Lots of work to do — I’ll write more later.

However.

Sierra’s thing wasn’t about how one particular post about a friend of hers (I assume) was way out of bounds. That wasn’t the point at all.

Things were not spiralling into a new level of crass over at meankids. AFAIK, it was same as it ever was until the one heavyhanded bit and then Frank yanked the cord.

meankids certainly wasn’t a play for eyeballs. You have to look at the genesis (see Rageboy’s resonse). And there simply aren’t enough people interested in that kind of thing — at least not in the way they do it, the topics/people they choose, etc — for it to ever challenge any A-lister for eyeballs. They knew that, and frankly so do you.

As for Frank, he already ran with that crowd. Has for years. He doesn’t consider himself gifted with the same vision/skill as these guys, but he wanted to support them and be tangentially involved in the “project.”

I think precisely because he knew the participants (or most of them) so well, it was all the more shocking that one Maryam post. Sometimes you think you know your friends…

Reread what Kathy’s claiming, the associations she made and then come back to me. There’s a kneejerk response she was purposefully trying to elicit and she damned well got it.

My reference to the Onion was only to say that there are plenty of sites that poke fun of people and ideas. A lot of people are out there saying well if you start a site whose intent is to ridicule/poke fun at [whatever], then it necessarily must devolve, at some point or other, into death threats! I mean…c’maaan.

This one (meankids) got special attention because of who was involved. That’s all I’m sayin.

But seriously, I think the comparison is apt, even if I did run the risk of someone invoking Godwin’s Law. The point was that Frank Paynter (whom I know personally) made a big miscalculation in thinking that a site that housed, fostered and encourages some of the worst aspects of high school behaviour would inspire some other bad aspects that he hadn’t intended.

If anyone is to get slapped with a “Who wants more eyeballs? I do! I do!”, it is he. He means well, but he saw MeanKids.org as a chance to run with the cool kids. He should be censured, but with the understanding that for every mistake he made in this sorry affair, he always tried to do the right thing in the end.

As you say, most of the stuff was fairly tame, but there was a gradual progression in the site from “bending” to “breaking” (as in “If it beands, it’s comedy. If it breaks, it doesn’t”), with the possible worst one being the completely sub-human posting about Maryam Scoble (Don Park writes about it here, and here’s Google’s cached copy. It’s evil, racist misogynistic garbage, so be warned if you follow the link). I don’t know which parallel universe edition of The Onion you’ve been reading, but they don’t do stuff like that.

In short: I think I’m far more on target than you state.

Who wants more eyeballs?! I do! I do!

The funny thing is, one of the ring leaders has written numerous scathing posts about some of the more subtler effects of Naziism and the like. I’ll wager far more on the topic than any similar-minded posts from Sierra and her defenders (including you) combined.

Setting up meankids.org is like some Star Trek character trying to distill “the best of” Nazism. Reeeally now. At minimum it’s a grotesque stretch. More to the irony is that the fascist efficiency-through-compliance methodology is exactly what meankids is against: don’t be a friggin lemon, buyin wholesale what’s being sold at the happyface stand.

I’m not speaking for any of them but I’m betting that meankids came out of a desire to take control of the ostracizing label Tara wanted to slap on their foreheads.

Hey, they’re like the mean kids who drew zits on my face in high school!

I mean, who can’t come to the damsel’s rescue with a bleat like that? As if everything they had to say was personal, biting her for the sake of biting her, and not a critique of her ideas or work.

It’s pathetic. And embarrassing (you decide for whom).

The “Hells Angels” analogy is crude as well as it supposes the participants had nothing but evil intent and just needed some kind of fake cover with which to operate.

Their (original) intent was satire and to poke fun in a free-wheeling way, some of the stuff they deemed as bullshit. More about the ideas, than an ad hominem practice pit.

The Onion does the same thing every day, in their own way. The thing about humour is that it’s all funny if you happen to agree.

Now, not saying they didn’t at times take things too far, but when I visited (which wasn’t often) most of the stuff was fairly tame. A lot of clowning around and inside jokes.

It’s too bad Frank freaked out and took down the whole site (though I can understand his anguish), because you could see for yourself.

Joey (the other one) has indeed responded in Kathy’s thread and we’ll see how this all plays out, but I think you’ve jumped the gun and Kathy (and Tara) is not as completely innocent as she makes herself out to be.

I haven’t seen the Star Trek episode (I probably should), however, Nazi’s were in fact one of the most efficient societies in history.

Take away the hatred, take away the Holocaust, they did propel Germany from being a scapegoat to being a world super power (in what, 10 years?).

Unless Ekos was a multinational planet for Eko-nazis to base their hatred upon, Nazism as a standalone philosophy would work to efficiently bring an anarchist society into order.

But like I said, I’d better watch the episode first.

Queen’s U. Where else? He spent all his time at John Deutsch Centre with the other conservatives.