It really is.
Hey! What about the gifs!
I thought some of them were pretty good.
The funny thing is he was responding to my use of the āwish listā, not the shopping cart.
His white knighting for a bunch of straw techno illiterates who regularly read BoingBoing and religiously buy everything it mentions is ā¦ as curious as it is relentless.
Why itās almost as if I knew thatā¦
Everybody knows who Rob is affiliated with - our has been clearly disclosed that he works for Boing Boing.
My profile links to one of my websites, that in turns links to linkedin, which discloses my employers.
#But who does Skeptic work for? What itās his (?) interest in all of this? What is the undisclosed agenda driving this train?
What, you mean that both you and @beschizza are getting affiliate traffic from your posts, while @Skeptic is getting nothing? How sinister!
Full disclosure as part of the fUNRULY aFFILIATE pROGRAM: Michael is getting The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse.
Iāve been following this thread as itās an interesting question (IMO) and I donāt think the answer is clear-cut. I donāt really want to address this specific issue (ultimately Iām siding with BB here though Iām not 100% enthusiastic about doing so) but the broader point that I believe Skeptic is drawing from - though we donāt necessarily reach the same conclusions.
BB has a certain tone. Itās likely the main reason most of us got hooked in the first place. It stems from something boingers have referred to frequently in these sorts of arguments (of which there have been many) - itās the zine mentality, combined with personal blogging. Thereās no overarching editorial voice, no article quotas or assignments or necessity to cover certain topics - boingers just post whatever they think is interesting, and skip the press releases and other crap many sites regurgitate as articles.
As a result, the audience views the site radically differently than say the Gizmodo-brand sites, or any other site. Itās very much like tumblr, if anything - a collection of random cool stuff posted by a variety of individuals doing it basically for their own entertainment.
This is where the dissonance comes from, because in truth BB is a money-making business (and by all appearances does quite well). I think this is great, because without the huge staff other sites have, theyāve managed to create something truly compelling and popular for a usually-overlooked audience (mutants), and without giving in to the pressure to bend to any specific audience (even mutants) or to editorialize that much - though anyone will certainly notice the bias (that I fully agree with) for freedom of expression, against totalitarianism and for human rights, for privacy and against Big Datamining and creepy monetization, etc. etc.
This is the BB brand, and the resultant trust that readers have developed over the years comes from that along with our admiration and respect for the individual boingers.
So, what do you honestly expect when BB or individual boingers do things that maybe not directly betray that trust, but which donāt instill confidence, either? Iām not just talking about this issue (and Iām glad Rob decided to do something to address it, after all the haranguing here, though as I said I side with BB in general intent here, dodgy VPN recommendation aside). Another recent example that got argued in the BBS is Coryās click bait/misleading headlines and articles (Iām a fan and have a lot of respect for Cory but these really are a bit absurd sometimes).
This likely results from the precise reasons BB is great in the first place - in particular, lack of editorial oversight. I donāt want that to change, but individual boingers frequently donāt appear to take responsibility for their bigger mistakes (or they do address it but not fully), and that erodes trust.
I understand that the boingers usually take a different view on these issues than the complainants do, and I respect that, and most often agree with BB (though itās not always clear at the start of the argument that I should). However, seemingly-automatic snarky dismissals (unless obviously warranted, which is definitely sometimes true) either from the boingers or the commentariat leave a bad taste. It seems from my perspective that the snark - always part of BB - has not necessarily increased that much in recent years, but it is deployed differently, and mostly towards criticism of BB, with less distinction between reasonable and unreasonable criticism. Markās google doc list of people who are disappointed in BB is an example (not sure if he still refers to that, if so Iāll probably be on it after this post).
You can say to me and others, āWell, go somewhere else, then!ā - thatās really beside the point, and in my case (and a few others I know of), I already have. BB is still important to me and Iām not disappointed in it, I wear my Jackhammer Jill pin and t-shirts with pride, my tastes have just veered differently (TBH, Iāve mostly just withdrawn from the internet tap altogether for personal reasons and get almost everything from tumblr which is a lot more mindless generally). Iām still here in the BBS (occasionally) because the community surrounding BB is still largely to my taste, and IMO thereās absolutely none better anywhere.
Rob has pointed out in the past that us hard-core commentors are a very small part of the overall readership and our opinions do not necessarily matter that much from a business perspective, but as jlw points out in this very thread and has repeated and proved on previous occasions, BB does in fact take criticism and opinion seriously. So I think itās healthy to raise these questions occasionally, especially as in this case when the answer seems obvious to the boingers at first even though itās not that cut and dry.
I think raising an issue by asking a question is good, itās non-confrontative if the question is genuinely inquisitive (and thus does not deserve automatic snark). But, it does also have to include āā¦ and does it matter?ā - which is what the real argument in this particular case boils down to.
Can everyone just go to their corners for, like, half a minute.
@Skeptic, stop clicking on links from BB. It will make you happier. Just buy a tee shirt every once and a while and stay off Amazon, it works for me.
@beschizza, well, you said youād put up a thing about affiliates, so, thanks.
I think this topic now violates FTC Guidelines. For sanity.
Thatās a heartfelt post, Chris.
Surely, Skeptic and BWV812 are tapping into something important here. I base that on my data points of the length of the thread, the number of contributors, and my own seat-of-the-pants metric of [(how many times Iāve read it) > (my number of comments)]. This thread is gnawing at something, though I donāt think itās been clearly articulated what that bone is.
Just as surely, BB hears that too. Iām not aware of another thread where thereāve been over 50 posts by BB staff - with them assiduously following, engaging. And the thread is still open.
It makes for an air of a certain uncertainty in the air.
If Iād hazard a guess in the general direction, I do believe this age of start-ups and flame-outs is important context. Communities form tightly around websites that move them, and all too often those communities get sold for a profit or in a firesale. See instagram. See upcoming. See delicious. See slashdot.
Or, they die away, see memepool, YTMND, or half a dozen sites I used to love and have forgotten. I worry mefi will be next.
I canāt say thatās why anyone else is in this thread, but itās part of why Iām here. And for many, Iād wager itās less about the fine-print of whatever the FTC sez and more about the guiding lights of mutants. For better or worse, this is our watering hole.
#notrueboinger
Your frog, it is fiddlināā¦ This elephant approves.
I think you need a hugā¦ here ya go! Probably not as good as the snogging Bradly Cooper got from Betty White on the SNL special, but Iām sure itāll doā¦
āOh no, thatās next door. Itās being-hit-on-the-head lessons in here.ā
Well, what youāve articulated is pretty much why I was moved to comment, whereas I abstained from previous such arguments. I didnāt come up with all that on the fly just now, itās been stewing for a while.
I read something about Lou Reed years ago, regarding his consistent drug use, to the effect of āheās proven through his attitude, his actions - and his music - that weāre not going to hear about him being found dead of an overdoseā. Well, it caught up with him eventually, but it was true. If we think of affiliate links and whatnot as an equivalent (work with me here), I think BB has proven to us that they wonāt sell out and ruin a good thing as so many others have done (I havenāt looked at slashdot in years - user IDs are in, like, eight-digit territory now I think! was a time I felt like a newb with high-six-digits 
).
But, āa certain uncertainty in the airā is a good way to put it.
