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Backups
Australian far right politician Pauline Hanson was roundly ridiculed, when disgruntled staffers leaked a video she’d made in case she was assassinated:
Ridicule me too, if you will. But we have established in comments here that User is jinxed when it comes to users he follows: they tend to feature on the annals of this blog shortly afterwards. And Andrew has just seen fit to follow me.
So just in case I get hauled off, and this blog does not get hauled off along with me, I have asked Zeibura S. Kathau and Lyonel Perabo to be co-owners of the Necrologue. I’m still the point of contact for this, but they have agreed to act as backup in case I cannot run the blog.
Moderation Reminder
According to Quora policy, blogs are not moderated in the way that questions and answers are, and are given more latitude. However, comments to blogs are subject to moderation; John Gragson for example received a BNBR for a comment left at The Insurgency. (Under a post where I was protesting a BNBR, and where he was describing his own BNBR. Yes, I know.) And another former user has expressed concern to me that they were banned after engaging with my blogs.
A reminder to folks to abide by Quora policies in their comments. Just be safe out there.
Eulogies
I have been haunted for days by a comment thread by Edward Conway, under https://necrologue.quora.com/201…. Edward has already referred to this blog as me speaking on behalf of the “dead” of Quora, and he added:
If you get a chance, Speaker for the Dead is by Orson Scott Card, it’s the sequel to Ender’s Game. Interesting part is that Card postulates a new funeral custom in space-faring humans where a person’s life deeds are described with brutal honesty at their funeral.
Given your role in giving voice and notice to the undead of Quora, it seemed like something which might appeal.
I have also been haunted by a different conversation I’m currently having, about commenters in the blog complaining about bans, and ignoring what are often quite legitimate reasons for sanction. Not everyone listed here has been an angel. Not all sanctions have been unmerited. And (as moderators keep saying, but as is patently true) just because we aren’t seeing just cause for sanction, doesn’t mean just cause isn’t there.
(Doesn’t mean it is either, of course.)
Given both, I am inviting readers of the blog to write in comments their thoughts about banned users (and only banned users). I want these to be eulogies, about why you liked them, and what they brought to Quora. I want these to abide by BNBR.
I think it also appropriate that we mention that some sanctions were merited, that there are both highs and lows to people banned. But how to do this within BNBR is a genuine challenge, and I do not want it to be the reason for users to be sanctioned themselves. I welcome discussion here.