Bent Corner

I hate blogs that moderate comments. I hate blogs that only allow readers to post comments after they have been approved by the blog’s owner. Nothing demonstrates just why I hate comment moderation more then a recent post on Occasional Superheroine. Valerie D’Orazio, the blog’s owner, must first approve a comment before it appears on her blog.

She wrote a post that asked if comic book creators and other funny book professionals should have private security with them when they attend comic book conventions. What would prompt such a question? She pointed to a recent discussion that took place on Newsarama between TV producer and comic book writer Marc Guggenheim and comic book reviewer and blogger Kevin Huxford. The discussion spiraled into the recent WGA writers strike and Marc Guggenheim’s comment that there was nothing wrong with a non-WGA member crossing a WGA picket line. Huxford rightfully pointed out that no good union member approves of or encourages any person to cross a union picket line. Guggenheim responded that since Huxford didn’t work in Hollywood and wasn’t a member of the WGA, he lacked the ability to understand the “nuances” pertaining to the WGA strike. Huxford responded to this snarky comment by stating that since his knowledge of the particulars was being called into question, he was turning the matter over to the WGA so they could decide if Guggenheim actions were indeed improper or not.

Of course some people freaked out over this.

Valerie D’Orazio tried to make the asinine assertion that Kevin Huxford posed some type of threat to Marc Guggenheim’s physical well being. As if reporting someone to their union for encouraging or condoning people to cross a picket line means that next they will obtain a high powered sniper rifle and try to take them out from 500 yards away at the next Wizard World.

That’s just dumb.

What does this have to do with comment moderation? She wont allow Kevin Huxford to defend himself. Over 45 comments have been left on Valerie D’Orazio’s post. None of them have been from Kevin Huxford. She evidently is not allowing them to get through. Who else is she not allowing to comment? I left two comments. One she approved, the other one she did not. Why not? Because my opinion didn’t mesh with her opinion? So what? I just don’t get that. Click here to read my second comment, the one that she didn’t “approve”.

Allowing a free flow of ideas is an important part of the blog equation. When a blogger employs comment moderation and uses it to filter out opinions that differ with their own, they might as well ditch the blogging platform and just write Word documents. It’s dishonest. It gives the false impression that everyone reading and commenting agrees with the author. That very well might not be the case. Bloggers shouldn’t be afraid of people not agreeing with them. Bloggers shouldn’t be afraid of someone pointing out that they are wrong. They shouldn’t use comment moderation to discourage dissenting opinions. In fact, they should be encouraging people to weigh in with contrary opinions.

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The rank and file members of the Writers Guild of America still have to vote, but it appears the 14 week writers strike is almost over. From the Washington Post article:

The most immediate beneficiaries of a settlement could be the thousands of production workers — grips, caterers, camera operators, makeup artists — who were thrown out of work when the writers struck. Although movie production mostly continued during the strike, TV shows on both coasts quickly came to a halt when the strike began Nov. 5.

This has been precisely my contention from the very beginning; This strike was highly damaging to a vast amount of people that work behind the scenes on TV shows. People that never stood to gain a single penny from Internet residuals.

Also from the Washington Post article:

On the key issue of compensation for work streamed over the Internet, both sides gave a little. The studios and their network allies originally asked the guild for time to study the issue and declined to offer any residuals for digital media when talks broke off in early December. The guild, in turn, held fast, arguing that writers had to share in the profits of what may become the preeminent way to view filmed entertainment.

But the writers never wanted to share in the profits. The writers have always insisted that they be paid whether their work generates a profit or not. Their cut has always come from the gross, not the net.

The ABC one-time hit show Lost will be premiering it’s forth season this week and I for one won’t be watching it. I’ve given up on this show. The start-stop schedule this show has been plagued with has finally completely soured me to it. I just don’t know why it took me this long to give up.

Stories are supposed to have a beginning, a middle, and an end. The story told on Lost has a beginning, a middle, more middle, a two month break, more middle, a six month break, more middle, and then an even longer break. I am sick and tired of it.

This show was supposed to tell a story with a finite end. It wasn’t your typical network television series that told never ending, ongoing stories centers on a specific group of people. This show started out of the gate telling only one story about a small group of people. Something happened along the way that changed that. The show became a huge hit for ABC. That meant everything had to be stretched. The story had to be lengthened not because the story required it, but because the network wanted to make it last longer.

More characters were added. No small feat when the series takes place on a deserted island featuring characters that survived a plane crash. The problem is that none of these extra characters did anything to propel the original story. The only thing they did was to help water down the original story and make it all last a little bit longer.

It would be like taking a 12-issue comic book miniseries and stretching it into 75 issues.

Compounding the inherit problems with Lost is that they are starting the fourth season without enough episodes. Because of the never ending writer’s strike, they only have 8 episodes of an already pathetically short 16-episode season. Don’t start something unless you can finish it.

Because of this that I won’t be watching any of the forth season of Lost. I am not going to start something that I know I won’t be able to finish.

“Tonight Show” host Jay Leno may face discipline from the Writers Guild of America for writing his own monologue. Leno is a member of the WGA. What this discipline may be is unknown. Will they make him do push ups? A couple of months ago he passed out donuts to writers walking the picket line. As fate would have it, there happened to be reporters there who were able to capture the act on video. I’m sure Leno had no idea that reporters would be on the scene and that his good deed would be observed by so many.

Yeah, right.

I thought this strike was stupid two months ago. I haven’t see anything since that makes me think I was wrong. The writers want more money. I get that. The problem is that every day this strike goes on, they are losing money. They will reach a point in this strike where they will have lost more money during the strike then they can ever hope to make with any increase they get as a result of the strike.

That’s assuming they haven’t already reached that point.

Back to Jay Leno. He may face some sort of penalty from the WGA, but his show appears to be winning the late night battle. David Letterman returned to the “Late Show with David Letterman” with his WGA writers. The first night back, Leno’s show got a 5.3 rating and a 12 audience share in the 55 largest U.S. television markets. Letterman’s show scored a 4.3 rating and a 10 share.

Maybe Lettermen would have got better ratings if he went without WGA writers.

Somehow Lettermen was able to secure a private deal with the WGA. Why can’t the other shows do this too? There are only a few shows I actually care about ever seeing again. The rest can go rot as far as I’m concerned.

I’ve getting into English Premiere League football (soccer) and I read that CBS is bringing back Big Brother.  Who needs scripted entertainment?

Recently actors from the hit NBC television show Heroes picketed outside Universal Studios. Not the part that is a cheesy amusement park with the fake looking giant shark, but the part that is the actual movie studio. Someone from Comic Book Resources was on hand and was able to write about it.

Greg Grunberg, the actor that plays Parkman on Heroes said something interesting. This from the CBR article:

Grunberg characterized the AMPTP’s position on the issues “ridiculous.” “When a musician puts out a record that becomes a CD and then becomes an online digital download, they still make the same amount of money,” Grunberg said. “Why isn’t the same true for a writer?”

This is something I’ve heard said before. B.J. Novak, actor and writer for The Office said something quite similar in the YouTube video I linked to earlier.

It’s not true. The writers have been getting residuals on iTunes downloads all along. When the consumer pays for a download, the writers get their residual just like they would if the consumer paid for a DVD instead of a download.

I’m not sure if this misinformation is perpetrated on purpose or if it’s simply a case of the people involved not understanding the specifics. Most people that read about the strike or watch YouTube videos about the strike know about iTunes. Most of them have probably purchased media from iTunes. I’m sure it resonates with these people when they hear that writers don’t get paid from iTunes downloads they have paid for.

That doesn’t make it true.

I’ve been trying to learn more about the Writers Guild of America (WGA) writers strike. Much of what I’ve read or heard about the reasons for the strike seem to be contradict other things I’ve read or heard about the strike. I found a list of points at the WGA.org website. Here’s a quick summery of the main sticking points:

• Home Video (Videocassettes and DVDs) Residuals - They currently get 0.3% of the distributors’ gross for the first $1 million and 0.36% thereafter. They want 0.6% of the distributors’ gross for the first $1 million and 0.72% thereafter.

• Non-Traditional Media Residuals - They currently get .3% of the gross for downloads where the customer pays for the download. They currently get paid nothing when the customer pays nothing. They want a residual payment of 2.5% of the distributor’s gross for re-use on non-traditional media, including the Internet. I’m not sure what they want to be paid when the content is free. It’s hard to assign a percentage to free.

If you go back and watch the YouTube video I posted the other day from the people from The Office, what they say in the video seems to contradict the information found on the WGA website. B.J. Novak, actor and writer for The Office, says that every time he meets a new viewer to The Office, they are watching it on the Internet or on DVD. I’m assuming that when they say they were watching it on the Internet, they were downloading the episodes from iTunes. Only recently did NBC start streaming episodes from free. The inference is that Novak and the other writers aren’t getting paid for the episodes on the Internet or on DVD.

That’s not true. If money changes hands, the writers are getting a percentage.

NBC has launched something they call NBC Direct. It allows viewers to watch complete episodes of most NBC shows. I guess NBC chose to do this as a result of their recent blow up with Apple iTunes. NBC chose not to sell their programing through iTunes, or iTunes chose not to sell NBC programing. I honestly lost track of which came first.

I’m watching the newest episode of The Office. Though it’s just as funny as the first time I watched it, it’s a real pain in the ass to view. The episodes have enough DRM to choke a goat. You have to use Internet Explorer 6 or 7 to launch the player. NBC Direct does not support Firefox. You also have to be a Windows XP or Vista user. If you are an Apple user or a fake UNIX (Linux) user, you are out of luck.

It also features paid advertising. Annoying paid advertising. Every commercial break shows the very same stupid commercials. The good people from Lipton evidently want me to know that the way I look at tea will forever change. That’s good because the way I currently look at tea is that it sucks. My view on tea can only get better. With that said, Lipton seems to think that I will now like tea because they have placed their tea in tea bags shaped like pyramids. That’s not the way to make me change my opinion on tea.

If they want me to like tea, they need to figure out a way to make it taste just like coffee.

Other then showing why the WGA writers are on strike, I don’t see why NBC decided to launch this crappy service. It’s clear NBC plans on making money by featuring content on the web. It’s also clear that they need to realize they will need to actually pay the very people that create this content. Also, putting cumbersome restrictions on customers forcing them to watch content a certain way will only turn away customers. I should be able to put content on my iPod and watch it where and how I want. Because of NBC’s restrictive DRM, I cannot do that.