This blog is, quite intentionally, a mostly positive place. There are lots of sites where negative energy can be collected by those so inclined. I try not to dwell there. However, today I must ask your patience as I share a small rant.
I learned last week that our community wiki had been deleted without notice by its host. The SpankingArt wiki is gone.
My role in this project was small, but I invested many hours. I helped to maintain the list of spanking blogs. If you never saw this list, it contained links to four or five hundred spanking blogs. Among them were lots of dormant blogs that still contain excellent content. I wish I had saved a copy, but I simply didn't foresee this circumstance.
The wiki was apparently deleted because the host decided that the content was too controversial and might offend its advertisers. In short, it was censored.
I can't claim to have read the entire wiki, but what I saw was fairly tame. I wouldn't recommend it for children, but were we to apply that standard, half of the content on the web would be have to be deleted as well.
I feel gullible. Like Wikipedia, this was, I thought, a noble effort. It was many small people contributing to a greater whole. I envisioned a virtual community formed around a common interest and a desire to share knowledge. What did I know? It was really about generating advertising revenue for the hosting company. Perhaps I'll be a bit more cynical next time.
I feel violated. A faceless corporation passed judgment on our lifestyle and found it to be a topic so unacceptable as to be unfit for anyone to read.
I feel intimidated. Dare I ponder... How far can this go? Might all my posts and all your comments suffer a similar fate one day? What about our friends on Wordpress or LiveJournal or MySpace or FaceBook? Are we one bureaucratic whim from oblivion?
Technology brought us together. Will corporate greed and political correctness tear us apart?
I sure hope not.
Update: The SpankingArt wiki appears to have been resurrected here. Perhaps this story has a happy ending after all.
15 comments :
Bonnie,
It's not lost. There are ways to see old web pages. I've sent you an email about it.
LDD4Me
ldd-4-me is quite correct, I was looking on the Wayback machine but it looks like there server is busy, but they do list the Spanking Art Wiki, so we may yet be OK.
http://www.archive.org/index.php
Many folk have had their blogs deleted because of the content, often without warning and the data has been lost.
Computers, blogs, cellphones, whatever, make sure you have a good backup.
Well don't just sit there, go back up your blog.
NOW is a good time, tomorrow may be too late...
Bonnie, that stinks.
Trouble is we are in the middle of a recession and some people are panicking.
This doesn't justify it but it may explain it.
Curtasy would have given a warning, but that went out the window with good manners.
Warm hugs,
Paul.
Well said. We are indeed one bureaucratic whim from oblivion.
Rant away, Bonnie. I totally agree with you. It's enough to make you sick. There is so much porn and filth and degrading crap widely available on the Internet, and yet, our fun, consensual, playful and respectful activity gets censored.
One does have to be very careful on MySpace. I have noticed several of my spanko friends getting deleted, with no explanation. I know MS doesn't allow nudity in photos, but even if people keep the photos according to all the rules, they still get deleted -- no doubt because of the content, and someone reports them. I guess I should back up my blogs...
Your work on the Spanking Wiki was a labor of love and it SUCKS that it's now in the cyber Bermuda Triangle. I'm sorry. -- Erica
i had The SpankingArt wiki on my favirotes and wondered what happened. Thanks for telling us.
Following some links on Niki Flynn's Not A Blog I found a statement from an official from Wikia saying that Spankingart Wikia has not been deleted but has been hidden pending a review. There may be hope that it will come back in it's origional form and people will not have to trawl through an information dump.
Apparently the whole mess was caused by one illustration. This begs the question Why not just remove the illustration and not the whole resourse?
I understand your anger Bonnie and hope that Spankingart Wikia will be restored.
Prefectdt
That really sucks!! All your hard work gone, Bonnie.
And yes, it is very scary. Spanko-bashing.
Hugs,
Hermione
LDD4Me - I got your message. Thank you! Unfortunately, the most recent version available is a year old.
JMRPT - You make an excellent point. I have backed up content in the past, but my template has changed so much that I'm not sure those would be any good.
Paul - I guess what most offends me is people who impose their values on others under the guise of economic necessity. If this company has financial problems, I seriously doubt they had anything to do with the SpankingArt wiki.
Ofbg - Thank you. I wish it weren't so.
Erica - I've heard a number of similar gripes about MySpace, but JMRPT is right. We should all back up our content just in case.
I suppose it's a sign of our times that all manner of ugly, hateful material is tolerated while thoughtful, creative, caring spankos are censored.
Sherryl - That, I am sad to report, is the story.
Prefectdt - There was a later update in which Wikia (the hosting company) had decided to delete SpankingArt for vague reasons somehow related to potential future advertiser complaints.
Hermione - All I can think is that there are so many real problems in the world, why create one where none exists?
Bonnie,
It's not lost! http://spankingart.org/wiki/Main_Page
I love Google :) I found an article, someone restored it somewhere else, so you can keep your hours of work on it.
Luna - Thank you, and it's a nice fresh copy too. I just saved a backup. I truly appreciate your assistance!
In reading everyone's comments so far, I find nothing with which I disagree, but I note a dearth of direct reference to another faction that's at work in our society, namely the self-appointed morals tutors and monitors. I suspect that they brought a great deal of the pressure to bear on the economic front by threatening to boycot advertisers' products, and thus the pressure went up the chain to the top.
Of course [wry grin] how did THEY (the "morality" bunch) know what was on Wiki without going there for a look-see themselves? It reminds me of the quip about the two places where the thumper-jumpers never recognize each other: 1) the liquor store, and 2) Hooter's. It also makes me wonder how many of them may share some of our inclinations but fear to face them.
I placed the M-word, above, in quotation marks because those of the inclination I describe conveniently overlook the inescapable fact that a moral code is meaningless in any individual case wherein one conforms to it not by his or her personal choice but rather by having his or her outward actions (in this case, going to a given web site) controlled _a priori_ by someone else. That, in my humble opinion, weakens their case even more than does the patent hypocrisy revealed by their having visited the site at issue themselves. There, now, friendes and neighbors, is MY rant for the evening.
Cheers,
Anon VII
Hah -- how does that expression go -- the "moral majority" is neither? -- Erica
Like you Bonnie, I am cross and disturbed by the high handed way in which this was treated.
Anon was right, there is something fundamentally wrong about an enforced morality, for isn't the essence of morality that it is the product of free will?
In the situation of enforced morality the motive of the individual is given no importance, it is just the actions which are criticised, and it is our motives which give our actions their power for good or ill.
Rant on!
In this case it was not the "moral majority" at work here, but a group of anti-wiki people calling themselves "Wikipedia Review" (most of who members have been banned on Wikipedia). They blacked mailed Wikia with libel about pedophilia.
but even though they know where the wiki moved to has done zero about it, the goal was simply harass wikia/wikipedia despite the "arguments" they used.
but more despicable than this group was Wikia stated the charges were totally false, but caved anyway; despite their "motto"
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