analogy to her father's work is just awful. Internet publication is different from hard copies. You don't save a copy, like physical media. What Xeni did was more like an author trying to burn every copy of her book in print, and we all know who did that...

[John]

Xeni has always been the petulant dim bulb of the BoingBoing team. It's just a shame they continue to let her spoil their reliability. If reports of the holocaust included a mention of "Violet Blue," would BoingBoing unpublish that too?

[Maggie]

ReallyEvilCanine - "You display your desperation for the esteem you think you'll earn by using more profligate oratory."

Says the blowhard who just typed "profligate oratory".