Teresa, that first link is broken. It needs to be http://www.boingboing.net/ and it's http://boingboing.net/. Gets a page error.

Looks like you invented a whole new industry.

Heck, no. You are The Moderator.

In an earlier comment I decided not to post, I typoed "Troll Wisperer", which I then decided was the act of turning big trolls into little inconsequential wisps. Here's to the Troll Wisperer!

(I'm trying to find a way to wean myself off ML as a workbreak, and failing miserably.)

Congrats, Teresa. I'm really looking forward to it.

This is like the first stages of lighting a fire - the newspaper you've twisted tightly and built into the heart of the pile has started to smoulder. Now you get to blow and fan it, till the tinder catches, then the deep burn into the logs begins.

Or maybe flame analogies are not the best for internet discussions?

It's the puns, isn't it?

albatross @10: Glad I'm not the only one.

I'm excited and heartbroken - a great opportunity for you and Cory, and one I'll mostly miss out on since I do most of my blog-feeding at work (shh!).

(Any mispellings, typos, and other grammatical blunders, please forgive, mea culpa - I am sick and woozy and should not be allowed in front of a keyboard.)

Congratulations. I'm hoping this is the beginning of a phase change on the web, in which good moderation spreads to become the norm, as people learn from your example. Personally, I've spent almost no time on BoingBoing in the last few months; that's going to change right away.

To many, total abstinence is easier than perfect moderation. --St. Augustine

I'm very, very glad to see BB getting a solid comment ecosystem, especially with TNH supplying the selection pressure.

Congratulations, Teresa! :D

This may have been discussed on another thread (once or twice upon a time), but does anyone give awards for Best Moderator? Teresa should have nearly as many of those as CNB has Hugos.

Who do you hire to moderate your comments if you are the most-visited blog on the internet, with a monthly readership approximately equal to Wired magazine’s and total monthly expenses of a few thousand in hosting fees? Teresa Nielsen Hayden apparently. Which is kind of like starting a new church and hiring god to play the organ.

Which is kind of like starting a new church and hiring god to play the organ.

*peals of laughter* (and a flash-memory of Britten's setting of Christopher Smart's "Rejoice in the Lamb" - specifically: "For M is music, and therefore He is God")

Isn't that what Teresa was announcing the timestamp for in #24?

Not that it was a surprise... The surprise may have been it took that long...

I feel like I've been drawn by Booth.

Losing those took something away from the experience.

Having them back already seems as a bright new day.

An archangel muses on his early days

The first days with the flaming sword, I swore
I'd break my arms, or burn my fingertips.
My palms were blistered. Skin came off in strips.
At sunset I'd be weary to the core.
And now I can, with joyful spirit, tell
How when my widespread wings were fledged
I lost control, and ended my flight wedged
Inside a cliffside crack (from which I fell!)
In time I learned to better wield my sword
And not set light to quite so many trees.
I fly for days on end with grace and ease.
And doing these things well, I please the LORD.
(But I confess - His pleasure's just a part
Of my delight in mastering my art.)

How when my widespread wings were newly fledged it is.

That sentence parses very strangely. :)

Conversation on the Wired blogs is just unreadable; fully half of it's one pack of wing nuts insulting another.

Also, would it be a good idea or a truly lousy one to have a link to the moderator on the front page of boingboing? Instead of, you know, posting in a not-entirely-related blog when there's a problem?

It could be me, I'm still in a state of quantum indecision about whether I'm in the UK or in Japan at the mo. I keep looking for the chopsticks when I eat....

So now that I have, where'd you end up? UK or Japan?