On the Gripping Hand

Rob Beschiza, Managing Editor of BoingBoing posted a couple of comments on my last post. Rather than filling up the comments queue, I thought I’d answer them here.

[comment number 5]

Hi Rob, thanks for stopping by. Seems a little odd to me that it takes a public blogpost to get any sort of reaction from you, rather than email nearly 10 days ago, but at least you’re here. Not listening, though, it seems.

You confuse “entitlement” with “expectation”, and then use “entitlement” in a pejorative manner. Bravo! I never said I was entitled to post at BoingBoing – I said that, as a registered participant, I had an expectation that BB would behave in a fair and reasonable manner.

Your ad-meister, Mr Battelle, charges people who advertise on BB, and other properties, based on the number of visitors and pageviews that are generated. Whether I look at the ads or not, I am a part of the value chain that pays any remuneration you receive as Managing Editor.

“Whatever the merits of our comment policy, you broke it.”

You repeat this but you don’t say who was insulted or why they felt insulted by my comment. Let’s examine the comment:

On the Cusack non-story – it wasn’t his spelling or grammar that got me to eventually unfollow him, it was his inability to articulate or to tweet anything worth reading. Sorry, Xeni, we obviously have different definitions of “down to earth”. (Are you sure he didn’t have an assistant write the guest post?)

Love your acting work, Mr Cusack, but your writing? #notsomuch

Hmm,

• I don’t appear to be insulting Cusack’s spelling or grammar.
• I state that I did not find anything he posted worth my time to read (last time I looked, that was a subjective judgement, also known as “opinion” whether explicitly stated as such or not)
• I apologize in advance to Ms Jardin for disagreeing with her assessment
• I ask if she can verify that he actually wrote the guest posts BB lists him as writing
• I salute Cusack’s acting repertoire but reiterate that I don’t like his writing

Where’s the insult? Seriously, where is it? Now, I know that someone can take an insult out of someone else breathing loudly, and it appears that someone has taken some offense on Mr Cusack’s behalf (did anyone check to see if he felt insulted, by the way?), but I really can’t see an insult in that comment and, as it’s the crux of the matter, I’d seriously appreciate you pointing out the offending words and why they were offensive? Clearly it got some-one’s panties in a bunch, but I can’t work out who or why [please note that the "who" is unimportant to me, as whoever it was has tarred the whole of BoingBoing with the same brush. The "why" still remains of interest to me].

As I said before, last time I took math, 1 did not equal “the bulk of” 2. By your own rules, my second registered post (I believe there have been others, but I was probably in a hurry and posted anonymously) does not constitute the “bulk” of my postings. With only 2 postings to go by, I cannot see how you can look so far into the future to determine I will be a troublemaker. Especially given some of the comments that do appear on BB, disemvowelled and not, from the regular contributors. How can you determine from this one comment such a future risk?

You attempt to make some point about me “jumping in” to post – did you stop to consider the fact that I first registered in 2008? Which means I have been reading the site for at least 3 years (actually, more) and maybe I’m just not the commenting type?

You say that, in practice “barely anyone gets banned on these grounds, because even consistently oppositional commenters can be good contributors. And disagreement is welcome.” and yet I did get banned. Your moderation page indcates in its comments that others have similarly found themselves banned and don’t know why. Perhaps you feel, that on a percentage basis, this equates to “barely anyone”. I’ve already mentioned that I think your maths needs work.

“You were banned because your first comment not only broke our policies, but was whiny and smarmy and too personal about it with both poster and the subject. That your second comment was so belligerent only furthers the perception that it’s all you’re likely to offer.”

I’m a little confused here. I made one comment in June 2008  which said in total:

#35 POSTED BY NZLEMMING , JUNE 8, 2008 4:15 AM

Well said Teresa.

Torporous, the reason they’re so cheap is that then they can tell themselves that they didn’t sell out, they were only taking care of the interests of their supporters.

I’m guessing that this isn’t the one that “broke our policies”, but it’s hard to tell from your writing. I made another comment on 28 April 2010 which is quoted in full above and appears to be the one that you believe “broke our policies“. So I’m not sure what you mean by “your second comment was so belligerent”. Which comment are you referring to as belligerent? This is not a smart-arse throw-away – I seriously do not understand your accusation of belligerence, which seems to be the reasoning you used to ban me.

“We then saw a demand for answers on Twitter”

A “demand for answers”? I asked Xeni Jardin:

Did you just shut down my login to BoingBoing because you disagreed with what I said?

The question there is “Did you just shut down my login to BoingBoing” and I asked because I wasn’t sure if it had been shut down or whether there was a technical issue, and that’s because no-one at BoingBoing, not even a robot, let me know that I had been banned. Had I been able to DM Ms Jardin, I would have. That was not a possibility. I knew (as closely as one can know without being a stalker) that she was online, having just responded to my comment. It seemed reasonable that she could respond with a simple yes or no.

“A stern email explaining in great detail why you should get them”

It’s quoted in the original post, in full – I’ll let readers determine how “stern” it is.

“That you apparently expected a private reply even after inviting us to respond on this public post only highlights the huge sense of entitlement manifested in all this.”

Actually, given my experience so far, I expected no response and did in fact not ask for one. I barely thought anyone from BB would come to the blog, though I made the invitation to let you know that it would be happening. That seemed only fair and reasonable, not to mention respectful and courteous.

“Antinous also sent a perfectly polite explanation why your posting privileges were cut and an offer to have them reinstated. But you turned that down, because it isn’t what you really wanted: to quote, “You need to show a little more courtesy and respect.”

Ah, cherry-picking, thy name is Rob! ;-)

The actual quote was

But when you make your money by marketing the eyeballs of your readers, I think you need to show a little more courtesy and respect than BoingBoing showed to me (and others, if you look around the net – even on BoingBoing’s moderation policy page)

That’s an if/then argument. It’s quite clearly not a demand for special personal treatment that you make it out to be. It’s a statement in support of the main premise of my post, that there is an implied social contract when you start making money off people.

“That’s freely given to courteous and respectful readers, but we’re not obliged to offer the same to those who write insulting comments about our editors and guests.”

Again I ask, where did I insult your editors or guests? Put up or shut up, Rob. Post the words and how they insulted anyone.

“It isn’t disresepctful to ask you not to make more of them, and it isn’t discourteous if we choose not to reply to your adversarial tweets or emails. Tough cheese, old boy!”

You did not ask me to not make more of them – you banned me so that I couldn’t. You did not tell me I had been banned despite 2 polite (and they were polite – there’s no abuse or swearing – they’re quoted in the previous post) requests to enquire whether that was the case. For 5 days, you did nothing about it and even when it was finally acknowledged by antinous, there was no reason given beyond some sense of “insult”, no guideline on how to not offend again, nothing but an oh-so-gracious offer of a “fresh start”. As my response indicated, I do not choose to give BoingBoing a “fresh start”.

The tweet (singular – you really need to work on that math!) was not adversarial, and neither was the first email. By the way, when someone sends email to my address, yeah, it is courteous to respond to it, especially when it’s an inquiry about a service I offer. And especially if I hold a formal position with the organisation being communicated with.

******************************

A couple of hours later, Rob returned and posted this comment [number 8]

I’ve got no objection at all to criticism. Criticism is good and healthy. I love being insulted, too: there’s no better sign that you’re doing something interesting. But when it’s delivered in a way that oversteps the rules we’ve established, we’re not going to publish it *ourselves* at *our* site. Removing people’s posting privileges is the most straightforward way to make sure that remains so.

Now, you’re saying I insulted you, personally? Unbelievable. And, out of curiousity, how would I insult you, which you say you welcome, without breaking the rules of your site? You seem to have a very arbitrary view of what’s insulting and what’s not. Perhaps you need to consider that the rules apply as much to BoingBoing editors as to commenters. Or, if they don’t, you should explicitly say so.

Also, I sincerely appreciate Mark’s entitlement-from-social contract argument. It’s a shame that others have already interpreted it as a legalistic ‘free speech’ argument, which underplays its subtlety. But it’s still wrong, both fundamentally (whatever social contract exists, it can’t involve us being made to publish something against our will) and specifically (Mark, despite his protestations, did contravene the commenting policy).

Ah, I see you’re responding to Rick here. Actually, he’s not referring to a legalistic argument – he’s talking about free speech as a principle. If you bothered to research him, rather than just insult him, you’d find that he is indeed a respected lawyer and has geek credentials, and has been a major player in the NZ Internet world for some years. We were both on the InternetNZ Council managing the .nz ccTLD for many years, and Rick is the Chairman of the Board of Directors for Netsafe.  We have locked horns on many an occasion on matters of law and principle (occasionally robustly!) yet we remain able to respect each other’s strengths and selves. While he is far more thick-skinned and is unlikely to waste his time taking insult from you, you do yourself and your company no favours in taking such an approach. We have a saying in NZ: when the hole’s over your head, stop digging.

You’re trying to make this about “free speech” on your part, but it isn’t. ANY free speech argument goes against you completely. The question I raised is that I was arbitrarily banned and *not informed of the ban* and that was poor process. I used the social contract discussion point to highlight why the process was wrong. You say “Mark is wrong” but give no reasoning why. You also say, repeatedly, “Mark, despite his protestations, did contravene the commenting policy” but again, you don’t point out how, why or who was insulted.

This is like the Bush administration saying “There are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Take our word for it” #notsomuch

That policy is probably indistinguishable from any other large blog’s in practice and enforcement. It may seem thin-skinned, but what appear to be arbitrary decisions often rest squarely on well-tested assumptions of what a first comment suggests about a commenter’s likely future. Tone is very important.

Again, put up or shut up. Specify what the tone was, which words indicate the tone and why it was such a problem.

I’d say get your own blog, but you have one! And here we are.

And so we are. I know why I’m here. I’m still not sure about you.

******************************

And later, Rob came back (I can’t believe how much time he’s spending commenting when he couldn’t respond to a simple email with “yes, you have been banned”). He’s still arguing with Rick but, hey, it’s my blog and I’ll post if I want to ;-)

You claim that Mark has the right to publish ‘hostile personal insults’ at our own site, and suggest that our request that he not do so is hypocritical given our hostility toward others.

Still no evidence of “hostile personal insults” in there. I guess you think, if you say it enough, everyone will believe that it was. It wasn’t.

Also, there was no request to not insult anyone – you banned me. Without warning, without notification and without any basis, according to your own rules.

But the difference is obvious. When we insult something else, we’re publishing it at our own website. We’re not demanding that the the RIAA, for example, publish our attacks on it at their own venue.

Rick’s point is that you obviously feel that insult is okay as a communication style, so why ban someone who uses it, as I read it. However, I’m still waiting for some indication of who was insulted and how.

Likewise, Mark has every right to his criticisms here, at his own site, twitter, or anywhere else that chooses to publish them. Go for it, Mark! But Boing Boing isn’t Mark’s website. We have any no moral duty to publish such hypothetical hostility ourselves (even though we did, of course, publish the first of his comments!)

Wow! Thoughtcrime! I got banned for what I *might hypothetically say* – you should make a movie. I hear Tom Cruise is available.

So, you’re saying that no-one has any expectation that they can criticize BoingBoing or *anyone* who may have written for them or is otherwise a friend of the blog or a blogger and expect BoingBoing to publish that criticism as a comment on BoingBoing? But you’re not shutting down anyone’s right to free speech, yeah? Wow. That ‘logic’ is quite literally mind-blowing.

So, why do you have any policies at all, if everything is down to an arbitrary decision based on what you *think* someone *might* say in the future? Or is BoingBoing’s thinking that policies only apply to other people, not to BoingBoing? If so, fine, it’s your blog. But say so.

This notion that our defense of free speech means others have the right to be published by us, no matter what they say… frankly, Rick, it leaves the realm of credibility. Though Mark’s remarks to Xeni were mild stuff, to entertain your vision of ‘adherence to free speech’ would force us to publish practically anything anyone sent in.

Actually, that’s what free speech is all about [see below]. But never mind that.

BUT!  now, we discover that my comments to Ms Jardin were “mild stuff” which asks the question – how were they a bannable offense? Still, as we know now, I was banned for some future hypothetical offense, not because I’d actually broken any rules, despite claims made elsewhere by you, Rob. I wonder what I was going to say?

The most saddening part is, of course, that you’re the person who has chosen to reduce Mark’s argument to a simplistic issue of free speech. I guess it’s a lot easier to deliberately confuse free speech with the right to be published than it is to explore whether unspoken social contracts should overrule the commenting policies that Mark chose to break.

Free speech is not a simplistic issue. Maybe you should read up on it before you decide it’s so simple. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech]. It’s the fundamental bulwark against censorship and arbitrary authoritarianism. Ask anyone who hasn’t got it how simple it is.

Be that as it may, I’ve yet to see any exploration by you of anything to do with the social contract argument I raised, other than denying it exists. And I’ve still sto see any evidence that my ‘mild remarks’ were in contravention of the policy. Oh, that’s right – it’s my *hypothetical* remarks that got me banned. Sorry, it’s still such a new concept to me…

Our moderators’ reaction to his comment was exactly what you’d expect given our publicly posted moderation policies. That they exist and are enforced is our end of whatever social contract may exist between us and those who wish us to publish their submissions. These guidelines may be imperfect, but the reaction they generated here — a ban for insulting an editor, however mildly, in his first ever post — was only to be expected.

Still no evidence of insult, though an acknowledgement that it was “mild”, yet somehow so belligerent that it warranted banning. The math, however, shows no sign of improvement, but indicates you really don’t have a handle on what went on here and are being instructed by someone else. Is that the case?

Contracts aren’t a one way street, Rob. They bind both parties. If what you want (and seem to operate) is the capability to ban who you want, when you want, without question or criticism – just say so. Unpublish those policies and just put one up that says “we’ll decide what you can say here” and see how long those faithful readers stick around.

You know what’s really “the most saddening part”? If this was occuring at Gizmodo or TechCrunch, BoingBoing would be all over it like a rash…