Best Inventions: Disemvoweling: An Addendum

By Lev Grossman | @leverus | November 4, 2008 | +

This year in Time’s Best Inventions we included (coming in at #42, as it happens) the practice of disemvoweling, which is a way of dealing with annoying commenters/posters/whateverers by removing the vowels from their posts. What we did not include was the name of the person who invented disemvoweling. That person is blogger/editor/etc. Teresa Nielsen Hayden, and she invented disemvoweling right here. It is a small piece of genius for which the Net will always be a better place.

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churchhtucker

Are you frakin’ kidding me? Dsmvllng is the most obnoxious bit of ‘petty bureaucracy’ that the net has seen yet. It’s about as innovative as your sibling’s “Stop hitting yourself!” version moderation. It’s the TASER of moderation. It’s frakin’ trolling from a position of power.

Here’s a tip, if you’re not *running* a political site don’t hire a moderator *from* a political site. It’s like hiring a cop to be a hall monitor. It’s only a matter of time before they break out the mace and the zip cuffs, because that’s how the world works for them.

I hear she’s pretty good at copy editing, however.
Kemper

* th*nk *t’s * t*rr*bl* *nv*nt**n. *h, cr*p…
levgrossman

Meh, I don’t know. Your disemvowelment is only as useful as your moderator. I think it’s pretty handy if you’re not a dck about it.
levgrossman

by which I mean a duck
churchhtucker

If it’s offensive, delete it. Dsmvwlng is an editorial comment, and a rather obnoxious one.
Cliff

Are we talking about completely disemvoweling a comment, like Kemper has?
Or are we talking about what I do on Swampland when I say things like, “Newt f—ing Gingrich”?
sojournerstrange

I believe the point of disemvoweling instead of deleting is so that determinedly curious readers can still read it (in the case of OT), or that latecomers to the thread know what others are responding to (in the case of offensiveness).

Petty bureaucracy can easily be perpetrated with any sort of mod/admin power. The most effective way to prevent it is to have a clear and well-defined set of rules and multiple mods.
churchhtucker

Cliff, pretty much like Kemper has (although usually the vowels aren’t replaced by anything.) It’s done by a “moderator” to a comment they don’t like, but don’t feel warrants deleting.
Cliff

Ohhhh, I get it. Thanks. Apparently I am not visiting classy enough blogs.