I just met an URL named Sharia

October 6, 2010 11:01 AM

The .ly domain space to be considered unsafe

The domain [vb.ly] was seized by the Libyan domain registry for reasons which seemed to be kept obscure until we escalated the issue. We eventually discovered that the domain has been seized because the content of our website, in their opinion, fell outside of Libyan Islamic/Sharia Law.

posted by defenestration (116 comments total)

Why would you have a .ly domain in the first place?
posted by demiurge at 11:07 AM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

a lot of people are relying on bit.ly

and are aiming bit.ly links at a ton of content

then again, Bit.ly also runs j.mp
posted by zenwerewolf at 11:08 AM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

So does this render Bit.ly useless or do I not understand this at all?
posted by schyler523 at 11:08 AM on October 6, 2010

Well, natural.ly.
posted by swift at 11:09 AM on October 6, 2010 [5 favorites]

Why would you have a .ly domain in the first place?

bit.ly.
posted by shakespeherian at 11:09 AM on October 6, 2010

Fucking Libyans.
posted by Eideteker at 11:09 AM on October 6, 2010 [8 favorites]

Just the right time for Google to trot out its shortener, huh? Lucky.
posted by KChasm at 11:10 AM on October 6, 2010 [3 favorites]

I remember there being concern about the .ly domain when bit.ly first came to prominence. Sorry, guys, you should have used a ccTLD not owned by a country that practices Sharia law, no matter how cute it is.
posted by zsazsa at 11:11 AM on October 6, 2010 [5 favorites]

Fucking Libyans.

How do they work?

...I'm sorry.
posted by maryr at 11:13 AM on October 6, 2010 [39 favorites]

Freakin' Libyans. We would never, ever do such a thing.
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 11:13 AM on October 6, 2010 [4 favorites]

Can we still use adverbs that end in ly?
posted by Postroad at 11:17 AM on October 6, 2010 [3 favorites]

I just wanted defenestration to know that this FPP title should at least be in the short list of best FPP titles of the year.
posted by Halloween Jack at 11:18 AM on October 6, 2010 [33 favorites]

"I just met an URL named Sharia"
Very clever, Defenestration.
posted by Outlawyr at 11:19 AM on October 6, 2010 [4 favorites]

sil.ly bil.ly
posted by unSane at 11:20 AM on October 6, 2010

We intended vb.ly to be a link shortener that celebrated tolerance and provided an alternative to other link shortening services whose terms were vague, and possibly loosely interpreted and thus subject to change, around human sexuality.

So they registered it in... Libya. Yeah.
posted by Combustible Edison Lighthouse at 11:20 AM on October 6, 2010 [9 favorites]

Poor Violet Blue. First Xeni Jardin, now Gadhaffi.
posted by unSane at 11:21 AM on October 6, 2010 [28 favorites]

So bit.ly lets people track clicked on links that aren't pointing to their domain? Why did they use a Libyan domain name in the first place? I guess I'll stick with shadyurl.com.
posted by demiurge at 11:22 AM on October 6, 2010 [5 favorites]

There goes my plans for my new site "porn.ly."
posted by chasing at 11:23 AM on October 6, 2010

Feckin love shadyurl.com.
posted by Mister_A at 11:26 AM on October 6, 2010

For a second I thought this would take out fuel.ly
posted by Rumple at 11:27 AM on October 6, 2010

Can we still use adverbs that end in ly?

Carefully.

"Carefull-eee, carefull-eee, carefull-eee... L. Y."

If anybody else remembers that and knows where to find it on YouTube, I'd be much obliged.
posted by weston at 11:29 AM on October 6, 2010 [8 favorites]

Oh I forgot all about fuel.ly as I DRIVE A BIKE AND AM AWESOME.
posted by Mister_A at 11:29 AM on October 6, 2010 [2 favorites]

The entire concept of the URL redirector is unsafe (not to mention user-hating), putting one under Libyan control just makes it somewhat moreso.
posted by DU at 11:30 AM on October 6, 2010 [4 favorites]

vyb.lu is available and scans far better if my name is Violet Blue and I'm looking for an eponymous short domain. Plus it has the added bonus of not being in an islamic country.
posted by IanMorr at 11:31 AM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

Well, bitly is still working fwiw
posted by The Lady is a designer at 11:32 AM on October 6, 2010

What's lu? Lithuania? I thought this was limited to real countries.
posted by Mister_A at 11:32 AM on October 6, 2010

I've been lurking for years but I finally registered so I could post this comment.

I'm Jamie and I co-founded statusly, who some of you might know from the funding problems we had with our startup incubator in Vancouver.

Anyways, Statusly was a name I really loved, and I had statusly.com and getting status.ly was a weird process.

The only english .ly domain processor is LibyanSpider - and the entire process was weird, to say the least - it's $75/year and everything is done manually.

It took about a week or two after our domain was purchased before we even heard back from support, and they told us that they thought the payment was fraduelent, and they were doing "research."

The entire time I got that same kind of vibe you get from used car dealers, like I was getting screwed over, but I wanted to trust these guys, and that it was the only way I could get this .ly domain.

But I knew at any point they could just flip the switch and do whatever the fuck they wanted, this article isn't suprising in the least.
posted by livejamie at 11:34 AM on October 6, 2010 [29 favorites]

"Carefull-eee, carefull-eee, carefull-eee... L. Y."

If anybody else remembers that and knows where to find it on YouTube, I'd be much obliged.

You're welcome.
posted by mazola at 11:35 AM on October 6, 2010 [14 favorites]

For a second I thought this would take out fuel.ly

To date, 35,966 Fuelly users have tracked 894,649 fuel-ups in 48,107 vehicles over 251,538,543 miles of driving.

Oil reserves in Libya are the largest in Africa and the ninth largest in the world with 41.5 billion barrels (6.60×109 m3) as of 2007.

I figure it's probably safe.
posted by Combustible Edison Lighthouse at 11:35 AM on October 6, 2010

Novelty urls seem like a bad idea. If I was told I needed to register a url from Libya in order to get the .ly then I probably wouldn't do it. The fact that countries are selling domain space for the sake of their novelty is sorta unsettling.

That said, I'm not sure why Libya is getting ruffled by Islamic law, their domain space selling business is bringing money into the country.
posted by hellojed at 11:35 AM on October 6, 2010

I don't like the fact that Libyans can control most adverbial URLs.

You remember the Adverbial URLs, right? They opened for the Cowboy Junkies in the 80s?
posted by inturnaround at 11:36 AM on October 6, 2010 [4 favorites]

If anybody else remembers that and knows where to find it on YouTube, I'd be much obliged.

L-Y. And as a bonus, Silent E.
posted by Faint of Butt at 11:39 AM on October 6, 2010 [5 favorites]

> I remember there being concern about the .ly domain when bit.ly first came to prominence. Sorry, guys, you should have used a ccTLD not owned by a country that practices Sharia law, no matter how cute it is.

Uhh, libya in now way practices Sharia law. I know it is cool to just assume to attribute the laws and actions of any country that has a Muslim majority to 'Sharia', but come on, really, Libya? The nutjob running the country is famous for his Green Book describing his supposed governing philosophy. And he doesn't even follow that!


Also, it seems bit.ly doesn't even allow the kind of content that vb.ly allowed. Is bit.ly abiding by shariah law or something?
posted by mulligan at 11:45 AM on October 6, 2010 [4 favorites]

Meh, I'll be OK as long as they don't take away my beloved .cx TLD.
posted by Threeway Handshake at 11:46 AM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

I heard bit.ly was considering moving the domain to a neutral country, but they must have decided that nobody would willingly migrate their links to bit.ch.
posted by I EAT TAPAS at 11:48 AM on October 6, 2010 [43 favorites]

Bring along your old adjectives, we'll fit 'em out with our -ly attachment and make perfectly good adverbs out of them!
posted by sonika at 11:49 AM on October 6, 2010 [3 favorites]

Ahh, memories. Thanks sonika.
posted by Mister_A at 11:51 AM on October 6, 2010

demiurge: “Why would you have a .ly domain in the first place?”

Because it looks neat. Really, that's all.

I thought about getting an .ly domain a while ago; you can get them pretty easily via Libyan Spider, if that's your bag. But the concern that held me back wasn't really the Sharia thing, it was the whole "$70 per year to register a domain" thing. Ugh. No, thank you.
posted by koeselitz at 11:53 AM on October 6, 2010

What's lu? Lithuania? I thought this was limited to real countries.

Luxembourg.
posted by Sys Rq at 11:55 AM on October 6, 2010

As I grew up and had spelling vocabulary units and sentence diagram activities, any time I would come across a word ending in LY, I would sing the various songs mentioned here.

Also, my sister Molly could be driven CRAZY by making the appropriate Schoolhouse Rock song about her instead. Seriously, maybe it was cruel for her older brothers to sing "Molly, Molly, Molly, get your adverbs here." to their 3 year old sister. But guess what? She knows her fucking adverbs -- and she knows them good-ly.

Also, Libya still exists?

(I know this is true and would never really say otherwise...but you sure wouldn't know it based on, well, any mainstream American media.)
posted by MCMikeNamara at 11:57 AM on October 6, 2010

Luxembourg.

Ha! Luxembourg is just a place invented by Lord Dunsany. Next!
posted by Mister_A at 11:57 AM on October 6, 2010 [4 favorites]

... also, here it is from the proverbial horse's mouth [NSFW] – that's the same article as the one on TechYum in the post, but I figure VB deserves the clicks.
posted by koeselitz at 11:59 AM on October 6, 2010

Iceland arguably has the best suffix - .is

(Yes, there is a real porn store called pen.is - someone did indeed already think of that joke.)
posted by sonika at 12:04 PM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

sonika: "Bring along your old adjectives, we'll fit 'em out with our -ly attachment and make perfectly good adverbs out of them!"

Nice. I haven't thought of that one in a long time.

The first thing I thought of was the electric company version.
posted by Bonzai at 12:07 PM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

I remember looking up .ly after bit.ly became popular and privately wondering just how long it would be before trouble would ensue. This isn't quite what I was thinking about, but it will do.
posted by hwestiii at 12:09 PM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

Poor Violet Blue. First Xeni Jardin, now Gadhaffi.

I imagine that's why this isn't up on boingboing yet. It'd be right up their alley if not for the Violet Blue connection; let's see if the topic is stronger than the animosity.
posted by me3dia at 12:09 PM on October 6, 2010 [7 favorites]

O R.LY?
posted by Kabanos at 12:19 PM on October 6, 2010 [2 favorites]

When the Libyans come to take your website away, do the drive up in a powder blue Volkswagen bus? And can you draw their fire with a revolver?
posted by SpiffyRob at 12:21 PM on October 6, 2010 [2 favorites]

Well, there go my plans for eatporkdai.ly.
posted by The Winsome Parker Lewis at 12:28 PM on October 6, 2010 [7 favorites]

koeselitz: "... also, here it is from the proverbial horse's mouth [NSFW] – that's the same article as the one on TechYum in the post, but I figure VB deserves the clicks"

That's a pretty rude thing to say about her.
posted by mkb at 12:31 PM on October 6, 2010

Link shorteners considered harmful.
posted by damn dirty ape at 12:33 PM on October 6, 2010

Fucking Libyans.

I knew what that video would be even before I clicked it. :D
posted by adamdschneider at 12:37 PM on October 6, 2010

Mitt Romney just cancelled his Mitt.ly domain.
posted by empath at 12:40 PM on October 6, 2010

Man, I thought someone else would mention the .lys of Virginia before me.
posted by norm at 12:46 PM on October 6, 2010 [2 favorites]

Too bad there isn't a country named Inghanistan or Inglosaxony something so we could have .ing urls.
posted by chowflap at 12:47 PM on October 6, 2010 [2 favorites]

Well, I guess y'all could use one of those patriotic .us shorteners instead. "HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT the United States of America?"

... or not.
posted by phooky at 12:50 PM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

Meh, I'll be OK as long as they don't take away my beloved .cx TLD.

People are grabbing whatever they can, but I'm pretty sure that one's still wide open.
posted by AkzidenzGrotesk at 12:57 PM on October 6, 2010 [10 favorites]

I get the point is short. But why not ju.mp instead of j.mp?
posted by graventy at 1:01 PM on October 6, 2010

First, they came for the .ly domains. And I said nothing, for I didn't own an .ly domain..
posted by mreleganza at 1:02 PM on October 6, 2010 [3 favorites]

Well, I guess y'all could use one of those patriotic .us shorteners instead. "HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT the United States of America?"

You're either with .us or against .us.
posted by mreleganza at 1:02 PM on October 6, 2010 [5 favorites]

Postroad: "Can we still use adverbs that end in ly"

Absolut
posted by Splunge at 1:11 PM on October 6, 2010

Postroad: "Can we still use adverbs that end in ly"

I remember recently doing a batch search on available .ly domains based on dictionary words ending in ly, and there was nothing there.
posted by livejamie at 1:21 PM on October 6, 2010

This reminds me. I have to do something with my curio.us domain.
posted by zerosanity at 1:35 PM on October 6, 2010

> So this thread is all about how the libyan govt wants to govern over their own stuff???

How is bit.ly somehow "Libya's own stuff"?
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 1:36 PM on October 6, 2010

Looks like someone should have RTFDocs when signing up:

4.2 Domain names must not contain obscene, scandalous, indecent, or contrary to Libyan law or Islamic morality words, phrases nor abbreviations.*

(And, I'm waiting for Romney's opposition to point out that we was happy to send money to a Libyan company until it cutoff the domain of a sex-positive blogger.)
posted by MikeKD at 1:38 PM on October 6, 2010 [2 favorites]

People are grabbing whatever they can, but I'm pretty sure that one's still wide open.

That's a bit of a stretch, isn't it? I mean, all it's going to take is a few comments like that and this hole thread will end up being ripped open.
posted by ElDiabloConQueso at 1:48 PM on October 6, 2010

(Yes, there is a real porn store called pen.is - someone did indeed already think of that joke.)

If I recall correctly, this domain used to belong to the Icelandic Phallological Museum. I guess they must have been short of cash.
posted by acb at 1:50 PM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

.er (Eritrea) seems to still be available, people could have fun with that.
posted by maryr at 1:50 PM on October 6, 2010

Has bit.ly posted a Sharia-compliance policy yet? What would happen if people were to use it to shorten links to, say, whisky distilleries or high-interest savings accounts?
posted by acb at 1:59 PM on October 6, 2010

I think the long and short of it is that if they had terms of use, you're going to have a lot of fun trying to bring it up in international court. Basically, the terms of use are: you pay us money, and if we want, we'll let you use this domain.
posted by mikeh at 2:05 PM on October 6, 2010

People are grabbing whatever they can, but I'm pretty sure that one's still wide open.

That's a bit of a stretch, isn't it? I mean, all it's going to take is a few comments like that and this hole thread will end up being ripped open.


Look, just move your capra site to Sweden, and avoid unnecessary probing.

(there has to be a great in-joke behind the fact that goat.se produces an entirely SFW picture of this man.)
posted by chavenet at 2:18 PM on October 6, 2010

"Lybia unpublishes .ly URL shorteners"

TOO SOON.
posted by beschizza at 2:23 PM on October 6, 2010

Too bad there isn't a country named Inghanistan or Inglosaxony something so we could have .ing urls.

There is a .ng top-level domain, but the don't allow direct second-level registrations -- everything has to be slotted into a "com.ng, net.ng, etc." structure. If they ever change that policy, there will probably be a feeding frenzy for names like fucki.ng.

Assuming, of course, anybody's brave enough to send their money to an Internet company in Nigeria.
posted by faster than a speeding bulette at 2:34 PM on October 6, 2010 [6 favorites]

This is the part that had me palming the ol' face:

An additional concern is that the clause being used here pertains to Libyan Islamic Law which appears impossible to find listed in English.

Imagine a foreign country raising this "concern" in the US. "Your honor, our activities might indeed be contrary to US law. But I contend that the law in question was impossible to find listed in Arabic!"
posted by No-sword at 2:36 PM on October 6, 2010 [4 favorites]

♪ Sharia! Say it loud and there's music playing! Say it soft and it's almost like praying. Sharia! ♫

Love the title. Nicely done!
posted by zarq at 2:39 PM on October 6, 2010 [3 favorites]

Uhh, libya in now way practices Sharia law.

I was being a bit hyperbolic but there are certainly elements of Sharia. I did a quick check on the ol' Wikipedia and saw: Laws derived from Sharia are also applied in Afghanistan, Libya and Sudan so I thought I was in the clear. Sources such as this one and this one also point to Sharia being a primary source of law in the country.
posted by zsazsa at 2:42 PM on October 6, 2010

Now that vb.ly is no longer around, the world's porn hounds are eagerly hoping that North Korea's new God-Emperor is enlightened enough to start selling .nk domains, allowing http://wa.nk/ and http://bo.nk/.
posted by acb at 3:01 PM on October 6, 2010 [2 favorites]

I love the Separation of Church and State.
posted by mikelieman at 3:15 PM on October 6, 2010

I remember posting a comment on metafilter and someone saying that it was crazy to worry about it.

I have never been a fan of URL shortening services. Incredibly stupid idea.
posted by delmoi at 3:45 PM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

Well, I guess y'all could use one of those patriotic .us shorteners instead.

bit.us? Sounds like a natural reaction.
posted by ersatz at 4:35 PM on October 6, 2010

Btw, did boing boing cover this? Would have been hilarious. How do you cover censorship when the person being censored is someone you 'unpublished'
posted by delmoi at 5:08 PM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

Wonder if anyone, in Uruguay or outside, ever tried to register b.uy.
posted by spinifex23 at 5:40 PM on October 6, 2010

I wonder what the Sharia punishment is for hiding goatse in a url shortener?
posted by caddis at 5:55 PM on October 6, 2010

qadda.fi is still available for porn-site URL shortening needs.
posted by swell at 6:19 PM on October 6, 2010 [3 favorites]

This is actually a problem with registering any domain that has a single registrar: you can't take your business elsewhere while keeping your domain name. Yes, it's cute to use these country codes to make words - but all it takes is a change of policy and your entire identity is gone.
posted by Joe in Australia at 6:31 PM on October 6, 2010

Oops! Google Chrome could not connect to clitor.is

Figures.
posted by lukemeister at 7:00 PM on October 6, 2010

Boing Boing found a way around linking to Violet Blue: They found eeee that doesn't mention her at all.
posted by me3dia at 7:12 PM on October 6, 2010 [2 favorites]

I have never been a fan of URL shortening services. Incredibly stupid idea.

Even if you roll your own? The objection related to giving control over to someone else? The shortening/obfuscation of the destination? What?

I think most people using shorteners don't care how long they remain active as long as they are active long enough to share this cool thing I found.
posted by cjorgensen at 7:22 PM on October 6, 2010

Boing Boing found a way around linking to Violet Blue: They found eeee that doesn't mention her at all.


That's fucking hilarious. Awesome. Smoke my cock, Boing Boing.
posted by unSane at 7:36 PM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

Boing Boing found a way around linking to Violet Blue: They found eeee that doesn't mention her at all.

Seriously? That's just pathetic.
posted by delmoi at 7:42 PM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

Hello peeps. I wrote the short item at BB -- it links to the BBC's item where I found out about this at today. I wasn't really around for that stuff with Violet and don't really have much interest in it. But I do dislike URL shorteners and thought it important enough to link.

While I did offer a light-hearted quip about it earlier in the thread here, there's really no need for drama of the sort that makes everyone at BB out to be of one editorial heart and mind, and especially not of the sort that would have me smoking anyone's genitals.
posted by beschizza at 7:55 PM on October 6, 2010

Great. So you're going to put some stuff about VB in, then?
posted by unSane at 7:58 PM on October 6, 2010

That's a no on the cock smoking then?
posted by cjorgensen at 8:01 PM on October 6, 2010

I take it back, there's a passing reference to Violet Blue in the BBC story beschizza linked to. Nearly at the end.

However, it's odd that you linked to that story rather than one with more actual detail about the case. The one cited in the BBC story, for instance.
posted by me3dia at 8:07 PM on October 6, 2010

I just noticed that my second link ended up eeee for some reason. I have no idea whaat that's about. I could have sworn I typed "BBC story".
posted by me3dia at 8:15 PM on October 6, 2010 [3 favorites]

Also, the BBC story *does* mention Violet Blue! I picked it because it *was* a good direct item about vb.ly itself, rather than the one-step-removed "threat to bit.ly" abstraction that makes it of broad interest (and which is more easily presented in a quickie link post).

I would like to write more, but I think most of the bases are covered already. This is a situation that we URL-shortening Cassandras have anticipated for a long time, where a weak point in the shortening chain threatens to break millions of links. I still don't think people quite realize how dependent social networking has become on these services -- it's not just about site-to-site linkage, but simple everyday things like links to one's own pictures in tweets and what have you: that's where the 'unseen' damage is done, the real problem that gets to the heart of the URL-shortening shitstorm we can't pretend not to have known was coming.
posted by beschizza at 8:18 PM on October 6, 2010

me3dia,

Thanks for the clarification. I was thinking that 'eeee' was a secret code that everyone else understood.
posted by lukemeister at 8:26 PM on October 6, 2010 [3 favorites]

What I really want to do is a big feature about URL shorteners and the impending doom of .ly's credibility as a TLD, but I'm headed out on vacation this evening--hence the quick dip in with a newsy link earlier--so it'll have to wait. (and I insist that the BBC's story is a much better introduction to the specifics than I could have offered).

Sure, Violet Blue being on the front lines of this is an irony not lost on me. But her own site's shortener service isn't something many people use every day -- vb.ly's demise is the point of introduction to a bigger story, which is that one of Gadaffi's sons has the power to break countless millions of tweets and emails, a fact we've ignored for years, even to the point of distracting ourselves with piddling worries over the shortener services' long term business durability and so forth. I'm particularly interested in how URL shorteners feed a 'psychology of convenience' that tricks us into doing things on the net that we know have intrinsic long-term consequences. This sort of story often gets murked up by proximity to privacy-related issues (a la facebook), and URL shortening woes offer a new look at the underlying dynamic. Shorteners do something magical: they reduce friction in online communications, but tether them atomically, permanently, to intermediaries beyond our control.

See, now you've got me writing the post I should have written, but at the wrong site. Screw you, Metafilter! :D
posted by beschizza at 8:43 PM on October 6, 2010 [2 favorites]

Everybody repeat after me:

URL SHORTENERS BREAK THE INTERNET!

The entire point of a loosely connected hypertext web of information from a million different sources and servers is that one single company (or country) can't break the whole thing. The whole point of links is to send clients to the server and address you link to, not to an intermediary who may no longer exist.

If you post a link using a URL shortener, you're doing it wrong. If you host an incredibly popular service that can't handle full-size URLs, you're doing it wrong. If you're the world's largest internet company and you launch yet another URL shortener, you're doing it wrong.

And if you open a URL shortening service that the government of Libya has the ability to turn off, you're really doing it wrong.
posted by mmoncur at 8:50 PM on October 6, 2010 [21 favorites]

Goddamn testify, mmoncur!

I came in here to say that if you use a URL shortener and things like this end up breaking your shit, you get what you deserve, you are a bad person, and you should feel bad: but I see you've covered that ground already.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 9:18 PM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

You're welcome.

L-Y. And as a bonus, Silent E.

The first thing I thought of was the electric company version.

Electric Company! All this time I couldn't get it because I was searching Schoolhouse Rock in vain (and coming up with la-ly).

OK, the next question: is that Tom Lehrer singing it, or is that just somebody who sounds quite a bit like him?
posted by weston at 9:33 PM on October 6, 2010

"Can we still use adverbs that end in ly"

I hope so.
posted by clearly at 9:44 PM on October 6, 2010

The BBC story possibly focuses on Ben Metcalfe over VB because he's ex-BBC.

Oh, for a .ty ccTLD so that they could register publici.ty together. Time for the Tyrolean separatist movement to get its act together.
posted by holgate at 10:43 PM on October 6, 2010

And if you open a URL shortening service that the government of Libya has the ability to turn off, you're really doing it wrong.

I'd say that if you're using the ccTLD of a country not related to your enterprise entirely for the purposes of a cutesy domain hack you're doing it wrong, but I'm afraid that battle is long lost.

(Hell, I still chafe at seeing .org used by for-profits and .net by non-infrastructure institutions, too, and even *I* admit that's comical)
posted by jammer at 11:00 PM on October 6, 2010 [1 favorite]

> that's the same article as the one on TechYum in the post, but I figure VB deserves the clicks.

Considering that her page steals my URL bar and loads any links inside her page inside an iFrame, no, I don't see why I would want to give her my clicks. Since its just bad internet practice to continue that.
posted by mrzarquon at 11:18 PM on October 6, 2010 [2 favorites]

Who the hell is Violet Blue and what has she got to do with Boing Boing?

Seems to me the Libyans have the right to do whatever they like with their domain. Don't like it, then don't use it.
posted by salmacis at 1:10 AM on October 7, 2010

Who the hell is Violet Blue and what has she got to do with Boing Boing?

Oceania Violet Blue has never been at war with had anything to do with Eastasia Boing Boing.
posted by acb at 1:30 AM on October 7, 2010 [1 favorite]

And if you open a URL shortening service that the government of Libya has the ability to turn off, you're really doing it wrong.

fixed that ;)
posted by caddis at 3:49 AM on October 7, 2010

Who the hell is Violet Blue and what has she got to do with Boing Boing?

Google is your friend, as usual, but the tl;dr is that Violet Blue used to post on Boing Boing, but one day she discovered that all her posts had mysteriously disappeared with no explanation from the Boing Boing gods. In the end it seems to have been a (lovers'?) tiff between Xeni Jardin and Violet Blue, but the whole episode remains clouded in a thick cloud of secrecy quite at odds with the perceived Boing Boing gestalt. As a result of the (very poor) way the whole thing was handled, some people stopped reading Boing Boing and a lot of the shine came off the site.

However, be prepared to lose the will to live once you start poking around in this particular shitheap.
posted by unSane at 4:38 AM on October 7, 2010

: be prepared to lose the will to live once you start poking around in this particular shitheap.

:p deeply tempted to put MetaFilter in front of that
posted by The Lady is a designer at 4:52 AM on October 7, 2010 [2 favorites]

Actually, Violet's never been an editor at BB. They were posts by Xeni that in some way or other discussed Violet. Though it might not excuse anything, that fact of authorship is a small but fairly significant difference. It's odd that people to this day suggest that Violet was the author of the posts in question.
posted by beschizza at 5:35 AM on October 7, 2010

me.fi seems to be available.
posted by lukemeister at 9:47 AM on October 7, 2010

"Although it might not excuse anything, I'm going to throw this out there in hopes that it will excuse something."
posted by entropicamericana at 10:23 AM on October 7, 2010

OK, the next question: is that Tom Lehrer singing it, or is that just somebody who sounds quite a bit like him?

It's Lehrer, who wrote it, as well as the "Silent E" song. Apparently there are rude versions that he would occasionally sing at parties.
posted by Pallas Athena at 10:52 AM on October 7, 2010

I'm too lazy to click on the links, but lehrer wrote a few songs for both Sesame Street and Electric Company. If you buy the CD Boxed Set, The Remains of Tom Lehrer, you get everything he ever recorded, including all of the children's songs.
posted by djfiander at 5:25 PM on October 7, 2010

I always marvel at the amount of bandwidth and storage wasted discussing and using URL shorteners.
posted by chairface at 10:41 PM on October 7, 2010