@Froborr, which makes me sad. :( The especially weird thing is, even if you can't post, you should be able to read, since it's all back-filled to the Blogger comment system as well (which should show if Disqus is not). I wish so much I could come to your computer and troubleshoot. :(

Oh! And randomly: I like Disqus, and I think it's the best commenting system there is right now, HOWEVER, I seem to recall that a lot of folks here do not like Disqus, so I've not implemented it on the new board. There should probably be a discussion about that at some point.

Thank you TBAT. (And I wish I could set things up as prettily as you have here!)

Here is what I have so far. Beta, obviously. http://slacktiverse.blogspot.com Email me to get access to the shared SlacktiverseAuthors email (I don't want to put the password on a public board, obvs), and/or to be added as an author to the board. (I would start adding people unilaterally, but I'll miss someone and then feel bad, so just send me a ping, if you will please.) I hope this is helpful.

OK, since I've seen several "yes's" and no outright "no's", I'll set something up today on my day off and have a link here by tonight. BRB.

I would not be the site owner; I would set up everything under a shared email account, say "SlacktivistAuthors@gmail.com" or something similar. This email could be accessed by any of the authors interested in contributing to this project. I would be one of those authors, but only one of what I hope will be a dozen or more people (and one with severely limited time to contribute, I'm afraid). I would propose that authors moderate their own articles. I do not think there's anything inappropriate about an author saying "X is off-topic for purposes of this thread" and/or an author asking someone to leave the topic and/or an author closing comments on a thread if it becomes too onerous to moderate further. Since there would be an open forum attached to the board, "spirited" discussions could be asked to move there. Eventually we would have to deal with perma-bans, but I think that's something that will have to be dealt with when it arises. I'm of the Shakesville "get on my tits, get off my board" school, so everyone knows where I stand on perma-bans, but this would not be my board, so my vote only counts for so little here. :)

Blogger blogs can have multiple persons registered as "authors" (and/or with varying permissions for things like "can make new posts, but can't modify other people's posts" -- "editors", I believe they are called). In my mind, the best solution would be something like: 1. Set up Blogger blog with multiple contributing authors. These would be people who intend to contribute a post and/or blog-building work. 2. Set up a static page within that blog with Nabble forum. This would be for planning, chatting, forumy fun. 3. Let authors post blog posts on an "honor" system according to some loosely defined rules: blog-posts are the property of the author, and do not convey community consensus, authors are responsible for editing their posts prior to publish, posts should remember the community goals for pluralism and inclusion, etc. (We could have a Mission Statement!) --- If we just want someone to Drive To Decision and do the legwork to setup the above, I can do both #1 and #2 in a matter of hours before turning over the keys to the other authors. Not because I'm a genius or anything, but because I've done it before twice now (AMR & AMP) and I can cannibalize my old code easily. Trouble is, my name will therefore be on everything quite a bit, unless I make some kind of generi Slacktiperson@gmail.com account to host it all under. And I'm not sure my name SHOULD be on any of this, given that I will probably have time to contribute maybe one article in the next three months. Actually, having the Slacktiperson account (or whatever) is probably the best plan, now that I think on it. One more thing that is easily enough handed over to the larger community. If it would help the community and if people would like me to do the above, I totally can and will do -- probably first thing Tuesday. But I'd want to wait for some buy-in here before I go off half-cocked like I so easily do. Thoughts? (I also add my name to the hat of "volunteering my board + forum for chatting about this further" if we hit deadline without deciding anything.)

So I'm not advocating Nabble, it's just what I've used on my Blogger board, so I know it's integrate-able with Blogger blogs. But Nabble does seem to have feeds. If you go to my Nabble forum here: http://www.anamardoll.com/p/forums.html And scroll down, there's a FEEDS link in the left hand corner. The options are: FEED: Topics only http://rambly-ramblings.2308065.n4.nabble.com/Rambly-Ramblings-ft4040926.xml FEED: Topics and replies http://rambly-ramblings.2308065.n4.nabble.com/Rambly-Ramblings-f4040926.xml I haven't slapped them into my Google Reader yet but they look legitish. Mind you, I still vote for a blog if we're doing either/or. But I know that there are security issues. When all this Blogger stuff went down, some blogging friends noted that their pre-Blogger days were subject to DOS attacks like whoa. I know that Slacktivist has some dedicated trolls, which means that we'd probably be stuck with Blogger for the superior Google security. Mind you, I'm okay with Blogger now that I have my script, so there's that.

Nabble is free forum-ware.

(I should have read further before posting. I'm not advocating one or the other. My personal vote would be for a blog, but that's purely because I would be more likely to read a blog than a message board. See Ross' statement re: RSS feaders and apply a +1 from me.)

I think we could do both, re: blog vs. forum. I had a Nabble forum attached to my Blogger blog for a time. (It's still there, but hidden since no one was using it.) I'm pretty sure there are forum widgets for WordPress?

Thank you. I really appreciate all the work you're going to in order to preserve this wonderful site and its comments. I'm sure this is a lot of work, and I appreciate it.

So I'm clear: On/After October 15th, we won't be able to comment here anymore, but all thread and comments will still be visible? (Albeit in a potentially different format as noted above?) It will be, essentially, like what Kate Harding did with the Shapely Prose archives?

I don't know what to say. Thank you for everything, for all you've done, for being so kind to me. I am sad that this has happened, but I am happy that you will have more pleasing projects to focus on. I do understand that, so much. Thank you, thank you, thank you, for all that you've done and all that you've weathered in order to provide, maintain, and now freeze-in-time this lovely safe-space for us. Thank you a thousand times over.

Thank you! I'm really really bad at organizing things, but I'd contribute to all three if someone else was doing the org work.

I have a stupid question that was probably answered elsewhere, but I'll ask here instead of bugging the TBATs directly. 1. Are one-off submissions still desirable for publishing here (or are we moving towards a round-table format only)? 2. Have we yet done round-tables on any of the following: a. Tarot roundtable b. Women Who Fear / Women Who Don't Fear (I'd love to see -- and contribute -- to something that talked about the issues that came up in the comments here this week: http://www.anamardoll.com/2012/09/twilight-cloudy-with-chance-of-rape.html with an eye towards how women are damned socially if they don't perfectly submit to the threat tolerances of others) c. More lightheartedly, something like "Literature that changed our childhood" (I think that could be something really fun -- I'd talk about how I kept our school copy of Peter Pan perpetually checked out for 2 years.)

But hey, it's not like they *wouldn't* ban the sale of used books if it were remotely possible to do so. We're seeing this with video games, too, which is seeing a lot of the same issues. Publishers are trying to lock down games so that the first sale is the only possible sale and so that used games aren't a possibility anymore. It absolutely infuriates me. It also strikes me as very damaging to their base. Most of the people I know who buy new do so BECAUSE they can recoup the loss later on a sale. (Not much of a recoup, but in their mind it's worth it.) Most of the people I know who buy used are perfectly content to NEVER BUY ANYTHING EVER AGAIN, if used stops being an option. So cutting out the used market, from my perspective on the ground, doesn't increase sales (used gamers just stop buying) and effectively lowers sale (new gamers will buy less because less money to spend). I think this is highly relevant to books: I know a number of people who choose not to get into eBooks because of the borrowing/selling/bequeathing issues.

CN: Nice Guyism, Stalker Behavior Ooh! I went on a rant today to Mom about how I am DONE with movies where the Schlubby Guy is turned down for marriage-slash-serious-relationship by the Hot Chick because he's got a slacker job or is not her type or isn't "alpha" enough, and then the rest of the movie is either him changing or her 'coming to her senses' or Better, Hotter, Blonder girlfriend coming along to scoop up what Hot Chick couldn't appreciate. YOU HEAR ME HOLLYWOOD? I WILL NOT WATCH THESE THINGS ANYMORE. Sometimes people aren't good in a relationship together. They go their separate ways. They mourn and move on. I don't find "unhealthy obsessed to the point of stalker behavior" to be a sexy plot vehicle.

We have a recipe around here that is called Cheeseburger Stew. It's a basic broth+meet+potatoes affair with cream to thicken and cheese on top, but Husband had a hard time getting around the name at first. I guess he was expecting soggy bread in there.

Kairosoft! I love those games. Have been playing Mega Mall Story in bed all week.

@Rowen, yes, DID or MPD. "Multiples" moves away from the emphasis on "disorder".

@Froborr, wow, that seems a little... murky. I think I'm done with "this is an allegory!" works because it seems like a lot of marginalized issues don't map well onto other marginalized issues without causing... issues. o.O (See the latest Reverse Racism! book I blogged about this week. Ick.)

GET OUT OF MY HEAD! I had to laugh, because I wrote a post on appropriation yesterday (though it won't go up until late August, if that makes any sense at all), and my feelings are that it's Really Complicated. -- TW: Appropriation of American Indian Culture, European Colonization of the Americas In my sheltered hyper-conservative religious upbringing, appropriated material was often the only exposure I had to new ideas. I didn't touch on this much yet, as I'm waiting for my actual movie deconstruction, but my ultimate example always being Disney's Pocahontas which is appropriative like WHOA, but was my first (and possibly only, prior to my 20s) exposure to a POSITIVE portrayal of pantheism, as well as one of my rare exposures to the CONTROVERSIAL IDEA that maybe European colonization of the Americas was less than the best thing ever. MORE TW: European Colonization of the Americas Coupled With Callous Religious Prejudice And I'm being totally serious. I went to private schools where the Christian textbooks talked about smallpox being God's chosen method for clearing out the natives to make room for his chosen people to settle. I get sick just typing that, but it's a part of my past. Disney's Pocahontas -- which was highly controversial in my church, but Mom and Dad caved since it was a "kid's movie" and it was just barely acceptable on account of being appropriative like whoa -- was my first exposure to a more balanced viewpoint, and it lit a fire in me that maybe what I'd been taught all those years was, pardon my French, bullshit. So I'm definitely a testament that appropriative things can do good as well as harm. Complicated. :( -- For disabilities and non-neurotypical portrayals, I'd like to see a protagonist in a multiple system that isn't a violent murderer. I keep thinking I should write one myself, but then I bump into the whole "I don't have experience with this, and therefore is this not appropriative?" I really don't know the answer to that, and I think it comes down to WHO you ask. I think this is something that writers probably grapple with a lot, actually. I know I felt bad (and vowed to do better) when I was told that my secret lesbian character in "Pulchritude" didn't read as lesbian to several readers with more inside knowledge than I. (I identify as bi on the Kinsey scale, but.) I try to give Hollywoodians a pass if I think they tried their best, but that's dreadfully subjective and I recognize it comes from my usual tendencies to hand out cookies for trying.

I have nothing of value to add except that I loved Froborr's comment, especially the bit about FRUIT. :) And I didn't care for the bit with the boats, for the reasons outlined above about it being Pascal's Wager levels of simplification. That has bugged me SO MUCH since then. I would have much preferred some nobility from the 'common people' -- I myself would not have wanted the button pressed. How is that hard? Also: 'Criminals' do not automatically equal the worst people on earth. This is perhaps a small point, but I'm getting tired of it being made over and over again in movies and television. Some of the 'criminals' on that boat would have, statistically, been innocent of the crimes for which they were convicted. Many of them would be guilty of non-violent crimes. Etc. Unless the boat was entirely stocked with mass murderers. It's been awhile, and I didn't care enough to remember, obviously.

[BRAVE SPOILERS] I'd like a story in which the "girly" things result in a win for the character, and not because they induce the handsome prince to rescue the girly girl, but because diplomacy, weaving, and knowing how to wear clothes are the right tools for the job at hand. That would be nice. Gods, SO MUCH. I've basically avoided criticizing Brave because I'm just thrilled there's no love story, and it's nice to see a tomboy girl as a "Disney Princess", and no movie can be ALL THE THINGS, but yes. I would like this. Variety! I wants it.