Obsidian Wings

A Kind Of Moderation

Guest post by Thomas Nephew, longtime blogger, posted by Gary Farber.

Gary has been kind enough to invite me to post here, and I'm overcoming some real jitters to give it a try.  

Obsidian Wings!  One of the top blog sites and one of the top online communities of the past decade, hence pretty much of all time.  Writing that could make you simultaneously rend your garments and thank the gods somebody, somewhere had the guts and the gift to say it - whether as writers like Katherine, Publius, Lindsay, Hilzoy, Eric, or G'Kar/Andrew, or commenters like Nell, KCinDC, or Gary.  (Just to name a few, and not to overlook the rest.)  Still not sure I'll belong.

Aside from jitters, though, I was also not sure how I'd fit with ObWi's recognizable "voice" -- probably basically hilzoy's, but somehow the whole site's as well. 

I have my own little blog, which I named "newsrack" once upon a time, and "newsrackblog.com" now.  I imagined I'd cover the ebb and flow of news from all over, but I couldn't do it: the Twitter-like pace of a Willis, a Reynolds, a Sullivan, a Marshall awes me and completely eludes me.  

I nevertheless think I've sometimes written some fairly good stuff there, usually when I stick to a topic for a while, learn more about it, research it, and finally start to get across to *myself* what the heck interests me about it.  

I call those "jags", and I've been on a few:   Iraq.  Iraq. (More on that in a moment.) Torture.  Bankruptcy bill.  Texasgate. Impeachment.  Executive power.  Civil War/Reconstruction.  Wal-Mart.  Fair Share Health Care.  Feingold 2010.  FISA Amendment Act.  License plate scanners.  A general sense of disgust with the media. Disappointed In Obama.  D'oh!

One Way To Connect

by Gary Farber

ONE WAY TO CONNECT can be this:

This is America:

This is something we can do:

To Beat Back Poverty, Pay the Poor:

The city of Rio de Janeiro is infamous for the fact that one can look out from a precarious shack on a hill in a miserable favela and see practically into the window of a luxury high-rise condominium. Parts of Brazil look like southern California. Parts of it look like Haiti. Many countries display great wealth side by side with great poverty. But until recently, Brazil was the most unequal country in the world

Everything connects:

The BABBLE Continues: An Open Thread

by Gary Farber.

This is a variant of this post.

Per previous announcement:

The ObWi Bay Area Bloggers Bullsh*t League of Earth = ObBABBLE's second meeting is announced.

WHO: This is an open gathering; anyone reading this is invited.  In actuality, the main connector is that I can get you to read this.  You are invited.  You.

All readers of, and lurkers at Obsidian Wings are especially invited.

You may know me from: blogs.  Science fiction fandom.  Publishing.  My writing.  Anywhere. You are invited.

You may be a reader of blogs, and that's all. You are invited.

You may be a member of the Bay Area science fiction community, or want to be.  You are invited.

You may simply be interested in political discussion, or talk about sf, or tech, or gadgets, or anything smart. You simply may enjoy meeting people who may be congenial and interesting.  You are invited.

If you read this: you are invited.  You are encouraged to pass this along to anyone you think interested, and to repost this information as you like; letting me know, though, would be nice.

WHERE: Crepevine.  Specifically.

5600 College Avenue, Oakland, CA

5600 College Ave, Oakland, CA 94618
Ph: (510) 658-2026

WHEN: Saturday, January 15th, 2010, 1 p.m. until we're done.

PURPOSE: Socializing, meeting each other, fun.  Flame wars dampened with beverages and cheer.

QUESTIONS: put comments on this thread at Amygdala or Obsidian Wings, or Facebook; if necessary, email gary underscore farber at yahoo dot com or at the working, new, ObWi kitty email address.

Name of group still likely to change, as is everything else.

Frequency to start will be monthly, but subject to further detail and change of location/time; possibilities of every other weekend subgroups may occur, or may not.

Further notices are intended to be issued at least monthly, at least one week before the next meeting, preferably two weeks. (Ha!  I have a rich fantasy life.)

This is an open gathering: you are encouraged to bring interesting people who might be interested. 

Feel free to copy and repost this message, but if you do so, it's helpful to say so in public comments, or email gary underscore farber at yahoo dot com, so I'll have some idea how many more people might show up.

R.S.V.P encouraged, but not required.

Gary Farber: Irresponsible Party.

Co-instigators: Jacob Davies, RAL.

Pass it on.

The first meeting had 9 people, including myself, and one person seen only by me.  This means 7 people not me. 

This is not a huge and overwhelming gathering.  This second meeting may be smaller, now that people have met me.  We might have only me and two others.  We may have more.  Come and find out along with me.  Don't be intimidated.  But it's all up to you.  No obligation whatever, obviously.  

This message expires as obsolete no later than Saturday, January 15th, 2010, 1 p.m. PST.

ADDENDUM, 1.11.11, 11:11 p.m.: How you can recognize Gary Farber, aside from the cane and Colorful Blogging Attire, and Sheer Attitude:

My hair is somewhat shorter, and I won't be bringing the cats I'm cat-sitting/sleeping with.  Hello!

Aww, aren't we more cuddly looking than you thought?

Speak To The Kitty: NEW OBWI EMAIL ADDRESS And Open Thread

by Gary Farber

Longtime and valued commenter Uncle Kvetch asked an extremely important question here.

[...] While it was nice seeing a united front of commenters taking on avedis' all-too-familiar mix of dick-waving bravado and abject sexual terror, I do find myself wondering just what constitutes "beyond the pale" when it comes to homophobic remarks around here. I'm not referring to ban-worthy offenses, as the posting rules are clear enough. But I have to say that when the inevitable necrophilia/bestiality comparisons were dragged out and numerous commenters just kept on presuming good faith on avedis' part...well, it makes me wonder.

The answer is that the "New Banning Rules" were last updated, as you can see, by longtime front-pager Edward at 10:25 AM on January 26, 2005.

They include this:

One writer (but only one) from the other side of the fence must agree to the ban for it to move forward (Von can vote as either side of the fence as he wishes). For the record, currently Charles Bird, Andrew, and Sebastian Holsclaw are on the right; Von is in the center; and Hilzoy is on the left.;-) Yes, that's unbalanced...we're working on it.*

This has been discussed many many many times in comments since 2005, by various people.  Many emails to the kitty address have been sent since 2005.

The "New Banning Rules" remain as posted until someone with the ability and authority to post new rules does so.  Wording has been suggested. 

The Posting Rules were last updated 1/19/2007, with a further undated update by an unknown to me user of "SuperUser."  I can guess, but so can you.

Again, much email has been sent to the kitty address since then, and there have been various discussions in comments about this since that time.

The Posting Rules remain as posted until someone with the ability and authority to post new rules does so.

None of this will change until the co-bloggers communicate with each other about it, and appropriate action taken by the appropriate parties with the ability to do so.  As has always been the case. 

As of Wednesday, December 29th, the address to email the kitty has been: ObWings At gmail Dot com

Send Obsidian Wings related email there.

Enough About You: Let's Talk About Me

by Gary Farber

My name is Gary Farber.  You killed my father.  Some of you are familiar with me, and some are not. 

Who the hell am I?

I'm the FNG as an Obsidian Wings front-page blogger.

But!

My first appearance at Obsidian Wings was via a post by Katherine R. on December 16th, 2003, when she linked to a post of mine, and named it Post Of The Week.  This attracted my attention to Obsidian Wings, with its first set of bloggers, Moe Lane, Katherine R,  and Von.

Set the Wayback Machine, Sherman!

Why Argue On Blogs? The Dunning-Kruger Effect

by guest poster Gary Farber.

You're biased!

Of course you are.  We all are.  We can't think without basing our thinking on our past experiences and conclusions, and so we are led into all sorts of cognitive bias. 

Errol Morris had a brilliant series  in June on The Anosognosic’s Dilemma: Something’s Wrong but You’ll Never Know What It Is.

You should read Part 1, which includes the tale of the bank robber astonished to find that putting lemon juice on his face didn't make him invisible to cameras.

Blogger Ethics

by publius

One interesting book that I hope someone writes one day is about the informal norms of the blogosphere.  My last post -- wrongheaded as it was -- raises some potentially interesting questions on this front.  (Gary Farber's detailed comment got me thinking about this stuff -- plus the desire to take that stinker off the top of the page).

Anyway, the question is this -- how long should writers have to edit or even remove posts without notifying readers?  My general view is that I have about a 10 minute window to remove a post entirely for any reason.  After that, I start feeling queasy about it -- and, to my knowledge, I've never removed one after about 10-15 minutes (much as I've wanted to).

I think the window is longer for wordsmithing.  But after a half hour or so, I tend to think strikeouts or "Updates" are more appropriate unless they're very minor typos.  Why that is, I'm not entirely sure.

And that's what I find interesting.  How and why exactly have these norm developed?  If I'm just trying to avoid punishment by the audience, why do you care?  It seems clear that, if I had just deleted the post with nary a peep, then something would be wrong with that.  But if I had written, "I had a post here, but it was stupid so I deleted it," well, that doesn't seem quite right either. 

Anyway, consider this an open thread on this stuff, or whatev's.