It’s just a pretext to remind the masses that they exist at the pleasure of the publisher. And it worked. I’m terrified of losing the community. But it may backfire in that former regs will now build a new one.
The kvetching threads existed to catch bad actors. Oren and other staff encouraged the community to patrol and flag. That’s what those topics were for.
I always assumed that if I lost one of those fights, it would at least be accompanied by some freak lightning. And maybe one or two light bulbs breaking…
Hilariously, @othermichael is still a regular. LOL
Yes. And I think that I’ve had a relatively benign experience on these forums.
Oh, the irony.
So are you! I dunno, @orenwolf said it was a glitch and they’re working on it.
24 posts were split to a new topic: Swords! SWORDS!
I’d like to hear from @jlw or another person with an eye on the big picture that we can’t see. I’m not asking for numbers. Just affirmation or no. Is the BBS a net financial gain or a financial drain on BoingBoing at large? Can that even be quantified? How about The Lounge? Any way to definitively quantify if any part of this interactive feature that lives alongside the blog is a gain or a drain? Break even?
If the BBS operates at a loss or can be construed as a loss to BoingBoing overall, then…
why are you even doing it?
Despite not having regular status, I don’t think this is a good idea. I get the impression that you and the others involved in the decision probably have a slightly different understanding regarding elitist and egalitarian approaches than I do. It’s a bit like hearing libertarians talking about the virtues of liberty. I will watch BB BBS, and see what happens. My best guess is that BB is big enough to attract enough people for a message board, but the community might get a higher turnover.
Even from without the in-group of regulars, this feels like you are actually harming your own intentions.
Regarding your regrets, I think if you want to see the regular/lounge past as a fault, then it’s not yours. Discourse comes from the StackExchange part of the web - and this is exactly what you get if you use discourse. Badges, merits, etc., pp.
Disclaimer: I read your post and more than 100 reactions. I am too tired at the moment to read the other hundreds, so please don’t be mad if I am not up to date with all of the discussion.
Confirmed: no longer showing as a Regular, at least as far as the label on my handle is confirmed. No big deal, just a data point for @codinghorror .
[ETA: cancel that – just re-earned BBS Regular badge. that was quick. If you see the label working here you’re back in business]
Actually, its all about anger issues in Snow Globe journalism.
AHAHAHAHAHAHA please stop…
To give credit where credit is due, @orenwolf did moderate those two lounges. He really made an effort to extend the public site rules into the lounge areas where he could.
Welp that was fast.
Down to 15 now.
All the badges are under 10 minutes old right now. I think they’re just reassigning them.
I hope they don’t have to do that manually. Ugh.
*cries*
Serious question: why not make all the categories other than #boing private until a certain trust level has been reached? (A combination of tenure, involvement, lack of flags, etc.) This makes the non-#boing places not indexable/accessible from the world while only minimally fracturing the community. This gives some semblance of privacy and keeps the riffraff away.
Because the goal of the BBS isn’t to create private discussion spaces. I’m open to a discussion on blocking posting to non-boing topics for a longer period for new users, however.
