Save the drama for... Andromeda.

I like to keep the drama on the stage... ( insert old jokes here).

I'm now killing myself with curiosity over what Violet did that made you take the posts down. Drama is such fun.

@Gainclone (#1) and @ATOMICELROY (#2), Regarding the drama, the truth is, I agree. That's one of the main reasons we debated on whether to even respond.

We, too, prefer that drama be reserved only for one's momma.

But when the apparent campaign to turn this into some kind of a petty blog fight went on for days and escalated, we felt like the responsible thing to do for you, our readers, was to address it.

Blog fights are stupid, airing personal grievances in public is stupid, picking troll wars is stupid. We just want to blog (and make internet TV).

The "unpublishing" versus "deleting" issue is this: the posts were removed from public view while an evaluation of what to do took place. We didn't want to pay to host them on our blog anymore. This is also why we remove hateful, ad hominem attack comments from public view, too: this is our home, we are proud of the home we built and the guests who visit here with us, and we like spending time here ourselves.

This is a directory of wonderful things. If we no longer think something is wonderful, we have every right to remove it from this directory.

This is not Wikipedia or the New York Times. Boing Boing began as a personal blog, and still is in some ways, even though Boing Boing is a bigger thing now. When new information becomes clear, or someone's behavior changes, sometimes a creator of work reconsiders what aspects of their personal creative work they're proud of, and removes them from public view.

The posts still exist in our archives, and they're also available on the Wayback Machine.

We realize that we're now bigger and more complex, and we'd probably handle something like this differently now that we've grown (and now that we are more aware of how things can play out when someone's determined to pick a public fight over it). This hasn't happened before.

But this was not intended to cause harm to anyone, least of all the subject of the posts. We mean no one any harm.

Nobody was "disappeared." When we start doing extrajudicial blog executions, or showing up to livejournals in the dead of night in unmarked cars and putting bags over people's heads, or slicing the power cords off of other people's own blogs, come talk to me about "disappearances" and "unpersoning."

XJ

I can see not publishing future stories about her, but "unpublishing" seems like a euphemism for self-censorship (or at least denial). This step seems antithetical to the nature of the Web that BoingBoing champions, where everything's a matter of public record, and directing people instead to a Web archive seems a bit disingenuous. If anything, this is bringing more attention to Violet than leaving the posts up would, as most censorship tends to do.

I can't imagine New York Times quietly unpublishing any record of Jayson Blair. I think BoingBoing hasn't lived up to its own ideals with this one.

It seems clear the big mistake was the hushing -- both not mentioning the "unpublication"(?) when it occurred, and vigorously policing comments about it as though that could somehow keep it quiet.

In the face of that damage, y'all's continuing decision not to tell us what's up is disheartening, but maybe we'll get over it.

"Posting in epic thread." (My quotes imply irony!)

At #1. I've found a new favorite phrase. Thanks! :)

Thank you. This is the kind of post from BB I'd hoped to see.

Violet has her own blog which is easy to find, so I have a hard time getting worked up about this.

Kudos for making a good call.

Those who don't understand that the archival nature of blogs, coupled with the perceptive fact of hosting -- even archival hosting -- as a tacit form of active support, makes "choosing to NO LONGER HOST at your own expense" a perfectly valid part of blog "ownership", regardless of the reason, don't really understand the internet.

"Unpublish," indeed. Choosing to no longer host isn't hushing -- because there is no "after the fact" in the internet. It's choosing to no longer support via hosting, period.

@Grobstein (#7), I think you're right. It wasn't a big pact of secrecy though. We are geographically distributed and it was the weekend, so it took time to get everyone on the same page, up to date, and figure out the right thing to do.

The policing the comments thing was delicate, for sure. We probably should have said something like "We hear you, but we're not ready to address it yet." But sometimes when you have people trying to force your hand before you're ready to respond it's frustrating.

Well, I'm glad someone said something. That metafilter thread was too hard for me to ignore, and frankly, I have work to do.

Regardless of what anyone says, it's a nice thing to try and keep personal problems from being blown out of proportion publicly - but hot damn, what a cluster.

I don't know what happened or exactly when the un-publishing occurred, and I know that hindsight is 20/20 and all that - but once valleywag and mefi hopped onto this a clear communication (even along the lines of "a statement is being prepared, stay tuned") would have been a good idea. Leaving the Internets speculating in lieu of throwing something out there begats loud raspberry.

Also, just curious - was this a group decision, or the action of a single or minority group of editors?

Thank you for not screwing around with the Wayback Machine.

dangerous territory. telling us to be weary of those who threaten free speech, then threatening free speech yourselves. i agree with number 6. it is as if one day you can proclaim the world to be flat, and then when irrefutable evidence that the world is round is made, you can go back, un-publish the post and say "we never said the world was flat"

very disappointed.

Boing Boing is a collaborative personal blog, not an institution with obligations of impartiality or public service. Which means that the authors don't have to be fair, impartial or even remotely reasonable, but merely interesting to its audience.

It would seem that some people are under the impression that as soon as a blog on the internet becomes sufficiently popular, it turns into the BBC or something, and becomes subject to various nebulous obligations to The Public, which if it fails to live up to amount to betrayal of that trust.

AisleFive, Grobstein, we were trying to avoid embarrassing people. In the end, it was unavoidable. I expect she'll survive it.

This is a directory of wonderful things. If we no longer think something is wonderful, we have every right to remove it from your directory.

Ah, that's doubleplusgood!

@geekpdx: Your curiosity is natural, but airing (and hence overblowing) the details is exactly what we were trying to avoid in the first place.

It was a group decision. Why do you think it took so long?

We were trying to do the right thing quietly and respectfully

I'm sure you were. Externally, however, how is that any different from (to pick an extreme, fictional example) what Winston Smith and his coworkers did?

Now, I have to quickly say I'm well aware of the differences between private and government censorship, and it's your site, so your rules.

But you are also aware that other people have links to your stories, and now those links are, inexplicably, gone. With absolutely no explanation on your part, and (near as I can figure) no redirection.

To put it bluntly: it stinks to high heaven of a cover up. And if you act like a secret cabalistic conspiracy, don't be surprised if some people see a secret cabalistic conspiracy :).

TylerSweeney, you haven't been a very careful reader. Go back and try again.

Yep. Save the drama for the llamas.

Links are the driving force of the internet. Every "link" is support for the resulting page. If you no longer support someone or something, you should remove the link; Even if it results in removing past blog posts.

It's your blog, you can do with it what you like. I will continue to read it because it is fantastic.

I wasn't up on this Violet Blue issue, but it sounds like a mess, and I think the best one can do with a mess is clean it up! You're not revising history, you're IMPROVING it!

I probably would have done the same thing, anyway. If the shit hits the fan, then it's time to stop throwing shit.

And probably get rid of the fan. Then buy central air conditioning.

I don't pretend that my blog is even 1/100th as important as yours, and I'm not in the habit of telling other bloggers how to run their blogs -- but I wouldn't have done what you did. At the very least, I wouldn't have done it without one holy heck of a reason.

I'm guessing that I know what this is about. It's entirely your right to decided not to let her publish more stuff to the blog. But was it a sane, reasonable reaction to go back and mass delete everything she ever contributed? It doesn't seem like one to me, and it absolutely seems like an over-reaction to the personal politics she was going through at the time.

s fr s "crng wht hppns n Bng Bng", Dn't nymr.

ws jst chckng n t s f y hd gttn vr bng Mcrsft whrs, nd ths s th frst thng s. Y'll r jst gng t sld n dwn tht slppry slp s, s dn't thnk tht wll vn bthr chckng bck n nymr.

Gd lck n ll y d. Y sd t hv grt blg.

we have always been at war with Eurasia.

Well, there goes my traffic boosting blog-fight picking plan.

Damn, I guess I'll have to stick to trying to write interesting things. Curses, foiled again.

I have to join in expressing my burning curiosity about how Violet Blue "behaved" to prompt your unpublication of her. Could you at least post a link to something about the incident so that your readers can judge for themselves? The shitstorm is a-blowing and can't be unblown. It cannot make things worse at this point to reveal what happened.

@Tylersweeney: Given that Boing Boing is not a public forum, they're not "threatening free speech". They have no obligation to maintain archives, nor to be impartial, nor to continue publishing articles by someone they do not wish to.

If you disagree, you can lodge a formal complaint with the Blog Ombudsman.

"But sometimes when you have people trying to force your hand before you're ready to respond it's frustrating."

"Bottom line is that those posts (not "more than 100 posts," as erroneously claimed elsewhere) were removed from public view a year ago."

Sounds like you guys had plenty of time to figure out a response.

I have much respect for all of the BB editors, but this really does seem hypocritical. How is this any different then a site-wide filter to remove any reference to a particular phrase?

It's your blog - so do what you want. However, with all the post archived on the Wayback Machine... this just seems petty.

I am a meat popsicle.

I can't believe I was so oblivious to the drama. I feel a little left out.

Have fun with your boycott, @Alephnul.

(I really should add: I don't think there was malicious intent; I don't think it's all that important; and it's the internet, so people love making mountains out of grains of sand. But it's very hard to hide some things, and when you try to do so, it looks suspicious. And people love a story that has a good suspicious act in it.)

I lost all basic interest in Violet Blue when she sued an adult film star for appropriating the same Crayola name as her.

As if before this blogstress came along no one had strung the words "violet blue" together.

I support Boing Boing's (or is Boing's Boing more grammatically correct?) right to make any of their articles available/unavailable at their own discretion. Curiosity is nagging me a little, though.

Anyway, I got go, I'm meeting with a guy about trademarking Beergood.

Also if I had to make a guess over what BoingBoing got their panties in a twist about, I would say it had something to do with Violet Blue trademarking her name.

@ Joel
I guess I wasn't trying to get at the sauce of this matter so much as answer a more general curiosity of whether a group consensus must be reached before something that materially changes content in such a manner is done. I expect that editors have a lot of leeway with what they can post and edit without calling in TEH COMMITTEE, and was wondering if this sort of thing crossed that threshold.

Of course, I can see that copping to whether this was or wasn't a group decision could strain things further.

@ Teresa
Not sure if you were responding to me, and if you were, I'm not sure if you meant that the un-publishing or the statement was a group decision.

Taking down all the posts about somebody you're mad at...and not telling her...and then just leaving it to be discovered...seems kinda shitty to me.

The author Peter Carey, after his divorce, wanted to retroactively remove the dedications to his former wife from all his earlier books. This looks like the same bonehead kind of move.

You can't un-ring a bell. I know nothing about this situation except, it appears she was a friend, and now she isn't. But why remove all evidence of a positive relationship in the past?

Of course now everyone will want to know what she did to piss you guys off so bad. I'm sure as hell curious now.

@Teresa (#22), I think that Geekpdx (#15) was asking whether it was a group decision to unpublish the posts. @Geekpdx, the BB bloggers act autonomously with regard to editorial decisions.

@34: would it really have been better if they paid service to transparency posted an article saying "We've removed all references to Violet Blue for personal reasons"? That sounds a little too much like the passive-aggressive "I'm unfriending some people who are not true friends, they know who they are" LiveJournal drama posts.

In social situations, transparency is not always the best solution.

"Violet behaved in a way that made us reconsider whether we wanted to lend her any credibility or associate with her."

Can someone explain what this means? What exactly did Violet do that was so wrong?

I think it would help a lot of people in their understanding of why this action was taken if we knew what she did.

You are probably realizing that posting this was a mistake. The problem is that this article itself references a non-person and as long as it exists it will generate curiosity about the non-person.

Your only remedy is to delete this post and never mention the name of the non-person again in any context.

Yours sincerely,
Winston Smith
Ministry of Truth

The day I pay BB's wages is the day I get to tell them what can and cannot be posted on or removed from this blog. It's only censorship if VB forces BB to remove posts about her.

it is as if one day you can proclaim the world to be flat, and then when irrefutable evidence that the world is round is made, you can go back, un-publish the post and say "we never said the world was flat" - #17 tylersweeney

Is this a suggestion that BB should not be allowed to make changes to their own opinions and their own work that remains under their control on a server that they pay for?

What was that about threats to free speech?

When BB goes out and tells other bloggers to remove quotes from the posts they removed, then we'll talk.

If this is the same as 1984, then anyone who's ever gone back and friends-locked their old livejournal entries is Big Brother.

Get a sense of perspective. You can argue about whether this might've been the best way to handle whatever dispute it was, sure. But you can't seriously argue that this is "censorship" or "against free speech."

In fact, I've come to believe that it's a law of nature: whenever anyone on a comments thread starts complaining that the blog owners suppress free speech, they've lost the argument. So long as you can get your own blog, your free speech is assured. No one else is obliged to give you their microphone.

And Alephnul, don't let the door hit you in the ass.

Another victim of the Streisand Effect.

For a blog that prides itself on fighting censorship and championing internet freedoms, you could have done a heck of a lot better, especially the clandestine "editing".

I respect your right to manage your "hosting" any way you see fit, but you should have been more upfront about it, from the beginning.

AARRGGHGHGH. This whole thing has been raising my blood pressure all weekend. The world is full of crap and all you trolls can worry about is whether Boing fricking Boing is on the side of censorship evil? Hypocritical?

Jesus Mary God save us from you morons. I know calling a spade a spade is throwing gasoline on this fire, and Teresa, feel free to disemvowel or delete if I'm being too harsh here, but this has gone just too far. Arrogant know-nothings hate BoingBoing for being more successful than they are, then they spill over onto Making Light, and they probably even vote. Or worse! They probably don't vote! And are holier-than-thou about being above that system!

I really don't suffer fools gladly -- so please! Shut the fuck up! All of you!

Jeez Louise, I just hate these people, and it's not easy to provoke me to that kind of antipathy. I even try to understand Donald Rumsfeld. (I do draw the line at Cheney.)

Why don't you all take all that righteous outrage energy and do something with it that won't make the world worse? Go, I dunno, dance energetically with Matt Harding or something. And get the fuck off BoingBoing's back! They owe you nothing -- they give you endless entertainment for free and you repay them with enough hatred -- not just on this issue, but on every little fricking thing that comes down the pike -- that it has to make them wonder why in hell they do it. Seriously. Grow the fuck up.

Calling yourself a "blog" as a defense for exercising lower standards of journalism than a news organization does not persuade me about this event being handled as a complete PR mess for BoingBoing.

No news organization, including Boing Boing due to its well established popular status, can avoid the label of hypocrisy by hiding the facts about what is now a newsworthy issue of interest to the public. Whatever private nature the initial issue was has now become a public interest. Therefore, everyone involved with Boing Boing better look hard and long into its soul as a journalist and make a choice about whether to serve the public's desire to understand the facts and make their own judgments about this news or simply shutter its doors. Because the moment you hold back the news like this and hide behind platitudes, you can no longer credibly zealously demand the truth for the sources you go out and report on.

News is pain. If you can't take it, don't bother dishing it out.

I don't mean to be inflammatory, but there are quite a few crybabies here. I'm not sure which meaning of "post" BB is using here, but we have two options:

#1 "Post" refers to the updates to the BB blog itself. They've written several endorsing snippets about Violet Blue as kind of a sexuality activist. If she crossed a line, and they no longer felt like they could endorse her, then it's entirely reasonable that they would withdrawal that support.

#2 "Post" refers to user comments. If Violet Blue left comments that were inappropriate for the blog, then if they were deleted it would be no different than removing the posts of anybody else who spams, flames, or trolls. This is standard maintenance for any blog. I doubt they would "censor" her just for disagreeing, or being controversial (which is what they seemed to have loved her for in the first place).

And either way, they didn't chisel her name off every corner of the blog; all references to her are still available in the archive, and if you don't trust that then there's an independent archive as well.

If you're terribly curious about what caused the withdrawal of support, then go read VB's blog; that's my next stop.

I am now going to be inevitably disappointed when the truth comes out that it's all due to Violet mocking papercraft dildo cozies.

In all seriousness - I understand that you want to play rumor control and nip the whispering hysteria in the bud ("principle skinner says we have no backbone, purple monkey dishwasher!"), but without being transparent as to the underlying disagreement, rampant speculation is going to flourish in that void, at the very least. More than likely, negative opinion is going to take root as well, and I'd honestly hate to see that, as I really like boingboing, and have since i picked up those weird little zines at the local bookstore, back in the day.

While at first, my obvious standard internet reaction was "OMG FIRST AMENDMENT CENSORSHIP! WHERE'S MY GUY FAWKES MASK?!?obligatory1insteadofexclamationpoint," but then I thought, BoingBoing isn't about posting everything that's out there, it's about posting what the editors want on their site. People are free to post anywhere on the net, or say what they want, just not in the front yards of people who disagree with them.

I can respect if it's personal, and I'm sure if it's something either side wants to reveal, they will. I think saying you guys are "unpublishing her" brings about Fahrenheit 451-like images in posters minds and encourages generic rabble-rousing. Either way, I have to appreciate the maturity of the posters here at BoingBoing. If this were any of the other newspost blogs out there (coughrhymeswithBiggcough) people would be more rampant with the internet-napalm than Bill Kilgore.

Is there anyone on the internet that Violet Blue hasn't started a blog war with by complaining how mean people are to her?

"Don't take any guff from these swine..."

I can't believe the Blog community is up in arms and talking about how this goes against the "standards" for the blogosphere.

Standards? Anyone with a computer and a place to post can put up a blog, let's stop pretending otherwise. Yes, Boing Boing is a giant among blogs, but that doesn't change things. They removed articles that they no longer wished to host. End of story. They have the right to do so, and they did.

What part of, "They have the right to do so" are people not getting?

Editorial decisions are usually about changing the future, or at least the present. Trying to change history is something different. History shouldn't be subject to editorializing, should it? Saying you'll not "lend her any credibility or associate with her" going forward? That's defensible. Trying to make it seem like you never did in the past? That's not very Boing Boing-y. Or, maybe it is and I was just projecting my hopes and dreams on to you. :-)

If you're in favor of transparency, you can add notes/updates to posts in the past clarifying your lack of endorsement.

"Unpublishing" is now a creepy euphemism.

Just my two cents.

Thanks David, you answered my question.

Also, good on you guys for being active in the thread.

Why would the team go back and delete her posts? This seems very juvenile. No matter what went wrong, she spent HER time helping YOU. Bringing attention to her work- only by deleting and then telling bb about it shows us that you are just asking for more controversy on the subject. Pointless...

The "unpublishing" does seem rather to be a rather Orwellian term, Xeni's explanation notwithstanding.

Perhaps you should list them all as strike through as it seems you now wish to retroactively remove all the good things you've said about the person. That would have been more transparent than "unpublishing."

As to the wayback machine, it would never have occurred to me that BoingBoing would disappear a story, let alone everything ever written about a certain individual so I would never have thought to need to go to the waback machine to look up BoingBoing material.

I support your ability to do whatever you like on your blog, but I feel like noting that however justified, the manner in which you did this was passive-aggressive and opaque, and "unpublishing" is a stupid and useless weasel word.

You deleted a bunch of posts. That's fine. It's your server, you're allowed to delete whatever you like. You decided you weren't friends anymore, and everything she did was poison, and not newsworthy or at least worth being in a "directory of wonderful things". Just, try to avoid the 'ban everyone who embarasses me' approach in comment moderation and response. It's kind of embarrassing.

At the bare minimum, it seems a redirect from past stories to their respective archives is in order.

But I think the decision to "unpublish" is fine. The whole value of blogs is that they are a filter, an active, human filter that sorts in real-time, not some archival history-keeping automaton.

Good move, now I won't even have to see her godawful English.

"And this. And that. And I was naked. And I did this. And it was amazing. And wow. And hoo. And haa."

Gives me a headache. Would someone tell her what a conjunction is please.

"If this is the same as 1984, then anyone who's ever gone back and friends-locked their old livejournal entries is Big Brother."

If you think BoingBoing is the same thing as an old livejournal, then yes, absolutely. I wouldn't.

I'd never say that Boing Boing didn't have the right to delete whatever they want. They also have to right to post glowing reviews of Exxon Mobil gas stations and tell us that Mike Huckabee is a visionary worthy of our support.

Clearly Boing Boing has the right do do wrong things. Just as we have the right to voice disagreement if they do.

"What part of, 'They have the right to do so' are people not getting?

I totally get that they have the right to do it. I just disagree with it and am saying why. Is that OK?

BoingBoing, I am highly disappointed that you promote tyranny but choosing to publish only those things that you want on your own website.

Let's not forget, they did this a YEAR ago and people are just now bitching about it? Sounds like someone just has an axe to grind with Boing Boing and is using this as easy fodder.

So now BoingBoing is a tool that its masters can use to settle petty, personal disputes with other internet bloggers? Not good, and I don't care what the explanation is, or how many people agree with it. If this were a print magazine no such luxury would be possible.

Moderating comments is one thing--people may post scurrilous, base, profane defamatory comments that do not add to the commonweal, so to speak--but deleting posts is quite another, especially when no rationale is given other than it having to do with "personal" reasons.

I see it as the exact sort of thing that BoingBoing would nail another site for, and I believe has. Whether it is redaction, bowdlerization, expurgation, or censorship I see no place for it here.

Who the fuck is Violet Blue anyway? Probably just another one in the legion of harpy reprobates who has a knack for turning depravity into cash. Who gives a damn? But now you are hoist by your own petard. The smart thing to do would be to swallow your pride, apologize to your readership, (and maybe even Violet Blue) and republish the goddamed posts. That's really your only option at this point or you lose all credibility, at least with me anyway.

hooray BB. do what you feel with the page, I'll keep drinking in the wonderfulness.

Revisionist history?

Tempest in a Teapot?

From my vantage point it's like people yelling over a fence at each other about last years ruined party that I wasn't at anyway.

Does seem kind weird for Boing Boing to do stuff like this in light of their opinions about similar matters though.

Meh, do what you want, just shut up before 10 PM or I'm calling the cops.

Keep the wonderful things coming. ;)

Gainclone , July 1, 2008 9:56 AM:

You're not revising history, you're IMPROVING it!

*wince* I can imagine George Orwell writing this, only he'd be using sarcasm.

My sympathies are with BB, here. Hopefully you've realized that you handled this badly and you'll do better next time. You certainly have a right to host what you want on your site, and you can be as arbitrary about it as you like.

I wish I knew what VB did to anger you. I've skimmed her blog and I couldn't find any reference to BB in amongst the 'sex toy of the day' reviews. I hope you BB moderators understand why everyone wants to know what happened -- because they're scared that *they* might be 'unpublished', suddenly and without warning. You have legions of contributors (*not* 'readers', in this context) that are willing to adapt their behavior to whatever rules you deem proper. You have to give them the rules. Not the published rules of the comment threads, but rules of behavior outside of BB.

Because from all appearances, you've decided to police that sphere of behavior. Your choice. Good luck with it.

I know, everyone wants to save the drama for the mama of the llamas from Andromeda. But shoving those llamas under the carpet just makes the drama fester, and the llamas start to itch and buck, and you end up with a bigger mess than before.

Umm... Respect means that one gives as well as recieves honesty and civil behavior. If one does not adhere to that code than they can not play in the pool with the big kids.

You do not debate with a-holes, rocks, coma victims, rain or two year olds. You will only look stupid.

'Nuff said.

If BB wasn't getting respect, neither should it be given.

#58 "What part of, "They have the right to do so" are people not getting? "

Having the right isn't the same thing as being right.

Apologies for the length; complex issues should not be discussed in soundbytes.

Perhaps actions to unpublish entries relating to Blue should have been accompanied by some sort of warning -- to Blue herself. Or perhaps not. Certainly, anything that is bad enough to warrant this removal but cannot be discussed openly in an editorial manner is likely to be of a more personal nature than a professional one, hence the desire for secrecy.

On the other hand, after my divorce, I didn't go backwards and remove all posts by my ex-wife from my own website. I respected her privacy by not airing our business in public, but I allowed the previous record to stand.

I think there are two issues here. First, BoingBoing is considered by many to be a journalistic source, which is probably not the correct mode of thinking (except for, perhaps, BBGadgets). While many journalistic tricks have been employed due to the size of the site and ethics of those involved, BoingBoing remains a site of opinion and editorial. When things like the Wayback Machine exist, BB isn't necessarily responsible for continuing to host content that it actively dislikes. As pointed out, other items have been removed in the past without much controversy.

At the heart of this issue is the mystery of the "why." Again, it seems to me it is likely of a more personal nature, else the removal would have been accompanied by a detailed justification (and perhaps an apology, such as in the Le Guin case). The reasons for removal may be valid and defensible, but without any clues, the issue will likely provoke thought for some time.

Bottom line, the internet doesn't have some weird privilege that means it should get to know why these posts were unpublished. And BoingBoing shouldn't have to defend itself. But BoingBoing often hold themselves to higher standards than merely what they "have" to do. The removal was valid, but reads as petty.

In any case, it's all in the past, too late to do anything differently now. Worth thinking about for the next time around.

And whether or not you, the Happy Mutants, feel it's justified, a quick apology for the manner in which you acted (not for the actions themselves) might go a long way to stopping all the noise.

'Unpublishing'? Puh-lease.

Anyone else see the eerie parallels with BB's after-the-fact editing and the listing about the pro-family group replacing 'gay' with 'homosexual'? If the whole point of that listing was about the dangers of misinformation, what's the point of this one besides 'don't get caught'?

Maybe each BB listing needs to come with a EULA now.

You people are so volatile! We're talking about Boing Boing here! The people that bring us Unicorn Chasers and Web Zen and tell us about candy shaped like lighthouses shaped like penis! The people that document the life of mixed-nationality action hero startups and tell us how to Macgyver a microscope out of a webcam!

The endless fun and joy that BoingBoing has brought me is FAR GREATER than that of any news organization that has ever existed.

@52. Yes. News is pain. But BoingBoing is not news. It is LIFE. BOINGBOING FOREVER.

It is clear to me that none of you are worthy of my blood or my life, but I will stand for you. And together, we will restore honor to the ship, and bring glory to the Empire.

To say "we have a reason, but we wont talk about it" is not something I was expecting from BB; even if it is better than saying nothing at all.

Not being able to speak about some fact, possible for legal reasons, creates the feeling of a corporate entity, and not a personal blog (and that post and discussion here reminds me about flickrs infamous "we can't say anything about it" safefilter disaster) . As do the rules you introduced some weeks ago. Being viewed as a corporate entity and not as bunch of cool people changes what seems resonable behavior -- we all agree that corporate entities should not delete arbitrary posts, start censorship and so on, if they want to be remembered as "do no evil" corporate entities.

So I guess the secret deletion of posts you don't like any more is a bit more than an editorial decision, or at least, a bad one. Even replacing these posts with [insert explanation] would have been better than doing it in the dark of the night.

"They have the right to do so", but they have to life with the consequences, especially a damaged reputation for their freedom of speech agenda.

So what was the point of unpublishing the posts? No really, I'm completely missing it here. Maybe it is that as stated they no longer consider Violet Blue or her work wonderful, but in absence of additional explanation, I find that answer alone hard to accept. In my mind (and perhaps only) it would seem to indicate some sort of disapproval of her actions, thus my comment: I suspect the fallout from this unpublishing (whether or not directly resultant from unWonderfulling) will only serve to further her fame.

Come to think of it, I've written a few books myself.. any way you guys could see your way clear to blacklisting me? I'd kill for that sort of PR.

Still waiting to hear what Violet did that warranted the deletion of all her submissions.

For a blog that values and promotes transparency in media I find it odd that you're being so quiet about this.

@61 a quick scan of the relevant blogs show that there was already a controversy brewing, to such an extent that comments like this:

"the crew over at boingboing are douchebags. If you say something they don't like.. blam, you or your comments are deleted"..and more in the same vein.

http://valleywag.com/5019738/blogger-completely-deleted-from-boingboing-archives

were becoming common.

A cool and measured response was appropriate in this case.

Boing Boingers, this is your front porch, and I am but a happy guest.

I don't know what happened, nor do I care (though it may be fun to watch). My advice:

Don't give an anklebiter the ladder they need to reach your knees.

Boing Boing should offer those who feel betrayed their money back, in full.

Xeni wrote:
"This is a directory of wonderful things. If we no longer think something is wonderful"

Maybe the problem is simply with your tagline! This statement implies that everything posted here is a "wonderful thing", however his doesn't seem to always be the case.. at least by the standard definition of "wonderful".

Are airplane pilots falling asleep during flight a "wonderful thing"? Is watching a monkey yanked around on a chain while ridding a small cycle a wonderful thing? I could go on, but you get the point.

Your argument centers is that:
1) all things boingboing are wonderful
2) Violet Blue is not wonderful
3) therefore, Violet Blue should not be on boingbong.
But upon review of the archives, one will find many not so wonderful, and some downright rotten things.

So maybe the simple solution is to change the tagline to "A directory of wonderful and sometimes rotten things" and republish Violet Blue's post.

Problem solved!

I have no idea what happened.

I think one of the things that drew me (and probably others) to your blog was that I felt like I was part of a club. A place where I could find "Wonderful things" and revel in them alongside you. You have always worked to NOT have this huge wall of Us (the writers) vs. Them (the readers). I felt like I had kindred spirits watching the internet for me while I was at work. Buddies by proxy.

I don't care that you chose as a group to make something not "wonderful" anymore. I just want to know why. The secrecy detracts from that closeness that I cherished.

I'm NOT claiming doom and gloom and I'll never surf here again. We both know better. For me this illustrates that you have grown and you are a business now. you need to pay attention to the eyes on the pages and how your image is maintained. As a grownup I can respect that. The teenage geek in me is not so easily soothed.

I really don't care about the feud but ...

This is a directory of wonderful things.

I'm sorry, it stopped being that quite a long time ago. I'm looking to the left of this text box and I see...

Devo sues McDonald's
Pretend cops bully videographer
Pseudo was a fake company
AT&T making jokes about the wiretapping

But maybe you define "wonderful" differently down there in the US.

And, I'm sorry but I have to say "unpublish" is a just a delete. It's obvious this whole business makes you all uncomfortable and raw but coining a new word is just denial.

Now, it's my nation's birthday. If you're near the border, come on over and have some cake - the red and white icing is at once disturbing and delicious.

Newspapers are also privately owned entities run by an editorial board or even one editor depending on the size of the publication. They can do whatever they want too. They can pull stories, priortize them, fire writers, and print retractions - just like this blog can. But here's the thing - when an event catches the public attention and becomes a bonafide piece of news, which I believe this issue has evolved into, then there's something called journalistic ethics that kicks in.

When you create a blog, what is it for? For BoingBoing, a immensely popular blog, the duties to act in a manner that is consistent with the expectations of the audience and the public interest should be one that BoingBoing acknowledges. Instead of shirking these duties because "we're just a blog", you should own it and act as though you are a responsible organization that gives reasons for the actions you take and act transparently.

If you don't acknowledge at least a duty to act transparently, then you are no better than the right wingers you accuse of engaging in coverups and conspiracies.

The defensive rhetoric I'm seeing here is disappointing. It's like the pro athletes caught doping saying "hey I'm not a role model so don't treat me like one." Well, sorry Boingboing, you are a successful source of news for many and you are full of it if you act surprised about it. Come clean or go home because you will never ever be able to speak credibly when criticizing someone else's lack of 'transparency'.

The bottom line is that not every word one writes is worthy of permanent preservation. I know it, and the fine editors of BoingBoing know it. That standard is, and always should be, maintained by the owners of the work.