Ownership of Threads and Blogs

[Sabrina]

Someone posted something about a "Mummy's kitchen" at Isis oasis in Geyzerville. I was going to respond asking if there really was such a restaurant there, and how long it had been there (first I'd heard); but the posting appears to be gone! Was it not really true?

[zkoolman]

It is true... It is there and you can look here in WACCO in the Restaurants section and see the menu, or Google Mummy's Kitchen as well. It opened a couple of month's ago, I believe.

Someone posted something about a "Mummy's kitchen" at Isis oasis in Geyzerville. I was going to respond asking if there really was such a restaurant there, and how long it had been there (first I'd heard); but the posting appears to be gone! Was it not really true?

["Mad" Miles]

Sabrina, zkoolman, Everybody,

I deleted zkoolman's review of "Mummy's Kitchen" from this thread, for several reasons. He had also posted it on his "Mummy's Kitchen" thread, I started this thread, and while I haven't enforced a, "reviews only written by me," rule, the name of the thread, "My Favorite Restaurants," was meant to indicate the restaurants I like, and have eaten at.

I have no bias whatsoever against, towards, "Mummy's Kitchen." All that I know about it is what I've seen here. The menu is interesting, to me, and the combination of cuisines also attractive.

I just don't go to, or past, Cloverdale very often, almost never. About as far north from here, in Forestville, that I range is Healdsburg. There aren't any reviews written by me about restaurants in Sonoma, Napa, San Francisco, Oakland, etc. for pretty much the same reason. It's all about saving gas, money, time and the environment (the latter in my own small way).

Combining the issues of post duplication, a back story that I won't go into to protect the privacy of others, and the placement of a glowing review (the same text as the new thread / post written by zkoolman) here on this thread, it seemed appropriate to remove zkoolman's review from here.

I also changed the thread title from, "My Favorite Restaurants," to "'Mad' Miles Favorite Restaurants." That's how I started this thread. That is its original intent. That's the clearest expression of the purpose of this thread.

If I've offended you, zkoolman, I apologize. While I considered that possibility when deciding to make the changes I've made, I felt as the thread starter here, the main author of the restaurant commentary here, that the changes were appropriate.

I encourage everyone who wants to to write about the food, the vendors, the places they like to eat, to do so. The more the merrier! I am not in a competition to dominate the discussions here of good eating, or of any other topic for that matter. Just because I've written about the places I like over the last few years, doesn't mean everybody else cannot.

I welcome responses here, to my recommendations, questions, referrals and suggestions about other places that I haven't mentioned, visited, or found the right time to write about. I do not write about every single place I've eaten. Sometimes I'm too busy, I forget, or I just wasn't inspired to gush about the place. "Favorite", is a key part my purpose here.

So, let the eating and discussion thereof continue!

What I'm asking here, is that if you want to recommend a place in detail, essentially by writing your own review/commentary about it, that you create your own Favorite Restaurants thread, and put your piece there, not on my thread where the "My" referred to me.

I vaguely recall that what motivated me to call this, "My Favorite Restaurants," was that I felt it would be too egotistic to call it, "Miles' Favorite ...", or, "'Mad' Miles Fav...", because I'd already named my film commentary, "Miles On Movies", and I didn't want to be repetitive and overbearing. I can hear my critics groaning as they read the last sentence, "When are you NOT!" Oh well... We never get credit for avoiding mistakes, only blame for the ones we make.

If the ambiguity of "My" in the original thread title, is what prompted this confusion, that is my fault. I've tried to correct the error, with the changes I've made today.

I fear people will interpret this move as arrogant, selfish, territorial. I hope, instead, that it will be appreciated, or at least accepted, as an effort to be clear, to avoid confusion about who is saying what.

And yes, I suppose I am being somewhat territorial, since most of the writing in this thread is mine. Not all, others have weighed in, I want to acknowledge that and reemphasize my gratitude for the participation of everyone else who has written here.

But if you're going to start writing your own restaurant recommendations in the form of actual reviews, and not just a quick referral, please put it in your, "My Favorite Restaurants," thread, not mine.

Let the recriminations and bickering begin! Again!



(I couldn't find an atomic bomb mushroom cloud .gif, so fireworks will have to convey the wry, ironic meaning that I wanted to conclude my little broadside with.... Sic.)

[zkoolman]

Hello Mr. Miles:

It's your thread and I have no issues with your changes !!

FYI: Mummy's Kitchen is in Geyserville, which is just north of Healdsburg and somewhat south of Cloverdale.

Happy Sunday !!

"zkoolman"

["Mad" Miles]

zkoolman,

Thanks for being gracious. I promise to check out "Mummy's" if it's ever convenient for me.

I may have overindicated in my previous post (Duh!), but given the way things go down around here, I've found it necessary to tip toe around potential shit piles. And even then, it quite often doesn't work, and backfires.

So, really, I appreciate your coolness and calm. That is an all too rare quality around these parts.

Huzzah! Bravo!!

P.S. My bad about confusing Geyserville with Cloverdale. Thanks for the correction! And it proves my point about my range normally extending to Healdsburg and not beyond. Them's foreign lands from my perspective, even if they/you are so close. I certainly need to get out more...

[kpage9]

Hi Mad, Z, and all,

I am once again confused by the proprietary nature of thread-starting. Seems to me that removing a comment from a thread started by me and putting it elsewhere would be an act of--I don't know--controllingness. But then maybe that's like accusing a pilot of being controlling when he puts the "fasten seatbelt" sign on. (are there women pilots yet????)

I sent in a review of a restaurant in Sonoma, thinking "My Favorite..." applied to all of us, just expressed in the first-person singular as it would be one at a time. Miles sent "gratitude". So I had no reason to think I was intruding in someone else's "My" world.

I cannot imagine the utility of a bunch of separate threads from all the individuals who have something nice to say about a restaurant.

Seems to me there should be a thread where we can all go and look up everyone's favorite restaurants when hunger strikes. And honestly I don't understand why the otherwise wonderful Miles thinks his should be the only voice there....starting the thing, or even being its most prolific (by far) contributor, seems a flimsy reason to exclude other reviews. Especially considering the alternative.

kathy

[zkoolman]

Hello Kathy:

In Miles defense, I for one, am not put off by his actions or thought process as it relates to this issue. Why can't he have his own thread ??

And the fact that Mummy's Kitchen has it's own spot here on WACCOville would lend credence to the fact that it would be better for me to have posted my review there, (which I have) as my intent was to let people know about the superb food and ambiance there vs be on any particular thread.

Maybe you should start a thread that is called "Our Favorite Restaurants" and we can all post out rants and raves about the restaurants we enjoy there ??

Sincerely,

Zkoolman

["Mad" Miles]

Kathy,

All good points. I think I addressed most of them in my extensive response to Sabrina and Zkoolman.

It's a gray area. Having to do with authorial ownership vs.pooled community knowledge. This isn't the middle ages where workmen (and women) were anonymous, all credit for creative effort only went to God and the individual was subsumed into the collective.

The distinction I made, which I think is valid, is the difference between: A review along with responses to that review. Keeping all that in one thread makes sense to me. But a review written by someone else? That's their view, and separate threads clarify the distinction.

A search here for restaurants is going to pull up all posts/threads about restaurant recommendations, and criticisms. So access isn't really lost by the interested reader.

Again, the "My" in what was called "My Favorite Restaurants" by me, and which I changed to "'Mad' Miles Favorite Restaurants" today to overcome the ambiguity that had arisen, is a personal "My", not a collective, vague, ambiguous "My". It never was, even if people read it that way.

My assertion of control in this matter is, in my opinion, appropriate. The identity of the author is important, it allows us to read for bias. And I'm proud of my work and want it to be clearly seen as mine.

As we well know here, opinions differ. I just want to keep it straight as to whose opinion is whose.

I didn't expect everyone to agree with me. So, thanks for telling me, and us, why!

P.S. As for the recommendation you made in the past on this thread. I do not recall it being an extensive account of your experience there, a review so to speak, so much as a recommendation with some details. A gray area, as I said.

There's a back story that I mentioned before, that prompted me to make the changes I made today. Because it's not a big deal, I didn't go into any detail about that. Plus it would have required a complicated process of getting permission from the parties involved to make private communications public here. I spend enough time as it is reading and writing on this board, the issues involved aren't sufficiently weighty to make the effort to bring them out into this public arena. In spite of my tendency to gush and vent, I do maintain confidentiality when it is appropriate.

Because of that private exchange, some of the issues I've raised here were clarified for me. That prompted me to act. It's about voluntary writing without commercial interest vs. writing for commercial purposes, in a nutshell. I'm not an ad writer, in spite of any appearances to the contrary. What I write is motivated by my personal interest to help the restaurants that I like stay viable, and my generous interest to help others discover and appreciate what I like. (I explained this when I started this thread several years ago, and have clarified it in the course of contributing to it.) But I'm not making money out of this deal.

I'm not casting any aspersions on zkoolman here, I don't know what his relationship is, if any, with "Mummy's Kitchen", that's up to him to reveal or keep to himself as he sees fit. I'm only writing about myself and my values and attitudes in such matters, as they affect my purposes and actions here.

One way to keep that all clear, is to separate by threads, who is writing which restaurant reviews. That's a form of control I consider important, and justified.

P.P.S. I have no objection to someone starting an, "Our Favorite Restaurants" thread. Well, maybe I do. This comes to mind: Who decides who "our" is? And if "we" know who "we" are, how do we decide which restaurants are "our" favorites? Just because one of "us" has eaten there and liked it, doesn't mean "we" ALL like it. If the history and process of discussions and debates here is proof of anything, that implied proposition that "we" can all agree on "our" faves...is an irresolvable conundrum, a can of vicious biting worms, and, what "I" consider to be a rather trivial topic for debate, especially given the truly weighty issues we tend to throw down over around heah!

[zkoolman]

If anyone cares to know:

For the record, I have no connection or financial interest in Mummy's Kitchen or Issis Oasis of any kind.

I merely enjoy great food and wanted to convey my experience to others.

zkoolman

[kpage9]

Yr Madness,

I still think that a thread protected from contamination by others should be called something else, like a blog.

Strange, though, when i went on the Wacco home page, right below the updates and welcomes and other official stuff....lo and behold....there's a whole bunch of your reviews. Just sitting there, with no explanation. Pretty full-color restaurant logos on each one, looking all official and smug. (Okay, that may be a little projection there) Before the ad for Pilates, and before the new posts.

Brings up my own sadly latent competitive instinct. Why can't I have a nice fat central spot on the Wacco home page to spout my stuff?

Barry, what IS it doing there? and what's the official Wacco deal on exclusive rights to a thread?

kathy

[Barry]

Mind if I butt in?

Thread starters on WaccoBB.net get to set the topic for the thread, however they don't own or control the thread. They are welcome to try to post to keep the thread on topic and I am happy to consider whether its appropriate to consider splitting the thread if it veers too far off topic.

Miles's threads of restaurant and movie reviews are different the most other posts here. They are carefully considered and written (not to say the others aren't ). They are beyond your standard personal community testimonial and are more akin to a published professional review, so I plan (if Miles consents) to treat them that way.

After I finish working out some pesky bugs after our sudden upgrade and do a first pass on overhauling the website appearance, I plan to open up proper blogging on the system, in addition to the current community bulletin board. I expect that will be sometime in September. Selected contributors from the community with high quality original content will be featured, while still welcoming the community at large to comment. I think Miles restaurant and movies reviews would be perfect fit for this kind of presentation.

Until that time, though, I'm going to treat Miles' threads as his blogs, rather than our more standard community threads. So you are welcome to comment about his posts, but please start a new thread to post your own original reviews.

Thanks for your understanding and cooperation,
Barry

[Barry]

Why can't I have a nice fat central spot on the Wacco home page to spout my stuff?

I presume you saw my recent post about this. Sorry, I didn't notice your post before I posted it.

If you are interested in having an "official and smug" blog, Kathy, let's talk!

[podfish]

Mind if I butt in?

Thread starters on WaccoBB.net get to set the topic for the thread, however they don't own or control the thread.... I plan to open up proper blogging on the system

That seems wise. It would be nice if it wasn't a blogger's ghetto, though. I don't actually use facebook, et al, - besides wacco, I only use a few bulletin-board style forums - so I'm not sure if it's a solved problem. Several of the posters here have enough thematic consistency that I bet their blogs and their postings would form some kind of a whole, so it'd be good to have easy linkage between them of some form or another.

[Sabrina]

Thanks for clarifying Miles, and good you changed it to "Mad" Miles favorite Restaurants; because one day, if I had the time, I could've done the same thing as zkoolman and written my own review using your thread. For some reason I always thought the "My" of your old subheading referred to me, you, or anyone's favorite restaurant to review. Cheers! And happy eating!

[kpage9]

I'm glad to be able to access people's blogs here. Podfish, i hope you'll consider one yourself, although "thematic consistency" might not hold for you...I don't think it has to anyway.

But I would really support the distinction between blog and thread. Plucking one person's musings out of the crowd as more deserving of special consideration (i.e. permission to kick other people off the thread, to keep it for oneself alone) seems to go against the Wacco egalitarian tradition. (certainly seems to have hit a nerve for me...no one else? time to seek help?)

So--blog! yes!

Special-privilege thread? no. That would be my vote.

kathy

["Mad" Miles]

Kathy, Pod, Sabrina, anybody else interested,

Please go back to the beginning of this thread and read the first several posts. That should give you some indication as the the purpose, authorship and history of this thread. In particular, I recommend my passage in Post # 11 about, "To Quid Pro Quo or not?" Which is about issues of commercial vs. amateur volunteer restaurant reviewing.

I'm also fully aware that my argument here is undercut by Barry's proprietary role and his invite for others to contribute to this thread with their own recommendations. Barry and I don't always agree. Sometimes those disagreements crystallize and we have to resolve them, more often they percolate along in the background. Issues of proper, relevant content in posts, placing things in the proper category, etc., is the general area where we sometimes rub each other the wrong way. This is his board, his business, his job. He approaches it from that perspective and that's as it should be. I respect him and his position.

But for me, this is a convenient and habitual place to express myself in writing. As well as all the other reasons we come here. For information, entertainment, to participate in a virtual community, etc. I am not as concerned about proper order and compartmentalization. My writing style is discursive, meandering, narrative. Sometimes that does not lend itself to easy categorization.

In a sense, Barry is the editor, with a business to run. And I'm one of the volunteer writers, an artist, who just wants to express himself the way I see fit and in the manner with which I am comfortable. That's a recipe for conflict. It's not a new one in the course of human events. We have similar interests, but approach the way we exercise and pursue them differently. At least sometimes.

Back to the history of this thread. Over time, others weighed in, that was fine with me. I am a Radical Democrat at my core. But I was never confused about who the "My" is/was in the thread title I chose when I started this thread.

The distinction between a thread and blogging is a fine one to discuss. But please keep in mind that there was no blogging function, and still isn't one really, on waccobb.net, until very, very recently. What we have is the promise of blogging, soon. So that part of the discussion about this thread is ex post facto.

There is a back story, as I have mentioned when relating why I removed zkoolman's review of "Mummy's Kitchen" from this thread. I did not delete it from waccobb.net, as everyone knows, he also posted in the "Mummy's Kitchen" thread, started by ?.

I won't go into that back story, I've said why, I've said what the issues are that it raised and why that prompted me to make the changes. I am a little irritated by this discussion, because I don't see those issues being taken into account in the course of it.

Commercial vs. Unsolicited Commentary

Authorial Identity as a means to evaluate interest, bias vs. neutrality.

(We've seen the kind of mess that can happen when the distinction between reporting and rumors/slander is confused. I refer to the "Basso is a B#*&^%^%@!!" thread.)

Community consensus, how to achieve it, what is it? If it is a form of Democracy, and not just an assertion by opinionated individuals, how do we go about deciding what we have consensed? Does every individual voice represent the community as a whole? I didn't think so.

You get the drift. As I've said these are complex topics with a lot of gray area.

Previously I acquiesced to, accepted, the arrangement that threads aren't "owned" by anyone, because the contributions here were discussions of good restaurants and critiques of others. That was the theme of this thread. Recently something came up that made that more complicated.

I have moderation privileges, I made changes that made sense to me. I didn't expect them to go unnoticed and undebated. What I do ask is that responses are actual responses to the issues raised, rather than repeated assertions that, "this isn't just yours, it's mine and ours, and I don't like it." That's not a productive discussion.

A productive discussion involves acknowledging the position and interests of the participants. I didn't lightly remove zkoolman's review and change the threads name to clarify who "My" was. I did it because an issue came up that required my attention, both as the thread starter, the primary contributor and the moderator of WaccoTalk and WaccoReader.

Granted, this is on WaccoCommunity. That could be grounds for an indictment that I overstepped the "limits of my authority". But get real, while I don't own this thread, nobody owns a thread, even the ones they initiated, I did start it, sustain it, contribute to it, and at times moderate it. So you'll have to excuse me if I feel protective of it.

Perhaps, in debating the distinction between a blog and a thread, we might adjust the rules of waccobb.net and give proprietary rights to each thread starter? Nah! Do we really want posters here to start carving up little fiefdoms for themselves and defending them against all comers? I thought not!

If I came off as doing just that, I apologize. I seem to be doing a lot of that, apologizing, here lately.

What I did, I did for good reasons and I seriously considered the possible consequences. As in all rule making, what might be a bad rule if generally and liberally applied (thread initiators can remove posts from threads) in one instance might be the best choice (a clear review of a restaurant, a gushing review, already posted in a separate recommendation thread for that restaurant, written in the manner of a professional review, in the context of a private discussion related to ... I'm not telling! Shouldn't be on a thread devoted to amateur and unsolicited restaurant commentary.)

I've made myself as clear as I am able to given the issues involved. I don't mind people disagreeing with me. I do mind it when they seem to be ignoring the points I've made in the course of the discussion.

Perhaps it's time to split this thread? To take the process discussion out and make it a new thread about appropriate moderation and thread content? Leaving the restaurant commentary here?, (Now "there" since Barry split the threads and moved this here.)

Censored, or uncensored, as the case may be!

And I also suggest it be moved to WaccoTalk or WaccoReader, that makes just as much, if not more sense, than it being in WaccoCommunity.

And if moved it would give me the dictatorial moderation power over it, and all of you, that I so obviously crave!!!

(That's a joke, if you didn't already know it.)

[Sabrina]

Speaking from a point of view of someone who likes to eat, and try different restaurants when I have the extra funds, I have to say I would NOT have known about Mummy's kitchen at all had I not seen it in the thread started by Miles (even though a listing for it is somewhere in the wacco website - I've not been searching, just reading in-box stuff). But I supposed I would have seen it if it had been posted as it's own thread in General Community as a restaurant recommendation? Maybe there should be a new area in the bulletin board for Foodie recommendations (restaurants, grocery stores, farmers markets, new food products / diets - could even be an opportunity for new paid advertising!)

[podfish]

Kathy, Pod, Sabrina, anybody else interested,
Please go back to the beginning of this thread and read the first several posts. That should give you some indication as the the purpose, authorship and history of this thread.

ok, the thread's officially hijacked, I think? If it's not turning into a discussion of formats for the WaccoBB, please feel free to (re)move this, editors! Anyway, to expand on what I posted a bit ago: I think it'd be nice, if it's possible, to add to the range of what's available and easily accessible on the site, especially since Barry's reworking it already. At one extreme would be a blog without any provision for responses; at the other would be an unmoderated discussion forum. What's available in the middle? I think Miles' desire for a thread that's owned and moderated by the OP makes sense; can that exist in the new forum? I'd expect most threads, though, to be pretty much what they are now. My thought in the earlier post about blogs linked to discussions may or may not be what Miles envisions for his restaurant-review thread. One nice thing about forum threads vs. blogs is their natural expiration dates, and the easy way to 'bump' them back to relevance by adding a fresh post. Sorry for the scattered nature of these comments - I don't really have a solution or specific proposal in mind. I'm just tossing out some considerations....

["Mad" Miles]

Pod!

I hope you don't mind me calling you that, I feel as if I know you and that informality is therefore acceptable. Please don't hesitate to let me know if I'm being overly familiar and that you want me to call you by your full nomme de keyboard! ;-)

Good comments. Since we're all just making this up as we go along, the confused nature of this discussion is inevitable.

To emphasize, I don't want to own the "My / 'Mad' Miles Favorite Restaurants" thread. Even if my actions and words appear to be advocacy for that position.

I do want to protect it from redundancy, self-interested commercial expression, etc.

There's a difference. I can protect what I don't own. I can protect what I do. The emphasis is on protection, not ownership, at least it is for me, here, in this instance.

If this seems contradictory in relation to all the things I've already written on this subject in the last two days, perhaps it's because I find it to be a conundrum.

Onward,

[kpage9]

dear miles, please tell me if i got this wrong, but up to now i thought you were indeed protecting your thread from--not only inappropriate "reviews", but--any reviews by other people at all. since it was "my"...meaning "miles'" favorite...

kp

["Mad" Miles]

Kathy just asked me on the restaurant thread, that this new thread was split off from:

dear miles, please tell me if i got this wrong, but up to now i thought you were indeed protecting your thread from--not only inappropriate "reviews", but--any reviews by other people at all. since it was "my"...meaning "miles'" favorite...

kp


Kathy,

You got it wrong. Have you gone back through the thread to see what's on it before making assumptions?

As I've indicated it isn't just an issue of who writes a "review". This debate has opened up several questions:

What is a "review"? As opposed to commentary and recommendations on a thread with reviews written predominantly by one person (me).

If a review is essentially an advertisement from the owners of restaurant, or via their agent, does that belong on a thread started as a series of recommendations from a person without a financial interest in any of the other restaurants mentioned?

If a review has been posted on another thread, a thread devoted to the restaurant in question, should it also be duplicated on the older, longer restaurant recommendation thread?

If people don't use the search function on waccobb.net to find recommendations for places to eat, does that mean there should only be one recommendation thread? Cause I can assure you, not all writing about where it's good to eat, or not good to eat, on waccobb.net, is on the thread I started. Not by far!

That's enough for the moment.

[MUMMY's KITCHEN]

So Miles, show up with a guest this Friday the 1st of September
and let us make it to your FAVORITE RESTAURANT list.
Be our guests and we'll be at the top of your list before you can turn around twice.

Come incognito so no one thinks set up --
when it is time to pay the check then let us know who you are.

I like your independent spirit.
from James,
marketing guy for Yaa, WORLD CLASS THAI CHEF

reservations and directions: 707 921 8423
Here is a link to our menu at the Isis Oasis website:
https://www.isisoasis.org/docs/MUMMYSKITCHEN.htm

Join us at Facebook and watch the video shot and published on Youtube by a happy customer...
https://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!...470810?ref=sgm

If anyone cares to know:

For the record, I have no connection or financial interest in Mummy's Kitchen or Isis Oasis of any kind.

I merely enjoy great food and wanted to convey my experience to others.

zkoolman

[MUMMY's KITCHEN]

I am a newbie here when it comes to bb posting, threads are for sewing right?
Any tips will be appreciated.
Meanwhile I just go about expressing gratitude for everyone who mentions us, and replying as moved to do.

Seriousness aside, I would appreciate your calling me to complete with you over the phone, with the intention that you will learn all you need to know to make the choice
TO COME ON OVER HERE to this Very Unique situation -- Thai and Egyptian Fusion ! ?? !!!
707 921 8423
James (Marketing guy)
https://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!...470810?ref=sgm

PS
Anyone who thinks it is too far to drive from West County to Geyserville is probably a city person, like me. We get customers from you would not believe how far away ... because they have experienced Chef Yaa's ways with food.
Not just tourists, we are talking about people who live in Sonoma, and even Marin and Mendocino counties. IF you think that is hype then get over here and see if you wind up talking like Loren or not.

PPS... Westside Road to Healdsburg and in twelve more minutes you're here.
921-8423
James

[Sabrina]

Any special deals [from Mummy's Kitchen] if we say we heard about it through WaccoBB.net?