Comments (0) Following Daisy’s advice, I’ll be taking a page from Mr Sexsmith’s book and password-protecting certain posts about sex and sex-related stuff. Shoot me an email at blog [at] fridaythang [dot] com, preferably with a link to a blog or some other proof you’re a real person. I’ve updated the About page to reflect this, and hopefully people will notice. If not, I’ll have to find a better way to make a notification.
I realize I’ve never actually posted anything approaching a comments policy.
It’s not a widely-read blog. I never figured I’d need to.
Following some recent discussion, I figured it’d be worthwhile to issue a clarification of what I’ve already been doing.
So, without further ado, the Comments Policy for The Thang Blog:
Rule Zero: The final decider on whether any comment may be posted is Rebecca, Author of the Blog. Posting of comments are contingent of her capricious, subjective, and biased will.
Translation: It’s my damn blog. I make the rules.
Rule One: Being polite, on-topic, and respectful will increase the likelihood that your comment will be posted.
Translation: Play nice.
Rule Two: Being rude, off-topic, and disrespectful will increase the likelihood that your comment won’t be posted, and that you’ll be banned from future commenting.
Translation: Play nice.
Rule Three: If you think someone else is breaking Rules One and Two, let them (and Rebecca) know. It’s entirely possible they didn’t realize it and/or Rebecca didn’t notice. But let them know while continuing to play nice yourself.
Translation: People – myself included – aren’t perfect. I try to catch people being rude, off-topic, etc, but it’s possible I didn’t notice. It’s also possible I noticed but still allowed it, or noticed and didn’t think it was rude, off-topic, etc. See: Rule Zero.
Addendum: If you think Rebecca isn’t obeying her own rules, feel free to call her on it. She usually tries not to be rude or disrespectful, and is almost always willing to entertain honest dissent.
Translation: Let me know if I’m being a jerk. I really don’t like to be disrespectful or rude, and I’m usually quick to back up and apologize when I step on someone’s toes. But bear in mind Rule Zero: My definition of ‘jerk’ may differ from yours, or I may be OK with being a jerk in some specific instance. In either case, Rule Zero applies.
Back in May I posted about The Great Trans Feminist Blogging Shakeup of 2009. Less ridiculously described, it was a series of posts and discussions in April about how Feminist blogs can/should foster discussion about trans issues. The post was prompted by my own disappointment in a discussion over at Feministing, and I was trying to process my own experiences by going through how others had viewed the conversation in April.
Well, the (queer) blogosphere is (once again) up in arms over trans related discussions, so I thought I’d (once again) try and construct a timeline so that I could better understand what the heck has been going on. Here we go!
I’ve updated the previous post, Backlog of Links, with a more accurate description with how Kate Bornstein & S Bear Bergman are handling the response to their use of ‘tranny’ in their call for submissions to a new, updated Gender Outlaw. Ultimately, my summary (“the CFS used ‘tranny’ and Bear wasn’t willing to engage in a discussion about whether that was OK”) was really unfair to both he and Kate. As I said in the update to the previous post, life is often more complicated than it first seems and my assumptions about his behavior were totally off-base.
I wanted to take an extra post, though, to more fully go over my thoughts on how the Internet can (negatively) affect communication. In this case, I mean ways my communication was handled poorly, not anyone else’s.
I realized recently that my categories and tags lists have gotten unreasonably long. Anyone have any suggestions for trimming them down, manually or automatically?
I recently mentioned that I had submitted a question about trans women’s sexuality to Feministing and the question was chosen for their sex advice column and posted here. To my surprise, the discussion in the comments was mostly about how to hold a discussion on trans issues, and responding to transphobic posts. I was disappointed to see this, and this post is an attempt to gather my thoughts about how (whether?) a trans-specific discussion can be held on a site that does not have a trans-specific focus. (I do want to make sure to point out that the vast majority of the posts were not transphobic, and that there were definitely some good comments, advice, and links. I don’t want to make it sound like there was nothing of value in the discussion, or that I regret submitting the question, because neither of those is true.)
But first, lets go back in time a month or so and look at a similar discussion on trans issues which happened at Feministing and Feministe in mid April.
Continue reading 'The Great Trans Feminist Blogging Shakeup of 2009'»
Feministing has a regular sex advice column called Ask Professor Foxy. I submitted a question about sexuality changing over the course of the transition, which was posted – along with a response – earlier today. The basis of the question was this: I’m a trans woman in the process of transitioning, and having a lot of frustration in figuring out how to deal with my ever-changing sexuality.
And from the resposne:
Part of this process is also going to have to be exploring your new body and your new desires and not judging yourself during this process. You can even think of it as a burden or as an extra gift during transition. Unlike cisgendered women, who typically have to get used to things on their body, you are going to be able to explore things on your body that you very much want: the breasts, the hips you will likely develop. Enjoy it!
It’s definitely worth reading, but what’s a lot more interesting is the comments…
theory, trans, transitioning
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blogs, feminism, meta, sex, sexuality, theory, transitioning
I’ve been getting a lot of visitors lately from StumbleUpon, but I’m not sure how or why. Does anyone else have any experience with the site, or its visitors? Google Analytics says people from StubleUpon are sticking around for a few minutes, so (assuming that’s correct) I’m not complaining, but I am curious about any big change in visitor traffic…
-R
You may have noticed a new addition in the upper right (for those of you not reading via RSS). I keep coming back to trans fiction in posts, so I figured I should just make a (semi) static page linking to my blog posts on the subject, as well as authors/stories/sites I like. So, here it is! I’ll try to remember to make individual posts when I update it, but no promises…
-R
I’ve been using Wordpress Stats to take a look at statistics about The Thang Blog, ranging from number of views to what links people click while on the blog. These types of stats are always prone to error, so I take them with a grain of salt, but it’s interesting to see.
And I’ve noticed recently that, according to the Wordpress Stats plugin, a lot of the search terms bringing people here have a certain…focus…
Now, atmitedly, the total for all these searches is under 100 (although this post will probably unintentionally bump the blog’s ratings for those terms…) But if anyone who was brought here by such searches is still around, would you care to share your thoughts on whast you found? If you don’t feel like posting, feel free to email me.
-R
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