Mysterio 3 wrote:

Online Communities Rot Without Daily Tending By Human Hands

http://edge.org/response-detail/11009

Some of the more grotesque attacks were pointed at me, and the new experience of being on the receiving end of that much personally-directed nastiness was upsetting. I dreaded hitting the "publish" button on posts, because I knew what would now follow.

The dialogue stays, but the misanthrope looks ridiculous, and the emotional sting is neutralized.
Plucking one early weed from a bed of germinating seeds changes everything. Small actions by focused participants change the tone of the whole. It is possible to maintain big healthy gardens online. The solution isn't cheap, or easy, or hands-free. Few things of value are.

"Fetuses you eat. Cannot imagine the reaction this would get from the pro-life community. Mute, gaped mouths, probably. Maybe some cultural slurs thrown in, too? ("They're also the guys with the penis festivals5, right?")

Perhaps this should be called sushi-troll art?"

"I would hope that people would be able to tell the difference between art and real life. I don't think those rolls are made from actual aborted fetus.

Then again, I wouldn't put anything past die hard fundamentalists. There's something about total dedication to a cause that warps ones sense of perspective."

"I'm 100% pro-choice, but I don't think I could eat a fetus roll. Unless it was really tasty."

This is what Boing Boing says in their own faq:

Q. Why does Boing Boing have to have a moderator?
A. First answer: Because every general-interest online forum that's worth reading has some kind of moderation system in force.

That... wow. Just wow.

There's tons of articles out there about what pieces of shit the mods are at Boing Boing. But I fucking LOVE the edge article where the mod pretends that none of this is her fault, that it's inevitable, that it happens to all true Scotsman, I mean true forums.