More Internet Vandals Go Offline
So I notice that Panties Panties Panties has gone offline, saying goodbye thusly:
Thanks to everyone who wrote in expressing concern. Enough emails were received such that some kind of explanation seems necessary. We simply thought it in our best interest to discontinue the blog. We’re each okay; it was just time to euthanize it. Anyway, thanks for reading, commenting, and sticking with us as the blog evolved. See ya, motherfuckers*, perhaps in some other place, in some other guise.
No, motherfuckers, you won’t see me. You may come back, but it will be a cold day in hell before I link to you again. You’ve demonstrated that it’s a waste of time trying to incorporate you into the warp and woof of the world information culture that is the internet.
I’m going to rant a little bit here, because I’m sick and tired and fed up with people who vandalize the web on their way out. This is not really about Bret and Hiromi, they are just the latest offenders in a long line. Plus, it’s been a bad week for this.
You see, when you build a good blog — and Bret and Hiromi had a very good one — people link to you. And those links are valuable. All links are valuable, and should be as permanent as you can make them. They bring order to the web — hell, they’re what makes it a web — and when you take your site offline for no good reason, you smash every one of those links. Not only are you spitting in the face of everyone who ever complimented your contribution by linking to it, you’re also in effect taking a sledgehammer and a torch to your little corner of mankind’s greatest invention, our unsurpassed cathedral of knowledge, culture, and art.
I expect plenty of hatemail on this subject, prating about “it’s their right” etc. And of course that’s true. Everybody has the right to yank their stuff offline for no good reason. Just like everybody has the right to buy books and then burn them. We don’t respect the latter sort of wanton destruction — indeed, we have a special horror of bookburners — so why respect the former?
I also expect people to chime in with all sorts of alleged “good reasons” why folks need to take stuff offline, especially adult stuff. Feel free, but I’m calling “bollocks” in advance. A couple examples to explain why:
1) “They got found out and are being outed.” If so, that can (rarely) be quite tragic, but honey, that ship done sailed.
“The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.”
If you put it up on the internet, it’s going to stay there, or come back if it seems to have gone. In addition to the currently-active public archives like the Google cache and the Wayback Machine, there are dozens of entities spidering the web and making private archives for various purposes (commercial research, government intelligence gathering, etc.) All the data in those archives is likely to become public — and be put back up on the web — at some point in the future. Meanwhile, there are a zillion quotes and excerpts of your stuff on every blog that ever linked to you, none of which material is going away. You can’t unring the bell, and you look foolish trying. You worried about shame and embarrassment? The whole point to this post is to try and make you more shamed and embarrassed over your dumb-assed internet vandalism than you could ever hope to be over the content of your blog. I’ll probably fail, but I’m doing my best. I know people will propose all sorts of consequences worse than shame or embarrassment that can motivate trying to hide an adult blog after the fact — the one that actually has my sympathy is the risk of consequences in an unexpected custody dispute — but none of that means a thing against the brutal fact that smashing your blog won’t hide its content or save you from whatever consequences you’re seeking to avoid. “Nor all your tears….”
2) “They got bored / lost interest / wanted to move on.” Fine, so stop blogging. No need to smash the excellent thing you’ve created and pee on the remains while insulting everyone who ever complimented it and while damaging the things they have created. Does it hurt so bad to just leave your archives up and your inbound links unbroken? If you can’t afford it, and that’s unlikely in this era of cheap bandwidth, find somebody willing to mirror your site or host your domain for you. If it’s good, there’ll be no shortage of offers. Hell, even if it’s bad, blogs are such great search engine fodder that a discrete text link in the header or footer saying “Maintained on the web by xyz.com” provides enough traffic to make it an attractive proposition. I’d cheerfully maintain any sex blog I ever liked well enough to link to, on those terms, and I’m not alone. There’s never a legitimate financial reason to destroy a good blog.
I suppose that’s enough of a rant for now. Please, I beg you, when your blogging jones is exhausted, don’t vandalize the internet by destroying your creative work and everything that ever acknowledged the value thereof by building on it. It’s selfish, shortsighted, destructive, rude, and self-centered. You are part of something bigger than yourself, please don’t piddle on it when you’re done with it. Thank you.
Update and Reminder: Despite the ranting tone of my post, I will not accept namecalling or incivility in my comments. One comment deleted already.
Shorter URL for sharing: https://www.erosblog.com/?p=983
I completely agree. Especially when it took me forever to figure out HOW to link to someone, only to then discover they were gone. Or moved. Again. Or whatthefuckever. Just sit still and write already.
So, link to me..:) I’m not going anywhere.
Oh I am so shameless. :D
Ouch.
*feels the slap all the way over here in England*
*makes mental note never to remove her archives, in order to avoid Bacchus’ painful wrath*
*although his painful wrath may turn out to be enjoyable; if he only leaves minor red marks, it may be worth winding him up a little…*
;)
*realises she is even more inept than she first thought, because she can’t even include her own link without getting it wrong*
*sighs*
[Fixed it for ya — Bacchus]
Heh, I like the way you think. But it’s not wrath, exactly — my goal here is to spread the idea that it’s just not OK or cool to do this.
Kind of ironic that you would violate your entire premise when it suits you to delete stuff that you don’t like.
Let me try again without hurting anybody’s feelings: It is easy to think of many reasons why B&H have taken their site down beyond the two rather trivial ones you’ve listed. And it’s easy to demonstrate, with a little imagination, why those reasons would be more important than your rather mundane task of link maintenance or your artificial (and as we have seen, somewhat selective) philosophy about the “permanance” of the internet.
The w3.org reference is a red herring; it describes why *links* should be permanent. Why you shouldn’t move data around and still expect it to be found. It’s a usability mandate, not a demand for permanent open records. It clearly doesn’t call for the permanent arhival of all data, no matter how personal.
Finally, back to B&H…I don’t know what’s going on with them, but you might want to consider the possibility that if it was important enough for them to want to take down such a popular site, a site they’ve spent so many hundreds of hours putting work into, then maybe it’s important enough that you show a little respect and let them go do what they feel they have to do without you calling them names and adding insult to injury.
Since you’re so, you know, against name-calling and all.
While I’m as much a Usability/W3 fantatic as anyone, I can think of one reason to take down a site rather than simply stop updating it – bandwidth costs.
The links that people put up, such as the ones you do on your site, can drive traffic to their site, upping their bandwidth costs. In a site you’re currently working on, that can be fine, and even exactly what you want, but for a site that you can’t (for whatever reason) deal with anymore, it can end up just being a drain on your pocketbook.
Okay, I personally would have rejiggered my site such that it was all nice low-bandwidth text, but under other circumstances, it might be necessary to take the entire site down.
And, of course, there’s all the other possibilities that we don’t know about. It sucks, but it’s life.
Okay…just a point for us who are old enough to remember WHAT the Internet was and WHAT it was invented for. The U.S. military during the Clinton administration understood that the only way to preserve information indefinitely was to disseminate it. That means two things: 1) despite what W implied, Gore DID have something to do with the creation of the Internet, and 2) freedom of speech and exchange of information is recognized as the only way to decentralize knowledge and prevent disasters with it.
Now I’m sure that there are some content and domain people who will disagree with me here, but the recent push to make the information on the net centralized, controlled and exclusive goes against everything the net was made for in the first place.
What that has to do with Bacchus’s point? Well, unless people work together to freely exchange ideas and keep the cycle of information going it WILL be lost. Not just as a vandalized link, but as a whole to our knowledge base. Someone might just feel that is small potatoes for one blog site to be lost. Then again, it was believed the Tazmanian Tiger was fairly unimportant and look where it is today as a species.
I guess what I’m saying is that I agree. And it’s up to the users of the net to prevent our extinxtion at the hands of lawyers.
Bacchus,
Thank you for reminding me that my pretty dumb things are more important than I am.
And I know I’m often a snarky, tasty bitch, but I mean it. I forget from time to time when blogging feels bigger than I am that it is indeed bigger than I, and that’s a reason to keep it up, rather than to stop it.
kissykiss,
cg
Much much better, Ray.
First, there’s no irony in my maintaining my longstanding policy of demanding civility in my comments; I have *always* deleted the sort of namecalling and profanity you opened with. You want to take that tone, you’re free to do it on your own blog. Since my comments aren’t individually linkable, I didn’t break any incoming links when I deleted yours.
I presented my two reasons as “examples” — of course there are dozens of additional possible reasons. At the risk of ranting for a year, I could dismiss all of them with equal facility. My argument is that there is *no* legitimate reason to do this.
You mention respect, and oddly enough, respect is at the core of my point. I think people should respect what they have created, and the bigger ediface of which they are a part, by not vandalizing their own creations or the other parts of that ediface that rely on it. I cannot, as you propose, “show a little respect” for such vandals, because I do NOT respect the pointless vandalism no matter how much I may have respected the work itself or the authors thereof.
Korvar, I believe I addressed the bandwidth point in my post. It’s been a long time indeed since I’ve seen a site of quality go dark for lack of bandwidth money — finding a willing host or mirror isn’t that hard these days. If you try.
Having read p3 for some time, I can’t imagine that Brett and Hiromi took their blog offline for ‘no good reason’. I do think that it’s a shame that they’ve taken it completely offline – but I’m willing to abide by that decision. I suspect and hope that the content remains with them, and hasn’t been deleted.
One thing you haven’t touched on in your commentary is fear of personal safety, and/or use of materials by others for purposes unexpected and unintended.
Hey Bacchus,
I’m a bit less impatient about people who pull the plug, especially those who panic and do so. Still, I agree it’s better to leave as much up as you can, for the reasons you articulate. (Pulling your stuff is especially frustrating for those of us who try to be good neighbors by excerpting and linking rather than quoting whole posts.)
If you have time I think it’s better to prune the parts that worry you rather than delete it wholesale. (Admittedly hard to remember when someone’s about to serve you papers.) Another alternative is to pull it while irate husbands or wives are on the prowl but to put it back up after things blow over. (DTG of PussyTalk seems to be thinking along those lines.)
Final exception: If you’re paying for your own URL and bandwidth I guess you gotta do what you gotta do.
Otherwise, man you’ve laid out some wonderful reasons for leaving your stuff up when you just lose interest.
Thanks, Bacchus,
figleaf
Xeger, I said “for no good reason” because it’s my argument that there is no such thing as a good reason.
None of us have any choice but to “abide by” the decision; what I’m doing is being critical of the decision. Not so much on Brett and Hiromi’s part — they were just the trigger for this rant — but on the parts of all the people who make such decisions.
Xexer, the reasons you list might be reasons not to put sensitive materials on the internet in the first place, but taking them back down again for those reasons is closing the barn door after the horse is stolen. If an action does no good, it’s pointless no matter what threat precipitated it.
What I’m hearing you say is that you feel that, as a reader of someone else’s site and as someone who has chosen to link to it, that you should have complete control over their published content.
It sounds like you want the same deal record companies have with artists where the company owns the creation and the artist no longer has a say, except you get those rights simply by linking to the creation instead of actually paying the artist.
What you’re suggesting sounds as creepy to me as finding out than an ex-lover had commisioned a real doll to look just like me and dressed it in the clothes I used to wear. That as someone who used to lay with me they feel they have the right to dictate that they’ll always lay with a copy of me.
And they may have that right, but I’d be more than a little squicked by the whole thing.
Ken, if you’re hearing me say I think I should have control over anybody’s published content, you need to get your ears checked for big hairy earwax plugs.
I quote myself: “Everybody has the right to yank their stuff offline for no good reason. Just like everybody has the right to buy books and then burn them. We don’t respect the latter sort of wanton destruction — indeed, we have a special horror of bookburners — so why respect the former?”
I’m not trying to assert control over this behavior. I’m trying to spread the meme that it’s selfish and destructive and — this is the key part — pointless. I want folks to think twice before doing this because other folks will think more poorly of them for it. I’m attempting social censure, not control. Huge difference.
Same goes for your point, Julie. I’m not trying to dictate what you do, though I’ll miss your blog. I’m trying to spread the idea that what you did is pointless and destructive OF THE EFFORTS OF OTHER PEOPLE. You had every right to do it, but you damaged something larger than yourself when you did it.
Everybody, I used the word “vandalism” for a reason. Vandalism is the senseless destruction of something, which the vandal usually does because it makes him *feel* good. And note well, that’s what Julie’s saying here. She destroyed her own work, plus the entire fragment of the internet that consisted of links to her work, because of her “feelings and desires and needs.” No, Julie, I can’t respect those feelings, when you promote them at the expense of the destruction of other people’s efforts. I might feel differently if I saw you getting any objective benefit from the destruction, but I don’t.
Has anyone else noticed several sex blogs seem to be closing down lately? I know blogs go down but it seems there’s been a cluster lately.
Wow, as a person who has recently done exactly the thing you are railing against, I have to say–I kind of feel like this is similar to a pro-life argument. You feel you have more say over my “body” than I do. Your concerns trump mine? I should allow you to dictate what I do with my “body”–my creation, my work, my identity–because your arguments are more persuasive than my feelings and desires and needs?
I thought you were pro-desire. Why can’t you respect mine?
I don’t know how repate this is Bacchus,but i want to thank you and Aphrodite for keeping up the archives. :)
Sorry Bacchus, while I sympathize with your exasperation in regards to people removing their work from the internet and making things inconvenient to you, I think the vitriol is being layed on a bit thick. When you link to a site, you link to it for better or worse, knowing that you do not control the content on the other end, and realizing that the link is no sort of contract. If I have a private collection of my own art that I allow the public to view at my own expense, I should be free to close my doors without fear of hateful censure simply because you liked coming to my house and told other people to come here. Yes, I understand that the web has a different format than people coming to a house, but that format lends to the transitory nature of pursuits like blogs. I would also like to point out that you don’t know that Brett and Hiromi haven’t kept a copy of their work, so the book burning analogy isn’t quite appropriate.
In general, wouldn’t you think that offering to mirror content would be a better choice than ranting? (adopt the baby instead of protesting abortion, as Julie might say).
Hi Bacchus. I understand your exasperation and your desire to spread the “vandalism” meme. I think that the problem is that in this huge blogosphere there is no training, only a learning curve. I’ve experienced the curve myself. In 2003 I wrote a good blog called Strip Club Memories that earned a lot of links, including one here on Eros Blog. After a year, I pulled the plug and completely deleted the blog. Vandalism, only I didn’t know that. I wasn’t thinking about breaking links. I just didn’t want to clutter up the web with an untended blog. I committed worse than vandalism – someone picked up the URL with a blog I wouldn’t want to link to, but some of you still were. I reconstituted the blog as “DanceFan: on Strippers and Life” and wrote it for another year. I had to earn back links, and didn’t get everyone back. Last month I retired DanceFan to start a new blog. I learned. I’m leaving DanceFan up, and will tend it some, while I focus on the new blog. So, spread the meme – and have a little empathy on the learning curve. What does it cost you? A little time cleaning up your links? Which I need to do now on my site with PantiesPantiesPanties. And I wish them well. :blush:
Vixen, I’ve noticed; that’s why I said it had been a bad week for this.
Kali, I wrote “I’d cheerfully maintain any sex blog I ever liked well enough to link to, on those terms, and I’m not alone.” In case that wasn’t clear enough for you, that’s a standing offer to anyone who needs a sex blog mirrored.
I further feel you’re missing the point if you think this is about inconvenience to me. It’s not. I’m not significantly inconvenienced by this; rather, we are all impoverished by it. I still don’t understand why my expression of outrage and sorrow when this happens is construed as some sort of lust for control.
Finally, I’m saddened that you confuse my passion for hatefulness and vitriol.
shorter Bacchus:
my site ratings will go down without their links to me – waaah – it’s all about me!
<i>No, motherfuckers, you won’t see me. You may come back, but it will be a cold day in hell before I link to you again. You’ve demonstrated that it’s a waste of time trying to incorporate you into the warp and woof of the world information culture that is the internet.</i.
<i>I’m going to rant a little bit here, because I’m sick and tired and fed up with people who vandalize the web on their way out. This is not really about Bret and Hiromi, they are just the latest offenders in a long line. Plus, it’s been a bad week for this.</i>
<i> I’m saddened that you confuse my passion for hatefulness and vitriol.</i>
Eh? No confusion here.
I lost a lot of respect for this blog tonight.
Bob, that is not his point at all. I really think you should read what he posts. I don;t think you should read INTO what he posts… that just causes problems.
I don’t think it takes too much reading between the lines. Besides, his whole post leaps to *extraordinary* conclusions about their motivations. For all he knows, one of them lost their job over the site, it got discovered by horrified parents, whatever. Yet there’s not *a lick* of empathy in Bacchus’s post. It’s all about how it impacts his site. That’s why I call BS.
Bacchus, we all have the right to publish. We also have the right to silence. You don’t have to like it, but for your own sake grow up and get on with your own endeavors.
Bob said
>For all he knows, one of them lost their job over the site, it got discovered by horrified parents, whatever.
I believe Bacchus already addressed this. Since you obviously didn’t pay attention to everything he said or to Annie, perhaps this is an exercise in futility, but…
Basically, if such a thing happened, taking down the blog doesn’t help them at all. The blog already exists, was discovered, and the damage was done. What purpose does removing the blog serve now, if the blog existed at the critical time when the boss/parent was looking at it?
However, I suppose it is possible that a boss/parent/SO requested that they take the blog down entirely, and the owners considered the concerns of that particular party to be more weighty than those of all the random people online linking to them.
I don’t think Bacchus is right in saying there is never a good reason for such an action. I think it can only be justified in extraordinary circumstances, though, and I think his rant is well justified as well.
Thanks, Bacchus, for bringing this to people’s attention.
I share Bacchus’ sentiments. When searching for information on the web, it’s ridiculously frustrating to chase a link, only to find that it no longer exists, or even worse, exists if you pay for it.
I know people are free to do what they want with their work, but it’s kind of a vision of utopia, where people produce work and it’s freely available. Free…
Michael, I opened with “Everybody has the right to yank their stuff offline….” I’m at a loss why people keep saying “we have the right” as if it’s an argument against my point. Of course you have the right. And I have the right to call it vandalism.
Bob, on the other hand, is just making stuff up. This has nothing to do with “site ratings”, whatever they might be.
He’s right about one thing, though; I’m all out of empathy for vandals. Lost a job, discovered by parents, how does taking down a site help with those after the fact? Barn door, stolen horse.
I hadn’t read P3 in awhile, and upon reading this, immediately went to check out their goodbye message. I went to my bookmarked pantiespantiespanties.blogspot.com address, and was immediately redirected to a porn site. :O I don’t entirely agree with Bacchus’s opinion, but keeping a working archive up and running is the far better option than allowing your blog’s old address to turn into a tacky porn advertisement.
What a shame. :(
Hmmmm, in fairness to Brett and Hiromi, they abandoned that blogspot URL quite some time ago in favor of brettandhiromi.com, and if I recall, they were having some serious trouble with Blogger at the time. So that outcome on the blogspot domain may not have been within their control, I dunno.
Thanks for the clarification! I was wondering if they might have moved to a different address before shutting down.
Still kind of sad that their old address got taken over by a porn company, and should serve as another warning as to what might happen when you delete a blog.
Wow. I can add another reason to why I would never have a blog. I don’t think I could handle the criticisms of other bloggers—such a people pleaser, heheh!
You bring an interesting perspective to the issue I admit. However, as with any generalizations you’ve glossed over several issues that are legitmate reasons for bringing your site down. Both of which I have experienced in the last month.
? Involuntary. I was hacked against my will, my site was down for two days. Two days of hard work trying to wrest it back from the hackers. I did manage to get it back. Others have not been so lucky. Right now I know of three bloggers involved in the same battle, so from your lofty perch this may seem like an unfair thing for them to do, but they’ve had no choice in the matter.
? Criminals. Then two weeks later a criminal attacked my blog, stole the identity of a friend of mine and posted his photo, web address and professional information across the blogging world without his permission. Again, we brought the attack to the criminal and brought the blog down for two days. at that time we had no idea how widespread the problem might have been. And while we were not concerned about ourselves, innocent people were involved and threatened. In my mind that is a different story.
But, perhaps I am the only one that feels this way? I will say that ALL of our friends and fellow bloggers were suportive and helpful during both of these attacks on our blog. NO ONE complained about it. Not a single one.
I was sorry to read about their voluntary demise.
I agree with you about keeping one’s site up. Now what I post isn’t at all personal to me, but I wouldn’t push the trigger and wipe out the 1000+ posts me and my contributors have put up.
So, I hereby pledge that should my circumstances change, I’ll keep the Carnival online.
That is, barring any hacker attempts on Blogger.com. But you and I agree to disagree on that issue.
Two red herrings, ArtfulDodger. Both scenarios you describe sound involuntary and temporary. I’m talking about people who deliberately choose to destroy their archives, especially when they announce that it’s permanent. No match with your scenarios at all.
Perhaps. I suppose my greater point here is that nothing in life is permanent. New bloggers pop up all the time and old bloggers decide to stop blogging. How they stop seems to me to be as personal as how they started in the first place. I’m not sure why that decision has anything to do with the rest of us? The minor inconvience of dead links in our sidebars? That seems kind of petty doesn’t it? I’m constantly updating my links, why is this any different?
Nothing is permanent, so it doesn’t matter if we smash stuff on a whim? That’s pretty nihilistic.
I’ve explained several times now why I think the decision affects the greater world, I don’t propose to say it a fourth or fifth time.
When a blogger tears strips off herself and posts them on the internet for public perusal, a certain comfort level is necessary. Once that’s gone, one does what one must. I had to go underground temporarily.
I emphasise, temporarily.
I understand your frustration. When links to others are a blog’s stock in trade, you rely on others to be there. When they vanish, it’s an understandable piss-off. But copyright law is on the side of the creators of content, as you well know, of course, and if you’re trying to rewrite netiquette, well, hundreds of sites, and the links to them, disappear every day and no one gets their knickers in a knot over it. This is the internet, as it was, is, and ever will be.
Might as well bid the waves retreat, Canute darling.
DTGxxoo
I’d argue for the image of Don Quixote over that of King Canute, but at least you understand that I’m trying to change attitudes rather than control behavior.
People *should* get their knickers in a knot when this happens. That’s what I’m saying. Telling me they don’t is no refutation of my argument.
Fortunately, I’m not as resigned as you are to the dubious propositions that the internet never changes and that netiquette is immutable. Change — especially in something so fickle as blogging custom — is possible.
A big part of the problem here is the fact that some bloggers (like at least one who has posted in this comment thread) never imagined there might be a good reason to leave their archives in place. At a minimum, my ranting may reach and persuade some of those people.
Not arguing with you B, just stating an alternate opinion. If I publish a book of material I’ve written, and I want to burn that book, that is my right. Of course it isn’t my right to burn others books. Duh. My blog is open to everyone to read, to comment on, to love or to hate, that’s freedom. However, it is still my blog. I own the material on it both morally and legally. If I decide to destory that material that is my right to do so in any manner I wish. Of course that won’t stop some people from keeping their own copies of my “book”, or from others being upset that it is gone. But they have no right to dictate to me how I choose to terminate my efforts. The decision to link to my blog is theirs, I’m not paying for those links or asking for them, they are doing it of their own free will, or not of their own free will, that’s their choice. As it is mine if I choose to blog, or not to blog, for whatever reasons, good, stupid, silly, or none of anyone’s business.
With your continued focus on your rights, which I’ve never disputed, you’re arguing against a straw man argument, not mine.
“In the end its not easy, banging your head against some mad bugger’s wall.”
This just in – Convinced of his correctness Bacchus assumes responsibility for the entirety of the blogging universe. Henceforth bloggers must “check in” to assertain the reasons for their decisions to stop blogging against a moral checklist only he is privy to. “I”m big, so I make the rules.” is apparently the attitude he uses to justify this most recent announcement.
In other news, Artfuldodger throws in the towel and refuses to comment further. Citing “personal reasons” the Dodger admits that those have not been cleared through Bacchus as of yet, “My case is pending.”
He could not be reached for further comments as he was busy ignoring the entire issue.
I think Bacchus is right, and people, he’s trying to get us to *think* before we do something to our blogs, not telling us we *have* *to* do anything! Just think…..that’s all. Is that too much to ask?
And I quote:
“If so, that can (rarely) be quite tragic, but honey, that ship done sailed.”
“The whole point to this post is to try and make you more shamed and embarrassed over your dumb-assed internet vandalism than you could ever hope to be over the content of your blog.”
“No need to smash the excellent thing you’ve created and pee on the remains while insulting everyone who ever complimented it and while damaging the things they have created. Does it hurt so bad to just leave your archives up and your inbound links unbroken?”
“It’s selfish, shortsighted, destructive, rude, and self-centered.”
I’m sorry, I’m still looking for something that was said that was “right”, let me see…
Oh, here is one:
“Everybody has the right to yank their stuff offline for no good reason.”
That just about sums it up. I think everyone does think before they do something to their blogs, it isn’t up to me to determine if they think the way I want them to.
Free will is so cool that way.
Artful, I thought you had refused to comment further?
Your comment-before-last reads like some sort of fever dream — whatever you are talking about is not what I was saying. I don’t know how to engage your points when you aren’t engaging mine.
Ok, I was using big words and witty sarcasm.
Why do you get to be the arbitor of “good reasons” for shutting down a blog? This is easy for you to say, since I don’t remember reading any personal information about you on your site. Isn’t there a fundamental difference between a blog such as yours and a personal blog?
That’s the only points I was trying to make. Surely that is clear.
Artfuldodger, I don’t see why you think Bacchus has made himself the boss of all blogs. He didn’t, he’s just trying to make some very good points. And don’t you remember his series of posts on how the Nymph and Bacchus met and got together? Pretty personal if you ask me.
It wasn’t the vocabulary or the humor that lost me, it was your putting arguments in my mouth that I never made. And you’re still doing it.
An “arbiter” — I assume that’s the “big word” you were trying to use — is someone who has the power to decide or control. I never claimed that power. I’ve simply said, over and over again, that I don’t think any of the reasons usually offered for self-vandalising blogs are good enough to outweight the global harm caused by that decision. No, I don’t think it matters what sort of blog it is.
This is an OPINION of mine. I’m not trying to force it on any one. I’m not claiming the right to control any one. I’m not denying their right to ignore my opinion and do what they will. Rather, I’m expressing my opinion, forcefully and repeatedly, in the hopes that other people will come around to my view, will agree with me, and will refrain from self-vandalizing their own works.
Surely that is clear.
That is very clear, crystal clear. I also never claimed that anyone WOULD listen to you. You made the statements and in this forum asked for comments. These are comments.
I happen to disagree totally with everything that you said, except for that one part, which I highlighted above, “Everybody has the right to yank their stuff offline for no good reason.” That was good stuff.
If you want me or other to stop commenting than turn the comments off, that is your right to do so.
Otherwise, I am going to continue to disagree with your statements. That’s all. It seems now to have been a fools errand on my part. And while I have occasionally enjoyed reading your site from time to time, this has been the first time I’ve commented. Perhaps that was my mistake, but I do feel pretty strongly about the point I was trying to make. And it is a very simple point, to which you are free to have your own opinion. Let me also state that I am not trying to convince anyone of my opinion, it is simply mine.
The decision to write a personal adult blog is a personal decision, individually made and executed. The converse is also true, the decision NOT to write a personal adult blog is a personal decision, individually made and executed. Period.
Certainly that is not difficult to understand.
That is my only point.
Sure, I miss those that decide to stop blogging, or whose sites have disappeared. And it is a pain to have to constantly update links and posts, but that does not give me the right to demand that they adhere to some “global cause” of blogging. Again, back to the individual, personal decisions.
Perhaps it is just me, but I believe the above are universal truths, not just in blogging, but in life in general. Maybe that makes me crazy. If so, count me among the insane.
Gah!!! Some people get so bent on arguing with someone they can’t see that they’re actually *agreeing* on the basics. And then confuse opinions with telling people what to do. *That* is insane if you ask me.
Wow. I don’t even know what to say.
Y’know, pardon me. I think I have enough to do over here in my corner of the word.
Bye.
Does this mean I’m not getting linked??
Dammit.
:P
I think I’ve composed about a dozen responses to this but I kept finding them going on too damned long.
The bottom line is, Bacchus has a point, but so do those who choose to take down sites. Bacchus’ point is no better or worse or more important than the reasons site owners may have for taking them down. Bacchus has an opinion, and we know what they say about opinions.
As a webmaster, I stand with Bacchus’ point. As a site-owner, I also understand the many personal reasons we may have to say “I take this down”; reasons which are as varied and personal as the sites. Are the reasons valid? not to Bacchus, but yes to the site owners.
The *only* thing I take issue with here is that Bacchus came in with his jack-boots on and stomped around and frightened the children. That wasn’t entirely necessary, but it’s a case of his having worked up a head of steam over the issue, and then uncorking that in the direction of one particular site who felt the brunt of all that. I think that was more that a bit ham-fisted, but you know, that’s the man, that’s his way. I would have handled it differently. but this ain’t my damned blog, it’s his.
And that’s the point. This is his space. Moronosphere.com is my space. B&H.com was B&H’s space. And no matter what anyone out there on the net may think of us, we get to do what we want.
Karl, I don’t think I disagree with anything you just said, except for your saying I don’t see reasons for taking down sites as “valid.” I’ve said they weren’t good reasons, but perhaps “strong” would be a better word than “good”.
There are lots of valid reasons for taking down sites. However, I don’t think any of those reasons have much weight. They are *weak*, not invalid. By which I mean, I don’t think taking down sites accomplishes any of the goals people cite for doing so — at least, not in any strong or useful way.
Weighed against that are what I see as *strong* negative externalities to the decision. I’m saying to site-owners “you’re not doing yourself much if any good, and you’re doing a lot of damage to others.”
People obviously differ with me on both sides of the equation; they think they *are* accomplishing various goals when they kill a blog, and they think the negative externalities are trivial or foolish. So much so that they mock me in various ways for caring about those externalities. Ah, well, that’s life, but it’s a philosophical position I’m not going to retreat from.
Weak, strong, valid, good.
Words. We’re down to semantics. I say we drink.
Hey, semantics *matter*. But still:
Salut!
(You’re right, it’s surely time to start drinking.)
Bacchus: The problem your very fine “rant” has run into is that this isn’t normally a ranting site. It’s a fun and frolic site. Ergo, people have certain expectations. You’re perfectly free to rant, but people do tend to get their panties bunched up when their expectations aren’t met.
Everybody: What is it about a contrary opinion that so excises us? We feel we must persuade or coerce others into being like-minded. Are our own opinions so fragile that if others disagree, violence and poor spelling must erupt?
Bacchus has an opinion. He posted it. It’s fine to disagree. I’m sure he welcomes (or at least welcomed) diverse viewpoints. But why the heated exchanges?
Now, I think Bacchus is wrong. As he said, there are places like The Wayback Machine that keep archives of websites. If the content is so important to someone besides the author, go retrieve it. Save it on your hard drive, preserve it for posteriety, fill a swimming pool with it and bathe naked in it, reveling in the Internet-y goodness. But an author’s rights are sacred. What I write, I control. If I choose to destroy my creation (the horror), I can. Bacchus doesn’t have to like it, but I can do it.
And comparing it to book burning is harsh, but a tish apt. Destruction is destruction, whether you’re lighting a match or pressing a button. However, Bachus, thousands of books go out of print every year. Not all knowledge is preserved and frankly, there are a few bits of literature I think the world could do without. But nonetheless, surely there is a copy out there somewhere. Nothing is lost when a book goes out of print, and nothing has been lost when a blog/website goes kaput. It’s all here somewhere.
So, let’s remember that opinions are just that…opinions. If you disagree, there’s no need to attempt to gain group concurrence. State your opinion and then, agree to disagree.
Ok, this has to be said.
The assumption here seems to be that B&H’s sudden departure was voluntary. Maybe it wasn’t. We know that the FBI has been staffing up a porn squad, we also know there are new regulations for adult content sites regarding the retainment of records relating to model’s ages (ie: “guest panties”), etc. To think that the blogsphere is immune to any of this would be foolish.
There’s also the possibility there’s a civil action against them relating to thier blog for some reason.
I’ve read B&H’s blog for a while, so I know that they’re in Texas (a bad place for kinky folks), and that they frequently discussed things that tend to rile people up a bit more than the average talk of threesomes, blowjobs, etc do.
Now, before people spew about how it’s “closing the barn door after the stock is out”, consider that the words “defendants took immediate measures to correct the situation upon being informed…” can in fact have an impact should a proceeding reach a sentancing/damages hearing. A settlement/plea agreement could also have forced an immediate retreat.
Also consider, that thier blog was a hobby. How many people would really be willing to risk financial and/or social ruin over a hobby?
I don’t know B&H, never even talked to them via comments or email, so I don’t know what happened. But I still find it odd that they just up’d and left, with no warning, and especially with no explanation. That just sounds like lawyer advice to me. (The whole “no comment” and limit the damages routine). That, plus the other blogs going down recently … makes me wonder.
My $0.02 anyways.
“he’s trying to get us to *think* before we do something to our blogs”.
We must have read two different posts. It sounds to me like he’s telling us how we should think and telling us that should we dare to think differently or dare to come to a different conclusion that we are “vandals” and he doesn’t need to respect our decisions.
Are you saying that Bret and Hiromi didn’t think? Because somehow I hard a hard time believing that. It seems more likely to me that they did think and that they made a decision Bacchus didn’t like.
We’ve agreed they have the right to do what they did. And I doubt anyone here truly believes they did it without thinking. So what is left except someone refusing to respect the rights we agree Bret and Hiromi have?
Imagine someone has a sick dog that you really like and they feel the right thing to do is put the dog to sleep, You may disagree with their decision, but it’s their dog and their responsibility, not yours. Is yelling at them and calling them murderers (or in this case vandals), the right response to their having made a very difficult choice? Is this how we treat our friends, people we feel we were close enough to that we think we were part of something that was bigger than the people responsible for it?
p.s. Bacchues, I do agree that it’s generally wrong to remove content from the web, but I disagree about you lacing into B&H so hard when the facts just arn’t known.
Steve, you think they’d have posted that they were OK if they were facing the sort of nightmare legal scenario you posit?
Ken, you’re falling into the trap of posting about “rights” again. What I don’t respect is the *decision* to excercise undisputed rights.
I’m not “telling” anyone how to think. I’m trying to persuade. And I haven’t yelled at anyone except for six all-cap words directed at Julie.
Meanwhile, you’re still ignoring the fact that the decision to kill a blog affects other people, in a powerful way (my opinion, obviously not universally shared) that your dog analogy does not.
I also just want to comment more broadly about how I’m amused that nobody here seems to remember that fine old Usenet literary genre, the “rant”, or to realize that I was and am indulging myself by ranting. A good rant is supposed to be entertaining, and it includes hyperbole, strong language, and deliberate overstatement. It’s not supposed to be taken too seriously. Everyone here (even Karl, who’s been around the computer block far more than I, and should know better) is taking me way too seriously, especially when bandying words like jackboots, wrath, hatefulness, vitriol, etc.
From my side of the keyboard, I’m ranting, being passionate, being provocative. I expected broad disagreement, but I’ll confess I didn’t expect so much humorlessness.
I have to agree with Steve; I think that though Bacchus has a point, he is getting pretty mean about it.
I can go with trying to bring folk’s attention to why yanking web material affects other people and that the greater community should be considered. I’m not at all a fan of the idea that “there is no good reason to yank stuff.” That sort of judgement call without information on why someone would make a personal choice leaves me uneasy and smacks of disrespect. I honestly don’t think B&H took down their blog without some thought going into it.
I also don’t think the “barn door” analogy is working. A person can have a problem because of their blog being traced to them and decide to try to prevent future problems. The barn door presumes one horse, most people have more to loose. Example: Say someone I know finds out about my blog and outs me–social embarassment. Now say that person outs me to someone I work with. Maybe I decide to take down my blog before my boss hears about it. Or maybe my boss hears about it and warns me, but tells me that if the boss’s boss gets wind of it, Bad Things.
I mourn the loss of a great blog like B&H, and I hope that bloggers of their caliber seriously consider doing what they can to have their material be available even if they can no longer update. I like the idea of spreading the idea of maintaining archives as a courtesy to readers and a responsible maintainence of the net as a whole. I don’t like the idea of ranting about how people are selfish vandals if they don’t.
I really do appreciate the calm and contemplative tone of the recent comments.
ArmyWife, your suggestion about agreeing to disagree is a great preserver of civility, but it falls short a bit when it comes to trying to make the world a better place. Changing minds can be an important endeavor, which is why it’s sometimes worth arguing with people.
I’d like to point out that you’re missing my point a wee bit when you talk about “nothing being lost” when a website goes kaput. One of the huge differences between the internet and a library is that books are just books. The internet is a web of connections between information (links) which, considered together, provide value that’s *much* greater than the value of the discrete bits of information on individual websites.
It’s at the heart of my argument that when someone deletes a collection of information (say, a blog) that’s widely linked, something important *is* lost, even if they post the whole archive the next day on a different domain. What’s lost is the value of the links — the collective judgement of hundreds or thousands of people about the relative importance of various bits of the collection, along with all kinds of subtle information (from link contexts and the like) about what’s *in* the collection.
I’m not a utopian, I know that untold volumes of material vanish from the internet every day. However, in the blogging world, I see what looks to me like a broad-based casual disregard for that loss. (This thread provides additional evidence of that casual disregard; several commenters have treated this problem as just a minor issue of link maintenance.) I see people deleting their sites for what look (to me) like trivial reasons, or I see them deleting their sites in moments of crisis (for reasons entirely *not* trivial) when deleting their sites will do absolutely no good toward resolving their crisis. Given the nature of various caching and archive schemes, I’m arguing that deleting a blog pretty much *never* does any good, no matter how important the goal someone *hopes* will be accomplished by deleting it.
And, repeating myself, the loss from the deletion is much larger and more important than the material actually deleted. That’s why this matters to me.
“Are you saying that Bret and Hiromi didn’t think? Because somehow I hard a hard time believing that.”
No I’m not saying that. I don’t know them personally but I don’t think they did such a thing without thinking. I’m saying that Bacchus is using their action to try to get other people that might be thinking of torching their blogs to think about it first.
“We’ve agreed they have the right to do what they did. And I doubt anyone here truly believes they did it without thinking. So what is left except someone refusing to respect the rights we agree Bret and Hiromi have?”
Arguing because our opinions are different, I guess. Because that looks to me like what’s going on. Bacchus said in the post and in comments that it isn’t really about Bret and Hiromi personally. But I’m tired of arguing about it, so, Karl, Bacchus – sk嬡
I turn my attention away for a time and you have the most interesting debate in ages.
When I became seriously interested in BDSM I found myself frequently visiting sites that hadn’t been updated in a few years. Including weblogs.
The images, opinions and information were just as useful as if they’d been written today.
I’m surprised that so many people keep sites up after it looks like they’ve long lost interest. And very grateful.
Two things I’ve learned today:
1) When Brett and Hiromi decide to pull down the Panties, those panties will stay down.
2) When Bacchus decides to spank you, you will stay spanked.
I salute you all.
Love, Philip
Wow, I’ve honestly never heard this point argued. I’m sorry to say that I took my blog (which was reasonably big) offline a year ago and deleted the entire archives.
After reading this, I have spent the past 3 hours restoring the entire archives. You’re totally right — I had never even thought of it that way.
Oh and thanks, after restoring the archives, I think I might start posting again as well :)
1) How is a broken link different than a bibliographical reference to an out-of-print book?
2) The archives at Google, Yahoo, WayBack, etc. are hardly inviolate. As one who has been there, done that, in my other life, material can be deleted from those repositories.
Other than that, Bacchus, I think if your rant had been less personalized it would have been better received. Your other option might have been to send a flame to B&H directly and hope their P3 e-mail address is still up and post a more reasoned version of your “rant” (as is evident in your responses to comentary) on your blog.
I have to say that I have lost a fair bit of respect for you over your handling of this minor event. In my world, one does not take a person to task publicly.
Dangly, I’ve answered your question #1 about six times so far. If you don’t understand my point by now, reaching you is beyond my powers of explanation.
As for your attempt to chide me for personalizing this discussion and having it in public, all I can say is that I opened with: “This is not really about Bret and Hiromi, they are just the latest offenders in a long line.”
My rant wasn’t intended to be particularly personalized; others seem to see it as being more so than it was. Brett and Hiromi were just the latest bad example that triggered the rant.
Private discussion would not have advanced my goals. I wasn’t trying to reverse Brett and Hiromi’s decision, I was trying to change the minds of other bloggers about doing this, before they do it. No way to do that in private email.
Although I am considering moving my blog, I have never once considered removing the old one. I may move the archives to the new blog, but as long as there are links and as long as IndecentBlogging is online, so will be my blog. I will put a redirection on my blog so that people can find it.
This is not because of Bacchus. This is the librarian in me saying that ripping down an internet archive of anything is akin to burning a one of a kind book.
I loved B&H and used to have dialogue with Brett in email. I don’t know why they took it down but I hope they’ll bring it back. Even as archives.
Consider, if you will, an analogy. Say that the internetwebatron is some vast tractless wasteland. And that pioneers travelled to this wasteland and built infrastructure, waystations, saloons and brothels. And that there were few signposts or maps. What (it seems to me) Bacchus is saying is “if I put a sign up pointing to your saloon, please leave the building standing if you head back east, rather than burning it to the ground and making work for me having to change my sign”.
On the face of it, this can seem like a reasonable request, but again, looking into the particulars, we have Brett and Hiromi, two dedicated and talented perverts if ever there were two.
There’s their site, a lovingly crafted, hundreds of pages deep and wide masterpiece of kink and depravity.
Do you think they’d burn it down without good reason? I don’t.
I truly truly understand what you’re saying, Bacchus, and I sympathise with you, I do, but it’s just incredibly uncool for you to call Brett and Hiromi “motherfuckers” in what is, I’m sure, a pretty traumatic time for them, regardless of their reasons for pulling the site.
So I don’t know if you’ve lost a reader, hell, I’m sure you knew that might happen when you sat down to write this highly articulate outburst, but I’m not quite as much on your side as I was when I clicked on my bookmark.
keep on smutting.
Anybody who still thinks after all this that I’m still primarily motivated by pique over my own links breaking isn’t paying attention to the words I’m saying. That clearly includes you, BillyJJoeBob. And I’m done repeating my refutations to straw-man arguments.
I certainly understand your frustration here. I’m in complete agreement of keeping archives as a memory of what was, however removed you are from your former self and thusly, your archives.
I’m not the person I was when I began my blog.
As to removing it totally, well to each their own, I suppose. I find it frustrating as a reader to have such an insight into someone’s thought process only to have the door shut.
Stumbled upon this somehow and thought I’d chime in:
Lost in all this (as far as I can tell), is that they’re/she’s actually still blogging: [deleted]. At least for now. There’s some mention about a trial period ….
[Edited by Bacchus; when I wrote “it will be a cold day in hell before I link to you again”, that included links in my comments.]
HERE HERE (or is that hear hear)
I’ve been trying to explain the phenom of blogging to someone who thinks I should remove some of mine since I now have some internet stalkers.
Duh. I blogged it. Do you think I am going to care if some psycho fuckwith decides to cut and paste my blog entries to a message board to make fun of me?
DUH!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I threw it out there, it stuck, so fuck off.
Oh, I went on a rant. I agree with you.
Both arguments are right.
Yes, people DO have the right to remove their blogs forever, no matter what their reasons are……
but….
all of our sites depend on links too.
When a major blog disappears overnight, you see it straight away in your visitor numbers from that link.
Smaller blogs like my own begin to suffer with greatly reduced figures, and, there`s nothing worse than feeling as if you are only talking to yourself.
I got an email at the start of the year, it said..
“Happy New Year! Your blog has been removed from my links.”
I apparently no longer met their criteria….my figures plummeted overnight.
It can be very demoralising for small blogs. I`ve seen small blogs disappear not long after larger ones do. Blogging is a sort of eco system/food chain, if you like.
Large ones disappearing can demoralise small blogs, and they can disappear too.
It`s also sad to see a blog which had been built up over many years, full of info, good crack and good company designated to the bin.
I`m not sure what the answer is to this one.
It is a valid rant,because blogging is important, and it needs to be maintained.
One way of doing continuance on a blog would be to, where appropriate, offer the blog out to other bloggers to maintain instead of closing it, but then the format will inevitably change…would that matter…I don`t know.
Sites which have multi authorship could continue to introduce new authors along the way, new blood and continuance.
Although, there is an argument that blogs dying out makes room for new younger blogs on the same vien, who might not be able to grow properly until some space is cleared for them.
Let`s face it, when a blog we like and are linked to goes down, and visitor numbers fall, we automatically look for another one similar to replace the gap, and often one that`s up and coming.
they then see their traffic rise, and they then become the new important blog in that area.
Perhaps this change is what keeps things fresh in the bloggosphere.
I disagree with armywife, who said that this blog is not for discussion, ANY blog is for discussion when the need arises. That`s what blogging is about.
Okay, you have given this good thought, Bacchus, so, what would you do yourself?
It will come to us all, eventually, where we get old, or retire, or whatever.
What would you do when you reach that point? When the contributers to Erosblog can no longer continue, what will happen to Erosblog?
Although I would never ever tell anyone they didn’t have the right to of course they do I agree to a degree I hate when they tear down their web sites. I mean why not just leave it there? Right? Just stop blogging and leave it there, but of course it’s so much more complicated than that. These blogs are so personal so much a part of who creates them that many probably feel ill at ease to leave them unattended. It would be like taking your soul and leaving it at a table in your office cafeteria and leaving to find another job.
Hugs
Des
Oy! Wow, I’ve read through the comments and really, what it comes down to is that you agree with Bacchus or you don’t.
Clearly, you aren’t going to argue him into another position. He’s made himself clear a dozen times so it seems rather pointless to say the same things over and over again.
Yep, we have a right to control our own content. Check, everyone seems to agree on this point.
Where the disagreement lies is whether or not bloggers have a responsibilty to the web in a wider sense by leaving up their links when they leave.
I’ve taken some breaks from time to time, but the longer my blog is up, the more I realize the part it plays in a wider community. I suppose it comes down to whether or not I want to break with that. In the end, the choice is mine and I don’t see a single person arguing that.
Shrug. Gotta do what you gotta do, yeah?
I believe that Bacchus has done what was intended with his post. He made others think about what affect destroying their blog may have. Many focused on what they saw as an “attack”, but look at how many people chose to comment.
I considered taking my blog down after a lover’s wife discovered it. I knew she could read about everything we had done behind her back and hate me the more for it. I decided to keep it up, even if posting was quite sporadic for a while after my discovery. I worried that it would only add fuel to the fire. Then I thought about all the people that visit it and whom I’ve cultivated friendships with. I wouldn’t let it go into the black hole of my delete button.
It was my work, she was free to read it. Maybe it would help her figure out where she was going wrong. It is my diary. When I’m old and gray it will probably still be out there somewhere, with my young flesh and adventures, the stories of my lovers. I want it to last.
Sure I worry that I should have shut the barn door. I could still be caused great pain over what I’ve written, but in the end I made the decision to put it out there for whoever wants to see it.
Bacchus opened a really good discussion here, and, like SexkittenB has said, perhaps made us all think about what our blogs are about, and think a little more deeply about the concepts behind what we do, and how our actions affect others.
Some people shy away from discussion, thinking that all difference of opinion is somehow an attack.
It isn`t, of course.
A good discussion, such as this one, will hopefully bring all opinions to the table, and allow us to see different perspectives on a subject.
Discussion is healthy.
Personally, I have followed this discussion, and have come away from it seeing other points which I perhaps would not have thought of on my own. It is good to see life from various perspectives.
I would perhaps never have given this subject any thought, were it not for Bacchus`s post.
And it is a good subject for thought.
Bacchus is not under attack for his views, in fact, quite the opposite.
He has presented an excllent discussion subject, and made us think a little bit more about what we do, and perhaps why we do it.
Look at the number of comments on this page. How many of us will now give a little bit of thought to how we relate to others on the internet, where we might not have done before.
Since following this discussion, I have now been thinking about what I would do. At the moment, I have no answers, but at least Bacchus has brought the topic into my mind.
In the past, I have known what the effects of losing traffic to my own site are when a site goes down.
Now,I have more than one site, and, I have a couple of listing sites which send traffic to other people. They are small just now, but are growing.
If, in a few years time, they have become much bigger, and people rely on them for some of their traffic, and I, for whatever reason can`t continue…
I now realise that I have a responsibility to others, and this should be borne in mind when the time finally comes.
I would not have even thought of this until seeing the various viewpoints brought to the table.
It has been quite a discussion on an important subject.
Good discussion Bacchus.
For anyone as cares, Hiromi’s new blog (which mister B won’t let me post a link to but which is linked from my blog (and hosted on my machine, as was the old B&H blog) has a short explanation of what happened. I think the whole thing’s more than talked out here, however.
In full agreement with you here, Bacchus. With sites like B&H, Pornblography and Reverse Cowgirl removing their blogs and erasing their archives, they’ve ruined all our outgoing links in the Fleshbot archive to their sites, and made the time and effort I put into supporting and *promoting* them in a bloggy way a total waste of time. In the blogging game I notice that blogs tend to last about six months; I never link to them permanently unless they are special. The blogosphere isn’t where you can do stuff and think that no one will care, or remember, or notice; it’s where we watch and participate and build a better world that’s trying to be better than the outside one. I spent hours carefully crafting a comment for Brett and Hiromi’s blog about a topic I felt very passionate about, that I’d finally felt free to talk about after carrying it around with me for years — it was a great thing to know people could read it. Reverse Cowgirl got me into blogging and stood for women being okay with porn, gone. Pornblography was the big “OK” stamp on normalizing women in my line of work; now gone.
There is etiquette in blogging, as in any relationship. You don’t just dump your friends when you’re done with them. Print media is on life support, folks; don’t fuck yourself (and all your friends) over on the web because you think blogging is disposable.
Thanks, Violet; your support means a lot to me. Reverse Cowgirl was my first experience with this phenomenon, and I’ll never forget the sense of loss I felt when it vanished overnight without a word of explanation. Ms. Breslin’s written to me with link requests for some of her subsequent projects, but when I asked ever-so-politely if I could count on them remaining stable and in place, she never answered.
Personally, and this is only my opinion, I think this entire discussion (of which I have only been an observer for the last few days) has been exascerbated because of recent nervousness and some panic within the blogging world. I want to be clear, I was never trying to argue against your point, for I agree with the principal of your point. It is a terrible waste when a blog disappears, it is heartbreaking and devastating. To both sides. My problem with your point was the degree to which you made it and the language you used to enhance it. This simply played off the current state of everyone being so nervous. Good, solid, long-term blogs have been attacked lately, through no fault of their own. This is a problem that cannot be ignored, to do so would jeopordize the very web that you claim to hold so dear. That is MY point.
I am a Usenet, BBS veteran myself and I remember the rant, love the rant. The best part of a rant however was the response, in those days we welcomed the fight, the cross rant, the arguement. At least those I was with did.
I think we all need to realize that blogging is a deeply personal excersise. And that the ultimate success of blogging depends on this remaining true. The converse side of that deeply personal experience is a deeply personal decision to no longer participate. I would hope that those who decide to do so would also decide to leave their blogs intact. But I also admit that they might have valid or not so valid reasons for not doing so. That IS a regretful decision. But it must remain their individual right to have that decision. Hopefully it will be a considered one, a thoughtful one, but we have no guarantee that it will be.
And that is simply a fact of human life, someone is going to eventually do something that we don’t understand, that isn’t logical, that is totally emotional. It’s all part of the human condition.
In the end, I am not trying to convince anyone of anything. In the true spirit of debate I simply bring forth my own personal opinion. I would welcome a world where those who blog do so for all of eternity, but I recognize the fact that will never happen.
>warp and woof
You mean “warp and weft,” right? ;-)
Sorry, all due respect, no offense, etc.
Keep up the good work.
No, I actually meant “warp and woof” — “a distinctive, complex underlying pattern or structure” according to Roget’s II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition.
Remember, Google is your friend.
Actually I think google is now THE ENEMY, but still, good advice to check a word before we correct someone’s usage. ;)
Things change. People change. They came. They left…and the caravan moves on…why cry over spilt links?
I understand what Bacchus is saying- I was really sad and upset that Brett and Hiromi aren’t up, and I’d feel the same if blogs like Annie’s Blog et al were taken down as well.
However… I’d probably do the same under those circumstances (read Hiromi’s blog for explanation). It may be a weak reason… but a reason I sympathize with.
I sympathize with Hiromi, and understand her reasons for taking down the blog, but it makes me wonder about the wisdom of blogging with ones significant other.
Hell, I think it’s unwise to blog where one’s SO can find you. I know this from personal experience. Blogging *with*? Never a good idea.