I just put tcg550 as my name and handle, there’s no way I’m using my real name on a platform that may accidentally or intentionally let my info out there.
It appears as they use people’s names in email notifications so be careful what you put in there.
What a year!
I’m really surprised and disappointed on how this transition is being rolled out, with no early notice and downplay of the impacts on the community that formed on the BBS. I’m pretty sure that knowing the community it would be pretty obvious that said platform would cause outrage and a loss of veteran frequent contributors.
I’m not moving to substack, the annual fee is too expensive (global south citizen here) for mostly reading comments (the part on getting rid of ads we already know how to do, don’t we?) not to mention the brown shirted elephant in the room. Won’t get my third world money!
I’ll miss the BBS even though I’ve been mostly lurking here. It felt cozy like the internet of my teen years. Thanks everyone, mods and fellow users, I wish you the best.
I’d almost always scan through the articles on the main site, and read the ones that were interesting to me. The next step was always to go to the comments, as they added significant value to the whole experience. Moving the comments to Substack is a hard ‘no’ for me - I don’t care why they’re allowing Nazi/fascist content on their venue, but I refuse to interact with Substack because of that decision. Allowing Nazis to visit condones their activities; if you condone Nazis, you are one. Doesn’t matter how you view it, history will view you as a Nazi.
The timing and lack of advance notice is very troubling. Clearly Substack must have cut an amazing deal with the BB powers-that-be. However, having the best, shiniest, toys still means you’re playing with Nazis. There are other, much less problematic, options that would have been much more acceptable.
I’ve enjoyed visiting and reading interesting items, but the way all of this has been done leaves a sour taste in my mouth. I guess I could still visit BB to read the posts, even without access to the comments, but given all of the above, I think it’s time to just depart, and do it cold-turkey - time to delete the bookmark in my tab lists.
Thanks to all of you who made it an enjoyable place to visit. I wish it could have continued.
This definitely feels like reading an obituary…
The articles on BB are interesting, but the value for me was always in the discussions that followed, and considering how many of the most-edifying voices have already declined to follow the move, I don’t expect NewBB to have the same atmosphere.
I’d say I’d keep my eye on it in the future, but being unable to even see the new comments without paying in puts a pretty hard damper on that, too. Maybe I’ll grab a free trial after some time, but if there are a lot of people with the same approach (but different timing), it’s going to be everyone playing missed connections peek-a-boo and not actually coming back.
Then again, I’m a pessimist currently off my meds, so maybe I’m wrong about all this. I hope I’m wrong, at least.
Maybe-temporary-but-probably-not farewell to all the friendly and thoughtful mutants I’ve had the chance to write to here. It’s been a nice ride. 
name you can. ( i appear as “gatto” over there. ) handle you cannot ( if you want to specifically @ me, it’s gattaro. annoying but not the end of the world. )
i hoped the screenshots i posted made it clear. sorry if it didn’t.
No, I was mistaken. Thanks for clarifying
Enshitiification. A product catalogue of monetized things.
So long and thanks for all the fish.
I’ve had a really good time hanging out here, expanded my horizons, learned something nearly every day, and I’m going to miss the humor, the pathos, the wit and intelligence of so many posters.
That said, we’re here by the grace of the guys who own the site, and if they can’t do it anymore, that’s more than fair. Had a look at Cory’s site, not really the same vibe.
Anyhow, it’s been a lot of fun, and I hope to someday meet some of you again in some other context.
Well, that’s what I thought too. But today, Ken says this: the BBS isn’t going anywhere in the near-term
So maybe, the BBS will exist for non-blog-post discussions and blog-post discussions will now only live on Substack. Not quite what I understood when I read Ken’s initial comments, either. (My bold below.)
So, is the BBS going nowhere or is it imminently to become read-only? @orenwolf please can you clear up some of the confusion here?
I’ve been liking the posts above expressing / reflecting my feelings about all this. Several have said things I would like to have said.
Yours sums it all up as well as I could, I think. Thanks.
But with so many familiar handles saying they are off, is there anywhere we can all congregate instead?
I will miss many of you, probably much more than you realise.
Happy trails everyone
The BBS is going read only.
It’s staying up.
Our ability to post or comment on it is going away.
Time for me to use one last Futurama gif I guess.
Enlightened owners do things for the common good knowing the common good can benefit them indirectly in the long run, too.
Enlightened owners might have said - “well, we didn’t plan to create this community - our focus is on ‘giving them the content they love’ and this community somehow arrived, but seeing as the BBS just costs us money, rather than shut iot down, why don’t we ‘donate’ the BBS to the community, open up Discourse’s subscription options and leave figure out if it can be kept going, separately from BB?”
Well, I’d like Ken to say that. Because …
… not going anywhere means it is still usable. ‘Reading-only’ is not ‘using’. I would not expect Ken to say something like “it’s not going anywhere” when he means it will in effect be archived and no longer be used/usable.
And now that whole thread is gone…
Umm, no. I found it ok, again. Still there.
On one hand, it’s been clear that boingboing has been in financial difficulties for a while now. However, the one two punch of “lean heavily on anonymous trolley authors” and “blow up everything” is probably a great way of alienating your base.
This is making me legitimately nostalgic for the awful boingboing store.
RIP.
It’s not viewable by everyone. I can’t see it at all.
Took me a while before I could process this other than imaginng authors on a trolley. Rather that invoking something that lives under a bridge and asks about tip tapping.
