As of today, November 11th, this Blogger board is closed and the Slacktiverse community has moved to Wordpress.
There will be a redirect placed on this board, its pages, and its RSS feed; in the meantime comments here are closed. Thank you!
Showing posts with label Meta. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Meta. Show all posts
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Thursday, November 8, 2012
Board Business, November 11th, 2012
If I have a plain text introduction will that stop me from messing up the widgets?
Irregular Business
Urgent or time-sensitive announcements will be posted immediately rather than being held for the next regular "This Weekend" post. But you'll have to tell me they're urgent or time sensitive because it's liable to go right over my head if you don't.
-
Lastly, feel free to consider this an open thread. Completely open, no prompt, say whatever you like.
Big discussions on the future of the board are going on here. Seriously, if this is something you care about, you'll want to at the very least read what's being discussed, maybe make your voice heard. Basically, this place was set up in a hurry because we needed a place to go fast, but it's looking like wordpress would be better in the long run. If you have some problem with moving to wordpress you need to speak up soon.
Regular Business
Time to remind everyone about the weekend post.
Anyone who has submissions for the weekend post should send them in. Some people wonder if they really deserve to be in the post. Let me answer that: You do. So try not to be afraid and do try to send in submissions if you have them.
The sections of the post are as follows:
Anyone who has submissions for the weekend post should send them in. Some people wonder if they really deserve to be in the post. Let me answer that: You do. So try not to be afraid and do try to send in submissions if you have them.
The sections of the post are as follows:
The Blogaround
Any denizen of the Slacktiverse who has posted an article to their own website since they last submitted to a weekend post is invited, enticed, and cajoled to send a short summary of that article along with its permalink to the group email. That summary and link will be included in the next weekend blogaround. This will help to keep members of our community aware of the many excellent websites hosted by other members.
In Case You Missed This
Readers of The Slacktiverse can send short summaries of, and permalinks to, articles that they feel might be of interest to other readers. These should be sent, as you might expect, to the group email.
Things You Can Do
Anyone who knows of a worthy cause or important petition should send a short description of the petition/cause along with its url to the group email.
Deadlines
Please email all submissions to said group email address (SlacktiverseAuthors at gmail dot com). The deadline this week will be 2000 GMT on Saturday.
Urgent or time-sensitive announcements will be posted immediately rather than being held for the next regular "This Weekend" post. But you'll have to tell me they're urgent or time sensitive because it's liable to go right over my head if you don't.
-
Lastly, feel free to consider this an open thread. Completely open, no prompt, say whatever you like.
Monday, November 5, 2012
Wordpress Redirect
Please click here to go to my "test" board.
Wait 4 seconds.
You should be redirected automatically to here, a potential Wordpress board that has our posts and comments imported thus far. (As of 11/5/2012 4:45pm CST.)
This is the result of our moderation discussion thus far:
1. We can use the Disqus commenting platform here in order to block trolls, but this solution is highly untenable for a large portion of our community that cannot access Disqus for a number of technical reasons.
2. We can use the Wordpress blogging platform, which provides troll blockage and stronger moderation, but at the cost of some template control. (We have no Wordpress experts on staff currently, so what you see over there is pretty much what we get for the time being -- that template was the closest I could find to our current setup.) We can set this site to automatically redirect there, in order to ensure that the Patheos and Typepad links still steer people to the right site.
3. We can continue here as before, and delete trolls as they pop up.
I think that pretty much covers the range of technical options thus far. My vote, if anyone is counting, is for #2. But we need to make a decision together. Thoughts?
Wait 4 seconds.
You should be redirected automatically to here, a potential Wordpress board that has our posts and comments imported thus far. (As of 11/5/2012 4:45pm CST.)
This is the result of our moderation discussion thus far:
1. We can use the Disqus commenting platform here in order to block trolls, but this solution is highly untenable for a large portion of our community that cannot access Disqus for a number of technical reasons.
2. We can use the Wordpress blogging platform, which provides troll blockage and stronger moderation, but at the cost of some template control. (We have no Wordpress experts on staff currently, so what you see over there is pretty much what we get for the time being -- that template was the closest I could find to our current setup.) We can set this site to automatically redirect there, in order to ensure that the Patheos and Typepad links still steer people to the right site.
3. We can continue here as before, and delete trolls as they pop up.
I think that pretty much covers the range of technical options thus far. My vote, if anyone is counting, is for #2. But we need to make a decision together. Thoughts?
Thursday, November 1, 2012
How Then Shall We Moderate?
Ana Mardoll speaking:
The question has and will continue to come up: How shall we moderate this space?
Currently, we're using the native Blogger commenting engine and allowing moderators to determine their own rules in their posts. This has drawbacks and limitations, both from a technical standpoint as well as a authorial standpoint.
For authors, the unique-comment-policy-per-thread rule is a burden and essentially means that they have to police their own threads vigilantly or ask other moderators to do so if they step away from the computer. Authors have to consider when writing and submitting new posts whether they will have all the resources they need to deal with any trolls and/or spam, as well as whether they will have resources on that given posting day. ("Do I have the time and the spoons to moderate my thread if it goes up on Wednesday? Or should I wait until Friday?") And since the only options provided to authors are to (a) tell offenders to leave the thread, and (b) play delete-the-posts over and over again until the offenders tire and go away, we are looking at a high overhead of work for each thread -- or, alternately, the thread gets shut down and closed to comments as soon as the trolls appear. Neither of these options are terribly attractive to prospective authors.
From a technical standpoint, the native Blogger commenting engine has a number of drawbacks. We cannot view nor block IP addresses without third-party plug-in tools, the efficacy of which may fluctuate as Google continues to tweak their "new Blogger" interface. This limitation affects perma-banning, since IP bans are the only way to stop trolls from posting indefinitely as "Anonymous". Comments cannot be edited by anyone -- not by commenters, not by moderators -- so if a trigger warning needs to be added, it can't be done; and if a perfectly good comment goes up but which uses "crazy" instead of "unreasonable", the only options are to delete entirely or leave up as is. This limitation affects the safety of this space. Additionally, there is no "mobile Blogger" application that allows for spam-trapping and/or deleting highly triggering comments while away from the computer, and this limitation means that moderation will require someone to be at a physical terminal at all times.
My suggestion -- me, Ana, not any other Slacktiverse author -- is thus:
I make this suggestion for three reasons.
One, there are very few full-throttle safe spaces on the web for pluralistic communities. If you just want the pluralism, it's out there -- I hear patheos is lovely -- but if you need a truly safe space where comments that, say, mock infertility as something to be gotten over, are immediately deleted as Not Appropriate, then you have fewer choices.
Two, I do not think this community will continue long without fresh new material to discuss. We have an open forum, but I do not see many people using it. It would appear that people here prefer to discuss guided content that has been provided by authors. The harder we make things for authors -- the more they have to come up with their own commenting rules, moderate their own threads, deal with anonymous trolls that can't be perma-banned, etc. -- the fewer authors I believe we will have. No authors, no content, no community: that is my greatest concern right now.
Three, and I'm going to mimic Nicolae Carpathia to discuss the "elephant in the room": we've done community moderation and "soft" safe space moderation before, and by my personal metrics it didn't work. Everyone is going to have their own opinion about that -- so much so that we've included a bit in the comment policy for this thread about it -- but the bottom line is that there are pages and pages in the Slacktivist archive of trolls coming for months on end with no loss of enthusiasm for their task. Ignoring the bullies doesn't make them go away. Engaging them doesn't make them go away. Deleting them and banning them does.
And while I know it's fun, out in the trenches, to play with the trolls, I'm going to tell you as an Author and a Moderator: it's tiring for many of us. It hurts to pour your heart and soul into a post only to have it immediately devolve into a flame-war about whether or not you're a big drama queen whiny bitch for being triggered by a disability. No matter how many people jump in to defend you, it still means that the meaningful discussion you hoped to foster has turned into slinging mud and names on a particularly smelly playground. So there's that.
Final thoughts before I turn this over to Chris: I don't know how we resolve this, maybe we put it up to a vote. Nothing we choose is going to work for everyone, and I recognize that: Many of you work at places where Disqus isn't available because of old browsers or comment-blocking. But I will say this, and again this is my opinion: the more stressful it is to author in this place, the fewer authors will step up to the plate to provide original content. I consider that to be a major consideration, and even if we don't go with Disqus, I do think we need a workable solution.
chris the cynic speaking:
Thursday is Board Business day and the question of moderation is definitely Board Business, so I very much approve of, and indeed suggested, that it be discussed today. But it's also remind everyone about the weekend post day since that's usually the only board business we have. Full descriptions can be found in any of the three previous Board Business threads (One, Two, Three). Quick and dirty:
If you wrote anything since the last time you submitted to a weekend post, send us an email with link(s) and description(s). It will appear in The Blogaround.
If you read anything you think might be of interest to the rest of the community, send us an email with link(s) and description(s). It will appear in In Case You Missed This.
If you know of any worthy causes that members of the community can help with, send us an email with link(s) and description(s). It will appear in Things You Can do. Unless it's too time sensitive to wait in which case say so and it'll be posted before the weekend.
Standard deadline 2000 GMT on Saturday. If you miss it try anyway and we'll see what we can do, but try to make it. Email Address is: SlacktiverseAuthors at gmail dot com
Ana Mardoll speaking again:
The moderation team has agreed on the following rules for this thread:
1) All anonymous comments must have some type of signature. (like "~ Ana from her work desk" or "Anon329")
1a) All comments from the same user must have the same signature. (This is so we can carry on a coherent conversation without having to say "Anon third from the bottom here, I think..." each time.)
1b) No using someone else's signature.
2) Stay on topic for how to move forward. This is not a referendum on how things were run at Typepad or under Fred or to air personal grievances from those eras. If it is necessary to reference those eras to make a point about how to run things here (for example, "Fred did X with consequence Y, so we should/should not consider doing X") that's fine, but keep it on the topic of how we're going to run things here.
3) Be civil. That means in both content and tone. If in doubt, err on the side of caution.
4) No arguing with comment deletions.
5) Offending comments will be deleted without notice.
6) Not a rule, but a point to consider: The members of this community have diverse constraints, needs, and wants. Saying "If X occurs, I will not be able to use the site because Y" is different from saying "Do not-X or I'm taking my ball and going home!" It's different even if Y is "reasons I can't/am not at liberty to explain." Please respect the former statement and refrain from making the latter statement.
7) Mods reserve the right to, at their discretion, delete any comment which detracts from the discussion, even if it does not break any of the above rules.
The question has and will continue to come up: How shall we moderate this space?
Currently, we're using the native Blogger commenting engine and allowing moderators to determine their own rules in their posts. This has drawbacks and limitations, both from a technical standpoint as well as a authorial standpoint.
For authors, the unique-comment-policy-per-thread rule is a burden and essentially means that they have to police their own threads vigilantly or ask other moderators to do so if they step away from the computer. Authors have to consider when writing and submitting new posts whether they will have all the resources they need to deal with any trolls and/or spam, as well as whether they will have resources on that given posting day. ("Do I have the time and the spoons to moderate my thread if it goes up on Wednesday? Or should I wait until Friday?") And since the only options provided to authors are to (a) tell offenders to leave the thread, and (b) play delete-the-posts over and over again until the offenders tire and go away, we are looking at a high overhead of work for each thread -- or, alternately, the thread gets shut down and closed to comments as soon as the trolls appear. Neither of these options are terribly attractive to prospective authors.
From a technical standpoint, the native Blogger commenting engine has a number of drawbacks. We cannot view nor block IP addresses without third-party plug-in tools, the efficacy of which may fluctuate as Google continues to tweak their "new Blogger" interface. This limitation affects perma-banning, since IP bans are the only way to stop trolls from posting indefinitely as "Anonymous". Comments cannot be edited by anyone -- not by commenters, not by moderators -- so if a trigger warning needs to be added, it can't be done; and if a perfectly good comment goes up but which uses "crazy" instead of "unreasonable", the only options are to delete entirely or leave up as is. This limitation affects the safety of this space. Additionally, there is no "mobile Blogger" application that allows for spam-trapping and/or deleting highly triggering comments while away from the computer, and this limitation means that moderation will require someone to be at a physical terminal at all times.
My suggestion -- me, Ana, not any other Slacktiverse author -- is thus:
- Implement a strong Safe Space policy, a la Shakesville, for the entire site where commenting privileges are revoked from trolls without further discussion and upsetting posts are deleted without comment. This means that conversations stay on-topic and trolls don't get that "stir up the wasp nest" happy feeling of accomplishing trouble. This also means a uniformity of comment policy, which means that any moderator can easily mod any thread since there are no "custom rules" to remember.
- Implement the necessary third-party tools to allow IP banning in support of #1. For this purpose, I do recommend Disqus. It's used by Shakesville as the best moderating commenting platform available, and it's large enough of a company to keep up with the constant Google API changes. It fixes all the technical limitations we are running up against: it supports IP banning while still allowing anonymous posting, it grants comment editing powers to both commenters and moderators, and it has a mobile application.
I make this suggestion for three reasons.
One, there are very few full-throttle safe spaces on the web for pluralistic communities. If you just want the pluralism, it's out there -- I hear patheos is lovely -- but if you need a truly safe space where comments that, say, mock infertility as something to be gotten over, are immediately deleted as Not Appropriate, then you have fewer choices.
Two, I do not think this community will continue long without fresh new material to discuss. We have an open forum, but I do not see many people using it. It would appear that people here prefer to discuss guided content that has been provided by authors. The harder we make things for authors -- the more they have to come up with their own commenting rules, moderate their own threads, deal with anonymous trolls that can't be perma-banned, etc. -- the fewer authors I believe we will have. No authors, no content, no community: that is my greatest concern right now.
Three, and I'm going to mimic Nicolae Carpathia to discuss the "elephant in the room": we've done community moderation and "soft" safe space moderation before, and by my personal metrics it didn't work. Everyone is going to have their own opinion about that -- so much so that we've included a bit in the comment policy for this thread about it -- but the bottom line is that there are pages and pages in the Slacktivist archive of trolls coming for months on end with no loss of enthusiasm for their task. Ignoring the bullies doesn't make them go away. Engaging them doesn't make them go away. Deleting them and banning them does.
And while I know it's fun, out in the trenches, to play with the trolls, I'm going to tell you as an Author and a Moderator: it's tiring for many of us. It hurts to pour your heart and soul into a post only to have it immediately devolve into a flame-war about whether or not you're a big drama queen whiny bitch for being triggered by a disability. No matter how many people jump in to defend you, it still means that the meaningful discussion you hoped to foster has turned into slinging mud and names on a particularly smelly playground. So there's that.
Final thoughts before I turn this over to Chris: I don't know how we resolve this, maybe we put it up to a vote. Nothing we choose is going to work for everyone, and I recognize that: Many of you work at places where Disqus isn't available because of old browsers or comment-blocking. But I will say this, and again this is my opinion: the more stressful it is to author in this place, the fewer authors will step up to the plate to provide original content. I consider that to be a major consideration, and even if we don't go with Disqus, I do think we need a workable solution.
chris the cynic speaking:
Thursday is Board Business day and the question of moderation is definitely Board Business, so I very much approve of, and indeed suggested, that it be discussed today. But it's also remind everyone about the weekend post day since that's usually the only board business we have. Full descriptions can be found in any of the three previous Board Business threads (One, Two, Three). Quick and dirty:
If you wrote anything since the last time you submitted to a weekend post, send us an email with link(s) and description(s). It will appear in The Blogaround.
If you read anything you think might be of interest to the rest of the community, send us an email with link(s) and description(s). It will appear in In Case You Missed This.
If you know of any worthy causes that members of the community can help with, send us an email with link(s) and description(s). It will appear in Things You Can do. Unless it's too time sensitive to wait in which case say so and it'll be posted before the weekend.
Standard deadline 2000 GMT on Saturday. If you miss it try anyway and we'll see what we can do, but try to make it. Email Address is: SlacktiverseAuthors at gmail dot com
Ana Mardoll speaking again:
The moderation team has agreed on the following rules for this thread:
1) All anonymous comments must have some type of signature. (like "~ Ana from her work desk" or "Anon329")
1a) All comments from the same user must have the same signature. (This is so we can carry on a coherent conversation without having to say "Anon third from the bottom here, I think..." each time.)
1b) No using someone else's signature.
2) Stay on topic for how to move forward. This is not a referendum on how things were run at Typepad or under Fred or to air personal grievances from those eras. If it is necessary to reference those eras to make a point about how to run things here (for example, "Fred did X with consequence Y, so we should/should not consider doing X") that's fine, but keep it on the topic of how we're going to run things here.
3) Be civil. That means in both content and tone. If in doubt, err on the side of caution.
4) No arguing with comment deletions.
5) Offending comments will be deleted without notice.
6) Not a rule, but a point to consider: The members of this community have diverse constraints, needs, and wants. Saying "If X occurs, I will not be able to use the site because Y" is different from saying "Do not-X or I'm taking my ball and going home!" It's different even if Y is "reasons I can't/am not at liberty to explain." Please respect the former statement and refrain from making the latter statement.
7) Mods reserve the right to, at their discretion, delete any comment which detracts from the discussion, even if it does not break any of the above rules.
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Troll Note
Board Notice: There are trolls in the Remembrance thread. We are letting this continue for the moment and not shutting down the thread because we want to have a planned discussion about how to moderate the board and we feel that the thread as it currently stands represents some of the problems the moderation team is facing. If you personally want to engage the trolls for the moment for lulz, feel free, but if you have trigger-issues I recommend staying out of that thread for the moment. Thank you.
Friday, October 26, 2012
Late Board Business Post, October 26th, 2012
I knew there was something to post yesterday, but I could not remember what it was, so I brushed it off and continued being preoccupied with translating the Universal Lord's Prayer into a Latin version. I shouldn't have brushed it off because it was this post, and I should have posted it. Sorry.
I've been using Fridays to talk about the idea of a weekly deconstruction roundup (see: One where I suggested Friday, Two where it was on Friday, Three where it also was on Friday) and if all goes well next Friday will be the first such weekly deconstruction roundup post.
So this is a sort of a last call. If you know of a deconstruction, present or past, not mentioned in the last post, now is the time to go to that post and make mention of it.
So this is a sort of a last call. If you know of a deconstruction, present or past, not mentioned in the last post, now is the time to go to that post and make mention of it.
Regular Business
Time to remind everyone about the weekend post.
Anyone who has submissions for the weekend post should send them in. Some people wonder if they really deserve to be in the post. Let me answer that. You do. So try not to be afraid and do try to send in submissions if you have them.
The sections of the post are as follows:
Anyone who has submissions for the weekend post should send them in. Some people wonder if they really deserve to be in the post. Let me answer that. You do. So try not to be afraid and do try to send in submissions if you have them.
The sections of the post are as follows:
The Blogaround
Any denizen of the Slacktiverse who has posted an article to their own website since they last submitted to a weekend post is invited, enticed, and cajoled to send a short summary of that article along with its permalink to the group email. That summary and link will be included in the next weekend blogaround. This will help to keep members of our community aware of the many excellent websites hosted by other members.
In Case You Missed This
Readers of The Slacktiverse can send short summaries of, and permalinks to, articles that they feel might be of interest to other readers. These should be sent, as you might expect, to the group email.
Things You Can Do
Anyone who knows of a worthy cause or important petition should send a short description of the petition/cause along with its url to the group email.
Deadlines
Please email all submissions to said group email address (SlacktiverseAuthors at gmail dot com). The deadline this week will be 2000 GMT on Saturday.
Urgent or time-sensitive announcements will be posted immediately rather than being held for the next regular "This Weekend" post. But you'll have to tell me they're urgent or time sensitive because it's liable to go right over my head if you don't.
-
Lastly, feel free to consider this an open thread. Completely open, no prompt, say whatever you like.
Friday, October 19, 2012
Deconstruction Roundup, sauntering vaguely closer to reality
Ok, so here's the situation:
1 Sorry this post is so late in the day, I had a lunch with Amy Richlin. Yes, I'm a name dropper. Yes, I drop names most people have never heard of. But you might want to look into her for she is awesome as were the others at the lunch.
Then the branch library was closed due to repairs to the bridge, which meant a long detour to what, I suppose must be the trunk library. The non-branch at any rate. Which did mean being able to stop by the ice cream place that burned down and was rebuilt, and you know how it goes.
2 We are casting a wide net for what counts as a deconstruction. Fred Clark set out to read through the world's worst books very slowly (a page or two at a time) pointing out in great detail why they were bad. For many of us that was our introduction to deconstructions, but that's not the only kind of thing we're counting here. Someone doing a episode by episode description of why My Little Pony is awesome? That counts too. Someone doing a thing where they look at the bad parts of good books or good parts of bad books? Sure, why not?
The idea, more or less, is looking at something in little parts. Breaking it down to its component parts and looking at those parts. Those parts may be pages, they may be episodes, they may be chapters, they may be something else. For shorter works a single post can be a full deconstruction as seen in Ana Mardoll's single post positive deconstruction Disney's The Little Mermaid.
A deconstruction is when you take pains to notice and catalog the trees, rather than miss them in your quest to see the bigger picture of the forest. Sort of, kind of. We're willing to be fuzzy with the definition.
The point is: if you're wondering, "Does this count or not?" err on the side of sharing it.
3 While they would not be linked to on a weekly basis, because there's nothing to update, we can and will link to finished deconstructions, so share any that you know of not yet on the list. Stalled ones as well.
4 The list so far:
Fred Clark - Left Behind
Ana Mardoll - Various (notably Twilight and Narnia)
Apocalypse Review - Edge of Apocalypse
Heathen Critique - Various (notably Soon and Babylon Rising)
Mouse - Left Behind: The Kids
PersonalFailure - Elsie Dinsmore
clevernamepending - 50 Shades of Grey
yamikuronue - This Present Darkness
Ross - Captain Power
Amarie - 50 Shades of Grey
Omskivar - Eragon
Nathaniel - Caves of Steel
ReadAllTheNewberys - (guess, go on, guess)
TARDIS Eruditorum - Doctor Who I'm guessing.
CaryB - Atlas Shugged
Me - .hack//Sign, Deus Ex
My Little Po-Mo - Something about ponies or something?
InsertAuthorHere - Ditto
-
What has to happen now:
See the above list? Very doubtful it's complete. Help complete it.
Once we have a more complete list, I'll be sending out emails to the authors of currently active deconstructions asking if they mind us linking to them on a regular basis. If they don't say they mind, they'll be included in the weekly deconstruction roundup post (assuming they updated during the week in question). The first post will also include links to already completed deconstructions and such.
So, basically this thread is for adding things to the list, but if anyone has strong feelings about what the exact wording of the email should be or some other related thing, feel free to share it in the thread.
1 Sorry this post is so late in the day, I had a lunch with Amy Richlin. Yes, I'm a name dropper. Yes, I drop names most people have never heard of. But you might want to look into her for she is awesome as were the others at the lunch.
Then the branch library was closed due to repairs to the bridge, which meant a long detour to what, I suppose must be the trunk library. The non-branch at any rate. Which did mean being able to stop by the ice cream place that burned down and was rebuilt, and you know how it goes.
2 We are casting a wide net for what counts as a deconstruction. Fred Clark set out to read through the world's worst books very slowly (a page or two at a time) pointing out in great detail why they were bad. For many of us that was our introduction to deconstructions, but that's not the only kind of thing we're counting here. Someone doing a episode by episode description of why My Little Pony is awesome? That counts too. Someone doing a thing where they look at the bad parts of good books or good parts of bad books? Sure, why not?
The idea, more or less, is looking at something in little parts. Breaking it down to its component parts and looking at those parts. Those parts may be pages, they may be episodes, they may be chapters, they may be something else. For shorter works a single post can be a full deconstruction as seen in Ana Mardoll's single post positive deconstruction Disney's The Little Mermaid.
A deconstruction is when you take pains to notice and catalog the trees, rather than miss them in your quest to see the bigger picture of the forest. Sort of, kind of. We're willing to be fuzzy with the definition.
The point is: if you're wondering, "Does this count or not?" err on the side of sharing it.
3 While they would not be linked to on a weekly basis, because there's nothing to update, we can and will link to finished deconstructions, so share any that you know of not yet on the list. Stalled ones as well.
4 The list so far:
Fred Clark - Left Behind
Ana Mardoll - Various (notably Twilight and Narnia)
Apocalypse Review - Edge of Apocalypse
Heathen Critique - Various (notably Soon and Babylon Rising)
Mouse - Left Behind: The Kids
PersonalFailure - Elsie Dinsmore
clevernamepending - 50 Shades of Grey
yamikuronue - This Present Darkness
Ross - Captain Power
Amarie - 50 Shades of Grey
Omskivar - Eragon
Nathaniel - Caves of Steel
ReadAllTheNewberys - (guess, go on, guess)
TARDIS Eruditorum - Doctor Who I'm guessing.
CaryB - Atlas Shugged
Me - .hack//Sign, Deus Ex
My Little Po-Mo - Something about ponies or something?
InsertAuthorHere - Ditto
-
What has to happen now:
See the above list? Very doubtful it's complete. Help complete it.
Once we have a more complete list, I'll be sending out emails to the authors of currently active deconstructions asking if they mind us linking to them on a regular basis. If they don't say they mind, they'll be included in the weekly deconstruction roundup post (assuming they updated during the week in question). The first post will also include links to already completed deconstructions and such.
So, basically this thread is for adding things to the list, but if anyone has strong feelings about what the exact wording of the email should be or some other related thing, feel free to share it in the thread.
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Board Business October 18th, 2012
Irregular Business
ZMiles had a suggestion for a possible recurring post:
Actually, that reminds me of an idea I had for a weekly post: cool communities on the Internet. People could write about communities they are in and why they enjoy them or find them helpful. It could be a good resource, both for serious things (if someone is in a support group for a medical or social condition, for example), creative things (if someone's in an awesome writers' forum), or frivolous things (if someone thinks they've found the best lolcats forum out there).The comments of this post are now open for discussion on whether or not we want to pursue that idea, if we do how we might best go about it, and almost anything else related to the idea.
Regular Business
Last weekend's post was are first official weekend post, so now it's time to remind everyone that next weekend is on its way. (It seems like they just keep coming, these weekend things.)
Anyone who has submissions for the weekend post should send them in. Some people wonder if they really deserve to be in the post. Let me answer that. You do. So try not to be afraid and do try to send in submissions if you have them.
The sections of the post are as follows:
Anyone who has submissions for the weekend post should send them in. Some people wonder if they really deserve to be in the post. Let me answer that. You do. So try not to be afraid and do try to send in submissions if you have them.
The sections of the post are as follows:
The Blogaround
Any denizen of the Slacktiverse who has posted an article to their own website since they last submitted to a weekend post is invited, enticed, and cajoled to send a short summary of that article along with its permalink to the group email. That summary and link will be included in the next weekend blogaround. This will help to keep members of our community aware of the many excellent websites hosted by other members.
In Case You Missed This
Readers of The Slacktiverse can send short summaries of, and permalinks to, articles that they feel might be of interest to other readers. These should be sent, as you might expect, to the group email.
Things You Can Do
Anyone who knows of a worthy cause or important petition should send a short description of the petition/cause along with its url to the group email.
Deadlines
Please email all submissions to said group email address (SlacktiverseAuthors at gmail dot com). The deadline this week will be 2000 GMT on Saturday.
Urgent or time-sensitive announcements will be posted immediately rather than being held for the next regular "This Weekend" post. But you'll have to tell me they're urgent or time sensitive because it's liable to go right over my head if you don't.
Friday, October 12, 2012
Deconstruction Roundup, nudging closer to reality
OK, the Board Post has had enough time
at the front of a the line, time for something new. Though just to
keep the reminder in people's mind since we're just getting started
here, the deadline for submissions for the weekend post is 2000 GMT
on Saturday. Which is 4:00 PM on Saturday EST/EDST and 1:30 (AM) on
Sunday in India.
Anything since the 15th of
last month is fair game because we haven't had an official weekend
post in a long time, and if you miss the deadline but have a
submission, send it in anyway. Try to make the deadline but if you
don't we'll see what we can do.
Also, for anyone getting sick of all this set up meta post stuff, the first real content post is scheduled for tomorrow.
-
Ok, onto the point of this post.
The reaction to the idea of a deconstruction round up, insofar as there has been one, seems to be
generally positive with a few people pointing out mistakes that we
don't want to make, which means that all that we need to do at this
point is gather a list of deconstructions and not make those
mistakes.
In order to gather a list of
deconstructions I'm asking that, in the comments, people tell about
every deconstruction they know about that they even vaguely suspect
someone somewhere in the Slacktiverse might be so much as slightly
interested in. So, more or less, tell us every deconstruction you
know of.
Not making those mistakes is going to
be a trickier thing to deal with mostly because there's multiple
possible ways to go about it and not all of them will be the best,
some are probably downright bad ideas.
Basically all mistakes brought up as
things to avoid stem from one thing: We do not want a post
were we weekly link to someone who doesn't want us linking to them.
That would be bad.
-
The general solution offered is to ask,
and my plan is to send out emails to the deconstruction makers asking
just that. I'll do it using the group account just to make sure that
there's no possible confusion about whether I'm talking about the
weekly post being here or at my personal blog.
I don't think there's any disagreement with that part of the plan. Here's where things could get tricky:
What should the email say?
Obviously it should ask the question of
whether or not they would prefer we don't link to them. Other people
have pointed out that saying this is a new site under new management
might make it so that people with animosity toward the old site
wouldn't mind being linked to. It has further been pointed out that
a link thread allows people to comment on something other than the
original site (one of the goals of this project, in fact, given some
people's problems with disqus) which could mean that people are
commenting on the deconstor's work in a place beyond their control,
and we might want to bring up that fact in case the deconstructor
didn't make the connection.
On thing is, we don't want the email to
be an essay, if they read it then we're talking their time and time
is a precious thing indeed. So we want to say all of that concisely. Figuring out how to do that would be a good thing to do
here.
But that is not my primary concern.
My primary concern is this: what should
the question be? Specifically, should it be opt out, or opt in?
What we're trying to figure out is if
they mind, should we only assume they mind if they say, “Yes, I do
mind,” or should we assume they mind unless they say, “No, I don't
mind.”
This matters. This matters more than
somewhat. This is an important thing to figure out. So, in addition
to the other things I've mentioned, we need to figure out which it's
going to be in this thread.
-
I, personally, prefer it to be an opt
out situation and I'll explain why:
Now any attempt to pigeonhole multiple
and diverse people will inevitably result in failure and
oversimplification, but for the sake of simplicity I'm going to
oversimplify by pigeonholing multiple and diverse groups of people.
There are, more or less, three groups
we need to consider:
1 Those who want us to link to them.
2 Those who do not care if we link to
them.
3 Those who want us not to link to
them.
If we link to the people in the first
group then we're happy, they're happy, everyone wins, no one loses,
let's throw a party.
If we link to the people in the second
group then we're happy, they don't care, some people win, nobody
loses, the total amount of good in the world has been increased while
the amount of bad has not, let's throw a party.
If we link to the people in the third
group then we fucked up, they're pissed off, everyone loses, no one
wins, the soda goes stale, the ants get the pizza, and we sullenly
walk away with our heads held low; dejected.
Basically, as I see it, what we need to
do is to find a way to maximize the number of people in groups one
and two we're linking to while minimizing the number of people in
group three we're linking to.
I think that works best if we have it
be opt out.
My reason for this is fairly simple: we
want to link to people who are indifferent. It gives us a more
complete index of the deconstructions going on and, because they're
indifferent, doesn't bother them in the least. It's not exactly a
win-win, but it is a win-[not-lose]. So if we link to indifferent
people that's a good thing.
But, if they're indifferent, what are
they odds they send an email back? They're indifferent. They don't
care. Why would they care enough to send an email? If we choose to
do it by opt in we'll probably end up losing most of group two, a
group we'd rather not lose.
On the other hand, people who don't
want us to link to them, those in group three, actually care. We're
saying, “We'd like to do this thing,” and they're thinking, “No,
I do not want you to do this thing.” Which makes me think that
they'd be much more motivated to send an email. All they'd need to
do is hit “reply” type “No.” and hit “send” which, if
they've got feelings on the issue, is probably something they're
prepared to do.
Also, it's not like this is a one time
thing, if all goes well we will be linking to any recently updated
deconstruction on a weekly basis, so it's not like this is the only
chance for people to say, “Don't link to me,” if after our first
post someone says, “Don't link to me,” we simply won't link to
them.
If we mess up in the direction of
linking to people who want us not to link to them, they'll have
plenty of opportunity to tell us that we messed up. If we mess up in
the direction of not linking to people who couldn't care less,
they'll never tell us we messed up because they couldn't care less.
-
In a lot of situations I think
opt in is better than opt out, but in this case I think opt out would
be better.
-
But that's just my opinion and I can
see space for serious debate on this point, and what we need to do
right now is settle the issue of whether the message we'll send will
be opt in or opt out and then, once that is settled, decide what the
email should actually say.
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Board Business October 11th, 2012
Irregular Business
We've had our first scheduling conflict, so it's about time we create a schedule of some kind. I have created a thread in the forums for us to discuss precisely that topic. My ideas are already there, if you have ideas (or something you want to post without creating a scheduling conflict) you should go there and speak up.
Mostly Regular Business
Remember how I said last week's weekend post was mostly a test run to get the hang of things? I meant it. The weekend post this week will not be This week in the Slacktiverse. It will be This MONTH in the Slacktiverse. Because I'm considering the last official weekend post to be this one on Typepad which is from almost, but not quite, exactly a month before the next weekend post will go up. That means that anything after September 15th is fair game.
So please, when considering submissions for the post, go through everything since then. I know it's more work, but it's been a long time since we had a post sharing things, so there should be a lot of stuff to share.
Ok, have I begged enough? The three sections of the weekend post are:
The Blogaround
The Blogaround
Any denizen of the Slacktiverse who has posted an article to their own website since the September 15th Typepad post is invited, enticed, and cajoled to send a short summary of that article along with its permalink to the group email. That summary and link will be included in the next weekend blogaround. This will help to keep members of our community aware of the many excellent websites hosted by other members.
In Case You Missed This
Readers of The Slacktiverse can send short summaries of, and permalinks to, articles that they feel might be of interest to other readers.
Things You Can Do
Anyone who knows of a worthy cause or important petition should send a short description of the petition/cause along with its url to the group email.
Deadlines
Please email all submissions to SlacktiverseAuthors at gmail dot com. The deadline this week will be 2000 GMT on Saturday.
Urgent or time-sensitive announcements will be posted immediately rather than being held for the next regular "This Weekend" post. But you'll have to tell me they're urgent or time sensitive because it's liable to go right over my head.
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Calling All Authors
This is a reminder to all authors interested in posting articles to the Slacktiverse board, please email AnaMardoll@gmail.com or SlacktiverseAuthors@gmail.com to be added to the board permissions for posting.
(The current methodology is that all authors are accepted, and any author who posts 5+ articles is graduated to "admin" and provided access to the group email account. This is to prevent mistaken-identity accidents.)
If you wish to register as a Slacktiverse author under a new/anonymous posting identity separate from an established commenting identity (as I know some community members require privacy for real life concerns), please contact AnaMardoll@gmail.com with your new identity and note in the email who you 'really' are so that she knows she can hand over the keys to your new, unknown identity.
Thank you!
(The current methodology is that all authors are accepted, and any author who posts 5+ articles is graduated to "admin" and provided access to the group email account. This is to prevent mistaken-identity accidents.)
If you wish to register as a Slacktiverse author under a new/anonymous posting identity separate from an established commenting identity (as I know some community members require privacy for real life concerns), please contact AnaMardoll@gmail.com with your new identity and note in the email who you 'really' are so that she knows she can hand over the keys to your new, unknown identity.
Thank you!
Idea for a possible regularly scheduled post
Anyone reading the comments at Monday Meet and Greet, specifically the part starting here, has already heard this idea. But I want to make a main post about it so that everyone who has an opinion can weigh in without first looking through an unrelated thread.
The idea is this: Once a Week (I'm thinking Friday but that's subject to debate) we have a link post that links to the various deconstructions that have been updated since the last such post.
The reasons for this idea are multiple and at times conflicting.
One is that at least one person would like a return to the weekly links to Fred's deconstruction of Left Behind so there is a place to discuss it that isn't disqus based. Generally when there's a problem those who speak up are outnumbered by those who don't, so even though only one person has said it doesn't mean that only one person would like it.
As a sort of side issue to this rather than a separate reason, Ana Mardoll's excellent deconstructions use the disqus comment system meaning that there could be people who really want to say something about those, but can't because they're not disqus users. That would be sad.
A regular "Deconstructions around the Web" post could solve these problems.
A second reason is that this has been a fairly pro-deconstruction community. Of the top of my head I can think of deconstructions by current or former members that cover, Left Behind, Left Behind: The Kids, Edge of Apocalypse, Soon, Babylon Rising, This Present Darkness, Narnia, Twilight, (possibly 50 Shades of Grey but I'd need to double check that one), and Disney Animation. I'm sure I'm forgetting some.
That's only talking about writers. We have even more people who enjoy reading them.
Having a weekly post linking to deconstructions around the web would help people keep track of them and possibly tell those who enjoy deconstructions about ones they had been unaware of. Thus giving them more to enjoy on the internet.
A third reason is that a regularly scheduled post such as this would be a good thing for the blog at this point in time. It doesn't require someone to write an entire article, it just requires someone to go to a list of links and see if there's a new post there. If there are new posts, link to them, if there aren't don't.
It means that we can have a frame around which to build the blog. These are the regular posts, these are the framework in which we insert the other posts.
A fourth reason is that, so far as I know, no one else is doing it. Left Behind, Left Behind: The Kids, Edge of Apocalypse, Soon, and Babylon Rising are all very closely related works yet if one wants to keep track of the deconstructions of them it's a process of link hopping and guesswork. The idea that someone who was interested in a Left Behind deconstruction might also be interested in a Twilight one makes a lot of sense, but there's no deconstruction index one can go to to find out that both things exist.
-
Now we get into the pros and cons:
On the upside it's a way to keep track of all the deconstructions out there.
It might hook people up with things they like that they'd otherwise be unaware of.
It might get worthy works more readers.
It's a regular post and could give a sense of stability in the tumultuous time of moving.
It gives people who want to comment on these things but can't a place where they can make their voices heard.
It's a relatively low effort thing: go to link, see if there is new post, if so link to it. Not something that requires a lot of spoons. It's something I could do when the depression index is as, "Can't get up off the floor."
On the downside we're talking about a non-submission based link post. If we limit this only to those who are active participants in the Slacktiverse that means that we fail at the basic tasks of creating a useful deconstruction index and linking to things people don't already know about.
Some of the deconstructions that would most belong on such a list belong to people who left the community. Some amicably, some not so much.
Linking to people you don't like is sort of how the internet works. (One of the first links here was from a community that doesn't like us.) That's no big deal and part of the expected way of things.
Linking to people who don't like you is a bit of a more morally suspect thing. Linking to someone and saying, "This is really good, you might want to take a look," when the person hates you is somewhat strange. As one commentator pointed out it's using them to pad out your post.
Is it right to link to [redacted] because people might find [redacted]'s deconstruction to be a good read and a worthwhile way to spend their time even though [redacted] really doesn't like us? That's a question that needs to be answered because the alternative is to leave out [redacted]'s deconstruction even though, based on its merits, it definitely deserves to be mentioned.
Ok, so that was big flashing con one.
Con two is that it's a link thread. Link threads are inherently diffuse because they link to a variety of different things and that can make it hard to carry on conversations. If one person is talking about Left Behind, one person is talking about Twilight, and one person is talking about This Present Darkness then those three people are probably not talking to each other.
The entire point of this place is the community. The entire point of this place is to facilitate people talking to each other. And the above assumes that people are talking at all. Sometimes in link threads no one says anything in the link thread, instead restricting conversation to taking place on the things linked to.
This is not to say that link threads can't generate conversation. I've seen them do just that. Pages of it. But it is to say that they can utterly fail to do so.
There's more to say on this topic, but the entire point is to have a community discussion about it, and I have to go right now anyway. (I wanted to get it out as soon as possible rather than save it and come back to it late in the afternoon.)
The idea is this: Once a Week (I'm thinking Friday but that's subject to debate) we have a link post that links to the various deconstructions that have been updated since the last such post.
The reasons for this idea are multiple and at times conflicting.
One is that at least one person would like a return to the weekly links to Fred's deconstruction of Left Behind so there is a place to discuss it that isn't disqus based. Generally when there's a problem those who speak up are outnumbered by those who don't, so even though only one person has said it doesn't mean that only one person would like it.
As a sort of side issue to this rather than a separate reason, Ana Mardoll's excellent deconstructions use the disqus comment system meaning that there could be people who really want to say something about those, but can't because they're not disqus users. That would be sad.
A regular "Deconstructions around the Web" post could solve these problems.
A second reason is that this has been a fairly pro-deconstruction community. Of the top of my head I can think of deconstructions by current or former members that cover, Left Behind, Left Behind: The Kids, Edge of Apocalypse, Soon, Babylon Rising, This Present Darkness, Narnia, Twilight, (possibly 50 Shades of Grey but I'd need to double check that one), and Disney Animation. I'm sure I'm forgetting some.
That's only talking about writers. We have even more people who enjoy reading them.
Having a weekly post linking to deconstructions around the web would help people keep track of them and possibly tell those who enjoy deconstructions about ones they had been unaware of. Thus giving them more to enjoy on the internet.
A third reason is that a regularly scheduled post such as this would be a good thing for the blog at this point in time. It doesn't require someone to write an entire article, it just requires someone to go to a list of links and see if there's a new post there. If there are new posts, link to them, if there aren't don't.
It means that we can have a frame around which to build the blog. These are the regular posts, these are the framework in which we insert the other posts.
A fourth reason is that, so far as I know, no one else is doing it. Left Behind, Left Behind: The Kids, Edge of Apocalypse, Soon, and Babylon Rising are all very closely related works yet if one wants to keep track of the deconstructions of them it's a process of link hopping and guesswork. The idea that someone who was interested in a Left Behind deconstruction might also be interested in a Twilight one makes a lot of sense, but there's no deconstruction index one can go to to find out that both things exist.
-
Now we get into the pros and cons:
On the upside it's a way to keep track of all the deconstructions out there.
It might hook people up with things they like that they'd otherwise be unaware of.
It might get worthy works more readers.
It's a regular post and could give a sense of stability in the tumultuous time of moving.
It gives people who want to comment on these things but can't a place where they can make their voices heard.
It's a relatively low effort thing: go to link, see if there is new post, if so link to it. Not something that requires a lot of spoons. It's something I could do when the depression index is as, "Can't get up off the floor."
On the downside we're talking about a non-submission based link post. If we limit this only to those who are active participants in the Slacktiverse that means that we fail at the basic tasks of creating a useful deconstruction index and linking to things people don't already know about.
Some of the deconstructions that would most belong on such a list belong to people who left the community. Some amicably, some not so much.
Linking to people you don't like is sort of how the internet works. (One of the first links here was from a community that doesn't like us.) That's no big deal and part of the expected way of things.
Linking to people who don't like you is a bit of a more morally suspect thing. Linking to someone and saying, "This is really good, you might want to take a look," when the person hates you is somewhat strange. As one commentator pointed out it's using them to pad out your post.
Is it right to link to [redacted] because people might find [redacted]'s deconstruction to be a good read and a worthwhile way to spend their time even though [redacted] really doesn't like us? That's a question that needs to be answered because the alternative is to leave out [redacted]'s deconstruction even though, based on its merits, it definitely deserves to be mentioned.
Ok, so that was big flashing con one.
Con two is that it's a link thread. Link threads are inherently diffuse because they link to a variety of different things and that can make it hard to carry on conversations. If one person is talking about Left Behind, one person is talking about Twilight, and one person is talking about This Present Darkness then those three people are probably not talking to each other.
The entire point of this place is the community. The entire point of this place is to facilitate people talking to each other. And the above assumes that people are talking at all. Sometimes in link threads no one says anything in the link thread, instead restricting conversation to taking place on the things linked to.
This is not to say that link threads can't generate conversation. I've seen them do just that. Pages of it. But it is to say that they can utterly fail to do so.
There's more to say on this topic, but the entire point is to have a community discussion about it, and I have to go right now anyway. (I wanted to get it out as soon as possible rather than save it and come back to it late in the afternoon.)
Monday, October 8, 2012
Forum Feed
There is now a forum feed widget under the current comments widget, both on the right side of the page. My hope is that this will show forum activity on the main page and make it easier to see when people have commented, thus facilitating conversation.
Let me know if the font size is too small.
Let me know if the font size is too small.
Friday, October 5, 2012
Getting things rolling
So, in the absence of engaging and awesome main posts, something we will hopefully have at some point in the near future, one of the most useful things for people at the Slacktiverse was the weekend "This Week in the Slacktiverse" post.
The usual deadline was 2000 GMT on Saturday.
Now usually there were multiple days of notice and usually there was only one week of stuff for people to submit and until the Typepad site closes this is just a Slacktiverse rather than the Slacktiverse but I think we might as well try to get something up this weekend.
This is what I'm thinking: the real goal will be to get the first official "... in the Slacktiverse" up next weekend, which should give people ample time to go through everything from the last month* and decide what to share, but for tomorrow we can try for a kind of trial run to get the hang of it. Yeah it's shorter notice than usual and this isn't the Slacktiverse yet, but we've got to start at some point.
So, the usual sections (which I figure we'll stick with) are:
-
Said group email address is SlacktiverseAuthors (at) gmail (dot) com
-
So send in submissions if you have them and I'll do my best to get a weekend post up.
Aside from that, I figure that discussion about this place in general and any changes that might be made or such should be confined to one place, so talk about that should take place at the first post. This can be an open thread. So talk about your favorite color and how it relates to your preference in birds and axial tilt, or something. Probably something. I support "something" because the first topic is unlikely to generate much in the way of conversation.
Also, hi. This is my first post as an author here.
-
* The last "This Week in the Slacktiverse" will have been a month old when the typepad site closes one day after next weekend.
The usual deadline was 2000 GMT on Saturday.
Now usually there were multiple days of notice and usually there was only one week of stuff for people to submit and until the Typepad site closes this is just a Slacktiverse rather than the Slacktiverse but I think we might as well try to get something up this weekend.
This is what I'm thinking: the real goal will be to get the first official "... in the Slacktiverse" up next weekend, which should give people ample time to go through everything from the last month* and decide what to share, but for tomorrow we can try for a kind of trial run to get the hang of it. Yeah it's shorter notice than usual and this isn't the Slacktiverse yet, but we've got to start at some point.
So, the usual sections (which I figure we'll stick with) are:
The Blogaround
Any denizen of the Slacktiverse who has posted an article to their own website during since the previous weekend post is invited to send a short summary of that article along with its permalink to the group email address. That summary and link will be included in the next weekend blogaround. This will help to keep members of our community aware of the many excellent websites hosted by other members.In Case You Missed This
Readers of The Slacktiverse can send short summaries of, and permalinks to, articles that they feel might be of interest to other readers.Things You Can Do
Anyone who knows of a worthy cause or important petition should send a short description of the petition/cause along with its url to the group email address.-
Said group email address is SlacktiverseAuthors (at) gmail (dot) com
-
So send in submissions if you have them and I'll do my best to get a weekend post up.
Aside from that, I figure that discussion about this place in general and any changes that might be made or such should be confined to one place, so talk about that should take place at the first post. This can be an open thread. So talk about your favorite color and how it relates to your preference in birds and axial tilt, or something. Probably something. I support "something" because the first topic is unlikely to generate much in the way of conversation.
Also, hi. This is my first post as an author here.
-
* The last "This Week in the Slacktiverse" will have been a month old when the typepad site closes one day after next weekend.
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