After I saw this article I started wondering how much of the BB move was a result of the Google apocalypse of indie publishers, where they’re now apparently privileging corporate networks of sites in search results, and independent websites have seen search traffic fall off a cliff.
Maybe the timing is a coincidence, but the enshittification of the web is happening at all levels, and enshittification happening upstream has unavoidable (shitty) impacts downstream…
This has been an ongoing and terrible thing for Indy publishers for quite some time. Between this change at Google and the ongoing pressure to add more terrible ad products to sites in general, you’re getting to understand the existential crisis publishers like BB are facing if they don’t find alternatives to a traditional blog.
The good news is for now SS is going gang busters on that front (memberships) AND without sacrificing the blog itself, meaning if this trend ever manages to reverse (or if another, better option presents itself) BB can pivot, nothing about BoingBoing.net proper is locked in to anything.
Depressing read, Shuck. I guess it’s survival mode one way or another for the blog.
Survival seems to have come at the price of a strong, well-established reader community, though. Peeking at the BB SuS site today for the first time in a few weeks, I see that discussion over FPPs there is nearly non-existent; just some stragglers from the Discourse BBS (see below) plus a few buddies of the Authors who seem to be there to drum up an illusion of engagement. Sad to see, but I guess that Jason got his wish about pesky commenters. I’m sure that Mark/Ellsworth is also happy we’re gone. I follow the BB articles through RSS now, not really touching the SuS FPPs.
I do see a few people still commenting there who might appreciate an invitation to the “secret clubhouse” if they’re not already here: OWYAC, mr_raccoon, oncebce, Bfarnn, vernonbird, and fuzzyfuzzyfungus. I’ll leave it to people more active here to invite them through DMs on SuS as they see fit, but thought I’d alert you all to people who might have been missed by the lifeboats.
Likewise, i would love to have more folks on board but i feel ill equipped to make that choice
Yeah… about the fellow commenters - see here:
(One or two people in that thread who perhaps could be - privately - invited here.)
Community tools - to be used by a community? What community? There really does not seem to be any community over there. (Passive readers do not a community make.) The number of posts with zero comments is very telling - it’s the vast majority. Posts that do have any comments rarely have more than 3 or 4 at most, and it’s mostly the same very small handful of people.
BB’s actions killed a community. I grant the move was beneficial for BB and its owners/bloggers. Perhaps even necessary (but Substack?) but, in the process, zero account was taken of the impact on the community - perhaps because it had zero economic value, just cost.
(And the value and respect for the community was demonstrated, for me, when I was banned before the end for griping about just that. No response from the BB team, no attempt to persuade or explain - other than by you Orenwolf, on their behalf - just being banned for pressing the point, desperate for someone in charge to come and explain or defend their actions. We were treated as irrelevant.)
Maybe BB on SS will eventually build a new community and one day it may have the sort of tools that approach those of Discourse when it comes to community-building and community interaction. Those days look like a long way off, if ever, and such a community is unlikely to have the variety of voices BB’s Discourse community had, after its last community was treated so badly.
I took it upon myself to reach out to OWYAC on SS.
It’s a bloody performance, that place.
I managed to send a private message, so we’ll see what happens.
Fingers crossed.
Perhaps we should build a poll? I can’t comment because I don’t remember the names, although “fuzzyfuzzyfungus" sounds familiar.
It was just the single fuzzy, I remember them.
A poll isn’t a bad idea, but probably not on the public-facing part of the forum.
No, I don’t think so. It may limit the number of readers, of course - you are correct in that, but Orenwolf has said elsewhere that they are pleased with the take-up. My comment was more about the low level of engagement as represented by the negligible number of comments.
It would be interesting to know the page views per article now and what it was before the move, but I doubt that data will become available. But there must be enough people over there to sustain comments and chat re blog posts - but it ain’t happening.
Since this site is invite-only (in theory) we have used a number of methods in the past before extending an invitation. Not everyone has had the same experience with all users at the other place. Some experiences have been downright hostile. I’d strongly suggest running a poll before inviting others here.
0 voters
I can not stress enough how much more difficult finding safe spaces online is going to become for some of us in these next few years. Places like this will be crucial for organizing and for our mental health. Let’s think of it in terms of ensuring that the most vulnerable among us are safe, rather than imaging this space as somewhere you can remake in your own image. The other place was pretty big and sprawling and if someone other poster made others feel unsafe for any reason, that’s more than enough to give us pause.
And a lot of people were here for a very long time. Maybe newbie’s should sit back and not try to run the place for a year or two.
And I absolutely get all of that.
Upthread, @gracchus mentioned a wee list of names.
I am familiar with them because of BB, but not familiar enough.
I made an exception for OWYAC because I remember her input well from TOP.
And hey, they are a Retired Canadian Librarian.
I’m not gonna go out on a limb for any other name, rest assured.
I trust your judgement on that… but we absolutely need to ensure everyone is onboard, though…
We need more emojis.
Hello! Thanks for the invitation!
