I had occasion to look at the About Us page on Balloon Juice this week – Fair Fight had asked for a little information about Balloon Juice and I figured I could use some of what’s in there as a starting point.
John and I wrote this as part of the site rebuild, and for the most part I think it holds up pretty well – except for the last part, which I think used to be more true than it is now.
About Balloon Juice
Balloon Juice is an online community created by John Cole in January, 2002.
Why the name Balloon Juice? Straight from dictionary.com: “Balloon juice is a slang phrase that primarily means ‘hot air’. It inspired the name of an influential political blog.”
Hey, that’s us!
The name started as a joke because the blog would be the random musings of one particular idiot: me, John Cole. In fact, our tag line started out as “Consistently wrong since 2002.” Now it’s “Come for the politics, stay for the snark.”
While initially a one man show, the blog expanded and now has a dozen people who write for the blog covering a wide array of topics. We have a number of experts in a range of fields, with everything from health insurance to nuclear security on the front page, but every one of our authors brings something unique that helps make Balloon Juice what it has become. As do our commenters! One person likes to describe it as like being at a party with really smart and interesting people. Every day.
The talk focuses on politics, pets and animal rescue, gardening, pop culture and more, but what it really does is serve as a meeting point for interesting, like-minded people to talk, argue, share, and cope. We pride ourselves on being a real community — we get to know each other, help one other and serve as a (mostly) friendly refuge in an often ugly world. Like all families, we sometimes fight.
Many members of our community have been lurkers (aka readers) and commenters for a very long time, but every day someone new shows up and we love that. The comments are open, so hop on in and join us.
Welcome! We really hope to see you in the comments section.
John G. Cole
As I was catching up on last night’s threads just now, I noticed a couple of comments from Steeplejack that were similar to other things he has said of late about how we sometimes treat new and infrequent commenters. I applaud Steep for speaking up about this and not letting it drop.
How would you describe Balloon Juice? Does someone new show up every day? Do we love that?
“The comments are open, hop on in and join us, welcome, we really hope to see you in the comments section.”
Is that still us?
Capri
I don’t get here often, can’t really be called a regular – but it fits you to a T. It’s a community of people who are not too like-minded, but like-minded enough to have interesting discussions. I’m glad I found it.
Starfish
Can you link to Steeplejack’s comment or quote it?
I felt that occasionally, we have been unkind to people who go against the dominant Balloon Juice culture without necessarily realizing there is a dominant Balloon Juice culture.
If someone showed up saying nice things about a certain former presidential candidate from Vermont, people would be mean.
There are a few other people whose names bring out the worst in the community who will go unmentioned because those folks have very large and very fragile egos and search for their own names frequently.
I liked when one front pager pointed out some of our communal failings like that time someone pointed out how every discussion about changes in policing gets turned into a war over the semantics of “defund the police” as opposed to a discussion of the genuine issues that our current form of policing creates.
Chief Oshkosh
Would that ‘one person’ be named Cohn Jole? ;)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
In fairness, the person who sparked the hostility was trying to argue that it was huge scandal that Jen Psaki’s highly qualified sister and Ron Klain’s highly qualified wife were hired by the (using a pretty broad definition) Biden administration, and his language was pompous, histrionic and ridiculous (the Balloon Juice front-pagers must not sweep this under the rug!), which invites abuse. In fact it would be rude not to accept.
SFAW
Perhaps, but not that I’ve noticed. [Disclaimer: For various reasons — primarily schedule-related — I don’t come here as often as I used to, so I probably miss a lot.]
Generally, only if that person agrees with — or rather, does not go against — the “dominant culture” here. [“Not every jackal,” etc., attacks counter-culture newbies, of course.]
Cheryl Rofer
I’ve seen a couple of people attacked in the comment section, mainly because they were new. This is not a good thing.
We get trolls. But it’s hard to tell who’s a troll until you’ve let them go on for a while. My approach is to watch and wait. And we’ve got the pie filter if you find them really annoying.
Another good quote, and I know I’m not getting it right: “You don’t have to join every fight you’re invited to.” It’s how I keep sane on Twitter.
ArchTeryx
It sure is welcoming to me. It helped me get through the darkest days after Trump was elected, when it looked like Obamacare was doomed and with it my access to lifesaving care, along with many millions of others.
I mostly lurk because I’m one of those evil, disgusting, perverted furry fans, but I quite enjoy this blog.
Quite honestly, it’s a refreshing change from the all-doom-all-the-time that tends to gobble up bigger blogs like the Great Orange Satan and Lawyers, Guns, and Money. We get into our doomer moods, but realize that this is a coping mechanism, not a complete life philosophy. Trolls are dealt with quite rapidly, and the community is close.
I’ll always be something of an outsider, but make no mistake about it: This blog’s been a lifesaver to me.
zhena gogolia
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
What I observe is that there is a distinction between the way new commenters arguing in good faith are treated as opposed to obvious trolls asking us to approve of the Scalia interpretation of the 2nd amendment.
WaterGirl
@Starfish: I had already closed all of the threads from yesterday when I decided to write this, so I do not have a link.
edit: Steeplejack quotes some of it, and explains further, at #199 below.
WaterGirl
@Chief Oshkosh: No, that line was mine. :-)
Baud
@Starfish:
It’s an understandable overreaction to trolls and bad faith actors. Given all we’ve been through, assuming good faith, especially when a new comment is written in the style of a troll, can be dangerous.
debbie
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
I think the way a poster, new or not, introduces a thought or idea is often a predictor of the reactions from other posters.
SFAW
@ArchTeryx:
I’ve been wondering how you were doing. I remember your major (and valid) worries about TFG destroying Obamacare and thus threatening your health. Glad to see you’re still here, and I hope your health is OK.
WaterGirl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: For what it’s worth, I completely agree with your assessment of that particular commenter.
I’m asking a bigger question. We chased away 2 new commenters last week who had been long-time lurkers and who said they would likely never comment again after being jumped on right out of the gate.
Again, not scolding, just asking the question.
Baud
And Baud!
Kirk Spencer
I’ll agree with Starfish’s point. Mostly the paragraph still applies, but there are a few exceptions. A few topics that are triggers because we have argued them so much.
In those cases it’s hard to tell if it’s just a new voice with an opinion or a new troll. We’ve had both.
Perhaps we should note the trigger topics, not to dissuade but as fair warning that this way lies ,.. ya know, not fair to name names. Just there lay jackals, be prepared to defend or get chewed.
zhena gogolia
@ArchTeryx:
@SFAW: What SFAW said.
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl:
My very first comment on this blog was greeted by Matoko with withering scorn. I was hurt, but gradually I got back on the horse. And Matoko is long gone.
AxelFoley
Heh, always wondered why Cole named this place Balloon-Juice. Every time I think of the name, I think of the spittle that comes out of a balloon when you blow it up and then let the air out. I was like, “Weird naming, but ok. It’s his blog.” ???
WaterGirl
@Cheryl Rofer: That’s the Thin Black Duke. I keep that handy so I can copy it into a comment when it does seem like a troll is taking over a thread.
zhena gogolia
@WaterGirl:
I have seen tons of comments for/against Sen. Sanders and Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, for example. I don’t see it as a monolith here at all. Much less than at other blogs.
Josie
@zhena gogolia: This is exactly what I was thinking, but I had not figured out how to phrase it. Over the years, I have found this community to be a warm, inclusive one. There are occasionally some claws out, but nothing so terrible. We are all grown-ups, after all, and can deal with a bit of disagreement.
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: Yikes!
I remember feeling very vulnerable after I posted my first comment.
raven
I guess I’ll stay out of this one.
MattF
It’s easy to be misunderstood, and there are some tripwires, like ‘I’m only asking questions’, or quoting political articles in the New York Times. But if you post here, you should be prepared to argue, and do so with facts. It’s not just chitchat.
SFAW
@zhena gogolia:
I thought I had been coming here a long time — my admittedly-shitty memory says since Iraq started — but I really don’t remember Matoko, other than as someone referred to often. I don’t remember many (if any) of her/his comments. I don’t know if I was oblivious, or just “late to the party.”
Josie
@WaterGirl: I remembered being zinged by CornerStone a few times, but I learned to give as good as I got. I miss him now and wonder how he is doing.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@SFAW: Matoko was the “cud lip” commenter? I think s/he was phasing out when I started commenting
@Josie: Ha! I was just gonna post “Civility has taken a dive around here since Corner Stone left”
Starfish
@ArchTeryx: Tell me more about the furry-loving section of the Balloon Juice commentariat. You are opening whole new worlds to me.
Cervantes
To be honest, I don’t understand why you don’t have a major troll problem. I had to go to comment moderation on my own blog because I was plagued by insane assholes. How do you manage to avoid it?
zhena gogolia
@SFAW:
If you encountered her, you’d remember.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Cervantes: We’re too boring?
ETA: I slide past the fights so I have no idea how crabby we are these days. Also I’m mostly here in the morning, which is an easy group
Super Dave
I am mostly a lurker, very occasionally comment. I enjoy the blog and the commenters, but don’t always understand all the “inside baseball” banter that goes on. My overall impression fits with Watergirl’s description. I’ve never felt completely welcome, but no one has ever attacked me. Mostly feel ignored, possibly because my occasional comments are not smart enough to be considered. This is my number one “go to” blog, I am very glad it exists. Thanks to Cole and everyone who makes it happen.
MomSense
I’ve been called a troll and worse many times on this blog because I took the minority opinion. In most cases those minority opinions are now the majority here.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
Trolls are not treated gently here, nor should they be.
Some lurkers have been mistaken for trolls without much in the way of justification.
I believe this blog is more vigilant regarding bad actors than most.
I do not know how to reconcile these statements.
MomSense
@Josie:
CS accused me of being in the employ of the CIA and I can’t remember if it was during the Drone Wars or l’affaire Snowden.
Starfish
@Kirk Spencer: A few years into my participation here, we had to rehome a cat that we loved very much because our (at the time) infant was allergic and developed eczema. This community was not kind about that.
That was ten years ago.
We went to visit a friend’s foster kittens a couple of years ago. The child who is allergic to cats loves kittens. They still make him sneeze.
Wyatt Salamanca
Unfortunately, I’ve seen this behavior exhibited on many blogs. Whenever someone posts an unpopular view, one or more commenters scrutinizes the number of previous posts from said individual and assume that he/she is a troll. What does the frequency of posts from an individual have to do with whether or not he/she has made a valid point or whether he/she is a troll? Leaping to conclusions and always assuming the worst motivations of anyone expressing an unpopular view is one of the uglier and more irritating aspects of the blogosphere. To paraphrase the late, great Elijah Cummings – We should be better than that.
SFAW
@MomSense:
You mean you’re NOT the station chief for the Southern Maine operation? Another one I got worng. Damn.
WaterGirl
@Super Dave: Welcome! As for inside baseball, if you click on Lexicon in the white bar at the top you can find explanations of much of the inside baseball phrases, etc. Written by Anne Laurie.
It hasn’t been updated for quite some time, so the newer stuff won’t be there, but if you want to know what C.R.E.A.M means, or the Moustache of Understanding, or why Nancy Pelosi is called Nancy SMASH, the Lexicon is your friend.
Anne Laurie had plans to update the lexicon after the site rebuild, but
I guess she forgot about that(ha!) has been spending hours every day bringing us the morning covid threads. Excuses, excuses! :-)Josie
@Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant): Yes, it is a fine line we walk.
Suzanne
@MomSense: I got called a troll a few times. I remember once defending Bernie Sanders when a commenter here said he was as bad as Trump. I have also expressed the following opinions that have earned me some ire: Jim Clyburn is a thousand years old and it’s time for new leadership, it is the right thing to do to believe sexual assault victims as a matter of course, fat slurs are inappropriate even when they’re pointed at Chris Christie, architecture is an art and a design’s relative success or failure can’t be measured by its energy bill or its wayfinding system, and a few others.
But, you know, fuck it. I’ll engage with anyone on these topics as long as it doesn’t get personal.
I do remember one occasional commenter here calling me a drug user/addict, and that was the only time I thought a line was crossed.
WaterGirl
@MomSense: I used to watch the Cornerstone and General Stuck battles with a mix of awe and horror. They jumped on each other and not new people, and I loved General Stuck and grew very fond of Cornerstone.
SFAW
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
Either that, or trolls are worried about running afoul of Subaru Dianne, Mob Enforcer.
zhena gogolia
@Super Dave:
I felt ignored at first. It feels as if you have to comment frequently, because 90% of your comments will get no response and you feel ignored. It has something to do with the trend of the conversation, not the “smartness” of the comment, I think
ETA: Otherwise there would never be any responses to baud, for instance.
MomSense
@SFAW:
INORITE! I did recently find out that Department of Homeland Security has a big office building in Maine. It’s for sale so hopefully they are leaving. I still resent that whole Department starting with the name. It was another W admin step on the road to fascism.
WaterGirl
@Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant):
it’s complicated.
oldgold
I have not noticed much hostility to newcomers.
I have observed and felt the sting of the Old Guard that have little tolerance and worse for those that stray from the accepted orthodoxy.
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
Life has taken some turns since I first found this blog (as a refugee from the GOS). I don’t post as much as I used to because life, but I am grateful for the presence of all of you. My 2016 turned to shit long before the election, and you lot kept me sane. (Yes, that is a scary statement)
End transmission.
SFAW
@Suzanne:
Thought I had an idea what that meant, but had to look it up to make sure. Thanks for adding to my edumacation.
Suzanne
@WaterGirl: I miss CornerStone a lot, too. Dude was funny AF.
WaterGirl
@Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant): I cannot imagine losing a spouse, then 4 years of T****, followed by Covid. Glad you are doing well.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I think extending kindness to others goes a long way to being accepted here.
I had someone jump on me once and several people defended me. I was really touched.
SFAW
@MomSense:
Wasn’t Bangor airport where aircraft with suspicious fliers (i.e., suspected/presumed terrists) were re-routed? I wonder if that’s where the DHS building is. [I’m probably wrong, it’s probably in Portland, of course. Not the Isle of Portland, in case Omnes is going to ask.]
realbtl
This place has always been, um, let’s say freewheeling. Go back to the early John-still-R days and you will find (drunken) Stormy and others in knock down screaming matches. And then there was Birdzilla who I believe was the most weird.
And yes I have been lurking mostly for the whole ride.
Danielx
Well……jackals!
I’ve commented less of late, due to real life stuff and exhaustion after the five year span known as 2020. But I have taken and given my share of grief to innocent and guilty alike, and it’s all good. A haven it is, particularly in times of loss.
But I understand why lurkers might be reluctant to comment. There can be a sense of a club rather than a community at times.
rikyrah
I enjoy it here. Not doom and gloom all the time. Different topics. Good regular replies. Some of the regulars are natural born comedians. You have specialty bloggers, which I appreciate. And, even when the topic isn’t of Interest to me, I know that it will help someone else.
SFAW
@Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant):
I can’t believe it’s been five years (or almost). I think of you (and Immanentize) often.
Chief Oshkosh
@MattF:
That was one of my approaches that’s really not appreciated here. The group is very fast to assume lack of good faith, even for long-time participants. Oh well. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
zhena gogolia
@realbtl:
Not “the” Stormy (Daniels)?
rikyrah
Forgot..
On the serious tip, I believe that AL’s COVID beat helped me stay COVID free, which means that it helped save my life??
Suzanne
@rikyrah: The COVID posts have been amazing. The blog medium is perfect for this sort of ongoing crisis, when information and best practices are being uncovered over time.
Emma from Miami
One of my first comments was greeted by someone telling me, in highly charged language and with what I visualized as a curled-lip sneer, that of course I would say that and indicting me as one of those Cubans who were just waiting to go home to get back their property. I think it was the crazy guy from California that no longer posts here. Funny, I forget what crime I was being indicted for.
I have noticed that from time to time we do get people whose nym I don’t recognize but the writing style and topic I do. They are the “if Democrats had (insert hobby horse here) kumbayah would have broken out all over the world.” type and those I ignore.
I am here because this blog has lined up an interesting combination of subject experts and expert commenters, and as some have mentioned, we mostly avoid (notice mostly) the “aaaaiiiieee, the world is ending.” And if sometimes a fistfight breaks out, well, the rest of the party is swell.
SiubhanDuinne
@SFAW:
Chortle.
Starfish
@oldgold: I think that there was someone here who was new that I assumed was someone that Cheryl knew in real life, and a lot of people yelled at him for being more liberal than they are.
That was my impression of what went down, and I did not love it.
ArchTeryx
@SFAW: The biggest issues are fighting the pain. I keep the Crohn’s under control, but pain is still a constant companion. Thank God for medical pot.
Better news, my fiancee of 16 years is finally making the leap of moving in with me at the end of July, thanks to the friend I am staying with turning his house upside down to accommodate her. I have some very dear friends, and my beloved is still the brightest light of my life.
Yet another lurker
I’ve been a lurker for about 15 years. Mostly I don’t comment because I often read threads after the fact. But I am also shy. I’ve seen new commenters immediately welcomed and some immediately branded as trolls, with occasional piling on and cliques. I assume you would get that with any community.
Even though you don’t know that I exist, I feel like a part of the community. I cry when commenters and pets pass away and feel for your daily struggles.
SiubhanDuinne
@realbtl:
You probably remember Brick Oven Bill, then.
zhena gogolia
@rikyrah: Yes, this place was a major source of information for me from the beginning. Not just Anne Laurie, but also martin and other commenters.
Baud
@SFAW:
Even I worry about that.
ArchTeryx
@Starfish: I treat furry fandom like any other fandom – it’s a great big co-ed fraternity with its share of freaks, geeks, and trolls, with a whole lot of really nice people, people used to being shit on both by society and other fandoms.
A lot of the “perverted” rep comes either from larger fandoms dumping all over it or media doing “look at the freaks!” specials. It was only when their conventions started cresting over 10,000 people that suddenly the media started realizing this was a legit, and very diverse, fandom. Pittsburgh welcomes Anthrocon every year because it’s 10K+ attendees bring a lot of money into the city!
I’m a big art fan, and supporting artists is what I spend a lot of my discretionary income on. It’s the creators that are the biggest bulwark against evil, in my opinion. Whatever they have to draw to keep food on their table, they’re still creating. And creation is the antidote to destruction, which is all the right knows how to do.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
wait… what did happen to Corner Stone…?
FelonyGovt
I don’t comment very frequently but I’ve never felt picked on. Obviously a newcomer or infrequent participant won’t be aware of the history or the interpersonal stuff.
debbie
I don’t know how anyone can keep everyone straight, but some seem to.
Baud
@ArchTeryx: ?
WaterGirl
@Yet another lurker:
I think that’s our daily struggles. John never forgets about the lurkers, and he definitely feels like lurkers are part of the community.
We were getting so much spam on the “report a problem” links that I mentioned that maybe we should have a password on the form.
He said nearly shouted “but then the lurkers wouldn’t be able to use it!” Need I say that there is no password on the forms? :-)
Dorothy A. Winsor
@ArchTeryx: My publisher publishes a guy who’s part of the UK furry fandom: Hugo Jackson. His books are about furry characters.
MomSense
@SFAW:
Ha! It’s in the OG City of Portland. Bangor is still the place where flights land if there are any problems on board. They have a courthouse and a jail there.
frosty
@rikyrah: I enjoy your “Good morning” every day even though I’m still asleep when you post it. ?
Falling Diphthong
@Cheryl Rofer:
I’ve seen a couple of people attacked in the comment section, mainly because they were new.
I think this can take a milder form of “Well you don’t understand all the nuance that comes with being intimately acquainted with each regular poster and their history, including some who haven’t posted in months.” And, of course newbies don’t understand that.
Over time, I think this place has become a little more insular and less welcoming to new/different viewpoints than when I started sometimes reading here. (Obama days?) And I think that is something I can reliably say about every website with comments that I have visited frequently–how to maintain the diverse respectful group with an interesting wide-ranging discussion is an internet puzzle I don’t think anyone has solved in the long term. It seems to be some sort of natural trajectory of the mix of social groups and the limits of the internet, which wasn’t around for most of the history of humans forming social groups. (No body language feedback, for instance.)
Josie
@ Yet another lurker:
ETA: Obvious luddite here has still not figured out how to use block quotes.
Baud
@debbie:
I agree, stranger.
geg6
@rikyrah:
This is truth. If there was a Pulitzer Prize for public service for bloggers, AL should win it, hands down. A truly great public service to all of us Jackals and our loved ones.
West of the Rockies
I very rarely attack a commenter here. I rarely get slapped. A couple months ago I described a Trumpian politician in a way that a couple moms sound super offensive and was evidently pied. (I won’t repeat the sentiment obviously; it had to do with special-needs kids). I apologized swiftly in the same thread. Still feel bad about it.
I suspect a lot of us have in our time here about 13-14 years for me I think) said something we regret. I’m not a fountain of flawless words every time I post.
This place has been a godsend (FSMsend). It’s kept me sane, less frightened, less angry.
John has created a lovely landing spot. Our posters are fabulous, truly.
A thank you to everyone, and another apology for my occasional attempts-at-humor-gone-shitty.
WaterGirl
@Josie: We typically get about 89,000 unique sets of eyeballs on Balloon Juice each month. So the lurkers outnumber the commenters by about a million to one.
Quiltingfool
@rikyrah:
I want you to know I really enjoy your comments! Thank you for being here!
Falling Diphthong
@Suzanne: I agree re the excellence of the blog as a means to convey information about covid.
SFAW
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
[SD averts her eyes, starts tunelessly whistling, slowly walks away …]
geg6
@ArchTeryx:
We love the Furries! Pittsburgh just loves you guys!
Baud
@Falling Diphthong:
Ok, I’ll say it. Compared to the early Obama years, the range of interesting and worthwhile substantive political opinions to argue over and discuss has fallen off a cliff.
satby
@Josie: I miss CS too, and hope he and his son are doing well.
Also BellaQ. And Valdivia, though I follow her on Twitter.
@zhena gogolia: I don’t think we actually “converse” as much. Now people seem to just opine; if a conversation, or g-d forbid a disagreement, breaks out it seems to either fade quickly or be lost in accusations and counter accusations of “piling on”. It’s less interesting when a subject isn’t debated. I come here much less now.
Baud
@geg6:
Thirded.
Emma
@Super Dave: I feel you, longtime reader but very occasional commenter here, because the way the comments are set up and/or the mix of commenters, I find it hard to not get lost in the stream. (But Adam is pretty good about replying to comments, and even to an email once.) If you are so inclined, try commenting a little at Lawyers, Guns, and Money (where I usually comment), because I find it a lot easier to be part of a conversation there.
I will say that when that when certain people here were defending Cuomo (even just as a Democrat, not necessarily the person himself) in the middle of his sexual harassment allegations, I had to take a quick break from reading B-J. I was fucking mad. I don’t know if there were any new commenters or would-be new commenters who were put off, but it certainly put me off a for a little while.
Starfish
@Baud: It is very nice when lurkers like yourself work up the bravery to post.
Sure Lurkalot
@Danielx:
There have been several comments that expressed the difficulty for newbies and lurkers to break through and I think you expressed it best. Some threads turn into conversations between 5 or 6 people.
I continue to lurk for the simple reason that I have learned a lot here, from posts, links and commenters. That said, it’s not only the apparent trolls who have gotten under my skin but regulars too…but I’m just not confrontational online. So I don’t get into why the terms M4A and defund the police don’t really bother me and that AOC may be a showboat but not an empty hat.
Whoops.
realbtl
@zhena gogolia: No just a random drunk poster.
Ivan X
I post only once in a while, since 2007, though I am a daily reader. I think there is a nice exchange of back and forth ideas between the daily posters. However I am loathe to take a contrary position, because while a response might be in good faith, I also feel there’s a good chance I’ll instead get flamed (and I’m somewhat conflict averse, which is my own problem).
So I chime in when I have something to say that isn’t too against the current, and bow out when I have a different point of view. At least I’ve never been accused of being a troll or bot. I don’t love the somewhat enclosed aspect of the culture here, but I accept it — there’s a really tight and lovely core community, and I think it is human nature, for good reason, to resist those who are either less trusted or seen as being less committal.
But I personally would prefer if “jackal” was meant more winkingly, and good faith could be presumed more of the time. It’s really easy to be mean on the internet, and I’d like it better here if that impulse were tamed more. But I also feel like it’s not my place to say — I do think the most active participants should shape the culture they want, and us looky loos should either become more frequent commenters if we want to shape it ourselves, or accept that we are visitors and need to understand the customs of the land we are visiting.
satby
@Baud: absolutely agree.
Edmund Dantes
I used to be a much bigger commenter here back in the day (pre John Cole conversion through 1st half of Obama admin at least), then fell out of constantly reading all of it as life intervened. I got into reading the comment thoroughly again as we transitioned into the 2016 race (Merrick Garland being one of the biggest triggers). The one thing that changed for the worst is the “troll” reactions to talking about sacred cows.
There are sacred cows here, and woe is anyone that dares question them or thinks they may have possibly not made the best move politically. There are lots of conversations that die or examinations of “was that really the right thing to do” because of this. There are some avenues that just don’t get explored cause “how dare you question them” “you must be a troll” etc. It’s tiring for people to have to waste time arguing about troll status when they get fed into all of that stuff. So I definitely can see people being turned off that aren’t wired for that type of argument. So the place suffers. It’s still one of the best places to come for a lot of stuff, but I think it is a lesser version of the place it could be because of that.
Also, like any community there are cliques. Nothing to be done about that as it is life.
I will say I wonder if the pie filter is an issue. I have never used it, and. I have never seen a use for it. I think it helps that banning people here has become more common (it used to be pretty horrible some of the true trolls) l, but now I see people simply throw people into their pie filter for disagreeing. It’s bizarre behavior for a blog that prided itself so much on being open to all discussions (to the point of listening and conversing helped actually convert the blog owner).
Spanky
@Yet another lurker:
Welcome!
You suck!
Have I covered all the bases?
Welcome aboard, and don’t worry about resurrecting dead threads.
rivers
@Super Dave: You just wrote almost exactly what I was feeling as I read this thread. I’m a longtime lurker and very occasional commenter. I think that there’s a dynamic for the harmless occasionals, as I like to think of myself, and that springs from the fact that though I know all of the regulars very well indeed (births, deaths, animals, favorite flowers, favorite triggers) but none of the regulars knows me–because I’m an occasional (and harmless.) This creates a somewhat lopsided relationship. So, on the one hand, I feel welcome to make a comment and no one has ever attacked me, but the regulars are so accustomed to chatting with each other that the circle sometimes feels more closed than intended. Having said all that, I think this is a wonderful community and I’m so glad I discovered it over fifteen years ago.
Emma
@SiubhanDuinne: jesus, that was a flashback and a half XD
@West of the Rockies: hey, at least you apologized and understood what went wrong :)
Falling Diphthong
@Chief Oshkosh: Re “I’m only asking questions,” that’s one of those phrases that has really changed for me over the past few years.
Like “females”: A few years ago I was bewildered by those who found it offensive when to me it’s a variation on “women and girls.” But then I encountered more incel writing, and so the word took on a “by which I mean those aliens who plot against me in their evil cabal” connotation that it never had in the past.
So “I’m only asking questions” went from “I want to understand this better” to “I am arguing in bad faith.” And “Educate yourself” went from “This is a basic thing everyone older than 12 should know, and I shouldn’t have to explain it” (see also “Your black coworkers are not here to explain blackness to your confused self”) to “I understand the main talking points of this conspiracy theory, but not any of the supporting arguments, so I just say ‘educate yourself’ and figure people will find the same crazy websites that convinced me.”
SFAW
@Ivan X:
I think its use here started that way (I think the original use came from someone [ETA: some other blogger or pundit] disparagingly referring to B-J using that term?), but some of us have exhibited jackal-like tendencies a little too often. [I include myself in the “us,” unfortunately. A habit I try to break, but not as successfully as I’d like.]
Omnes Omnibus
You can all go fuck yourselves.
Quiltingfool
This is the best blog. I learn so much from the frontpagers and from many of the commenters. There is a wonderful community here; like a family, really. I am thankful for this place.
When I was teaching, a student would do or say something nice, and I would tell them, “You know, you’re my favorite!” or, “That’s why you’re my favorite!”. I said that to many kids, and I meant it. My rule was I can have as many favorites as I want. Still my rule – you are all my favorites!
satby
@Omnes Omnibus: ?
RaflW
Did we ever figure out if “Unlimited corporate cash!” — whateverthefrunk his nym was — was just a DougJ performance art riff gone rancid?
WaterGirl
@Baud:
Can you say more about that? I’m not exactly sure whether you’re saying that the range of interesting and worthwhile substantive political opinions have fallen off a cliff, or that our discussion of a range of interesting and worthwhile substantive political opinions has fallen off a cliff here at Balloon Juice.
debbie
@Baud:
I think people may still need more time to recover from the previous administration. And what else was there to do during those four years other than expressing horror and outrage?
Ms. Deranged in AZ
I have been on and off the site since the lesser George was in office and I truly love this community. However, that being said I have always felt that that the comments section was very cliquey. Sometimes it’s like shouting into the void, no different from any other site. And it is very clear who is in the clique and who is out. Again, this comment come from a place of caring.
Josie
@Omnes Omnibus: Now there’s the Omnes we all know and love, bringing us back to our senses.
Starfish
@Edmund Dantes: People have different tolerances for other people, and that is okay.
I have only pied one a small number of actual trolls. I will pie more frequently in election years.
One thing that I just noticed is that I don’t even remember how to use the pie filter or who I have filtered.
I rarely see anything pied though so I was not using it much.
MomSense
@Omnes Omnibus:
We love you back.
ArchTeryx
@geg6: So do the hotels. Furry cons tend to treat the rooms with respect, since most of them are poor and know better than to screw with the hotel rooms or staff. We don’t throw around $2000 expensed tips, but we’re a reliable block.
The business conventions are the most destructive. Get a bunch of rich people who are used to zero consequences drunk, and what do you think THEY are going to do with the rooms?
Baud
@Edmund Dantes:
FWiW, the flip side is equally a problem, as the troll last night exemplified. If someone comes here to challenge a “scared cow,” and gets push back, he or she starts going off on how blindly loyal or closed minded we are. That doesn’t advance the debate. No one had the entitlement to successfully challenge a cow, sacred or otherwise.
Spanky
@Omnes Omnibus: We love you too, Big Guy.
SFAW
@Omnes Omnibus:
Gee, after the Bucks
woncheated the Nets out of a win, I would think you would be more upbeat.debbie
@Edmund Dantes:
I used the pie filter once after being called a troll. I don’t know that it had much effect on me; it certainly didn’t stop the attackers. Now, I just scroll past the assholes.
laura
Sharing joys and sorrows is what separates and elevates this blog. Pets and food and gardens and Covid. Politics and potpourri, foreign and domestic. Characters- so many cheeky and irascible people doing interesting things. In grateful to have wandered in and met your acquaintances.
ArchTeryx
@Dorothy A. Winsor: I’ve written a novel myself (in an existing universe) and am preparing a series of short stories set in the U.S. in pre-European times, during the peak of the Native American part of our history. There are fantasy elements, but I’m doing a ton of research to try to get a good look at what life was like for the various tribes of the time, so my stories aren’t caricatures or stereotypes, but have the ring of truth to them even if they are dealing with anthropomorphic animals.
SFAW
@Baud:
What about nervous sheep? [As in: “Montana, where men are men, and sheep are nervous.”]
MomSense
@Baud:
Those were my peak troll years.
Omnes Omnibus
@SFAW: Blah, blah, blah.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Omnes Omnibus: Oh yeah! I was trying to remember who I thought was a troll when I first started reading here.
cope
I taught high school for twenty eight years. While teaching, my social circle at any given time included all my students (perhaps two hundred or more in a given school year), dozens of teachers as well as dozens of administrators and staff. The range of values, attitudes, interests and beliefs exhibited by all those people was extreme. I had to deal with a variety of of personality types and behaviors amongst that lot. Balloon Juice is like that with less sports.
My personal vent: when replies reach some as yet unidentified (by me, anyway) number, answers may be provided, points made or facts provided multiple times because later posters don’t bother or have time to read all the previous replies. Small potatoes, really, but there you go.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@ArchTeryx: That sounds very cool. And right up your alley
Percysowner
I too lurk and only make the occasional comment. I tend to go through once or maybe twice a day and many of the articles I might comment on are already old or have over 100 comments. Also I don’t have a lot that others don’t say. I feel welcome here and I check every day. I’ve pied a few people in my day. Basically I’m glad BJ is here and if I had to cut back on my blog reading this one is the one I would hold onto until the end.
Low Key Swagger
Part-club (a big part) part online forum, part community service blog. I too want to send heartfelt thanks to AL for the Covid posts, and basically all the front pagers for the topics that get covered. As for the discussions…a lot of good can come from exercising some tolerance for other positions, and maybe eliminate some of the hurtful dismissals like “fuck off” and for sure DIAF is, well, less than charitable. The inside club members (you know who you are) can do a lot to set the tone of a thread and may indeed have the responsibility to make sure new comers are heard, regardless of position as long as it is argued in good faith. As someone here says, “my .02 cents
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Well, we all know what happened to the conservative side of politics. That’s all tribal. To the extent there was ever a blue dog or conservadem viewpoint on the blogs, that’s gone away, and they don’t really have any ideas left anyway besides bipartisanship.
On the progressive side, there’s the divide and distrust lingering from 2016 and the Obama years generally. Add to that that the differences are rarely over high level policy but rather over political strategy and identity. There are policy discussions to be had, but they aren’t the type of discussions that our Twitterfied political culture takes much interest in. Plus all policy debates seem abstract since there’s so little we can really do given are bare marginal control over government.
WereBear
@Starfish: I am generally kind about that :) And an infant cannot choose.
WaterGirl
@debbie: That makes me think of my vocabulary. It’s fairly large, but I find myself using a smaller subset of the words, and you can lose a lot of nuance when that happens.
The same thing may be true here, maybe after the stress of the past 5 years, we’re limiting the range of our conversations without realizing it?
edit: I think most of us have gotten closer to the survival level than we have ever been before in our entire lives. That has consequences.
WereBear
I arrived around the Terri Schiavo fiasco, when the “former Republican’s blog” was the talk of the liberal communities I hung out in. And I’ve been here ever since. Couldn’t be getting through the 21st century without all of you!
As far as welcoming… long time lurkers should know we SWARM and then we all get over it :)
Ceci n est pas mon nym
@Super Dave: I feel like a lot of my comments fall into empty space as well, but that’s OK. Often it’s because I’m catching up with an older thread and get all involved with the discussion, and drop my heartfelt words of wisdom before I realize that everybody else left the thread hours ago.
But often it feels like improv comedy (which I’ve done as an amateur). If I can drop a joke or suggestion into the conversation and somebody else funnier than me runs with it, I feel like I’ve won a prize.
More often than not it just politely ignored, but that’s OK.
Maybe improv comedy is a model in other ways of what this place means for me, in that so much of it is about us amusing each other, and giving each other “gifts” to build these cooperative jokes on.
It’s also a deeply caring community. People know details about each other’s lives and remember them and ask about them. People know each other’s pets’ names, and what their kids are going through. It’s pretty amazing for someone like me who feels like he never quite got the hang of human interaction.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud:
I think that’s true, and the stakes are really high, from voting rights to climate to…. everything.
Starfish
@WaterGirl: I think Baud means the first.
Since the Republicans refuse to take up actual legislation, there are no actual policy discussions because no policy is going to get passed.
The political discussions that exist (not here but in general) are garbage Republican nonsense like defining critical race theory as everything that they hate. (Your socks are critical race theory.)
AJ
@Super Dave: ty for expressing that view, pretty much my experience
WaterGirl
@Baud: That was super helpful, thanks.
MazeDancer
The immense generosity of the Balloon-Juice commentariat never fails to inspire awe. From pet relocation to straight up political donations, this group is simply amazing.
And the astounding efforts of the front pagers doing so much for free is dazzling.
Like any community, perfection is not possible. Learning to celebrate what you like and ignore what you don’t is one of the skills being online helps build.
But cliquey-ness happens. How can it not? People have been together here for a long time. Doesn’t mean new voices are not welcome, because they are. Once you realize that clubhouse is the purpose of the morning thread, you either join in or you don’t.
Also, probably 70% of comments don’t generate response. It’s not you, it’s just the nature of online interaction.
While it is often that your smartest stuff can generate no response, or some childish reaction, now and then, people offer some remarkable wisdom.
So lurkers, please don’t hold back. You have no idea how something you posted could help somebody see something in a new light. Just because no one responds, doesn’t mean no one was impacted. Kind of like lurking.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
What Starfish said.
Frankensteinbeck
@zhena gogolia:
Oh, sweet fuck.
@SFAW:
Matoko_Chan is spoken of so often and passionately because we have had few stranger or more determined, prolific trolls. You could debate the word ‘troll’, since it’s hard to tell if Matoko was deliberately trying to start a fight. MC was the Left equivalent of a 19 year old Libertarian, and throw in some Q nuttiness. Convinced that Assange would save the world by destroying the ability of all governments to keep secrets, and eventually got kicked out for regular rants about how white Christian genetics were inferior to Islam, which ‘can not be proselytized’. MC was arrogant, argumentative, bigoted, insulting, and had a range of batshit opinions that are hard to describe, because the mind wants assume things that are at least a little reasonable. I am not a particularly hostile person, and I made a point of slapping MC’s bullshit down repeatedly. As you can see, I still carry a grudge.
zhena gogolia
This is a really interesting, helpful thread, Water Girl. Thanks for starting it.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
Speaking of vocabulary, I have a vocabulary rant. This is going to come off a lot like Old Guy Yelling At Clouds, but here goes.
I take a weekly German class. Last week, a word came up in our reading which was translated as “twittered” (in relation to birds). The teacher had never heard this word before, but she’s a native German.
But nobody else in the class had either. Several commented that at first they thought it had something to do with the app. And to my insistence that it was a real, perfectly good, common English word, some said that maybe they might have heard of it, but wouldn’t the past tense be “tweeted”? And then they all agreed on that.
The age range I would say is something like mid-20s to 30s. There’s one other older guy but he wasn’t on the call last week.
I find something about this entire conversation deeply depressing. Somebody else please tell me that you’ve run into birds twittering in your reading, and that you don’t think the past tense of “to twitter” is “tweeted”.
scribbler
@Ivan X: I am a long time daily reader too, mostly lurking, and I think you nicely sum up the way I feel about commenting here too. I also agree with the “sometimes more like a club than a community” statement, but I think that’s also just human nature when you have an inner ring of commenters who know each other very well.
O. Felix Culpa
@Frankensteinbeck: Cudlips.
ETA: As an occasional commenter and fairly long-term reader, I enjoy the ongoing evolution of this blog, its front-pagers, and commenters.
TS (the original)
Slightly related
We seem to be back to moving ads again that cannot be stopped nor moved off the page. This is why I have stopped lurking let alone posting.
zhena gogolia
@Frankensteinbeck:
When she responded viciously to my very first comment here, I was crushed, because I had no idea who she was or why she was so angry. So I lurked a while more and it became clear that I shouldn’t let myself be chased off by her.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Frankensteinbeck:
a good point, in the case of the comment that launched this discussion, I don’t think it was a troll, I think it was a very sincere expression of high umbrage and righteousness, misguided, but sincere
zhena gogolia
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
You are absolutely correct.
zhena gogolia
@TS (the original):
I’ve expressed my dismay about this too. I think it’s still under consideration for removal. (I hope.)
Baud
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Does no one trust dictionaries anymore?
Madeleine
I’ve been mostly a lurker and when I finally posted a substantive comment one commenter blasted it by making unsupported assertions about the sort of person I am. Angry, I provided corrective info. I’ve mostly lurked since, but, as before, because I usually come to threads late.
More important, I appreciate the very varied subjects the blog is about. I learn from the politics (including ways to volunteer, where to donate), social issues; love the photos, pet blogging ( I’m allergic to cats and like dogs but wouldn’t be a good full-time dog companion). And I absolutely depend on the expertise of the front pagers and commentariat—frequently seek out the blog when something arises in the news that I know or suspect that BJ can explain.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
I will sign your position.
I used to feel a little silly talking about “tweets” and using the verb, but reality has worn me down. Now I find myself thinking things like “S/he’s good at twitter”. And I know what I mean by that. Through the fucking looking glass, man
debbie
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
That’s where the app got its name from. Birds twittering in the early morning light. Also, I think both twittered and tweeted are valid for the feathereds.
Ivan X
@WaterGirl:
This is a really insightful comment. Survival physically (COVID) and survival politically (Republicans). I felt my own political ailing around 2012, when I realized, with Congress in Republican hands and McConnell operating from pure bad faith, and the impossible 60 vote threshold now normalized, that the best I could hope for with an Obama re-election is “not worse,” as opposed to previous elections where I felt like there might be something to look forward to if my candidate won. I barely was able to motivate myself to canvass; I’m more driven by positive possibility than negative defense. (But I made some efforts anyway; it’s my patriotic duty.)
I think being in a survival mindset is a very different place than, say, having elected the first black President with a Democratic majority in Congress. There was more oxygen in the room then, so more room for outsider and contrary voices. I think bunkering is reflexive when under assault.
I wanted to add to my upthread comment in which I said that even as a longtimer, I watch my words here. I mentioned early in the pandemic that I had, as a result, unexpectedly moved to CA, and you (Watergirl) invited me to write a post about that experience. I never took you up on it, but it was a very welcoming and honoring gesture that I have not forgotten, and very much demonstrated the positive, loving aspect of this community, that is the flipside of the vitriol that sometimes shows up here.
Jackie
I mostly lurk – mainly because I’m a West Coaster and spend my mornings catching up on early threads that are already dead. I never use the pie filter – I scroll past the few that irritate me – the ones who are more sealiony than offering real input. But, I LOVE this blog! I found it shortly after John established it when looking for “reasonable” republican POVs before we invaded Iraq.
Honus
@realbtl: no love for Brick Oven Bob?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@debbie:
all the little birds on Jaybird Street
Love to the hear to the Robin going tweet tweet tweet
Dorothy A. Winsor
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: LOL. I agree with you.
Theoretically I know that language changes, but in practice, some things just make me crazy.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Frankensteinbeck: Cudlip.
WaterGirl
@TS (the original): @zhena gogolia:
Please don’t give up. John decided that we won’t have the video ads… it’s just slow going getting that actually implemented by the ad people.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Now that I’ve given myself an earworm, I think Rockin’ Robin ripped off Jailhouse Rock. Or vice-versa.
Now I have two simultaneous earworms
Fleeting Expletive
I’d venture to guess that I read BJ every day, but not every post, and have since … well, the waning days of GWB’s presidency and the painful countdown to his departure. I appreciate y’all. Thanks and I’ll still be here.
CaseyL
BJ may be unique in that it’s been around for over 15 years and some of the commenters have been here that long. We’ve seen one another through every kind of milestone, good and bad. We really are a family in a lot of ways, good and bad.
As someone whose bete noir is trying to join established social groups, I can very well understand lurkers’ and newbies’ hesitancy to speak up! And if your first efforts get attacked, that’s plenty of reason never to speak up again, alas.
I’ve said a few things that have angered people. But I’m a long-timer, so pissing people off isn’t the only thing I’ve ever done. I also tend to be someone who generally only comments if I have something pertinent to say, so I sometimes appear to be a comment-and-vanish person on some threads, which isn’t the case.
I think a good rule of thumb for greeting new voices would be a “three strikes” thing: one comment that seems trollish is given a pass, since the commenter may not be familiar with us; a second trollish comments gets polite pushback and explanation for it; and after a third, then we can cry havoc and let loose the dogs of war.
Another Scott
As long as I’ve been here, there have been a few people who seem to want to carry on the General Stuck tradition of flaming the (apparent) newbie. I took it in good fun when it happened to me, because I recognized it was in good fun. Unfortunately, my impression is that it’s often not in good fun anymore.
Mutual admiration societies are boring, and online communities die without new participants. But they also die when trolls take over, so there needs to be a balance.
This is a good place with a lot of good people. Maybe we can tone down the Stuck-y tradition?
My $0.02.
Cheers,
Scott.
Ivan X
@scribbler:
@Madeleine: We lurkers need to figure out how to better support each other! I’m sorry you had that experience (I have too). I’ve recovered, but, like you, I’m a bit gun-shy now.
@Watergirl: Maybe we can have a once in a while lurkers thread? Or one as an experiment? Sounds silly but maybe it would be useful.
SiubhanDuinne
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Of course birds twitter, and the past tense most certainly is ‘twittered.’
That said, when I type the word ‘twitter,’ Autocorrect immediately tries to capitalise it.
laura
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: You may find this will resolve the matter:
https://youtu.be/z-OteAgvINc
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Ivan X: like a no-flame, no troll-accusations thread? interesting idea.
I will bite my virtual tongue. Though personally I find myself constantly reasonable and kind.
Ivan X
@CaseyL:
I like this.
oldster
Long time reader (2004?), occasional commenter.
I have never felt picked on when I pipe up. I also don’t take strong stands far from the blog’s mainstream opinions, because I generally agree with them. I’m pretty sure that my views and demographics and origin story are indistinguishable from those of the majority of people here. (You’re all individuals. I’m not.)
I can never keep track of the identities of other commenters, so that means that some long-running feuds go over my head. I don’t miss them. I’ve also changed my own nym a time or two, as I see by looking back at the 2009 post on The Naming of Lily.
Why do I come back? For the solid information on COVID, health insurance, foreign affairs. For Betty’s ability to come up with ever more glorious insults (she’s our own Molly Ivins, come back to life). For tales of JC’s misadventures. For the pets. For useful links.
I don’t know if I feel community here exactly — I have never been to a meet-up, and I could not name which commenters I like or don’t like. But the place has a congenial vibe all the same. I guess it’s like how some people felt about a bar in the old times — you might not know the other customers, but you could sit and enjoy the atmosphere
Oh — and I really appreciate the election-year donation-whipping. I gave a lot more effectively because of organized guidance from you folks. More political donation blogging, please!
WaterGirl
@Ivan X: I actually had that same thought abut a lurkers thread, maybe a hundred comments earlier, but then dismissed it because I had no idea how that would work.
But now that someone else has suggested it, I would be game, but I would have to know more about how to actually do that. :-)
Ivan X
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Ha. I actually do find most people here reasonable and kind most of the time, or I wouldn’t come! I think we’re just talking about those other times.
realbtl
@Honus: BOB started out as interesting but devolved fairly quickly.
rdl
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Wasn’t the name of Twitter taken from the ‘bird twittering’? That’s why the icon is a bird, right? So, anyway to answer your question, yes, lots of people know that ‘twitter’ is a real word.
WaterGirl
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: A new commenters safety zone! :-)
Maybe a “new commenters introduce yourselves” thread?
zhena gogolia
@Ivan X:
Great idea! But how would you police it
ETA: I mean, how would you keep non-lurkers off? what is the definition of lurker?
Cheryl Rofer
@Falling Diphthong:
I think this is exactly right and why I give people some time to show whether or not they’re trolls.
I think we’re all a bit hair-trigger right now. There is SO MUCH disinformation around. I’ve thought about doing a post on that. The right wing seems to be trying to duplicate TFG’s disinformation flow in a decentralized way. And they’ve had some success. But I think they’re also getting a lot of pushback.
Xenos
@?BillinGlendaleCA: What blew my mind about Matoko Chan was that I had read the book where cudlips were defined, and knew what she was talking about. There is something disturbing about a clearly crazy person making points and using obscure language and realising that you actually understand them.
I have been following along since 2004, but have not been actively commenting much since about 2009. For a while, as I was facing the crisis of not seeing how I could raise my children in the increasing madhouse of the US, the blog did a lot to keep me sane – cudlips notwithstanding. I still have Thymezone on my facebook feed, of all people.
SiubhanDuinne
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Here, let me give you a brand new earworm:
https://youtu.be/1zfRQncw19M
You’re welcome. [Rubs hands together gleefully.]
O. Felix Culpa
@Cheryl Rofer: I would very much appreciate a post on disinformation, how to identify and respond (or not) to it. Response strategies were a challenge when I was in a public political role.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Maybe they can get a sticker like those “New Driver Please Be Patient” bumper stickers.
West of the Rockies
@Honus: Let’s not forget Ted and Helen, also too.
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: I imagined it being a place where new peeps and (former) lurkers could comment, and could be welcomed by others who are new, and also by folks who aren’t new. Open threads where anything could be discussed.
I would love to hear Ivan X was thinking, and what others think.
The threads where new people most frequently write their first comments are the On the Road threads and BG’s Medium Cool posts, both of which are always very friendly.
HRA
I have been attacked by FPs and some jackals many times. Even twice by a FP saying “why are you back” when I was only reading. That deserved my attention to tell her off and it did shut her up. At that same time a newbie showed up and wanted to continue and I ignored him/her. That one would come on early and returned later in the day. It was really clear to me that 2 people were using the name. Itwas not too long ago that someone mentioned it, too. As far as being ignored and/or being attacked I do not really care about it anymore. I will come and read. Happy Fathers Day to the Dads!
Old Dan and Little Ann
I hate being around people just gabbing but I certainly learned to enjoy reading comments from strangers from all over. Go figure. It’s been about 10 years or so. Yikes. I’ve also contemplated changing my nym as I am one person. Eh, fuck it.
Ivan X
@WaterGirl: Well, I’m just spitballing here, but maybe it could be a thread that formally invites noobs and lurkers to, if they want, say something about themselves or anything else they feel like talking about, and encourage the super-regulars to be polite in their criticisms or lay off entirely.
I realize that I have conflated it with a second idea I have that really would deserve its own experimental thread: a contrary positions thread. I think most of us generally agree politically, but I think it’s unlikely that we agree on everything, and I don’t think it’s healthy if we limit our exposure to differing positions of our little family here. Like a thread where everyone is free to take any point of view on a topic, but good faith is required in all comments and replies, however pointed, and maybe it should be moderated for obvious trolls and people who can’t respond politely. Not-clear-if-they’re trolls should just be ignored.
I realize, like pretty much all “wouldn’t it be nice” ideas, the devil is in the details, so maybe neither of these would actually work in real life.
LADave
@WaterGirl, thanks for asking the question. I’ve been lurking here since pre-Obama. Shyness, really, not a feeling of intimidation. This is a great community, great posters.
Ivan X
@WaterGirl: Yes. I think Medium Cool was a great addition to the blog, and an inviting place. Maybe just a few more words inviting noobs and lurkers to comment answers the “lurkers thread” need.
SiubhanDuinne
@West of the Rockies:
Yeah. And, uh, Caligula (not their real nym).
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@SiubhanDuinne: Great Scott!
clicking on links like that from here, especially from NotMax, has given me an… interesting set of suggestions from the YouTube algorithm
Lyrebird
@ArchTeryx:
I’ll second – or fifth or whatever – this.
I feel like an outsider, but then again, my current family situation takes up most of my time. I have been lifted up by the kindness of so many here, from Maine to the Midwest to Cali and Florida and beyond.
I wonder if there’s a way to just change that last sentence a little to include that sometimes there are snarls. Like in the tagline, right? I think the first time I posted a reply on Steve Gilliard’s blog I got told to go Cheney myself, but I stuck around.
?BillinGlendaleCA
I think the thing that set folk off about the comment from an infrequent commenter yesterday was not the issue that they first raised about relatives of administration officials being hired for other positions in government, it was the second part of their comment that said we’d all sweep it under the rug. (Baud said he’s get a broom and several of us agreed to provide a dustpan).
Bringing up a contentious issue in a comment if fine, and the commenter may get differing views, but insulting the rest of the commenter will not(nor should) get a polite response.
WaterGirl
@Baud:
Avatars! :-)
If anyone can find the avatar thread where John gave us all avatars – on that Sunday so long ago! – that would be perfect for the BJ anniversary collection. I wonder if that’s in the lexicon.
Ivan X
@zhena gogolia: I think it could be open to anybody including regulars, but some guidelines should be suggested for tone of response, and maybe vituperative responses, if they appear, should be deleted. I dunno. I agree with you that it might be easier said than done. Btw I usually enjoy your comments.
CaseyL
People bringing up nyms of the infamous trolls over the years is certainly bringing back a lot of memories!
I appreciate people liking my three-strikes idea! How to police it is a good question. How about:
Miss Bianca
@CaseyL:
I think that’s a fine rule of thumb. Goes along with Adam S’s dictum: “Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, thrice is enemy action.” (OK, I don’t think he used “thrice” instead of “three times”, but I’ve been directing Shakespeare, so I’m rolling with it.)
I remember my first ever comment landing with something of a thud, or so I thought, only to have Subaru Diane issue a throw-back call to it years and years later. Funny!
And the first person who ever actually responded to a comment of mine, as I recall was mclaren – who was very encouraging and nice! Later discovered that that might have been the exception rather than the rule for mclaren, who seemed to be a bit unbalanced, shall we say, and was eventually banned. I seem to recall that their insult of choice was “pygmy skink.” Not quite “cudlip”, but almost as bizarre.
Yeah, I have been around here for a while. Also was a lurker for years and years, so yeah, I’m down with more lurkers coming forward.
West of the Rockies
@Old Dan and Little Ann: It’s funny, I sometimes make assumptions about writers here based on their nyms. I picture an aging hippie and his wife from your name. I’m probably way off.
I chose my name because I used to enjoy Art Bell’s UFO/ghost topics. Felt like BS’ing around a campfire. I am no CT though.
Steeplejack
Late to the blog this morning, and I see my nym in the top post. Eek. What have I done?!
Okay, here’s what I wrote yesterday:
I admit that it is a trigger for me when I see a commenter attack someone because “I’ve never seen your nym before. Troll! Troll!” Yes, it’s usually when someone expresses an opinion far outside the Balloon Juice norm, but, what, “Troll!” is supposed to be some devastating, “check and mate” response? And it’s all too often the case that it’s not the first time the “troll” has commented.
Balloon Juice benefits from more commenters, not fewer, and we should not foster an environment where lurkers or newcomers are afraid to comment because they’ll break some unknown rule or offend one of the 50-100 daily regulars whose nyms everyone recognizes. I lurked here for a long time before I dared to comment because there is a feeling of exposure in joining the conversation that takes a while to get over. We should all remember that.
Yes, we do get trolls occasionally—mercifully few, compared with other blogs—but they should get at least a little rope to hang themselves with before they’re summarily dismissed. If one of them enrages you, you can always argue with them on the specific issue—or not. And there’s always the pie filter for those with tender sensibilities.
As they say on Twitter, I don’t have a Soundcloud to promote, but this topic made me think of David Bohm’s excellent book On Dialogue (1996).
tl;dr: Think dialogue, not debate.
ETA: Haven’t read the comments yet. Off to do that now.
WaterGirl
@Old Dan and Little Ann: I always pictured you as a couple. Were you originally two people, and now there is only one of you?
ian
@zhena gogolia:
Anne Laurie ripped my shit to pieces in 2009 the first time I commented here
Edit: And I had it coming
WaterGirl
@Ivan X: So it would be Arguments but not Abuse! :-)
Just teasing with that comment, but yours is an interesting idea.
zhena gogolia
@Xenos: Oh, I miss them.
Elizabelle
@?BillinGlendaleCA: It was also hilarious that John’s blogpost was “Why are people so angry?” and this commenter threw in content from a clickbait site (mediaite) — saying one person “destroyed” another was a clue there. That’s very strange language.
TomatoQueen had a brilliant observation about Walter Shaub, and whether he might have had some health issues. He was certainly trying with his tweets yesterday to dissuade all the rightwingers chortling and hurling his accusations, using them to help normalize Trump and GOP. But what would Shaub have expected? Ergo, something might be up with him.
CAM-WA
Been a lurker (and a rare commenter) since some time in 2016, I think. I don’t read the comments that often, but I can’t say I’ve noticed much meanness, at least not in comparison to pretty much anything else I read (except highly curated spots, such as the NYT comments).
This is slightly OT, but I think BJ has lost some of its mojo post Jan 20, 2021. Since TFG was already on the scene when I started, I can’t comment on what it was like before TFG sucked all the energy out of the universe.
Post Jan 20, there are fewer front-pager posts, and it seems to me shorter comment sections as well. It’s as if now that we don’t have the constant anger-inducing news all the time, we are struggling to find something to say. If it weren’t for Anne Laurie’s daily COVID update and her Sunday morning garden pictures, BJ would be a lot shorter (well, not on days that Silverman posts, of course!)
I think we should consciously look for some new perspectives and tackle some topics in greater depth than we’ve seen.
The “new perspectives” idea came to me when I read ruemara’s Juneteenth post. I thought to myself, “I’ll bet the overwhelming majority of Juicers are white.” (I may be wrong about that, of course.)
I really appreciated ruemara’s perspective, and like the first time I listened to UrbanView on SiriusXM, I thought to myself, “I really don’t hear these voices very often…even when I agree 1000% with what is said, it comes with an angle I don’t hear very often, and I need to.”
Why don’t we talk in greater depth about institutional racism (beyond agreeing that, “Yup, it exists”). A conversation around whether “Defund the Police” is a smart or dumb slogan/tag line gets us about 1/4” deep into the topic.
What about immigration? Being opposed to the TFG’s cruelty is easy. Figuring out what kind of immigration policy the US SHOULD have isn’t something we talk about a lot. We could broaden our discussion if we had some folks on board who really understand, through their personal experience, what’s going on (and what isn’t but should be).
I’m sure 30 min of brainstorming would lead to plenty of really important topics that we could consider devoting some time to.
Ivan X
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Agreed that the commenter was poking the bear and also accusing us of looking the other way when we don’t want to see something, in provocative language. I thought Baud’s response was appropriate and so were the responses substantively responding to the accusation of nepotism/cronyism in the Biden admin. I don’t think that kind of comment inherently warrants “fuck you” type responses, though doubling down with no regard for thoughtful responses might.
And also, though I think that post was confrontationally worded, which makes you question the motivations of the poster, I think we are prone to blind spots and favoritism. And, as others have said here, probably more so in the particular time we’re in, after the particular time we’ve lived through, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to be vigilant around being honest with ourselves. (There was a thread some time back where people were all upset because the NYT was supposedly using “Mr Biden” instead of “President Biden” at every appearance, and some were calling it disrespectful, and when Joyce showed up and said can we please not be like the Trumpoids in this regard, I wanted to cheer.)
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Steeplejack:
You know what you did.
zhena gogolia
@Ivan X:
I guess as a frequenter commenter, I count as being “in the club,” but I have to say that as a liberal Christian I find that any comments expressing that viewpoint get pretty vicious responses.
surfk9
@laura: My sentiments exactly!
Lyrebird
That’s a really cool idea!
I really have no idea how to stop a pile-on when it’s happening, and I don’t mean piling on to trolls, I mean like happened to ABL iirc.
For the psyops type stuff, like postings that sound like they are just here to sow doubt and confusion about Fowchie or what have you, I have this wacky idea that maybe Major^4 could figure out a way to compare posts to what Twitter bot detectors look at. Or maybe Adam Silverman knows of a public dashboard that shows what lines troll farms are pushing lately.
But that would probably be a massive new project they do not need to complete right now!
And it does not answer the question of the esteemed OP. Just wanted to mention it regarding trolls.
Ivan X
@WaterGirl: Haha, a pithy summation. Yes!
zhena gogolia
@Ivan X:
Thanks! Same to you!
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: When I started commenting here in 2008ish. I made a point of making a number of innocuous comments on general topics before I waded into the fights.
Miss Bianca
@WaterGirl:
@Old Dan and Little Ann: It’s from Where the Red Fern Grows, right? The names of the two hounds (oh, Lord, talk about a heartbreaking book).
elm
If you’re not willing to happy-talk and STFU about anything that’s not perfect, there are a handful of folks who make sure to make you unwelcome. They also freely dismiss and shit on FP posters (especially women).
It’s honestly not worth participating here.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Omnes Omnibus: one of my regular haunts in those days was MyDD, where the Clinton/Obama wars made just about anything that ever happened here seem like tea with the Queen
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@elm:
While you’re up on that cross, can you see where I parked my car?
elm
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: That’s the spirit. Addressing tbe OP is unacceptable.
WaterGirl
@CAM-WA: To pick up your point related to racism, Cole and I are planning a series – related to institutional racism and changing how policing is done – where we invite BJ peeps to share their thoughts on how to move forward. In guest posts, just like we did with people’s thoughts about Biden administration priorities in the run-up to Jan 20.
It’s been in the pipeline for a couple of months, but Cole is going to write the post to invite the guest posts, and this has been his busy time. But look for that soon.
Steeplejack
@Josie:
I miss Corner Stone. Also eemom, another commenter who elicited prickly reactions.
Ivan X
@zhena gogolia: I’ll try to be more supportive if I see your posts from that perspective. I like liberal Christians, quite sincerely, and have no problem with religious observation by others, and recognize that “religion” is a spectrum, not a monolith, and something that is felt as deep and highly personal. Speaking only for myself, I think religious belief is basically irrational, as metaphysical things usually are, but I don’t have any problem with that; but I think it’s why some people don’t like it, because many of us feel like reason should always prevail (and it’s not as if awful things have never been done, and aren’t being done right now, in the name of religion). I just accept that my intellect and emotion are sometimes in conflict. I’m a liberal Jew myself, who goes through very long oscillation cycles of being engaged or disengaged from the practice.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
#215 is a good example of the type of comment that triggers an appropriately hostile response from the regulars.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Ivan X: If you poke the bear, you WILL get a response. I think the first part of the comment was fairly discussed, examples were given of the same practice occurring in the corporate and academic worlds as well as what would be the alternative to government service for some of these folk(K-Street).
The whole Mr. Biden thing has been a bone of contention going back to the Obama years(Mt. Obama). That’s the NYT(they’re garbage) style book. First mention would be President Biden, after that Mr. Biden. They are consistent, so I’ve been OK with it.
way2blue
I’ve been reading Balloon Juice since John was a Republican… But rarely comment & rarely read comment threads. Unless it’s a post about books, films, TV series… And of course, ‘On The Road’. So can’t help with your specific question:
But I do have a somewhat related question: there’s some community interest in a local BJ meet-up at Rossotti’s, a tavern in my town, but I have no idea how to organize it… How to find out who would come, what day/time… Ack.
Miss Bianca
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: OK, I know I shouldn’t be laughing LIKE A JACKAL, not while we’re trying to be nice and introspective and shit, but damn, dude…I am gonna drive that one-liner some day like I stole it!
elm
@Baud: A predictably hostile response from about 4 regulars who have hostility very well covered.
There go two miscreants
Yes of course, but (and this may depress you) I am 70 years old.
Another Scott
I think I lurked here a year or more before I even created a login. It was clear to me that it was a special place for discussing politics and life, but not as overwhelming as Kos, and not as (can’t find the word) as FDL. But it took me a long time to think that I might have something useful to contribute.
Eventually I jumped in.
Lurkers should always be welcomed and encouraged. That’s where new commenters are raised.
Cheers,
Scott.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Miss Bianca: I was trying for welcoming jocularity, I guess elm didn’t take it in kind
elm
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: You shit on roughly every comment I make. There is no jocularity. We are not friends.
I can understand why you and your fellow mean girls would want to derail a discussion like this.
Baud
@elm:
Didn’t you just say that it’s not worth participating here?
I’m actually glad you showed up to provide an example of the type of behavior that triggers the reactions from regulars that lurkers of good faith have expressed concern about. It’ll help improve regular/lurker understanding and dialog.
Ivan X
@elm: This is a non-constructive comment. It’s an expression of feeling, but that feeling is disgust and contempt. It doesn’t invite serious consideration, even if the core of what you’re saying does, because why would anyone want to respond to personal accusations expressed with disgust and contempt?
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: This is an amusing bit of sarcasm, but it perpetuates the problem we’re talking about here. I’d vote for ignore, or invite them to say what they’re saying in less personal, better-faith terms. Then, if they continue without altering their approach, have at them.
DB11
@Steeplejack: Co-signed, especially since you referenced David Bohm and his fascinating insights into the nature and purpose of dialogue (vs argument).
His interesting ideas about the ossification of thought and the role that language plays in that stagnation was his impetus for proposing ‘rheomode’ — a form of language without nouns — to better reflect the ever-changing underlaying state of understanding, knowledge and being.
He also talked decades ago about his concern that we had entered a new age of ‘endarkenment’, and that a longterm arc of enlightenment (or justice for that matter) was not the inevitable outcome of of human civilization and culture.
WaterGirl
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I think I was the one who brought that up in the thread being referred to. I know it’s the NYT style book, but I hate that and it seems disrespectful to any president.
WaterGirl
@way2blue: We actually have something for Site Meetups in the site rebuild, but we had barely gotten started with that when COVID stopped meetups in their tracks.
Send me an email and we can get you started.
Steeplejack
@Super Dave:
Something to consider: comments can register with and affect readers even if they don’t respond. How many comments do you think are “good” but you don’t bother to respond? Everyone’s tiny rivulet contributes to the mighty river that is Balloon Juice as it flows onward to the sea of enlightenment. Koo-koo-ka-choo!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Ivan X: elm isn’t a newcomer, they’ve been working that “I’m too good for this place” shtick for a solid week
and if a little gentle mockery is out-of-bounds….
Ivan X
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
It was less about the specifics of the situation and just the first example that came to mind where we flirt with descending into hive mind or hero worship, which I think no one here actually wants.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@WaterGirl: The NYT is garbage. It is what it is.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Ivan X: I googled a couple of articles from the Bush presidency at the time. They used that same formula for him.
One of my unpopular opinions that I don’t express much here is the NYT vigilante-ism can go overboard.
Ivan X
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Didn’t know that re elm, in context maybe I’d re-evaluate. And it was pretty good (and light) mockery. I’m just saying that this is a whole thread about whether we hit that button a little too fast.
ETA: And I agree with you re NYT. I used to quite like it many years ago, now I think it’s just mediocre, largely in part to all serious news orgs’ business models having been hollowed out, first by Craigslist, then by the internet, and finally by consumers’ appetite for new headlines every 5 minutes. I realize it’s a bigger target than elsewhere since they are important influence shapers, but the hatred expressed towards it here seems silly and overwrought.
Steeplejack
@Danielx:
Nicely put.
ALurkSupreme
I will remain a lurker. I like the political content and coverage of important issues, as most of the views here tend to parallel my own, but I no longer read any of the personal posts or pet posts.
dnfree
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: it’s possible to disagree with someone, or point out opposing facts, without jumping down someone’s throat. It’s possible to give someone’s intentions the benefit of the doubt on their first comment until their intention is clearer.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Ivan X: on topic, when elm reappeared recently and got a few “I’ve never seen you before TROLL!” comments, I was on the brink of pointing out that I remembered teh nym from past comments.
But the whole “people are laughing at me and therefore I declare that the quality of these discussions has deteriorated” is leading with the chin
elm
@Ivan X: You shouldn’t believe that regarding me from Jim. It’s a gross misrepresentation.
With respect to my original post here, I answered what WaterGirl asked, no less and no more.
Omnes Omnibus
I think that it is incumbent on longtime regulars to presume good faith on the part of new posters, but, at the same time, new posters should realize that they are walking into a place with history. Like coming in to a bar for the first time…. The regulars have established ongoing quarrel and friendships. Sometimes stepping in into those can open up an unintended can of worms.
Old Dan and Little Ann
@WaterGirl: I’ve wrote this a time or two but a few animal posts got me hooked on this blog. I chose the 2 dogs from my favorite book trying to be clever. Fail. My wife knows my affinity for BJ and I’ve had her read many threads fwiw. By the way, the work you do here is remarkable. Cheers.
SteveinPHX
Fairly recent arrival to this. Never having been a blogger, I spent weeks figuring out the mechanics here while delighting in the repartee, both high and low. It’s been a treat encountering some intelligent life out there. I’m sticking around.
But, man, some of you guys can be tough little fuckers! I will watch my step!
SiubhanDuinne
@Miss Bianca:
Ooh, are you directing the Scottish Play?
Wait, what now? Can you remind me what that was about, please?
Baud
@Old Dan and Little Ann:
Phrasing!
WaterGirl
@ALurkSupreme: Interesting that you said you no longer read pet posts or personal posts. That sounds like a change, and I’m curious as to why, if you are up for sharing.
MattF
And the thread devolves. As for why… I’m only asking.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Ivan X: I think their day-to-day political reporting is no better or worse than most outlets, I think the Washington Post has a generally higher quality, but they step in it a lot too. But the Times also published the 1619 project, and the in-depth dives into trump’s taxes, among other good things.
The oped page still publishes Tom Friedman and Maureen Dowd– I know twitter isn’t real life, but I can’t remember the last time anything either of them wrote went viral, for good or bad– but they also publish Michelle Goldberg and Jamelle Bouie. So… some bad, some good.
Old Dan and Little Ann
@West of the Rockies: That’s funny. Not yet 50 but ageing still the same. Hippyish, probably. The wife would fit in here just fine.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Generally posts that are about the other poster(s) come across as more hostile than posts about the topic at hand.
WaterGirl
@MattF: Hopefully it’s just a brief side trip.
There has been so many good thoughts expressed here, so much good input, that I hope we will get back to it. I have faith!
O. Felix Culpa
@WaterGirl: Not that I was asked, but I like On the Road posts just once a day, in the morning as originally done. A lovely amuse-bouche, as it were.
Ivan X
@elm: I wasn’t involved with the dialogue between you and Jim, so I’ll stay out of it. But you answered what Watergirl asked in a way that expressed disgust and contempt towards others here, ascribing bad motivations to them.
And, I disagree with “no less and no more” in your response to Watergirl’s post. You responded with “more”. You didn’t say “I feel antagonized when responded to, and it makes me feel angry and unwelcome” which I feel would be an important comment. Instead you said “If you’re not willing to happy-talk and STFU about anything that’s not perfect” — in other words, reductively calling people here stupid, incapable of thought, and contemptuous — and you concluded with “It’s honestly not worth participating here”, which is the equivalent of slamming a door. How should I respond to that?
These are just my reactions to your expression, but how you express yourself makes me predisposed to feel less interested towards you. That doesn’t make me “right,” but I think you’ve gotta own (as I’ve had to in past threads when I invoked a negative reaction from others) that it’s not just about what you say, but how you say it.
Baud
@Ivan X:
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Their domestic political reporting is the part that has been really really problematic, given their readership and influence.
Ivan X
@Omnes Omnibus: Fair enough, but I think it’s a question for us to ask ourselves as to whether or not we really want others in our bar, especially if they’re not “like” us in the way we expect. Maybe we don’t!
Another Scott
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Unpossible.
Here’s a FTFNYT link for proof.
Cheers,
Scott.
Mary G
I’ve been reading since John was a conservative Republican. I never even thought about commenting in the first few years, partly because it seemed like everybody knew everybody else, and partly because I have of medical necessity become a hunt-and-peck typist and somebody else usually made my point sooner and better.
The first comment I made as a semi-joke got me flamed by a guy named Nick, who was a regular that worked in Democratic politics and seemed very respected by the jackaltariat. He said something like “clueless liberals like Mary G are the reason we can’t win elections,” and I shut down. Maybe he was even joking, though that had not been his thing. I stopped coming here for a while.
Then I read references to Balloon Juice and John so many other places (cough, less-crazy Andrew Sullivan’s Daily Dish) I came back. I talked to Stuck and SD who were both very kind (yes, Stuck) but kept mostly lurking until 2014 when out of the blue I was able to grab somebody out of the most depressing motel room I have ever seen and brought him home to give him a safe place to heal himself. That got me a lot of attention and even an email from John himself that read “you are an angel” in its entirety, and approval from a lot of people, so I felt safer to talk here. Now you can’t shut me up.
I haven’t been on here as much for a while, but it seems to me in my limited viewing that people are actually much nicer to each other right now than was the case in the past. Skins are much thinner, because while we acknowledge it, I don’t think it’s sunk in how much trauma the last four years plus covid have caused us all, and I know I feel like I am running on empty like the Band of Brothers huddling in the forest of Bastogne while the Republicans are sending in the big tanks.
So to me the occasional hysterics are perfectly understandable, and I wish I was more the person I am now when I was the person who got shut up years ago.
YAL (Yet Another Lurker)
Long time lurker – back when I probably linked here from DKos or FDL in the Howard Dean days.
Now it’s the only real blog I read most of because I just don’t have the time.
I agree y’all feel like family even though none of you know me.
Not sure why I chose today to comment, but the thread made me think I should.
I’m an intensely private person and would prefer nobody actually know who I am.
I couldn’t imagine going through 2016-2020 without this place.
I think perhaps I’d comment a LITTLE more if there weren’t as many data trackers (DuckDuckGo lists 12), but nobody generally cares about this, so yeah. Back to the lurker corner I go.
SiubhanDuinne
@Ivan X:
Build a wall, and make the lurkers pay for it!
Almost Retired
I was a long time lurker until….well….I think my nym explains the change. Previously, I would have used the nym “why the fuck did I go to law school because I’m tired of 60 hour weeks,” but that seemed a little long.
I, of course, love the snark, but I really love the gang funding of small but impactful under-the-radar groups. It’s much more satisfying to give as part of a group large enough to make a significant difference to the organization, as opposed to just mailing out a bunch of random checks like I used to do.
Ivan X
@SiubhanDuinne: Now we’re talking!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud: I think Haberman earns most of the scorn she gets, she’s incredibly superficial and “Look! Squirrel!” and don’t get me started on Peter Baker, David Broder’s more right-leaning professional successor, but I think a lot of others in their stable are closer to the norm.
And as with a lot of other outlets, when they complain about people “only reading the headlines”, whoever writes those headlines should be fired
ALurkSupreme
@WaterGirl: Sorry; my post wasn’t precisely worded. My change in reading habits here (and at other online venues) was a necessary act of self-policing, not an adverse reaction to the content here. In other words, my time management skills needed improvement. I enjoy Balloon Juice, and I’m content to remain a lurker.
Thanks for following up!
Omnes Omnibus
@Ivan X: We were all new once. That being said, there is a specific culture here and it does involve sharp elbows and sharp words. Not all people enjoy that kind of interaction. But, as Steep says and I agree, calling new people trolls because we disagree with them is unnecessary. I reserve that label for very specific people. Many others are simply wrong.
Revrick
@Super Dave: I’m completely in agreement with you Super Dave. New commenters, by and large, tend to be ignored. But I’m quite familiar with this behavior. It’s like going to a new church for the very first time (at least of the mainline Protestant variety).
And God forbid you sit in the wrong pew.
DB11
As a (very) longtime lurker (what year did Steve Gilliard die?) and occasional commenter, this is a fascinating — and fractal — thread as the meta-topic being discussed and its nested phenomena are both present: as items being discussed and patterns being demonstrated.
It’s funny, because almost every time I come here I ask myself if it’s worth engaging — especially if my POV strays at all from the accepted beliefs of the core clique. Most of the time my self-answer is no — it’s not important enough to endure the coming abuse and smug assertions of superior political savvy.
But I also realize that it’s literally a half-dozen dyspeptic and dominating regulars that are responsible for 90% of the vitriol on this site (though they seem to tell themselves it’s just clever snark), and that there are manifold other commenters that have expertise, experience and interesting insights to share.
People like Betty Cracker, Kay, Rikyrah, Martin, Ruemara and Another Steve — who are consistently interesting, engaging, thoughtful and kind in their exchanges, without being thin-skinned or wishy-washy, show that it is possible to be clever, witty and even contrary… without being dickish.
I would also like to thank Water Girl — who is the glue of this community — for her relentless effort to improve both the site itself and the quality of its commentariat, as well as Ann Laurie for her herculean COVID and gardening content-production efforts.
These people, along with Cheryl, Adam and David Anderson — whose subject-matter expertise is nonpareil, are the reasons I keep coming back to this blog.
It’s tough to find an online community of like-minded thinkers that remains open, vibrant and diverse (at least in ideas, and hopefully also in participants), that doesn’t end up eventually descending into the echo-chamber of a close-minded clique. I hope that will not become BJ’s fate, though I do believe it’s already several steps down that path.
Steeplejack
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
I have run into birds twittering in my reading—and also in real life!
Language changes. Some changes are good, some are bad. I’m with you in mourning the (apparent) loss of useful, colorful words. It’s like species extinction.
Steeplejack
@TS (the original):
For the love of god, get an ad blocker and throw Cole a few bucks via donation when you feel like it. Nobody should have to put up with the obnoxious floating ads.
trollhattan
@Honus:
Lordy. “I’d love to continue trolling you guys but I’m due at my Glenn Beck listening club, then going out and harassing some Somali immigrants.”
What a guy.
Of course BIP–Bob in Pacifica/Portland–who spun Russian hoaxes and curiously knew not thing one about the place he “lived.” And, who can forget BRINKS TRUCKS?
Then there was “Chet” who mysteriously appeared with each spree killing to instruct that hardly any gun deaths result from semiautomatic rifles and “you said ‘clip.'”
WaterGirl
@O. Felix Culpa:
We are doing a Paris/France series in the 10pm slot, and then some national parks, and then we will be back to just mornings for quite awhile.
Baud
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
It goes way back. I don’t even care that much about the columnists. But you had Judith Miller during Bush, and of course the awful EMAILS coverage, plus many other things I can’t bring to mind.
That said, I’ll admit I have seen less to complain about since Biden took office.
There are those who call me...tim... (Still posh)
@Steeplejack: i feel Super Dave here. Maybe it’s just not the rapid response system I’m used to from the old Facepalm days, when it was just me and a close circle of fiends.
Also, Omnes Omnibus called me “a very strange person” recently. So I got that going for me. Which is nice.
O. Felix Culpa
@WaterGirl: Good to know. Thank you!
Ryan
You forgot to mention the snark that is implied with having the initials BJ.
joel hanes
I’m not here as often as I once was, but it’s my impression that there’s now far less of the bitter back-biting that led to the original characterization of the commentariat as “jackals”. At one time the personal attacks used to get pretty hot, pretty regularly.
And BJ was once afflicted with a fair number of really off-putting trolls, now thankfully rare.
Steeplejack
@Another Scott:
I don’t remember Stuck as being particularly hard on newcomers. He did have some memorable feuds with other regulars, though. ?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Baud:
Slate is doing a podcast series on the run-up to the Iraq War, and last week’s (or the week before?) episode was about Judy Miller and teh culture of the NYT. It was interesting, I’d have to listen to it again to be sure, but she was much more contrite than I expected her to be. They put a lot of the blame on Howell Raines promoting a hot scoop culture vs careful reporting, while my recollection is that Bill Keller was the worst. But those memories get cloudy after almost two decades.
there was definitely an institutional hatred of HRC at the Times, but it extended out well beyond. My pet theory that I can never quite articulate is that the media– the MSM, teh So-Called-Liberal-Media– took out on Hillary Clinton their complicated resentments and professional frustrations toward Bill Clinton. Which they had already done with Al Gore.
Baud
@joel hanes:
I’ve only been here since 2010, but I agree. I seem to remember it being more jackal-y than it is today.
Ruckus
@Cheryl Rofer:
As a young person I was smaller than average for much of my childhood, I grew 6 inches in HS and another 4 into my early 20s. That led to some using, or trying to use me as their victim. I learned early on never ever to let them, to either push back or to out smart them, often the far easier choice. But I also found out that people don’t always put their best foot forward and first impressions can be 100% wrong, so go with the flow till the stupid/bully/asshole is obvious. That wait and discover before reacting concept has done very well for me over the years. Especially as an adult who has had to employ people, train people, work with lots of people, most of whom actually have a functioning brain, even if it functions differently than mine. Of course there are always people who show you who/what they are in the first 5 seconds of meeting and it’s not always good.
We have, all of us, built a family around this place, and like all families it isn’t always an equal experience. We all have a position, for want of a better word, in the family, no matter how extended/different/weird we all are. We have at least learned to accept the people that want to be members, but we are also protective of ourselves and the family. And we welcome new members of the family, but they have to, like all families, have at least some conception of the structure and family they want to become part of. When they come in and first thing announce that they are, relatively speaking, the new dad/mom and that all of the following will forthwith be the rules, we get slightly to massively annoyed, as most anyone would. Now it’s possible that we shouldn’t be looking at this as a family but I’d bet that some/many of us spend more time here than we did as part of our actual families because we have chosen this one and added our color and selves to it, rather than the other way round.
CaseyL
@ALurkSupreme: That’s an interesting distinction (and thanks for your later comment clarifying that lack of time, rather than lack of interest, is why you don’t participate in the more personal threads).
I’m the opposite: it’s the personal and pet posts that keep me engaged! The political posts I do read, and often comment in, but IMO the personal ones are what makes BJ a community.
Baud
@Ruckus:
You have really thoughtful comments, man. I keep forgetting to say it.
Ivan X
@DB11: What a great comment. I nodded my head through all of it.
I also think a fundamental change here is the reduced presence of the Blogfather. He is uniquely able to meld hostility, wit, honesty, perspective, and love in a way that others have tried to emulate but just can’t. Like an orchestra conductor, he establishes the character and corrects and accents by intuition as he goes. But, with that said, he’s assembled an incredible team of players on the front page, and cultivated wonderful audience members, some of whom hum along, and some who don’t. (And a few who cough and fart.)
Kirk Spencer
@Emma from Miami:
I am heartily embarrassed at my back of the envelope plus misplaced decimal screaming back at the start of the Covid thing. In my defense … nope, gotta throw myself on the mercy of the court there.
J R in WV
@ArchTeryx:
So glad to hear about your sweetie moving in with you~!!~ That will be so nice for you both… Also glad for you to have medical cannabis if it helps you cope with life and everything.
Best wishes for things going forward.
Ruckus
@Old Dan and Little Ann:
Eh, fuck it.
Now that is the BJ that I’ve experienced for well over a decade.
Miss Bianca
@SiubhanDuinne: Nay, not *stage whisper* The Scottish Play (and I’m only typing that out because I am actually sitting *in* the theater as we speak), but Much Ado about Nothing.
Oh, the comment? It was a little poem I wrote, an ode to Betty C and her encounter with a lizard in her ukelele.
2liberal
someone once wrote that cornerstone left when the NFL threads stopped. I personally kept updating the cleek filter just so i could remove CS from the discussions. I just found this commenter to be annoying.
Fair Economist
A striking feature of Balloon Juice in its very early days was the variety of opinions here. It was almost the only place in the blogosphere where both liberals and conservatives participated, and it was unusually tolerant, partly because trolling was actually accepted as part of the culture. DougJ would famously spoof-troll from time to time and when somebody pushed a particularly nutty line there would be speculation as to whether it was real or a DougJ spoof.
That’s been lost over time, for a number of reasons. Partly the plausibility of conservative and libertarian positions has deteriorated over time as many long-held positions (‘the market is always right”, “government is always less efficient”) have been painfully disproven by recent events. Partly the conservative meme-space has been taken over by total quackpottery with antivaxxers, fake ballots from China with bamboo fibers, magnetic boobies, etc. I do miss the wide open discussions, but I like the community that’s been built up here. It would be great to have both, but I’m not sure it’s possible to have warm personal relationships and fierce political arguments.
We are certainly sometimes too mean to people, especially newbies. I think that’s because the stakes for politics have gotten so high, and because of the quackpottery infesting discussions everywhere. I think we’d benefit from a little more tolerance – there’s not much benefit to calling somebody a troll and *everybody* has *some* whacky opinions. I don’t even agree with myself all the time!
J R in WV
@Starfish:
Nominated for most LOL, barking mad and hysterically funny comment of the decade~!!!~ Thanks!!!
Nelle
I’m mostly a lurker and, mostly that is okay. I find myself edging away from people more and more anyway. Sometimes, when I comment, I get uneasy that I’m the bothersome old woman in the corner. That might be more a reflection of my life than the blog. Here’s a question..are some big number of you connected on other social media, such as Facebook?
I come for AL and her Covid posts, for Cheryl, Adam, and Tom’s insights, for Betty’s snappy writing. I cherish many of the commenters. I am pleased with the fundraising generosity, particularly for Anderson’s relatives.
I just wish I could remember where people lived, especially when they comment about the weather.
joel hanes
@Kirk Spencer:
Your alarmism about covid (and my own) was only contingently wrong — it might well have been as bad as we feared, and the next pandemic may be so.
Had SARS-COV2 been as infectious as measles, and had its fatality rate been comparable to the fatality rate of measles in a naive population (e.g native Americans in the centuries following European contact), the US would have experienced millions of deaths.
In the event, neither of those were true. This time.
evodevo
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Obviously these people have never read a book or poem..Birds twittering in the trees is a phrase that goes back to Middle English for goodness sake…(Chaucer)
joel hanes
@Revrick:
New commenters, by and large, tend to be ignored.
with respect to Cole, this is the inevitable result of unthreaded commenting in a high-volume blog.
Were I emperor of BJ technology, and had I infinite money with which to pay the developers, the comment section would have both threaded and unthreaded display modes, as some blog comment sections once did.
I’m guessing that wouldn’t scale well, though.
DB11
@Ivan X: Thanks for the kind words.
And I concur about the impact of Cole’s reduced presence on the tenor of the blog. What I find most endearing about Cole are his combination of his brutal self-honesty and existential humility… along with his love of pets and plants, of course :)
While we’ve all seen Cole rant and rave, I’ve never seen him assert that he has all the answers and we should simply sit back and listen to his received wisdom. On the contrary, more often than not what he has are really engaging questions — about why things or people are the way they are — that set him off.
But I’ve always found that a good question is far more enduring over time than any ‘right’ answer (no matter how correct it might seem at the time).
James E Powell
I don’t remember when I first read or commented here, but it was probably post Cole Conversion because I don’t remember reading Republican things here.
The readers and their comments are the main reason I kept coming back. I could no longer deal with the comments at the Great Orange Satan. Most other political blogs have become more like GOS. Pointless bickering.
Back during the campaign or maybe post election day, I suggested that maybe we could all be nicer to each other. Someone told me to take my tone policing and shove it up my ass. Or some such thing. What can you do but laugh?
It gets contentious around here sometimes, but it’s really mild compared to the comments on the music & sports blogs I read.
Ksmiami
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: yeah I saw that comment and promptly left the chat… I mean we are fighting fascists Rt now so a few qualified family ppl in the Biden admin really really doesn’t matter
Humdog
I used to think it was awful to comment and have it be ignored, the old shouting into the wind thing.
But then I commented a criticism of an Adam post and was hit with three replies: 1) you are clearly someone with comprehension problems, ya stoopid. 2) “I am sick and tired of hearing that x is what an abuser tells the abused, get over it!” nice comment to someone who was abused throughout their childhood. And 3) how dare you say anything positive about Bernie, Bernie is worse than trump and you yourself are as bad a trump for saying anything good about BS. I was never a Bernie Stan, but damn.
Learned my lesson. It felt better to be ignored. Have commented maybe three times since. I now spend less time here too. Maybe the wind will hear this one?
James E Powell
@DB11:
My take is that many people have left blogs behind for interaction on facebook, twitter, etc., so every blog’s community got smaller and more homogenous.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@joel hanes:
That’s the reason proper operation of the “back button” is so vital here. Folk don’t often enclose the portion of the comment they’re replying to so you have to go back, and back more occasionally, and then get back to the first comment. If you’ve commented in a thread, the whole “back button” seems to stop working and then it becomes much more difficult to follow the thread.
Fair Economist
@Omnes Omnibus: You can’t survive here without thick skin. I’ve been posting under this nym for over a decade, I’m a regular, I’m pretty temperate in my comments, I almost always have facts to back up my claims, and I *still* get ferociously attacked by regulars or even frontpagers from time to time. No matter how nice you try to be, if you post on anything other than pets, you’re going to get attacked at least occasionally.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@James E Powell: I don’t do politics on FB or Twitter, just photography stuff; we have heated discussions, but more about camera settings.
Ruckus
@WaterGirl:
Joining this late (gunna gloat just a bit, 3rd day of retirement, yesterday I removed the regular alarm that I used to wake me on work days and that feels good! I am easy to please….maybe) but many of us have been coming to BJ for a very long time and we participate in what I can only describe as an extended family because so many of us have been coming for that extended time. We likely feel we’ve invested ourselves into the place/fight/whatever and would like to see it not torn apart. Now if one realizes that it is John’s place and he keeps the front door open to all and as long as it doesn’t get too uncivilized, it’s OK, but we’ve invested a touch here or there as well. It has grown into a rather large, for want of a better word, family. And like most families, members are protective of both the overall and the individuals that make up the family. I think this dynamic of online groups is something that we have to discuss and look at for the dynamics that make it up, because it is the sum of the members. Some will be more protective because it is a family like atmosphere. Hell for some of us it may be more family than the one we were born into. And just for the record, one of my family members stuck a fork in my arm, so remember that not every day is a wonderful day in any family. (We also made up and became fast friends for decades, after that forking.) Families have ups and downs, children and adults(not always determined by birth date and size) fights and rejections.
Steeplejack
@Mary G:
Thanks for all your contributions.
Do you ever hear from Higgs Boson’s Mate? I know that he moved on, at some point, but I occasionally wonder what happened to him.
DB11
@James E Powell: I think that’s right, especially today — and also the probable reason that remaining blog audiences skew older — but I also witnessed that same phenomena pre social-media dominance (with blogs like Pharyngula, Shakespeare’s Sister, etc)
There go two miscreants
@Fair Economist: quackpottery
Language changes for the better! A useful new word (new to me anyway)!
Another Scott
@joel hanes: [ rant 234321(b)2 ] Threaded news readers worked all this out about 30 years ago, but webifying everything had to break it, of course. Every reader could choose how they wanted to view Usenet news – threaded or flat or some combination – and nobody else cared. There’s no reason why FYWP couldn’t do the same thing with their comments features, except they don’t care. It would probably even be easier now with CSS. [/rant 234321(b)2 ]
I do think it’s funny that 300+ comment threads end up with about 25% duplicates because someone will post a question early on and get nearly identical 75 answers over the next few hours.
;-)
Cheers,
Scott.
joel hanes
@SiubhanDuinne:
Yes.
worst commenter on any blog I’ve seen
ever
SiubhanDuinne
@Miss Bianca:
Oh, yes! I do remember that exchange! In fact I made a note to myself about it last December:
But I didn’t know it was your first BJ excursion.
J R in WV
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
I have found the appropriation of all the words related to the online application Twitter annoying to the extreme. Twittering is a perfectly cromulent English word, and birbs do indeed tweet in the trees!
Fair Economist
@joel hanes:
Agreed alarmism is not an over-reaction to a new highly contagious disease with poorly known outcomes. In point of fact, we have something like 850,000-900,000 deaths already based on excess death figures and probably a couple hundred thousand more antivaxxer and immunocompromised deaths in the future. So “millions” is not far off the mark of what we’re going to get – it’s going to be well over a million. Also too, if you project the results of letting it run rampant early, without social distancing (NYC deaths everywhere in the country), you get something like 3 million. We didn’t get that only because we took action to stop it.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@joel hanes: He did keep Saturday night hopping with music videos.
DB11
@Fair Economist: Insightful comment and this made me laugh!
Heidi Mom
@There go two miscreants: Another 70-year-old here: I was just out walking the dog, and heard a bird that very clearly said “tweet, tweet.” And I can only describe the sound all the other birds were making as “they twittered.” So there.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Fair Economist: IIRC, initially it had a 2% fatality rate, so more like 6 million. I remember folk saying on other forums(mainly YouTube comments), that 2% is not a great risk; I’d point out that’s over 6 million of your fellow Americans. Of course, that would only be Boomers, so it was OK with them.
Ruckus
@Fair Economist:
I nominate this for the most self revealing comment of all time.
Also the most truthful.
Also, your entire 2nd paragraph, is spot on.
piratedan
Speaking of the events of the previous night… context is important. NAMELY the throwdown that equated Biden Administration being just as guilty of nepotism as TFG. Based on a tweet from someone witha rep as a ethical watchdog. YET, when receipts were reviewed the argument fell apart and then bad faith followed. I believe that the community is forgiving but if your blog debut consists of pissing in the community Corn Flakes then doubling down when challenged… then you takes your chances.
joel hanes
@Another Scott:
Yes, trn was superior technology.
I lived on talk.origins, sci.environment, rec.backcountry for a while, and then on alt.religion.scientology for a couple years.
satby
@Mary G: You inspired me to go back and look up the timeframe of when this blog became a daily stop, and it was sometime around 2004; definitely before the Terri Schiavo circus blew up and helped shove John off of the Republican train. I didn’t comment for years, probably.
It feels like a lot of the free-wheeling energy of the blog has gone; and to me people seem to respond much more kindly than before, but the irritability factor is way higher too. Plus the blog has become so regimented it’s ceased to be enjoyable to me. I liked the serendipity of discovering new music in music threads, or discussing promising social policies and political strategies. We used to be able to turn to the blog and share breaking news in real time, now a story breaks IRL, but we’re not able to share thoughts about it without disrespectfully ignoring some poor soul’s travel photos (which I won’t do). Maybe it’s just me, but the fun has leached away from the joint.
joel hanes
@piratedan:
Schaub is an idealist. He apparently thought the entire Biden administration at all levels would be composed of idealists.
I try to remember the wave of idealists who were, and remain, grossly disappointed with any actual successful Democratic politician, excepting perhaps Paul Wellstone.
debbie
@Ivan X:
Everyone has their own definition of “constructive” comments. How about we just treat others like we would want to be treated and leave it at that?
satby
@joel hanes: The dead can never disappoint. Except for the whole “being dead” thing anyway.
joel hanes
@Another Scott:
Usenet implementation was made considerably easier because everything was flat ASCII text.
Baud
@joel hanes:
I would classify him more as an extremist than an idealist. YMMV, but I don’t see anything ideal about blackballing qualified people because their family happens to work somewhere else in the government.
debbie
@Mary G:
I can’t remember his name, but I do remember your kindness. ❤️
joel hanes
@satby:
Exactly.
I love Mrs. Paroo’s observation:
Steeplejack
@Nelle:
Thank you for your comment from Urbandale, IA! ?
My road to stalkerdom started with making notes of where people said they lived so that I could better understand the cryptic weather comments. And then that expanded to birthdays and whatnot—today is RedDirtGirl’s birthday, I believe!—and now I’m at a late-period Stasi level of monitoring.
joel hanes
@Baud:
His ideals are not yours.
WaterGirl
@joel hanes: as far as I can tell, it’s a binary choice in WordPress. There’s a radio button I can click to turn on threaded comments, but there is no choice that allows both, depending on reader choice. I think DISQUS does that but we don’t use that for commenting.
Baud
@joel hanes:
Then idealist has no meaning because everyone has their own.
In any event, I disagree with his take, regardless of labels.
Steeplejack
@joel hanes:
Why do you think newcomers would be ignored less in a threaded-comment system?
joel hanes
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Remember inter-blog wars, competitive posting of videos for the worst pop songs imagineable?
debbie
@Baud:
What??? No mention of MoDo from either of you?
debbie
@joel hanes:
Yeah, not too many years ago, people were tearing each other apart and then blaming TFG.
Ivan X
@debbie: I can certainly get behind that, and support it.
I also think there are certain objective standards for what’s constructive, but maybe we can’t agree on them, so maybe they’re not so objective after all!
For me personally, saying “this is how you are” to any human is never constructive (unlike, say “this is how you come off to me” or “this is my experience” or “this is how I react when you say that”). No one ever likes to be misunderstood or misconstrued or put in a box, which is what labeling people does, and it doesn’t further the conversation. We can learn from each other to make better arguments and be better communicators.
But yes, I think Golden Rule is always the best rule of thumb.
joel hanes
@Steeplejack:
Because the association between comment and reply is much more clear in a threaded system
One of the most frequent occurrences for me here is that I have maybe twenty minutes to spend on Balloon Juice, I make a comment or reply to a comment, read the rest of the thread, and never realize until I do a search for some old comment of my own that others replied to what I wrote.
Even with working forward/back arrows, I find that the flat format greatly obscures the flow of sub-conversations in a long thread. I actually prefer disqus, with all its flaws, for exactly that reason.
Your mileage may vary.
satby
@joel hanes: I just always assume I’ve been pied by everybody.
joel hanes
@WaterGirl:
If disqus has an unthreaded mode, I’m unaware of it.
joel hanes
@satby:
Not by me, dear.
satby
@joel hanes: ??
Another Scott
@joel hanes: That’s just an implementation detail.
;-)
Seriously, a quick Google shows me that there are lots of ways of implementing comment systems with CSS. There doesn’t seem to be a way to give the reader a choice in FYWP – the blogmeister sets it to nested/threaded or linear and that’s it. It looks like there are a various replacements for WP’s native comment system, but none that obviously do what I want…
Of course, it’s academic here because of the gigantic history that exists and is handy to have (though it isn’t common to use at present).
Cheers,
Scott.
Steeplejack
@SiubhanDuinne, @joel hanes:
In memoriam: “Dancing in the Moonlight.”
WaterGirl
@joel hanes: hmm. I was speaking from memory. Booman’s old site allowed you to choose threaded or not, and I was thinking he used DISQUS.
sab
@joel hanes: I have found that many BJ readers come late to threads. I make a comment, wander away, and five hours later discover someone responded to my comment. There isn’t really such a thing as a BJ dead thread. If someone has something interesting to say, people may jump in. Or not.
Ruckus
@Ivan X:
Very interesting but I’m not sure that human nature wouldn’t take over and screw it up worse than letting it run.
I think we are all maybe looking at this the wrong way, or maybe just in not the right way. We all have our opinions, views, foibles, brain farts, prejudices, and stupid moments and they often cloud what we say, because often we are not that accustomed to actual thinking through before we answer. I think this is worse today than it was decades ago, and the concept of a blog may make this worse yet. The ability to mostly comment as an entity rather than as a person. Sure it’s a human at the other end, but most often we really only know this entity by our own experiences, not anything else. We may be taking a false view of this person, they may have experiences that cloud their actions/reactions to specific things.
debbie
@Humdog:
You have to get over that. Not every thought is a pearl worth choosing. Sometimes I feel like I’m talking to myself here, but that’s not going to stop me from expressing myself, welcomed or not.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: I think it was pointed out in the comments that if some of these high powered folk didn’t work in government, they’d work at firms that influenced government policy.
Ruckus
@sab:
I often come late to a thread. West coast old man time is my excuse. It’s as good as any other.
Another Scott
@WaterGirl: IIRC, the ancient version of Booman’s site used a spinoff of Kuro5hin’s system called “Scoop”. (Kuro5hin died, Scoop was orphaned, so Booman had to move to a different system.)
Cheers,
Scott.
Kirk Spencer
@sab: Agreed. Oddly, I like that. I get up in the wee hours, browse to see if there’s something I want to make a brief comment about, then leave. 12 hours later when I’m home from work I the threads I commented in the previous day and that morning, then see what interests me in what’s “new”.
And not only does nobody complain (much) about dead thread posters, but I find myself in conversations with others in a thread many days later.
sab
@joel hanes: I have found that many BJ readers come late to threads. I make a comment, wander away, and five hours later discover someone responded to my comment. There isn’t really such a thing as a BJ dead thread. If someone has something interesting to say, people may jump in. Or not.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Right. But if it were actually unethical to hire more than one family member, then we’d have to accept that the other member will work somewhere else.* But I don’t believe there’s an ethics issue.
* For example, it wasn’t ethical to hire Javanaka simply to keep them out of other jobs.
Riodawg
I don’t comment at all frequently, but y’all help keep me sane. I think the world of this community!
Ivan X
I’m all for a threaded option if it can be implemented for those who might want it, but not if it’s the only option. Another FYWP blog I read switched to threads during their redesign, and I now no longer read or respond to as many of the comments. Threaded is just not how my brain is wired. (I also disable threading at Gmail and in email clients.)
Kyle Thornhill
I’m a longtime lurker (over 10 years) and first time commenter.
Based on what I’ve observed over that timespan, this community, with a few exceptions, is consistently hostile and unwelcome to individuals expressing unpopular opinions. While I’ve always favored the Democratic party over the corrupt and deranged Republican party, I find it deeply offensive that most commenters won’t tolerate even the mildest criticism of a President or presidential nominee from the Democratic party. Individuals who violate this unwritten rule are instantly denounced as trolls, Bernie Bros, or useful idiots of the Republican party.
J R in WV
@ALurkSupreme:
Then you should just not read them, right?
Hard for me to understand that perspective, as a person who once shared a small farmhouse with 9 cats… that was an accident as Maine Coons reproduced off schedule, producing 5 kittens on wife’s pillow one morning.
They were a wonderful herd of adventure.
J R in WV
You know who I miss? Among many others, Soonergrunt~!!~
I know he’s OK, and now writes some on twitter, which I only ever see when someone here links to something on Twit. But I miss him.
I must have started B-J just as General Stuck and Matoko_Chan stopped commenting. I really don’t recall when I found and enjoyed Balloon-Juice. BiP was running strong, I do recall that. I have looked up Stuck’s hummingbird photos, they were wonderful. So they may have been some overlap.
I used to be able to sort Google results in various ways, that appears to have gone away now, which is a shame.
Also, Cudlip is a familial name shared among many people… for whatever that is worth. I’m not familiar with the word used as an insult…
Another Scott
@J R in WV: SG commented 2 threads up.
Cheers,
Scott.
joel hanes
A closing comment in honor of efgoldman, peace be upon his memory:
fuckem
Kyle Thornhill
As a longtime lurker (10 years) and first time commenter, I believe the overwhelming majority of commenters here is intensely hostile to individuals expressing unpopular political views. Anytime I’ve seen someone post even a mild criticism of Obama, Biden, etc, he/she is instantly branded as a troll, an idiot, etc. Whatever happened to the concept of a free, open, civil exchange of opinions ?
Richard Guhl
@joel hanes: thank you for responding. I’m an infrequent poster and I often feel like a bomber pilot, flying overhead, dropping my load of bombs, and vanishing over the horizon, wondering if I had any impact.
If the goal is to engage more people, a simple hi, thanks for posting to the non regulars would encourage that.
Subsole
@joel hanes: Wait ’til you meet Elagabalus…
J R in WV
Thanks for the tip on SG, will try to find that.
Rukus, congratulations on achieving retirement. I retired pretty early, wife was retired, wanted company, my job was a little less rewarding, so why not. Every day is like Saturday, I’m not at work today, and I won’t be at work tommorow either!! Especially glad to be retired during the Trumpian Plague!!
efgoldman! What a great guy, fuck’em indeed! I miss him a lot.
I’m not a bit surprised that a thread about posters got a whole lot of comments, everyone likes to talk about themself…
And regarding Covid and the past nearly 20 months of learning about it and how to prevent infection… With all the Anti-Vax propaganda and disinformation about epidemiology and how diseases spread in general and Sars-Covid-19 specifically… Even health professionals spent way too much time talking hand washing and not nearly enough time on actual methods this particular virus spreads, respiratory droplets expelled by people talking, singing and just breathing.
My biggest fear is that so many people had such a hard time learning anything REAL about Coronavirus, the next pandemic starring a completely different virulent pathogen, with a completely different set of precautions and rules and issues — all those not well educated people will protest so loudly about how it is all a hoax, because it isn’t just like Covid-19 was or still is. Changes from SARs and MERs and Ebola, they don’t have a clue, won’t accept clues, will deny that a new pathogen can be so different from the old pathogen… We’ve had some of that with Sars-Covid-19, which evidently doesn’t spread much by physical contact — dirty hands — as previous respiratory infections have.
So the next pandemic could be much worse than this one, just because of human nature and the disinformation so ardently passed around about the current disease. Not looking forward to that, at all~!!~
Steeplejack
@Richard Guhl:
Hi! Thanks for posting. Don’t be a stranger. Seriously.
Aaron
Long time reader of BJ here. I hate your comment system and it really encourages me not to participate.
Tony Jay
I’ve enjoyed this thread. Nice to see numerous lurkers come out of the shadows to say their piece. I’d agree that this place requires a pretty thick skin, and can see why people shy away from commenting out of fear of getting snapped at by a regular. I used to have a lot more to say about American politics, but as the topic has become toxified by a general awareness that it ain’t 2000 anymore and actual fascists are knocking on the door, I’m less willing to stick my oar in. Maybe other people feel the same way.
Ranting about British politics is a much safer pursuit
ETA – the idea of a regular Lurker’s Lounge where regulars are encouraged to tone it down and let folks mingle is a VERY good one. Make it so!
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Subsole: ha!
Nelle
@Steeplejack: I think I need access to your notes!
Lolitapalooza
@Yet another lurker: Fellow lurker here! I’ve probably commented 10 times in 10 years, mostly way down in the threads. This has been in my top 4 read blogs since forever.
TomatoQueen
@Steeplejack:
That is professional monitoring at its finest.
Morzer
@Steeplejack:
Speaking as one who survived the Obama Death Camps multiple times…
For some reason, this thread brought back memories of matoko-chan. I hope she’s doing well out there in a crazy, but frequently wonderful world.
Edward Brennan
I like Balloon Juice and would definitely fall under the lurker category. I think this is my third comment having read the site since mid George W Bush.
What I have taken away and why I still read, yet don’t comment more.
BJ tends to be a fairly insular community in its commentariat. There is a lot of fear of new people especially if the comment is a critique. This I gather is because of bad run ins with trolls in the past. Visitors acting in bad faith.
For anyone new, my recommendation is a healthy dose of read the room. If you are going to comment let that commentariat get to know you before chiming in with dissent. Basically, that a new person has to make a good faith commitment to the verbal community first. Show good faith as a visitor, and you will be treated well.
initially Balloon juice/hot air is a privilege that has to be earned, not spewed from the get go.
Because of trolls, one has to earn space and trust first, before challenging the BJ line.
Now that takes time and commitment. That is fair, but in a limited life not something I always have, or want to spend in that way. Proving oneself can be valuable, and a reason for acceptance . That isn’t freely given here, nor is it an open forum which if it was- I probably wouldn’t read BJ. It is a cost of the sort of community BJ looks to be.
People here to new or infrequent commentators, to people like me, tend to be wary but nice, which I understand. A visitor more willing to challenge is not going fair well, no matter the point, unless they join the community first. That is where BJ is pretty closed to outsiders. There is not the assumption of good faith in those circumstances, the trolls spoiled that for everyone else.
I wouldn’t say a problem, but definitely results in an insular limitation. Again, I think the community would be lost without troll wariness. So I remain a visitor/lurker.
I hope that’s ok.
satby
@Edward Brennan: I think you expressed that very well. So you should comment more!
WaterGirl
@Tony Jay: Love the “Lurker’s Lounge” naming of our new idea!
WaterGirl
@Lolitapalooza: @Richard Guhl: Welcome to commenting!
You likely already know this, but the first comment or your first comment on a new device has to manually approved. After that, your comments will show up right away!
I do try to say Welcome right away after a first comment, but I am not always the person who stumbles on that comment first, and approves it.
Tony Jay
@Richard Guhl:
Honestly, I think a major part of it is that regulars here act like a grizzled bunch of grimy veterans who’ve been in it since Day One and feel they’ve already been there and done that. When shiny new recruits turn up in their crisp new BDUs and start talking about how everyone before them has been doing it wrong…
I’m not saying that’s a good thing, because it’s not, but it is what it is. If you think you’ve got something valuable to say then say it loud and proud. What’s the worst they can do? Call you names? As the blog’s semi-official motto states, “Fuckem”.
Tony Jay
@WaterGirl:
And you don’t even have to pay me for it.
Socialism in action, baybee!
Steeplejack
@Kyle Thornhill:
Thanks for commenting. Hope to see you around in the future.
Elizabelle
@Edward Brennan: You are very observant, and tactful. Fuck you. (BJ joke.) Anyway, you should comment here more.
Ksmiami
@Kyle Thornhill: I’d say the stakes are higher now and that bothsiderism has brought us to a perilous edge and that’s why we do tolerate self criticism but not at the expense of being a losers’ game. We don’t expect Democratic candidates to be perfect but if they are reasonable and ethical we will support their efforts against the literal dark stochastic terror from the right.
Steeplejack
@Nelle:
Ha! ? I may have told the deep state that I destroyed them.
Morzer
@Edward Brennan: We have a BJ line now? I mean, sure, we all live under the tyranny of the Dear Furry Leader (no, not you, Silverman!), but.. a line? That sounds awfully decisive and unified.
Steeplejack
@TomatoQueen:
I’ve said too much. “Effective concealment conceals the fact of concealment.” – Kingsley Amis, The Anti-Death League
stinger
Sorry to TBogg a nearly dead thread, but some of you have criticized people who comment before reading all the previous comments — and there are more than 370 of them on this post! It took me a while!
A. There have been many great comments, but at this point I can only recall the ones numbered in the mid-300s and later, so will only call out for applause those by sab and Edward Brennan.
B. As a constant weader/mostly lurker since the Terry Schiavo days, I think newbies and oldies alike would do well to try to forget that this is an online medium. If you were at an in-person party (remember those?) and joined a large group of people talking animatedly, would you immediately chime in with a notably contrary opinion and wind up with “And you all suck”? If you were at a party talking with friends and a stranger came up and expressed an opinion, would you reply “Somebody already addressed that, and anyway I don’t know you so go away”? Insults among friends can be a hoot; among strangers, tactfullness is usually more effective.
C. I truly don’t know what would have happened to me in November 2016 without Balloon Juice. So thank you all.
WaterGirl
@Edward Brennan: There is a lot of wisdom in what you wrote.
As you suggest, there is definitely a push-pull between being welcoming to newcomers who want to engage in discussion where even a range of opinions is welcome … and putting a welcome sign on the door for people whose goal is disruption.
It’s tricky, but that doesn’t mean we can’t keep trying to get the balance right. That’s my thinking, anyway.
As to whether it’s okay for you to remain a reader/lurker rather a commenter, of course it is!
But, like others, I see your comment as thoughtful, and I would love to see you commenting here.
Morzer
@Steeplejack:
“What madness is this, to confess in the light of day the hidden things of night, and spread abroad your worst deeds?” – Ovid, Amores III
zhena gogolia
@Edward Brennan:
Wow, very thoughtful comment.
WaterGirl
@stinger: A whole lot of wisdom and insight is being displayed on this thread.
Elizabelle
@satby: I agree. This blog should be more about current events (but not doom-mongering), and less regimentation.
And, we can handle several threads up at once. Not every item can serve as an open thread. Bear that in mind.
Steeplejack
@Edward Brennan:
Thanks for your thoughtful comment. It is a bit of a tightrope, but, as I said upthread, I think we should err more on the side of being open, if not immediately accepting, to new commenters, even if they burst in and immediately throw up on the floor.
Morzer
@Steeplejack:
“…even if they burst in and immediately throw up on the floor”
Hairballs are the tribute that vice pays to virtue.
JMS
I’m a lurker, but I’ve been here a long time. I spent an intense year or so at the GOS in the early aughts when Nate Silver, Kornacki and those dudes were just random commenters, and I remember the thrill of reading everything and commenting everywhere and getting the likes, but that’s not how I operate here. So, I think newbies and lurkers are more likely to be ignored than harassed. However, if we’re being introspective, I do think the fact that there are “regulars” in the commentariat leads to a certain amount of groupthink. Think about how any of these statements would be received.
I’m not saying I agree! But I think you can legitimately say these things without being a nihilist or Republican. Nonetheless, it doesn’t fit the narrative here, and people will let you know. I’m not sure how you’d “fix” that or if you’d want to–a place does tend to have a point of view, and most of us come back because we generally agree with that point of view, but for those who don’t, I imagine it’s annoying (and those people won’t come back).
Steeplejack
@Morzer:
This guy gets it!
WaterGirl
@Elizabelle: @satby:
So do you want Open Threads with no subject matter at all? Nothing to start the conversation?
Let’s say I start an Open Thread with a link to the liberal redneck ranting about someone, let’s say McConnell. I add the category open threads, I title it Open Thread: The Liberal Redneck, or maybe The Liberal Redneck (Open Thread), and I add the words “Open thread.” as the last line of the post. Sometimes I add “Totally open thread.”
In the discussion, it sometimes feels like people still stick to only discussing whatever the small conversation starter was.
If it’s a guest post or On the Road or Medium Cool, then I agree with those who think we want to stick to that topic. Otherwise, it’s fairly common to see an Open Thread that isn’t treated like an open thread. Is it possible that maybe over-learned to stick to the topic of a thread?
Steeplejack
@Morzer:
True. ?
Morzer
@Steeplejack:
Pray, good sir, remember that I was ever loyal to the winning side.
Edward Brennan
@Morzer: not unified, not authoritarian. But common among a group, and one’s that I generally share.
Baud
@JMS:
Yeah, it happens. I loved GOS during the Bush years, then felt it went way down in quality during Obama, so I left and never went back. Can’t be all things to all people.
Morzer
@WaterGirl:
Sometimes I really feel that we are all open threads that aren’t.
Cheryl Rofer
I haz a question.
There’s usually an explicitly open thread up. And people are not shy about making threads open. When that happened at first to my posts, I felt like having the third comment be about something totally off topic was disrespect. I like discussion, and those off-topic comments can end it. I’ve come to understand that that is how things work here and figure sometimes I get discussion, sometimes I don’t.
So I’m wondering what it was in times past that allowed sharing breaking news in real time that doesn’t happen now. Seems to me people are not shy about sharing. Not every story gets on the front page. That’s because not all the front-pagers are here all the time.
Morzer
@Baud: I liked Nate Silver’s poblano period more than I like his bloviating pundit period.
Ruckus
For all the lurkers who have commented in this thread, welcome to the family.
Many of us have been here for a long time and we enjoy (and sometimes not) the commentary. I think we welcome new members to the family but we do, sort of, have a rather loose set of unspoken parameters about people we aren’t accustomed to.
One, if you come in all guns ablaze, you will very likely piss off someone and hear about it.
Two, if you’ve been a long time lurker, you likely might know the above.
Three, many of us like this place, we come here often, this is my home page for example, it’s always up in my browser.
Fourth, many of us consider this like a long term club or even family, we’ve met the hosts pets, know some of his foibles…
Five, most of us are not trying to piss off others. There are occasional exceptions and goodish natured ribbing.
Six, we discuss politics, the sun coming up, the moon going down, history, families, personal events (like the fact that I fucking retired 3 days ago), and many of us swear as easily as we breathe, sometimes more often.
Seven, welcome to hell, we are just trying to get you acclimated.
Eight, this is a liberal blog. It is not a far, far left, my way is the only way blog, and it never has been.
Nine, this is a liberal blog. It is not a far, far right pile of bullshit.
Ten, All of the above is my opinion, does not necessarily agree with the blog owner or anyone else. It’s just things I’ve noticed over time and by being here often.
Morzer
@Ruckus: Happy fucking retirement, Ruckus. Of course, now you have so much time on your hands, it’s time to wrestle that lucrative front page gig from Cole’s cold, undead willow fingers.
Super Dave
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: I definitely agree with you that this is a deeply caring community… the humanity is in the front pagers and the jackals, which is one of the things that keeps me coming back!
WaterGirl
@Cheryl Rofer: I think you and I may be asking the same question in different ways. (Me at #399.) It’s hard to address an issue if you don’t quite understand it.
FlyingToaster
@SFAW:
It became the common epithet for the commentariat at Ballon-Juice during the discussion of where to meet the Blogfather when he came to Bwhastin. There were multiple posts full of arguing (Boston vs Cambridge, out on 128 versus in town, bar versus restaurant).
John weighed in, calling us all Jackals, and told Levenson to pick somewhere and everyone else to shut the fuck up.
Morzer
@WaterGirl:
Bipartisan consensus alert! It must be Happy Manchin Day.
Cheryl Rofer
@WaterGirl: I think we are.
Baud
@Morzer:
Ah, youth.
Super Dave
@WaterGirl: Thanks for that tip… the normal stuff like Moustache of Understanding and Nancy Smash is totally understandable… it’s more the stuff about individual jackals that is sometimes confusing. It’s always clear that there’s a lot of inside joke heckling that goes on. It’s not always clear what the back story is. For example, Baud. He seems to take it in the shorts a lot, and I suspect it’s either well-deserved, or meant in jest, but not knowing the background, I usually feel left out of the joke. Lol
Morzer
@Baud: I am young enough to remember late middle period Biden. My whippersnapper cred is much enhanced with the yoots.
4D*hiker
I have read this blog for about 14 years in my daily rounds of reading content on the internet. Rarely comment. Am I “lurking?” What a snide description of people who are investing their often limited time in reading a site. For certain, Cole knows the value of those “89,000 unique eyeballs” on his blog every month.
Drop the fucking tired labels—-lurker, newbie, flamer, trolls, ad nauseam. Renew the curiosity of meeting new voices and viewpoints. Cole and the rest of the front pagers put themselves out there everyday, showing true courage in this world of anonymous and increasingly cynical human interactions. I don’t always agree with them, but I respect them and the content they deliver so regularly. Trump has made this world a meaner and uglier place and those effects have rippled into the comment section of many sites, including this one.
Finally, competitive snarking has gotten so crashingly boring through the years. Some folks still haven’t caught on that no award is actually given for this competition. True wit, insight, and generosity of heart and mind are the hard-won classics which will always win the day in human interactions.
Morzer
@Super Dave: Baud is actually our Lord and Savior at the next election but one and has been since Thomas Jefferson stole the presidency from Aaron Burr.
WaterGirl
@Super Dave: Ah. About Baud…
You know the game show where you have to guess how everyone else is going to answer a question?
Well, if the question was who is the BJ commenter that everyone loves, you wouldn’t go wrong by answering “Baud.” He gets razzed because everyone loves him. I think it’s as simple as that.
Morzer
@4D*hiker:
Mitch McConnell reads this, chuckles, rubs his talons together and lovingly murmurs “Attaboy!”
WaterGirl
@4D*hiker:
Can you say more about this?
Ruckus
@Cheryl Rofer:
My opinion is that the web has become much more than it was when the blog started and when I first arrived here. There is news 24/7 and we are a bit more acclimated to the fact that not everything given out over the news actually is. We know that a number of major news sources bend the event to fit their views/timeframe/politics. We know better than to trust anyone, just because they are on line or TV or in print. Most of us know to at least try to verify before spouting off, even if we don’t always do that. It’s been 19 yrs since the blog first went active and a lot has changed, some very, very much not for the better. Ads are much more intrusive, the number of ad blockers alone should tell anyone that. And yes ads have been intrusive for decades, my grandfather put a switch in the speaker circuit of his TV 6 decades ago so he didn’t have to listen to ads, or yell at the TV. An ad blocker from the way back.
Another Scott
@Cheryl Rofer: Sorry to admit that I’ve posted an OT comment to several important threads, including yours. I almost always feel bad about doing so.
My thinking is:
* If it says OpenThread in the title, text, or categories, then it’s Ok to do so.
* If it’s the most recent thread and the most recent open thread was from hours ago, or the last comment was from hours ago, then it’s Ok to post in the most recent one.
* If the existing threads are Gardening, On The Road, In Memoriam, etc**., then I try to never post anything seriously off-top there (especially not to start a subthread). But if one of your threads is open and it’s been an hour, then I won’t feel too bad about posting something that potentially changes the direction. (But almost never, in fact, does – thankfully!).
I hope this explains a little about why it happens when I do it.
Thanks for your posts here!!
Cheers,
Scott.
** – Never in TaMara’s “If you muddy this thread I will cut you” category posts!!
Ruckus
@Morzer:
Bingo!
Morzer
@WaterGirl: Baud is the Twoflower to Cole’s Rincewind.
zhena gogolia
@Ruckus:
Congratulations on your retirement. We love you.
Betsy
@rikyrah: (and others)
I love this place.
Its orthodoxy, if it has orthodoxy, is “very very liberal, but realistic.”
That’s what I come here for, for years now, since about a year before “La Sarah” emerged on the national scene. Oh, those days!
I love the mix of subject matter experts (front-pagers and others) and incisive political insight and knowledge of specific state and national affairs and strategy.
Every once in a while a lurker pipes up with something they are an expert or a thinker on, and it’s amazing.
Anne Laurie has probably saved some of our lives and maybe our friends’ lives with her daily updates. I get my Covid news here first and in most detail. Thanks, AL.
Sadly my comments are almost always late to the applicable post because of being so busy with other things but whatever, it’s not important.
I also like hearing from some regulars who have a different cultural or racial/ ethnic background from my own and I learn from them.
Moreover, I live in a region where even the smart people are a little bit stupid, so I enjoy that this blog gets me thinking.
A couple of commenters here play pretty rough with others, and that’s seriously not my style, being perhaps an overly sincere type. I think modern society is absolutely sick with snark, so l just don’t engage. That’s all right, they have their way, I have mine :)
Baud
@Super Dave:
FWIW, there are no shorts.
WaterGirl
@Morzer: That flew right over my head.
Ruckus
@Morzer:
You’ve got to be kidding….
I fucking retired! I don’t want to have to work for my retirement, I already did that for 60 fucking years. I’m not continuing, even for a hobby, this ain’t Hobby Lobby after all… TFSO.
Morzer
@Baud: Are you… how can I say this… are you really… Jeffrey Toobin?
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Well thanks. I’m pretty sure Omnes doesn’t love me though.
WaterGirl
@Betsy: Seems like it’s been a long time since I saw your
gymhere. Nice to see you.edit: fucking autocorrect
Morzer
@Ruckus: So if elected, you will not serve? I have heard that front pagers get free access to the Applebee’s salad bar…
WaterGirl
@Baud: I can’t believe I missed the opportunity to say that!
Ruckus
@zhena gogolia:
Thanks!
Morzer
@Baud:
Omnes is complicated. Like an ogre.. or do I mean onion?
WaterGirl
@Morzer: Baud, for all his wit and humor, is a very private person. Pants or no pants. there’s no way he’s Jeffrey Toobin. :-)
Ruckus
@Morzer:
Like that’s a benefit….
Besides I’m too old to search for food….
Morzer
@WaterGirl:
*staggers back in amazement*
But, but… I always thought you were so decorous!
Morzer
@WaterGirl: Pics or it didn’t happen!
Baud
@Morzer: What @WaterGirl said.
Ruckus
@WaterGirl:
Betsy has a gym?
She, I’m thinking she, apologies if incorrect, has been here quite a bit lately.
Morzer
@Baud:
So… fake news then?
Tony Jay
@Super Dave:
Baud gave up the life of a roadie-cum-mescaline supplier with Electric Six to run a perpetual Presidential campaign from the pages of this blog and some people will simply never let him live that down.
Morzer
@Ruckus: So you’re telling us you are a lone gum man?
WaterGirl
@Ruckus: fucking autocorrect!
Steeplejack
@WaterGirl:
I don’t see commenters rigidly observing post topics and being afraid to go rogue with off-topic comments, except in certain specific circumstances, such as when the only active thread is a declared respite thread (e.g., some long afternoons) or a garden chat thread. Sunday morning can be painful when you want to discuss news of the day but the only available thread is the garden chat until well into the afternoon. That’s seen by almost everybody to be sacrosanct. I think someone should put up a non-garden thread every Sunday morning to catch the runoff.
Morzer
@Tony Jay: Baud was, in fact, the Electric Seventh. Of course, we don’t mention his time playing QB for the New York Jets… Ooops… oh well, too late to correct that little buttfumble of the keyboard.
Ruckus
@WaterGirl:
I see my penchant for swearing has spread far and wide.
Fucking Finally, people speaking in the manner I learned long, long ago!
Also, stop blaming fucking autocorrect, he’s getting a complex….
WaterGirl
@Steeplejack: That’s probably a good idea. I try to think of that on Sundays but have not been good about it.
Tony Jay
@Morzer:
You might not mention it, but I’m going to keep on bringing it up at the next Purity Ball fundraiser. Most of those kids are Giants fans, they’ll run him off the stage before he’s made his first balloon animal.
Uncle Cosmo
@SFAW: FTR I remember a 20-30 minute refueling stopover at Bangor on the way home from Yerp in 1990 – the PanAm flight bucked headwinds all the way home from Munich and, after the pilot reassured us multiple times that we’d make JFK without a problem, put down there to gas up. As we taxied past a long line of gray KC-135 tankers I was sure we’d landed at a SAC base, but it was probably just the Maine ANG wing.
(Brother, that’s a memory. From leaving the pension in Salzburg to laying my head down in my folks’ spare bedroom in Baltimore, that trek lasted almost 24 hours even with a couple of extremely lucky breaks – and, jetslagged up the wazoo, next evening I had to deliver a poetry reading at the Artscape festival. Oy.)
Soprano2
@JMS: In reply to your three statements, I’d say #1 is unfortunately correct; even though I love her too many men think of their mother telling them what to do when they hear her speak, #2 he had smart things to say when George W. was president but Obama not being his idea of perfection seems to have turned him into a crazy Russian TFG enabler, and as for #3 I have said that I think it’s bad to tell fully vaccinated people that they still need to wear a mask everywhere and got quite a bit of pushback including “Why do masks bother you?” which is not what I said at all, so yeah. People tend to like simple solutions – the answer to the labor shortage is either “cut off the unemployment so those lazy bums will work!” or “just pay people more money, you damn awful shithead employer!” People don’t like to hear that it’s more complicated than that. When the new poster showed up about the Shaub posting, I observed that 3 of the 4 hirings seemed ok, but one was kind of fishy, and honestly if a Republican appointee had 3 of his relatives hired by a Republican administration we’d all be saying it looked bad, especially if one was a recent college grad.
Steeplejack
@4D*hiker:
Hello, and thanks for commenting. Especially to provide a perfect example of the kind of comment that can rub people the wrong way.
Take it up with the Internet. It’s a universally used term in blogdom, not local to Balloon Juice. And I don’t think it has any inherently “snide” associations. It merely differentiates unknown readers from active commenters.
And right into the hectoring, imperative lecture that lumps all of us readers together. What about this phrasing instead? “I don’t like labels—lurker, newbie, flamer, trolls, ad nauseam. I prefer to feed the curiosity of meeting new voices and viewpoints.”
With your setup, by the time you get to “Cole and the rest of the front pagers put themselves out there everyday, showing true courage,” a sentiment that (I presume) almost everybody here agrees with, this reader’s impression is that you are trying to educate us about something that we were too stupid or mean-spirited to figure out already. It doesn’t help your message, and it doesn’t show much “generosity of heart and mind.”
Anyway, I’m glad you commented and hope to see you around more. I hope we can rise to your expectations.
Baud
@Soprano2:
For the record, if the facts we had were exactly the same, I would not say that. That said, I freely admit that, with the GOP, I would be less confident that the known facts are exactly the same.
ETA: Also too, as I recall, here, it wasn’t a single employee who had three of his relatives hired. It was multiple employees having a single relative hired.
Morzer
@Steeplejack: I was a bit surprised that anyone took “lurker” as a pejorative. It always seemed to me to be used tongue-in-cheek, much as people will cheerfully describe themselves as jackals etc. There’s a curious pleasure in using overwrought language to describe one’s own participation in a hive of scum and villainy.
KSinMA
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: I also tend to read threads hours after they’re done, which is one reason I don’t comment much. BTW, you’re one of my favorite commenters.
Soprano2
I also wanted to share an experience I had a long time ago that shows how easily people’s trust can be violated on the internet. I was a regular poster on a Babylon5 EZ Board message board (remember those?). We had a person who commented for several months as a 30-something elementary school teacher. One day, her “sister” came on the board and posted that the commenter had been killed In a tragic auto accident. We were shocked and upset, and posted accordingly. The admins got suspicious and started looking into it; eventually they confronted the “sister” with the fact that no fatal auto accidents involving a person of that age had been reported in that area. The “sister” then confessed to all of us that she was actually the poster, and was really a 16-year-old girl who had gotten in trouble for posting on the internet and had been told to stop. The only way she could think of to leave was to kill off her character! As you can imagine, we were all pretty upset, but we forgave her in the end. All of this is to say, we really don’t know who people are even when we feel like we do, and I always try to keep that in mind.
IMHO the person who posted about what Shaub said last night got exactly the reaction he/she was looking for. I read here a long time before I posted, and I don’t even remember the first time I posted or what it was about. I find that if you’re polite to people they are usually polite back, even if they don’t agree with you (there are always exceptions, of course!) I try not to call people names or be insulting, because I don’t want to be treated that way, and it usually works. That person wanted to get yelled at and insulted, because they insulted all of us first.
Another Scott
ObOpenThread:
Good, good.
Bezos and Gates could probably fund it with next month’s earnings.
Cheers,
Scott.
Soprano2
@Baud: One person, Steve Ricchetti, had 3 of his kids hired. One is a recent college grad, the other two are well-qualified for their jobs. Just sayin’, that does kind of look bad.
Baud
@Soprano2:
We disagree. Doesn’t look bad to me at all (without more facts).
Steeplejack
@Morzer:
Inorite?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@satby:
I thought it was just me, especially that last sentence. Way too many “respite” and other narrow topic threads these days, especially one on top of the other. The old ethos of “every thread is an open thread”, at least after 50 comments, which was always more tongue-in-cheek than a rule, seems to have faded
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Soprano2: If the college grad got an entry level position, commensurate with his experience
I didn’t have a problem with the infrequent commenter bringing up the issue, the comment about sweeping it under the rug however…
Another Scott
@Soprano2: It shouldn’t.
CNBC says: “There was no indication that Steve Ricchetti helped his son nab the job.”
The federal government is huge. Just in DC it is huge. Someone having a high position in one agency doesn’t mean that they somehow “hired” someone into another agency.
The reporting and speculation on this is very sloppy in too many places.
Cheers,
Scott.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Look we need a respite thread from the respite thread.
Another Scott
@?BillinGlendaleCA: “Here’s a Closed Thread. Don’t talk about anything. Go away for a few hours and think about what you did, then come back.” – John Cole.
Cheers,
Scott.
Steeplejack
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
A spite thread, as it were.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Another Scott: My dad would have loved for me to get an EE degree and get a job with DOD; of course I didn’t get an EE degree and he’s retired before I started college.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Another Scott:
@Steeplejack: I like both your thinking on this.
Soprano2
Elizabelle
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Exactly. Agree with you and satby.
CatHairEverywhere
Late, as usual, which is one of the reasons I seldom comment. I’ve been a regular reader and very rare commenter since before President Obama was elected. This my go-to blog, and I read pretty much every article every day. I recommend the blog to others because of the high-quality content and intelligent comments. I often arrive to the posts too late to comment (like right now) but I also sometimes feel like I am crashing a party if I decide to comment, since I go years without commenting.
Another Scott
@Soprano2: To be clear, yes having one’s father working at the White House is an advantage when one wants to get a federal job. But it’s not because they’re pulling strings or breaking the rules. It’s because they know how the gigantic system works.
“Butch, there are lots of openings in Treasury now because they just opened up a new area and are expanding. Head over to USAJobs.gov, search for “Treasury” and get your paperwork in soon. The announcement closes on Tuesday…”
Someone who is looking for a federal job on Monster.com is wasting their time, but they don’t know that unless they have been through the process (or knows someone who has).
Most jobs in the private sector are that way, too. You need to know someone who knows something to have the best chance. Cold resumes only rarely work.
Cheers,
Scott.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I went back and read Schaub’s original tweet on the would-be hiring scandal, and to his credit I don’t think he ever mentioned Jared and Ivanka, but he retweeted people who did, including CREW.
On the one hand, I can see where people would raise an eyebrow at the Richettis, but one of them has a long career in national security and IR, and the one who just graduated college is something like the deputy associate director of the White House Social Secretary’s office. I don’t know what that means, or what the usual qualfications for that job are, but I’m guessing nobody had to overrule the FBI on a security clearance or submit any conflict of interest forms with sovereign wealth funds. It looks like they followed the usual career path for young people interesting in politics and a career in public service: Volunteered for the winning campaign, got hired by the transition team, networked, presumably didn’t spill coffee on Ed Rendell (I’d’ve hired them if they had), etc.
Bill Arnold
@Frankensteinbeck:
I enjoyed arguing with matoko_chan, though it raised blood pressure and got the back of the neck warm(empathy can do that). (A high point; her asking me if I was a conservative, perhaps as opposed to a proto-Nick-Land-style-accelerationist or nearby in that part of politics space. (Current answer, I’ve been (correctly) called “dangerous” (and related things), elsewhere, by a character who presents (as female) as nuttier than Motoko Chan. (The rabbit hole warren is very very deep.))
Steeplejack
@CatHairEverywhere:
Glad you commented! Feel free to continue chiming in, no matter how late. There are quite a few of us who circle back to older threads to catch any postscript comments.
WaterGirl
@CatHairEverywhere: The more the merrier!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Steeplejack: This thread seems to be still going where the thread two floors up seems stalled.
S. Cerevisiae
We’re almost to a TBogg unit.
WaterGirl
@?BillinGlendaleCA: This has been an interesting thread, I think, filled with thoughtful comments. A lot of honesty, too, which I really appreciate.
I imagine that people who have been out for the day are coming back home and may be seeing the thread for the first time, so I won’t be surprised if this one continues through the evening, along with all the other threads.
I will be checking back in to read any other comments that are posted.
joey5slice
@WaterGirl: As one of the new commenters who was chased away last week, I want to thank you and steeplejack for encouraging this conversation.
As you know, I was deeply affected by the negative reaction to my first-ever post. Many have rightly pointed out that the trauma of the last four years did not magically heal on January 20, and I now have a better understanding about why many (not all) replies to my post presumed some level of bad faith.
Still, I took it pretty hard. I have read this blog every day for years, and I felt like I belonged here. But after last week, I expected would never comment again, and I was questioning whether I even belonged to here as a lurker.
The fact that you have front-paged this issue shows me that this community takes people like me seriously. That means a lot to me. So here I am again, dipping my toe back in the water. Thank you.
The Lodger
@Steeplejack: Geeze, I thought Adam was kidding about the dossier.
More seriously, it’s been 300 comments in and I restrained myself until I got the opportunity to respond to an inside joke.
Back later if the thread hasn’t been cremated.
WaterGirl
@joey5slice: I am so happy to see this comment from you!
I think it’s important to take stock now and again, and I learned a lot reading the comments today. I am glad you are giving us another chance, and I hope others will, as well.
I am thinking of the old girl scout’s song: “Make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold.”
rabbit troop sux
@rivers: I agree with everything you and Super Dave said. I’m a long time lurker since at least ’08 and finally commented for the first time this year. I was terrified though after hitting “post comment” and immediately wanted to claw it back lol. This is indeed a wonderful community and I am also glad and grateful to have discovered it.
rabbit troop sux
@rivers: I agree with everything you and Super Dave said. I’m a long time lurker since at least ’08 and finally commented for the first time this year. I was terrified though after hitting “post comment” and immediately wanted to claw it back lol. This is indeed a wonderful community and I am also glad and grateful to have discovered it.
Steeplejack
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
This is the liveliest Sunday we’ve had in ages!
WaterGirl
@rivers: @rabbit troop sux: @Super Dave:
Hope to see more of you. Closed circles are boring!
edit: And more of all the lurkers/readers who commented today. And even the ones who didn’t!
brantl
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Twittered is a word. period.
Baud
@Steeplejack:
We love talking about ourselves.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@WaterGirl: I think if a new commenter makes their first comment one that say bashes Biden or says that Obama was the best Republican President of their lifetime…
Push back may not be unexpected. If folk have been lurking and reading comments for any length of time, they should appreciate that(be able to “read the room”).
WaterGirl
@Baud: Maybe all threads should be titled “About Us”. :-)
Steeplejack
@joey5slice:
Welcome (back)! And thanks for persevering.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: Actually, I’m quite terrified about talking about myself, especially with folk I don’t know well.
WaterGirl
@?BillinGlendaleCA: You may have noticed that when I think a thread is being derailed by someone whose goal it is to do just that… I I like to post the quote from the Thin Black Duke that I posted above, and then add a *catcake to my comment.
*catcake being my favorite image from the pie filter
Steeplejack
@The Lodger:
? I see your file is empty, comrade. Carry on.
WaterGirl
@Steeplejack: Speaking of the dossier… where do I file the complaint because no one took note of my birthday last week, including the keeper of the dossier!
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I just make up shit.
Fair Economist
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Part of the need for the focused threads was the way concerns with Trump wormed into everything due to the media influence of conservatives and the effectiveness of his “all offensiveness 24/7” strategy. Many here expressed a need for escape from the never-ending Trump horror being poured into our eyeballs.
Now that the 24/7 trumpapalooza has faded a lot the need for that has IMO waned. Perhaps we can have a higher rate of true open threads now.
Baud
@WaterGirl:
Happy belated birthday.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@WaterGirl: I think upthread there was the entering a conversation at party analogy, but think of taking an entry position with a company and walking into the office and day one and telling everyone they’re doing it ALL WRONG.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Baud: We know.
WaterGirl
@Baud: You better have meant it in 2016 when you promised I would be your Valerie Jarrett!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@WaterGirl: I recall that someone mentioned your B-day.
Steeplejack
@Baud:
When do we talk about anything else, really?
WaterGirl
@Baud: I did get flowers. Were they from you?
Tony Jay
@WaterGirl:
I do like the idea that there are hundreds of people out there quietly reading BJ like they would an online newspaper or ‘gentleman’s periodical magazine’, while the people we think of as ‘Juicers’ are merely the handful of cranky oddballs who just have to write letters to the editor each week to opine about parking issues in the town centre or that time they were stuck in a lift with two Swedish nurses and a box of melting custard tarts.
I find that oddly comforting.
ETA – And a Happy belated Birthday to you.
Steeplejack
@WaterGirl:
I don’t remember seeing you ever mention your birthday. I do have your recipes for margaritas and Chex Mix.
Happy belated birthday! ?? Which day was it? (Quill pen at the ready.)
WaterGirl
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I did not see that. Last year satby or someone mentioned it early and I got a million good wishes. I had a lovely birthday this year, but it was weird to celebrate it without my BJ friends. sniff-sniff
Betsy
@WaterGirl: I’m here more reading these days. Less commenting.* But more musing on what I read. Nice to see you and be seen by you :)
*Unless it’s at the end of a day-old thread (is that like day-old bread?).
WaterGirl
@Tony Jay: Ha! I like to think we are all pen pals, but they are just not writing us back yet.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Tony Jay:
Pretty much.
WaterGirl
@Steeplejack: Last Sunday!
I hoped you saved my recipe for coquitos! They are even better than my margaritas.
Baud
@WaterGirl: Of course.
@WaterGirl:
Consistent with my practice of making up shit, yes, they were from me.
WaterGirl
@Betsy: I am the queen of commenting on dead threads. J.R. is the King of course.
WaterGirl
@Baud: Well in that case, they were quite lovely, thank you so much for sending them. 3/4 of them are still alive and happy, which is impressive.
Steeplejack
@Tony Jay:
Agreed. Sometimes when I contribute some keen aperçu and it sinks without a trace, I console myself with the thought that perhaps some lurker, maybe an old buffer at the Æthelred Club, had a phlegmy chuckle before adjusting his gout stool and calling for another sherry.
Betsy
@4D*hiker: I agree about snark.
It’s been done. And done. And done.
It’s the most tired, reactive, automatic, oh so American response to every damn thing.
During Obama’s first campaign for president, I remember thinking snark, as the dominant fashion, was maybe finally over, because I saw so many cynical young left wingers absolutely enchanted and made almost innocent again by his candor and sincerity.
Jackie
I plan to stick with BJ at least until John finally finds his jar of mustard.
cain
Oh man, that was one cantankerous man – and of course that running thing him and his gf. I hope they got together in the end. Hope he is doing ok.
I will say that during the pre-conversion John days, this site could really blast you – but we had quite a bit of cool people from different political backgrounds, I kind of miss having the conservative outlook – but it was great debates but things could get quite heated. I really enjoyed that diversity.
It’s been less diverse but such as it is – we’re a progressive blog now and I’m glad for that.
Tony Jay
@Steeplejack:
They are out there, and they see you.
I guess what I’m saying is close the fucking curtains.
Badum-Tish ?
cain
@WaterGirl:
I don’t know if it would make new commenters uncomfortable, but being able to have a “first time poster” label might be nice so that we can apply more patience.
navarro
@Chief Oshkosh: i participate a lot at the forum over at boingboing. “jaqing off” as we call it is considered one of the sure signs of a troll. that forum uses discourse and is heavily moderated with a powerful user flagging system in which flags are weighted based on how often the user is agreed with by the full-time mods. the downside, if you want to call it that, is a much less freewheeling and civil forum which is not allowed to devolve into backbiting and namecalling.
i’ve been mostly lurking here since mr. cole came to wisdom about iraq and the republican death-cult. i’ve recently started following him and a few of the other posters at twitter.
Ivan X
What is the all time BJ comment record? Has there ever been a double TBogg?
Slwalczak
Faithful reader here, John (lurker sounds too creepy), since 2004 or so. Still miss Tunch, but love Steve and how you opened your world to dogs as well. You have a great corral of writers who cover a broad spectrum of issues, which is why I still go daily to BJ. My only complaint is that you don’t write more, but I get it that you have gardening, canning, pets, parents, and a lovely newish home to tend to. Thank you for providing so much to us over the years. So glad my brother’s advice to me years ago for blogs to follow when I first joined the interwebs included BJ.
Steeplejack
@WaterGirl:
I’ve got the version from 12/31/14.
WaterGirl
@Ivan X: I do not have a good way to find out the answer to that question.
WaterGirl
@Steeplejack: Good work. It’s still the same version. :-)
Steeplejack
@navarro:
Welcome! Feel free to comment more often.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Jackie: The mustard is a myth, there is no mustard.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@cain:
So you’d want a discussion of Italian satellites changing Trump votes to Biden?
Steeplejack
@Ivan X:
Tunch’s death got 1,036 comments. (Trigger warning!)
Steeplejack
@Slwalczak:
Welcome! Check in with zhena gogolia to make sure we always spell your nym correctly. ?
WaterGirl
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I think maybe he meant the old conservative outlook, which, while flawed, didn’t live in total scorched earth crazy-land.
Steeplejack
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
“In live there is no mustard, only the specter of it.” – Putin
WaterGirl
@Slwalczak: Welcome!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Steeplejack: I think that’s the all time comment leader for unfortunate reasons.
ETA: I think that was the same day we found out the good General had passed.
Baud
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
It was. Amazingly tragic day.
brantl
@elm: Don’t, then. I solved your problem for you. Goodbye,
Steeplejack
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Yes, a double whammy.
WaterGirl
@Baud: I can’t bear to look at that thread. That was, indeed, a horrible day.
schrodingers_cat
I started commenting in 2009. My favorite political blog until T campaign hit the scene. The only political blog I have ever commented on. These days I spend more time on Twitter because I am much more worried about what is happening in India. Actually I have reduced the time I spend following politics since Biden was sworn in.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Steeplejack: I follow a photographer on YouTube that’s from the same area as General Stuck(Silver City NM, IIRC).
Ben Cisco (onboard the Defiant)
@WaterGirl
@SFAW: Thank you both; I am well.
WaterGirl
I will check back in the morning for further comments!
Thanks to all who contributed to the conversation. Seriously, thank you.
James E Powell
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I think of it like a newbie at a neighborhood bar complaining about the songs being played on the jukebox and the house rules on the pool table.
Steeplejack
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I’m pretty sure that was the area.
As long as I’m puttering around in the archives in my green eyeshade and sleeve garters, here’s the collected General Stuck saga.
ETA: Fixed some links later in that thread.
piratedan
@James E Powell: I think both you and Bill are pretty close to what it means to be here… in a way we’re our own sitcom with serious elements woven into the story-threads; the ensemble cast are the front pagers and us commenters are recurring characters. I try not to have any illusions about my impact here or think that I am braver or more intelligent in being a semi-regular commentator than folks that read and digest the ever-changing conversation. Just happy that there is a place like this to meet, share and learn. Like others have noted in this thread, if you read this blog on a semi-regular basis and want to come in with some take that you believe/feel in passionately that cuts against the established grain here, its best to bring receipts.
DKinSD
Long time lurker/reader, very, very, infrequent commenter. I have always enjoyed the articles and commenting here – very highly informed writer/readership.
After reading this post and back on the front page I noticed the previous pages entry at the bottom and for kicks clicked on the oldest one (as of now page number 9539) and found the very first entry that John wrote back on January 2, 2002:
“Since nothing in my life is easy, I doubt this will work the first time I try it. If it does work, I will be moderately elated.”
I presume that by now, John is “moderately elated”.
J R in WV
@JMS:
stinger
@WaterGirl: Noted for next year! Sorry I missed it this year, and I hope it was happy!
stinger
@James E Powell: That was me, with the party analogy, and you and BillinGlendaleCA have good analogies as well — except that neither addresses the behavior of the regulars — the Norms!, the Sams training the Dianes. When a new employee opens their mouth, do you immediately tell them you don’t care to hear what they have to say? (My extension of your analogy may be falling apart at the seams.)
J R in WV
@joey5slice:
Joey:
Sorry you felt loaded up on! It happens, and you should never feel bad about all those other assholes who comment here a whole lot. They’re jackal assholes, pay them no never mind!!
Just tell them all “Fuck’em!” and go on about your commentary business!
J R in WV, wishing he had changed the sheets, as the dogs have been nesting in the fairly clean bed…
Jackie
@?BillinGlendaleCA: No way! I was here when John went on his rant! For days!
?BillinGlendaleCA
@stinger: Here’s the problem, we do hear what they say and they’re telling us the music sucks and we’re doing it all wrong.
J R in WV
@WaterGirl:
Finally, I get some recognition !!!
I do read threads that aren’t very active, and if I have an opinion (and when do I not?) I will publish it, typos and all.
J R in WV
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Our winter place in AZ, is only a couple of hours from Silver City… small world! We’ve been there before, quaint little gold mining town.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@J R in WV: He uses it as a foreground for sunsets and timelapses, it looks quite nice
Here’s his website.
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@Steeplejack:
#TRUTH – what you both said – as the kids say. I’m old enough to remember when this was a community. Under the new management, it’s a cool kids club. And it’s abundantly clear who is and who ain’t.
It’s also quite a chore to even navigate, and that’s before the 5 more steps to post. For folks with full time jobs and/or significant chronic health conditions, the cost/benefit ratio is inverted.
My tremendous gratitude to those who tolerated, engaged with, and entertained me over the years; you know who you are and I hope you know I miss the interaction. Perhaps, someday, it will be a community again.
ETA: A community with a culture of sharp elbows is very different from a clan ish club of cool kidz, in case my view isn’t apparent.
Be well, all y’all. Happy day after Father’s day to dads. Know that I recognize it can be a tough day for those now. without.
J R in WV
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Thanks for the link — obviously, we do not actually have thunderstorms back here in the East at all, compared to the photos of thunderstorms out West. I knew that already from seeing them in person, 80 or a hundred miles away, lightning pounding through the flood of water…
We have them, but smaller, and very hard to get that 100 mile view that’s actually common out west.
He has some great nature work on there~!
J R in WV
@Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho:
I guess two people can look at the same thing and see diametrically different things or views. Here I thot this was a community, working for liberal progressive causes, helping one another through tough spots, rescuing dogs and cats, etc.
I’m sorry you feel more elbows than pats on the back. Do keep an eye on B-J — it does change from day to day. Maybe you changed some too, terror is designed to do that.
I do miss several of the good folx who appear to have moved on, and wish they would stop by once in a while to let us know they’re OK, because most of us care about each other.
Best wishes, good luck!
BruceFromOhio
@raven:
Yep.
WaterGirl
@DKinSD: That’s funny!
Alternative Fax, a hip hop artist from Idaho
@J R in WV:
Thanks for the kind thoughts! Sharp elbows are terrific in my view, especially the way they were thrown back in the day. I’m not the least bit interested in pats on the back. Clearly my ability to communicate has deteriorated.
But I can work on supporting change in a place that isn’t an exclusive club of cool kids. Stay well in those hills.
ETA: I also misunderstood the concept of the the thread in that it seemed to be a place to describe the blog as it exists.
Super Dave
@WaterGirl: Thanks for the encouragement, and to all those who “reached out” (I hate that phrase) in response to my comment. I especially enjoyed Baud’s response to my comment about his “taking it in the shorts”… I can see why everyone loves him, and loves to rag on him. If I ever have something worth saying again (not a likely occurrence), I’ll feel more comfortable posting it!
Super Dave
@Baud: I should have been able to guess that, right?