Showing posts with label #SiteNews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #SiteNews. Show all posts

How feedback works around here.

by K.W. Leslie, 08 January 2024

As you might’ve noticed, TXAB (short for “The Christ Almighty Blog,” y’know) doesn’t have a comment section. Used to, but I got a lot of trolls and grew tired of moderating it. If you’ve ever bothered to read the comments on YouTube videos, and I don’t recommend it, you’ll notice a lot of them are stupid and awful, particularly under videos which express unpopular opinions. My opinions are just as unpopular, apparently. So away they go.

This is far from the first site to do this. In the early days of the World Wide Web, lots of news sites and blogs permitted comments. The hope was people would moderate themselves, be civil, and not need someone to police them. The reality was people did no such thing, especially since the internet permits you to be anonymous. (Well, anonymous to everyone but hackers, who are scary good at finding out who you are with very little effort.) And even with websites which require you to use your true name, like Facebook, people are just vile. So websites started moderating the comments… until it became more trouble than it’s worth.

On my blogs I moderated the comments myself. It took way more time than I wanted, and I was deleting and banning most of the comments and commenters. No, not because I disagreed with them; it was for godless and fruitless behavior. That was my only real rule for moderation: Behave yourself! When they couldn’t do that, down came the banhammer.

A decade ago, right about the time I started TXAB, I switched to Disqus for my comments. They claimed they’d moderate people for me. Largely they did! So I have no trouble recommending Disqus to other bloggers. But Disqus really just moderates for harassing or profane behavior, and my standards are a bit higher.

And of course those I banned, complained. Their usual argument was that this (the United States, anyway; TXAB’s readers are from everywhere) is a free country, and how dare I censor them; don’t I realize they have the First Amendment right to express themselves freely? I’m a journalist; of course I do. But they’re quite unaware the First Amendment is about government censorship, not individual nor corporate censorship. Social media companies, television networks, workplaces, churches, and parents can ban all sorts of speech if they so choose. And if you don’t like it, you can leave. But government can’t ban speech—especially when we’re speaking out against government abuse and corruption! Christian nationalists regularly don’t seem to understand this, and try to get government to censor smut or other pagan activity on the grounds that all our founding fathers were somehow devout Evangelicals who would never interpret the First Amendment like the courts do. Clearly they’ve never read Benjamin Franklin’s naughtier writings. But I digress.

Anywho, no more comments means no more bans. No more rude statements for me to delete; no more hurt feelings because I dared to delete what other people had toiled over; no more trolls. No more positive comments either, but I wasn’t receiving all that many of them anyway.

Well, I do receive ’em through email. Sometimes. And like I said, there’s still email.

TXAB’s spoiler policy.

by K.W. Leslie, 24 July 2017

When you’re introducing your kids to the Star Wars movies, do try not to show ’em Episode III before Empire Strikes Back.

Not that a lot of parents in my circle do, ’cause Episode III is rated PG-13, and a lot of ’em take that rating very seriously. ’Cause—and here the spoilers begin—horrific third-degree burns, y’know. But if parents do show their kids Episode III before Episode VI, it means the children are gonna find out Vader’s the father of two protagonists of the ’70s films, Episodes IV through IV. And it’s gonna kill any surprised reaction they might have when Vader finally declares, “No, I am your father.”

It’s also gonna make the kids say Ewwwww! every time Luke and Leia kiss. And not just for the usual reasons kids are grossed out by public displays of affection: For the very same reasons I say Ewwwww when they make out. Yeah right George Lucas knew their backstory all along.

Star Wars nerds tend to recommend watching ’em in the order of the original Star Wars movie first (which later got renamed Episode IV: A New Hope), then Empire, then I to III (and some of ’em point out you can easily skip the kinda-slow Episode I: The Phantom Midichlorians), then Return of the Jedi. This way the kids build up a smidgen of sympathy for Annakin/Vader before Return, because if all they see are the ’70s movies, they’re gonna think, “Why on earth does Luke think he can reform him?”

And then expose ’em to The Force Awakens, and all its sequels. And the stand-alones, the TV shows, and the Holiday Special.

The bonkers thing is when I mention the whole “Who’s your daddy?” deal to people, and they immediately respond, “Dude, don’t spoil Star Wars for me.”

Um… these are 40-year-old movies. If you’re over the age of 13 and haven’t seen ’em yet, that’s on you.

I admit I myself don’t worry much about spoilers. If somebody lets slip how a movie ends, oh well. I don’t like surprises, so sometimes I’ll actually go find out a movie’s ending before I see it. Fr’instance when Batman v. Superman: Dawn of the Marthas came out, I heard some people complain it wasn’t very good; at least not in comparison with previous Superman and Batman movies. I wanted to know why, so I popped over to its Wikipedia page and read the plot. And Wikipedia gives away endings. True, there were a few surprises the director and producers wanted me to see in the theater, but tough: I wanted to know about ’em now.

Does doing this ruin the movie for me? Nah. People re-watch good movies all the time. Despite knowing the endings, because they’re good movies. If Batman v. Superman sounded any good, regardless of my knowing the ending in advance, I’d go see it anyway. But after the Wikipedia summary, I decided to skip the theater and watch it on home video. Wound up seeing the “extended edition,” which was 3 hours 2 minutes instead of the theatrical 2:21. It was okay. Still not happy Batman kills people in it: Trying to avoid guns and killing is kinda the one thing Batman’s known for. But the producers decided “Meh,” so now the Batmobile has machine guns. Meh.

Not that I blog about movies all that often. But I figure I may as well preemptively spell out my spoiler policy. So if you bellyache about my spoiling anything in future, I’ll refer you to this rant.

Wait, a new blog? What’s it about?

by K.W. Leslie, 06 September 2015

Introducing Christ Almighty!, your new favorite blog. Well, maybe in the top 10. Top 1,000 at least.

Yep, it’s a new blog. In full, it’s called The Christ Almighty Blog. In short, Christ Almighty! In even shorter, TXAB, or “T-Xab,” as the kids might call it, if kids ever got around to reading it, and of course we all know kids don’t read. Really, neither do adults. Not even sure what you’re doing here. Oh right; curiosity.

The purpose of Christ Almighty! is to talk about Christ Jesus. Or as Americans call him, Jesus Christ. In medieval times Europeans put titles after names, which evolved into last names, like Tom Butcher and Dick Baker and Harry Candlestickmaker. It’s why too many folks still think Jesus is Mr. and Mrs. Christ’s boy. We forget Christ means “anointed one,” an ancient Hebrew euphemism for king. Jesus is our king. He’s almighty. “Christ Almighty!” isn’t just a clever name based on a popular exclamation. It’s this blog’s point.

Authentic Christ-following is what I’m going for here. Hopefully you are too, and it’s why you’ve visited. Welcome. Sit a spell.