Hate blog? Don’t feel that’s even close to being a fair and unbiased assessment. But you’re entitled to your opinion.

Thanks, again, for allowing my previous comment to be posted (and stay posted) and for your earlier statement:

If personal attacks aren’t allowed, then that should be true of commenters against commenters (or former) too.

I’m not saying Kevin is completely innocent in all this, because he has made a few moves that he probably shouldn’t have, but he’s getting a bit of a raw deal in all of this. It’s ludicrous of D’Orazio to imply that he’s some potentially dangerous nutjob just because of the dust-up with Guggenheim and Slott at Newsarama. Especialy when you consider that Slott has been the one harassing Kevin for weeks. He’s sent multiple emails to Kevin, practically begging him to call him so they can “sort things out.” Between the two of them, I think Kevin’s the more rational. And whatever her feelings toward Kevin are, it’s incredibly unfair that D’Orazio allows anyone and everyone free reign to make insulting, libelous comments about him on her blog, but won’t allow him the chance to defend himself, or anyone else the chance to defend him.

I find it very funny that she’s accusing WFA of the very behavior she’s directed at me, and others. But then again, I know well how you hate most in the others the flaws you perceive in yourself.

Still…her house, her rules. Yet, when she decided to make me the potential Mark David Chapman of comic books, she was taking shots at my character that were clearly meant seriously and to insult. And that’s fine. But she let through general insults from some and inarguably libel from others. It’s completely inconsistent with the reasons she gave for banning me.

Given her history in the past of labeling anyone disagreeing with her as an internet troll that would be better served insulting a creator over at Newsarama (which appeared to be her attempt to throw digs at me before I even approached her board) and close down threads when a few too many of the comments disagreed with her, I’m pretty sure her rationale for going to moderation is transparent.

I know of at least four people that tried to post a comment to her blog about me being a potentially violent stalker that had it blocked from going through (and the posts weren’t inflammatory, they just questioned the reasoning and the ethics of letting a bashfest go on when I couldn’t respond). I may pick apart many of her actions (like the puff piece she did on Calvin Ayre’s vanity project, when he makes his money off sexploitation), but ALL comments are welcome on my blog.

Sorry for the lengthy comment, Johanna. It’s just a topic I’m very close to. ;)

I think there is a difference from allowing comments to go up and then removing bad ones later on then sitting through and clearing them through one by one.

I was involved in several conversations about race on her blog where I questioned her opinions. I think at this point I’ve been black listed. I really haven’t tried too hard since then because of the delay those type of blogs have towards conversation. Last week I commented on a mistake Deppey made on TCJ and it was pretty much end of day before it got fixed and my comment got posted.

I’m just not a fan of treating your entire audience as suspects.

Either way, this is really besides the point. I just don’t think this break was as personal as it sounds.

Ragnell has butt heads with Val over stuff previously before, which I would link too, but Val deletes any post that portrays her in a negative light.

Nope. We’ve discussed it and right now at least, Ragnell and I are fairly satisfied with the mission statement as is. We do appreciate the input very much, though, even if we don’t always ultimately agree. Thanks! :-)

Just filtering my language through comic book–er, I mean, superhero comics terminology :)

Although that someone has “known archenemies” in internet discussion makes me giggle.

Evie, thank you for providing some well-needed balance and enthusiasm.

Just two not very useful cents from someone who admittedly wrote one of those 36 “squee!” posts, although hopefully with a sentence or two of critical explanation, because I’m just not yet jaded enough. :)

wait…

Okay, I can’t. Her decision to start moderating came after a series of fights between her and her posters, which often started with people challenging her familiarity with the characters (she misidentified one of DC’s few prominent black superheroes as another of its few prominent black supeheroes in one post, then she misidentified a third in a nother post, then there was an issue regarding whether Fire was a Latina stereotype or not.

Here’s the misidentifying one: http://occasionalsuperheroine.blogspot.com/2008/02/three-from-wwii-twelve-2-jsa-12-project.html

Here’s the follow-up, in which she misidentifies Jakeem Thunder, someone makes a joke about (known jokester Chris Sims) and she creates a skit about it:
http://occasionalsuperheroine.blogspot.com/2008/02/extreme-jump-in-logic-of-week.html

A few days later, poster Kevin Huxford repeats a rumor (not starts one, but repeats a widely circulatd one which you’ve heard yourself. Repeatedly).

She deletes all his posts and, in part because of that, switches to moderated posts. BUT, she then has a post implying that Huxford might be a crazy stalker type who might try to assassinate Joe Quesda or stab her in San Diego or something:
http://occasionalsuperheroine.blogspot.com/2008/03/should-comic-industry-people-be-so-open.html

In the thread for THAT post, obviously Huxford can’t respond to her saying he’s essentially a dangerous nut job.

Several of the posters there insult Huxford personally, including some of his known archenemies, one of which is very, very personal in his attacks against Huxford.

This is after moderating, so D’Orazio read the whole post of insults and slurts against Huxford and re-posted it.

I and at least one other person who used to work with Huxford tried to post, but ours weren’t put up. Mine was basically just that “Is it cool to disallow Huxford from posting over mentioning the personal life of a creator, but then to post personal insults about him?”

See, I told you it was a long, stupid story.

If I’m bitter about anything, it’s that. Can Ragnell get through to defend herself, or take the president of Friends of Lulu to task for saying she was “bitchy?” Can Sims get through to defend himself from posters calling him names? Because Huxford sure couldn’t defend himself, and, by moderating to this extent, it’s not just that posters say things to spite other posters, but now nothing gets through without her approval, making her culpable in all those insults (That is, she’s not just hands-off until it gets crazy serious like, say, Newsarama, but she’s reading them one by one and okaying the insults).

She is.

I’ve been running fora since 1992 in one format or another, and without moderation (for behavior, not ideas), I’d be insane and/or long gone. Most people are fine, even when disagreeing — but there’s that 1% that are viciously poisonous, and there’s no need to put up with it.

Now, some people do go overboard and use it to silence perfectly polite, well-behaved people because they can’t tolerate being disagreed with (ex. Byrne, Ellis), but I don’t know if Valerie is doing that or not. Based on my own experience, I take the complaints of those booted with a big grain of salt — they can’t all have been the perfect little angels they claim to be.

Mmmmm, maybe that has something to do with the high profile blogger vs. anonymous livejournal fangirl split? On a journal that you’re just keeping for fun, you’re free to write about whatever the heck you want, including whatever superhero or indy comic or manga you’re reading at the moment. Most people DO have diverse tastes – I know very few who read exclusively superheroes or exclusively manga. But, on the other hand, people with real “blogs” (as opposed to “journals”) tend to specialize in one subject, i.e., “this is my superhero comics blog” or “this is a blog about manga.”

Or maybe I’m totally full of bullshit. This is just my impression, and unfortunately, I don’t have nifty numbers to back it up this time. :) Johanna, I agree that you’re perhaps a rarity for covering all those different types of comics, but only within what I will say is the category of “blogs that aren’t hosted on social journaling sites.” The vast majority of the bloggers that I read every day – basically, people on livejournal – have a tendency to blog about comics of every shape and stripe equally.

There is something about superhero comics as a genre and as a serial narrative and for the most part plot focus that doesn’t attract female writers.

It feels a bit weird to ignore them, but in WFA’s defense, they are really more about super hero comics than anything else, so it really is kind of where they are gonna mostly write about.

In regards to the Val thing, I really don’t like how it’s being construed as a personal attack by Ragnell and Kalirina on Val. I find myself split in regards with their opinions on various topics but rarely have they ever made it beyond ideological opinions. I’ve seen Val take someone questioning the shakiness of her thinking and exposing the flaws as someone being a hater of females or a person trying to personally insult her. I could link to some of the stuff on her website that is questionable and really mean, but that appears to be Kevin Huxford’s new obsession. The new moderated comments just kind of support that she’s not okay with any level of criticism regardless if it’s from her fans or her peers.

I still can’t freaking believe that she used the word “bitch” like that towards Ragnell. It was really mean and totally uncalled for, but in Val’s eyes Ragnell is the vindictive mean one.

If people want to talk about superhero comics, great, I’m glad they can do that and find others to share their interests with. Just don’t use the term “comics” when you’re only focusing on an (increasingly narrower) subset of the medium.

Ok, soapbox over. The rest of your assumptions, nope, not my point. I’m sorry that you found my comments misleading. I’m glad you came by, and I hope you’ll poke around a bit.

One thing this is making clear to me is that I may be a rara avis in attempting to cover superheroes, indy comics, graphic novels, *and* manga. The other sites I can think of tend to focus a bit more (whether explicit about it or not), and maybe that explains our very different perspectives.