Right.  So, can we come in and take a look at your rig? Yeah, sure. Wonderful. Okay, thanks. Oh my God, look at the view through these massive windows. Yes, that's one of the pluses of a Class A for sure. Yeah. You can see the view, the mountains. Oh my gosh. Sitting over here on my couch. And you can have a party in here. There's a lot of room to sit down. That's true. Yeah. So sorry, I was overwhelmed by how beautiful it is in here, but so you guys, this is Teresa. Hi there. And tell us about your rig. What do you have? I have a 2003 Fleetwood Flare. It's a Class A, and it's 33 feet long. And I love it because, you know, it's got 86 gallons of water. So when people... No. Yeah. So when people are talking about conserving water, I don't really have to. I heard that you loaned somebody who was desperate 10 gallons of water. That's true. That is very nice of you actually. It's okay, you know, when you've got the extra despair you share. Great. Yeah. So why did you choose this rig?  So for me to try to downsize all the way to a cargo van on one fell swoop was just mind boggling. I couldn't even think of doing it, you know. I got the Class A because I could have things in here, you know, that I've at the time felt was necessary for my happiness. Right, right. I had no idea of minimalism and I never thought of myself as that. So the Class A is working out for me because I can have my things. But I'm thinking actually of downsizing to a cargo van. That's a lot. Yes, you know, it may not happen right away, but I definitely want to do that because the Class A when you're on flatlands like Arizona, it's great, you know, in the winter it's great. You got lots of room. But when you're going in the summertime into the elevated areas, it's a lot harder to get to some of the places that I want to go to. I can do it. It's doable. And you have trouble getting up hills because you have a tow car. I have a tow car, yes. What's the name of your rig and what's the name of your tow car? Okay, the rig, this is Goldie. And I named her Goldie Mae after my grandmother, Goldie Mae. And my car's Ruby and the dolly is Dolly. That's awesome. So when did you hit the road? November 10th of 2017. So it's almost a year. Almost a year. Yeah. So I have a party when a year. That's right. So we were talking before about the first year on the road and the ups and downs, which I did a video on before. So tell us about like your first month out, your second month out. What happened around month six and what you're thinking about it now? Well, the first month out was all joy because it was, you know, for sure. I was leaving everything that I had known to be true in life. Right. And being the sticks and bricks and full-time employment. Right. Right. So now I no longer have that. Great changes. Yes. And so I went through Arkansas. I had a couple problems with the dolly falling off the back of Goldie. Not only once, but twice.  Oh my gosh. And then the second time it happened I was on my own and I just did some kind of Herculean thing, you know, and it's pure desperation and put it on there. Oh my gosh. But it turns out that it's locked tight. Who'd have known? Oh. You've got to put locked tight on the nut or it'll just fall right off. Okay. Now hold on a minute. Let's just make sure people understand this. Anyone that wants to tow a car behind their rig, whatever their rig is, there's a dolly between your rig and your car. There can be. Yes. There can be. And you have to put this gizmo on it called? It's the ball. The ball. Basically the ball hitch. And underneath there's a nut. But if you don't put locked tight on the nut, the vibrations, it'll just, the nut falls off and then the ball just pops right out. That is a really good tip. Yeah. That is a really good tip. Let you know. Because you are not an RVer. No. So there's a lot of stuff that you had to learn in your first year along the way. And a lot I still have to learn. Right. There's a lot to it. It's a huge learning curve.  I was thinking of a cargo van. A cargo van. Yes. For sure. Yeah. The reason why is because of the simplicity of it, not having all of these things that could go wrong, leaks and, you know, Yeah. All of the things that can go wrong. Right.  So at the time I had only done tent camping. So an RV was completely a new idea for me. And for some reason I wasn't really thinking about the maintenance end of things. Right. Just the adventure. Yeah. Just the size and whether I wanted to live inside or outside. Right. And things like that. Right.  Right. Like an RV park. Yeah. Right. But if you're boondocking and you are counting on the weather to keep you cool or warm, then a class A is trickier. Yeah. So we're camping together in a place in Colorado. And I actually, when I saw you pull up, we had not met yet. I thought, wow, that lady's got up here in her class A. The road is a little bumpy. It's not bad if you take it slow. True. But it's tougher in a class A. Yeah. It is.  You do. The benefit of a class A is you get all this room. So will you give us a tour? Sure. Thanks. You can look around. Okay. Wonderful. Wow. What I really love about the class A is that you get a bedroom. Right.  And it's hooked in, you know, television could be used in here. Uh-huh. I have a TV in there. Right. I don't really watch TV on the road. Right. Just so much nicer not to. I know. I watch a lot less TV than I did in a regular house. Yeah. I watch a movie. That's for sure. Okay. And then you've got, this is a slide out, right? Yes. It slides out and, uh, and I, that's really a blessing that, you know, I have all this room because when this comes back in, it's tight. Right. You can't get back here anymore. So you have to crawl over the bed this way, but you can still use the bed with the slide. I can still use the bed. Uh-huh. And then have access to the bathroom. Oh, that's nice. There's always the, the most important room. Oh my gosh. It's the bathroom. Look at.  I am a girl. I love it. Oh, you have a bathtub. I do have a bathtub. Oh, you're lucky. So, you know, it's great. Um, I had keep extra water in there. Mm-hmm. Um, so that, you know, I don't always have to use the shower. Right. Um, and also one thing. Hi, everybody. Can you see me? Peace, man. Hi. Oh, you can see it was windy outside. Yeah. That's why we're doing this all inside. That's right. Let's fix ourselves. Okay, go on.  So with my toilet, I keep water in here and a little cup with a cleaner, you know, and so. Oh yeah. Because in an RV, you're not flushing like you are in a house. Right. You're not really flushing. You're rinsing. Yes. Yes. So that's genius. I've never seen anybody do this. I've told people this before and they all like the idea. So I thought I'd share. So you keep the water turned off to the toilet itself. And then you rinse it with the water and the jug. Mm-hmm. And then you've got a little cleaner. That's right. That is genius. Yep. Yeah, I bet you use a lot less water too. I do. Tell us about your locks on me, the shelves. Were those coming open? These are just child locks, safety locks. Mm-hmm. You know, you just slide it open like that. Because that's so they don't come open when you're driving. Yes. Did you have a problem with that? I did. And then, yeah. Mm-hmm. I know a lot of people do when I've seen all kinds of different solutions. So you just got a child lock and put it through the hardware. Mm-hmm. Smart. Locks in there. Okay. And I love the skylight too. Oh my gosh. Yes. So you can, you know, have some daylight, natural light while you're trying to shower and stuff. Yeah. And you get a lot of windows in here. This is great in here. This is my closet and all my drawers. Wow.  That is huge. Oh my gosh. You know, I always say I want like the Harry Potter magic bus where it's like a van on the outside, but then on the inside you have all this room, if only, right? I've found size of my clothes three times. Have you? Yeah. And I still have too many.  So you said you were a semi-horter before, so you're doing great. I am. I'm almost a minimalist. Pert here. And then you guys look at it from this direction, look at all the seating she has and the color. It's really great. Does this, what was this on the left here originally? Well, this is the table. Okay. I just have it in the down position because I'm storing my solar panels over here. Oh, gotcha. And so that's why I have these. And they're outside now. They're outside. You store them between those mats. That's smart. Yes. Great. And between each one, I put one of these, and that's how they came.  I don't usually eat at the dining room table. Yeah. I'm one of those ones that's got the plate like this. Me too. Yeah. Okay. Oh, and here's the kitchen. Yeah. What a great kitchen. And this is my Kodiak actually. Oh, tell us about it. Where I plug in my lights. And you can see I've got the lights here. Okay. And the Kodiak is like a totally self-contained battery. Yes, it's a lithium battery that is solar. Mm-hmm. And so the panels are hooked into this where it comes in. And then I have, you know, the USB and the 12-volt. 12-volt. Yeah, the 12-volt, you know. Nice. And then this morning, I saw you were just putting the cord out the window for the panels. That's right. Which I thought was genius. And this is the cord actually that is for the RV. Oh. Because that's a 30 amp plug here. So you're charging your RV house battery. Right. Through solar, through this Kodiak. Through trickle down. So you didn't have to, you didn't have to get one of those big expensive built-in systems. All you got was the Kodiak and the cord. Yes. And the reason I did that is because I'm not really sure I'm going to keep Goldie. It's something I can sell as resale value. Mm-hmm. And it's something that I can use in another vehicle. Sure. You know. Yeah. I'll put links for those down below if anybody wants to see one of those if they need one. Yeah. That's great. So, you know, that's the Kodiak. And I don't, you know, this is my stove and I never use the stove. I'm just not a real huge cooker. Right. So. Microwave. Yeah. I use the stove top. Microwave not so much anymore because it just takes too much power. Right. When you're running off the solar. Right.  Right. The funny, the things that you thought you needed that you don't need.  What are the things that you thought that you needed that you have found now after almost a year that you don't need? For sure. The microwave and the TV, you know. Mm-hmm. I bought one of those fire sticks and I don't even use it. I know. Because, you know, I was home for two weeks in Indianapolis. Mm-hmm. You know, just recently I took a side trip. And all I did was sit there with the clicker. And I was thinking, you know what, I'm so glad I don't do that anymore. Right. Look at these windows. Is where I do my driving course. Wow. Oh my gosh. Only sailors can drive here. Yeah. Teresa was in the Navy. Yes. I was in the Navy. Okay. You want to sit down and chat a little bit more? Yeah, sure. Let's tell people how you got to retire a little bit early by choosing an RV life. Right. That's exactly right. I think that's the best part of your story. That's true. All right, let's talk about it. Everybody, I hope you enjoy the tour of Teresa's rig. It was so nice of her to let us see it. And come back for the next video, which is an interview with her where she's going to tell us how she retired early by living in an RV. Teresa, thank you so much. You're welcome. Anything you want to say to the people out there before we sign the tour off? No, just be happy and find joy in your journey. Find joy in your journey. You know, I find joy in mine so you can do it too. That's right. Give us a thumbs up on the way out of this video. Please leave us a comment and subscribe if you haven't already. Everybody have happy travels out there. Be free and find joy in your journey.


It's true. Yes. Human donor meat is true. What health reason would stop you from going vegan? Iron deficiency. Oh really? There's no iron implants? You would eat a human? If they consent, yeah. Yeah, yeah, it's good. It's actually more ethical, isn't it? Yeah. It's not really human meat, is it? This is human meat. It's human donor meat. Do you want to try it? From consenting humans, but it's been processed to make it edible without the risk of contracting curie, which is something you get from cannibalism, but this is like... We have about 20 representatives in Australia at the moment. You can read that. Sorry, brother. Nah. Nah, nah, because I'm alive. But uh... Where do they do it? You want to have a sauce, mate? What do you mean by human meat? It's not really human meat, is it? This is human meat. It's human donor meat. What's that meat? It means that people have donated their bodies for a good cause, meaning it's better for the environment, better for the animals. Okay, you've got a permit to be here. Do you have a permit? Yeah, yeah, we've checked with... Run and War before. Okay. No, no. No, it's okay. Just things that... Because we're not selling anything. Okay. Yeah, we're just... Just sort of handing out samples. We're not selling... We don't have a restaurant here. We're not selling any products. Okay. So you're saying there's human meat in that product? Well, it's a human donor meat, so it's all completely... Okay. Yeah. Okay. I'm sorry. I've seen your videos on that. Have you? Yeah. Oh, so you already know? Yeah. So you're vegan? Yeah. So why do you still eat animals?  You like the taste? No, no, yeah. We'll try this. This is vegan. If you already know I'm a vegan, then it's moving mountains. Where is it? Moving mountains. It's a vegan burger. Yeah, mate. You can snake it. Can I take it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, you can if you... Oh, no, no. Yeah, yeah, you can if you want. Okay. We're not releasing this. So you want to raise it, right? Raise the winner? Yeah. As long as you don't have a heap to follow us on Instagram, because we're releasing this later on. Oh, yeah? Yeah, we're releasing it in a couple of weeks. Hey, wait, wait. You're trying to escape. Take this. You're trying to escape. Go on. Thank you, bro. Thank you. No worries, guys. Take care. I'm not... Because I'm one of those people that wants to go vegan, but can't due to health reasons. So I've been keeping my eye out on live produce meats to be able to swap over to that alternative. Oh, really? So what health reason would stop you from going vegan? Iron deficiency. Oh, really? There's no iron in plants? No, well, there is. Okay. But I don't have the money. For plants? Well... Well, not for plants. But what about an iron supplement? You can't get iron supplement? Yeah, I can, but I can't afford to get it regularly. It's just not an option for me. No, I don't have a lot of money. Most of my money goes to rent. Oh, really? So you're interested in chicken meat? This costs about the same as... This chicken meat probably end up costing about the same as beef. Is that where you get your iron from usually? Beef? Yeah. From cows? From chickens? Yeah. Does iron in chickens? Well, I get chicken and fish. A good amount of iron in chickens? And fish, yeah. Okay. Oh, that's interesting. And kangaroo meat.  Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So what we ask at Shume Meat is how do you feel about the fact those animals didn't want to be killed, but these humans were consenting. So it's more ethical. Yeah, that's why I'm interested. That's why I'm still here. That's why I'm asking questions. Wow. Cool. I want to make the switch to lab meat as soon as it becomes available for that reason. For iron? Yeah. Have you ever thought, like, because Shume Meat won't be available for a little while, but have you ever thought maybe there's a way of designing a cheap diet with plants that can give you the iron until Shume Meat comes out? I'll be honest. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, really? So what do you eat now? Just basically, because you have to cook these as well. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Okay. Yeah, no. Okay. Yeah, no. All right. But yeah, I've been... Okay, well, what if I was to... What if I was just to tell you that I'm actually trying to get people to think about the animals they eat by asking if they eat human donor meat? You probably would. You probably would. But it's sort of like if these humans give their life, it would be way more ethical than an animal who doesn't want to give their life. Yeah? Yeah. That's the idea. Yeah, no, I don't want. Yeah. Yeah. But if they don't consent to it, what would you say to that? What would you say if there were humans that weren't consenting and they were being killed? Oh, no, no. Well, I try to reduce my impact. I.e., when I cook red meat, I only get kangaroo meat because it's more sustainable in terms of its farming practices. It's better for the environment, things like that. I reduce my impact where I can and so I'm in a financial and mental position to be able to fully grow. Oh, really? Do you need help if you were to go plant-based? Would you need help and guidance, do you think? Like how to do it cheap, how to do it easy, how to do it without much mental stress, how to get iron, things like that? Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. Because we do offer free help and it's called Challenge 22 and they are very good with, let's just say your situation is very specific. You need quick meals, you need iron, you don't like to spend too much time cooking, things like that. They're a really good resource that we offer to people who need help and I also made this so it shows you how to get fast food and all that as well if you wanted to. And that's the other thing, is when I eat out I always try and go for a vegan or vegetarian option. Yeah, because this is a fantastic app here called Happy Cow and it finds all the vegan options near you. Yeah, because I do have a lot of friends that are vegan and I'm quite often talking to them. It's just, yeah, it's one of the best. I get it, you're in a bit of a position. But I always look at it from like, there's a couple of perspectives to look at. You can look at it from, if you watch what happens to animals, I don't know if you have, they're suffering greatly and they're being slaughtered against their will. So when I always think of it, like sometimes it's a little bit difficult for me to find things, not really because I've been doing it for a long time, I just don't know where everything is. But like at the start it might have been, right? But then I just saw pigs in gas chambers being murdered, cows being stabbed in the throat, drained out of their blood and stomach being pulled onto the slaughterhouse floor and I thought, well, this inconvenience for me is nothing compared to what these poor beings have to go through throughout my entire life to feed me when I can just eat plants, you know what I'm saying? And that's why I try and make changes where I can until I get to the point where it's like, okay, I can do this in season. Well, that's good to hear. You sound like you, we already know that. Most people don't think eating meat is unethical. I mean, I definitely think it's unethical because they can't consent. That's why the eggs I, egg battery took eggs from my neighbour because they have egg battery chips and then that way, you know, it's ethical consumption and just sort of trying to change my thinking with it and just like, I'm not in a position where in my life I can go fully vegan. So it's more just looking at, you know, what changes can I make to help? You might surprise yourself, you know? You could really surprise yourself because once you, like if you don't have the house properly, you might think that. But like I've been vegan riding across the South Australian desert on my bike in server stations, getting cans of beans in this and that. Like, you know, like it's pretty, once you have those tools, you'd be surprised how easy it is. Yeah, and that's what I mean. I'm at that point where I'm trying to, I guess, build up that skill set. Yeah, it's human donor meat, mate. Oh, what do you mean? Like these humans were consenting to give their bodies, yeah, human beans. They give it to, they give it to this organization to help the animals in the planet. No, human beings. Like, it's bicep, fire. Soil and green. Yeah. Did it turn you vegetarian in that movie? Pretty much. Yeah. It's actually, I'll tell you what it is because I will tell you the secret. It's actually a vegan burger. It's a moving mountains burger.  Yeah, I'm tricking people. It's not actually human meat. Really? Yeah. It's one of those. I can taste really good. Here you go. You can take some. Oh my God. I'll just go. Yeah. I genuinely, I would eat a little. A bit of sauce and vegan cheese on top and it's really good. I like the Beyond Burgers. They're a bit more expensive. These were four bucks a packet on special. But there's some, you can find pretty good ones that are pretty, you know, cost effective.  You probably get a pack of these for five bucks. And if you can find them on sale sort of thing, reduced price. They're pretty good. But you should check out that challenge 22. They will give you a lot of help. No worries. No worries. Take care. Human donor meat. So let me just ask you something.    Okay, we do. Do you want to be eating non-human? Like pigs and cows and chickens and fish? No, I'm fine. Well, I ask people if they, you know, if they're not a vegan, right? Non-human animals are getting killed in the dairy industry, the egg industries, the meat industries, fishing industries, and they don't consent. But like these human beings do consent. Well, it's, it is. It doesn't look like human meat. It should be a different texture. No, this has been processed so that it, so that's fifth human consumption. Yeah.  Yeah. You would eat a human? If they consent, yeah. Yeah, yeah. It's good. It's actually more ethical, isn't it? Yeah. To eat a consenting human. And it's supposed to be. But let me just show you this because we're about to pack up anyway. But there are just, there are moving mansions, plant-based burgers, and we teach people about why we shouldn't exploit and murder animals against their will. Okay. So it's more like a social experiment, seeing people eat humans. Yeah, well, like consenting humans, seeing as they're happy to eat animals that are murdered against their will for them. Yeah. Because we are like, like someone was saying something about cannibalism. It's like, you're a monster, this and that. But we are like monsters to the animals and what we do to them just so we can take from their bodies. I think that people give permission. Oh, I think it's completely fine, too. I think it's not morally problematic to eat a consenting human. Yeah. I think it's disgusting. I wouldn't do it. But it's not unethical. Yeah. Like it's, but animals don't consent to anything that happens to them. They get tortured.  No, that's all right. I can tell. Sorry, we're judging you. You're wearing one of my animal friends now. But like, we're happy to do that to non-human animals because we see them as, well, I don't, but I'm talking about the collective human race. See them as so inferior. It's just like the speciesist mindset towards them. You know, it's like racism, but like speciesist. They're just like, they can be trampled on and murdered. And, you know, it's totally fine.   You sound really interested in cannibalism. I've researched. Don't look at my arms. They're my arms. You haven't said I can eat you. No, no, no. That's weird. No. I mean, we cause so much violence to animals. We cause so much environmental destruction. You know what I mean? Like we use these excuses like we should call animals that are overpopulating. Humans are overpopulated. Yeah. We could just call humans. Or we could just... We don't need a jail. Or we could just all be vegan and stop feeding on our resources to animals, torturing them, killing them, destroying them. That doesn't solve them. It solves a resource issue. It solves a resource issue. But it does end the animal holocaust, doesn't it? Yeah. Which is good. We don't want holocausts on Earth, even if they're non-human animals being murdered. So, yeah. But anyways, you want to take one of these?  There's just plant-based burgers. They're cool. Yeah. And there's a pamphlet that will help you be vegan. Thank you. Oh, you can have one too. This is a great app, light for when you're around. It's just a fine vegan restaurant. So we're not asking for money. This is just a little guide for you. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate that. Take care. No worries. See you later. All right. So, what do you think about human-donomy? I wonder if that will ever be a thing. Hope not. But, yeah, or you could just go to the shops and get a plant-based burger. It would be much easier and, yeah, less weird. That's for sure.


Here's a thought for what I hope is a soulful Sunday for you. Every emotion has a message. Every feeling has a meaning and ultimately a purpose. Fear means that you're determined to love someone or something. Anxiety means that you are too far into the past or too far into the future. And that you need to learn to live here now and be more present. Pain means that you're suffering somewhere in your life. And Professor Payne is visiting you to get your attention and help you find out what that is so you can learn and move on. Happy soulful Sunday to you all.


Hi, everyone. How are you guys doing today? Awesome. So, yes, I am going to be doing a talk on comments, communities, things of that nature. Moderating communities is what I kind of titled it. Back in my day, the internet was all blah, blah, blah, blah. A little bit about me. My name is Ernie. I am actually a Miami resident for the past four years. I run the local, I run a local front-end developers meetup here for javascript and css developers. I am also one of the captains of code for Miami, which is a place where developers, designers, and concerned citizens can build open source software to make the place we live better. If you're a local Miami and we meet every Monday, come talk to me afterwards. In a different life, I am currently a software engineer at Rockspace, but in a different life, I did many sorts of things. I worked for Ning, which was in the mid-2000s website where we can build social networks for anyone. My little piece of random trivia is that we helped build a rapper 50-cent social network. I have some great stories about that, but that's probably for a couple drinks. Also, I had a now very kind of nascent tumbler called Little Yellow Different back in the days. It was a little bit more popular, and I'll kind of bring that in as we kind of talk a little bit more about that. But before we do, let's take a poll. I want to understand the people that are kind of in this audience. So here's what we're going to do, and this is a total experiment. I had no idea how this will turn out, but what do you think of the statement? All conversations held on the Internet are bound to become awful, right? So if you guys have obviously that is a loaded statement, you can agree or disagree. I'd like to hear your thoughts.  Use that code 65103.  I really agree with that statement. One is that I really disagree. And yeah, let's see where we go from here. Also, while you guys are voting, Quick Show fans, who here actually moderates a website or owns a website of some sort? Quick Show fans. All right, that's pretty much everyone. That's awesome. Who here has... Let's see. Who here has run a community website for maybe more than 100 people? How about 1,000? 10,000? Okay, yeah. Props to the person in the back. Cool. So obviously everyone who's here kind of has had some experiences with web publishing. So I'm going to make some assumptions, right? I'm going to make some assumptions that the talk that I'm going to be giving is for an audience of people that are kind of building communities, engaging communities, and trying to figure this out. I also am going to give the caveat and the asterisk that I mistakenly thought this was going to be a room small enough to do kind of like a round table to kind of talk about all our experiences. So what I may or may not do is I may go Oprah style and like have folks come down from the audience, sit from the panel, and then when anyone else wants to like tap in or has something just tap on the shoulder of someone else who's been sitting there and continue it, we'll see. We'll play this one by ear, but I do have a little bit of a spiel, so. All right, so a little bit of votes, 50, awesome. Good job, guys. So needless to say, 5.7, not really disagreeing, not really agreeing, and of course you guys know that this is a really, really opinionated statement, shall we say? Because we all know that conversations on the net have opportunities to be right for views. I'm going to also skip ahead and forward and back on my slides a lot, just that's how my brain works.  Where, you know, this is from Penny Arcade, the local like online comic strip.  For those of you guys that are tuned into a lot of controversies and for some of you guys who are community managers, you guys are definitely hyper aware of situations like, say, gamer gate, right?  Well, in the cases of that, that's kind of, they are users and content kind of consumers of a particular platform. So we'll be, obviously it will be taking, you know, those things in context, but we'll also be bringing it into what we do as creators. You know, like, I am definitely from a time where we did not necessarily have the social medias or the twitters or any of that, right? Like, back in the early 2000s, like, these, this was our Facebook. These were our blogs, right? Web logs, obviously, thanks to WordPress and through, you know, blogger and live journal, they were, they were, they were started at a time where not a ton of people were really cognizant about having communities on the web. They only heard about it through like PBS shows or like, you know, like random like shows on access cable or something, right? So when people started, I mean, for me personally, right, when I started my website, little y'all different, back in 1999, oh God, that was 17 years ago, it was, it was one of those things where it's like, I had a blog and I was automatically in a community with other people who had a blog because there were only, you know, 50 or 60 of them at the time, right? That this was our Facebook, right? This was our Facebook and this was our Twitter timeline, right? Because the audience, there was a high barrier of entry to create a blog, to design it and to curate it. So the folks that were using it, we, we, we meaning the bloggers in like the early 2000s, just assumed that you were cool. Like, assumed that there was no malice intended. So obviously a lot of things have happened, you know, not bad, not good, but it is, right? Blogs became super, super popular after 9-11, right? And then adding to different types of social media like MySpace and Facebook and whatnot, more people kind of come on and, you know, you kind of have the situation you have today, right? Who here actually knows the name Derrick Pawazek? Quick show of hands. Okay, one or two. So Derrick Pawazek was kind of, is also kind of like in the vein of an old school blogger. This is actually a book from 2003. The book is called Design for Community, the Art of Connecting Real People in Virtual Places. The book has not aged gratefully and has aged very gratefully. And let me explain that one. So basically Derrick Pawazek is an old school blogger. He built these old school storytelling sessions called the Frey Cafe. If you've been to a South by Southwest interactive festival, they still actually hold Frey cafes. But there are storytelling events, and that was his style, right? Like he did storytelling events, and he was all about community and engagement. Great, great book in regards to how people connect on virtual spaces. And a lot of what he still has still kind of says to this day, right? And this was stuff that was built 13 years ago, right? Which is interesting though, because now he is literally a goat farmer in Portland and completely kind of like burnt, you know, kind of... It was burnt out a little bit on the industry, and it was interesting because another kind of old school like blogger, who is Anil Dash, who is a really popular Twitterer, wrote this, which he realizes that all the old timers, meaning old-time bloggers, old-time folks that are cognizant of community stuff, who learn lessons how to build online communities, either just quit or work at Slack now. And I have a theory on why they burn out, right? I think a lot of it is in... I'm going to go off script a little bit, but in the chase to get, like, web clicks, right? Like, in the chase to get, like, readership or whatnot, newspapers, like city newspapers that don't, like, moderate their comments, they're going to try to get as many readership as possible, right? Readers by any means necessary, and if it means, you know, throwing out all the lessons that we've learned on how to be a good community curator out the window, then so be it if it means, like, more clicks. And it's a little bit of a shame, and, you know, there's still things that we can learn to kind of be better about things. So, kind of as a result of that, he was also... Anil Dash was also kind of, like, super, like, cognizant of all the stuff that goes on with Twitter. It's high rates of abuse, you know, issues with, like, Gamergate scandals.  And basically, what's summed up is this, right? Like, basically, we've come to a world where... I'll go back to this one slide, where it's like, you know, if you post a harmless video of a Charles' birthday party and you're treated to profoundly racist non-sequiturs in the comments, you can read about a local traffic accident on a newspaper website and see vicious personal attacks on the parties involved, right? And he actually writes another article that follows up about this saying, everyone says don't read the comments, but in a way that actually... He actually writes up a very good case argument of saying, saying that, don't read the comments, is actually perpetuating the system, right?  And what if it didn't, right? So that's kind of... And with you guys being web creators, we all have, you know, we all have agency and we all have the responsibility to make sure the community members of the website, or even just a good old-fashioned website commenter doesn't, you know, derail a community or a brand that your website has. He makes these kind of basic takeaways, which is pretty spot-on. He uses harsher words, but basically, it's basically community guidelines and a code of conduct, very similar to what you see at, like, conferences like WordCamp, right? Or, you know, or other organizations, right? He mentions that a human, not a bot, has to be a moderate... Ooh, I need to self... I need a... A moderator for the community and accountable identities and real names. This is stuff that has actually been kind of established for literally decades now, right? And I, you know, there's actually personal antidotes on what happens when you kind of, like, take away numbers two and number three. And I'll skip ahead real quick and I'll actually do a real personal case study about this. So, case study. One of the other kind of past lives back in the day was a site I created in the early 2000s called Eight Asians. Eight Asians is a blog about Asian American awareness. It's called Eight because I wanted to make it, like, the view. So, it was, like, eight people with, like, differing personalities and eight is, like, a lucky number if you're any, like, interested in Feng Shui at all, so it was trying to be all clever. This was the site, what it looked like in, like, 2009. Obviously, it was, you know, when you're talking about Asian American politics or race politics in general, right?  And it was one of those things where as the creator of this website, I was an editor for maybe four or five years before I ended up stepping down for personal reasons, but it was one of those things where, like, moderating the comments actually ended up taking more time than writing all, like, these articles itself, right? But it was worth it because you actually had amazing articles. So, fast forward to 20, to, that should say 2016, but fast forward to 2016, right? And I ended up selling my part of the website and the owner who kind of runs it now as it has it very much on autopilot. And what has happened is stuff like what you see, right? Like, basically, folks, the trolls, it ended up being trolling. And the thing is, is that because there is, there are bots that automatically take in, like, inappropriate words, right? But without a human to properly curate this, you see stuff like this.   And this is what we wrote, right? Like, we wrote that, you know, we tried to cover our bases. We knew about the comment policy. We said that, like, for legal purposes, because one of the eight Asians was an attorney, and we're like, oh, okay, we'll trust everything you have to say. You know, it was like, the comment policy at the time was thinking that we were just doing things to just prevent, like, for liability's sake, right? Like, obviously, we don't want to get sued. What if someone says something horrible? You know, in hindsight, if I were to go back again, I mean, and this is a valid comment policy, but in hindsight, if I were to do this again, I would actually kind of reconsider this first sentence, right? Like, all comments with this block are the responsibility of the commenter. Well, they are the responsibility of the commenter legally, but they're your responsibility, too, right? They're your responsibility to make sure that you're having a productive conversation, and if you are not able to have the resources to have a conversation, then maybe you shouldn't be having comments at all. And then that is also the kind of the mindset of what Anil was trying to say when he kind of wrote this very angry, but very accurate post on why, like, why there needs to be more accountability, right? You hear all, and kind of quick side note with all the abuse stories you may have not heard of about Twitter, and those doxing things. That's also why there's also been a lot of criticism towards Twitter lately because of, you know, because there are folks that believe that there are not proper, you know, a lot of people are feeling threatened, like, for their physical safety. And, you know, a lot, it's like in the fine line that Twitter engineering and business staff try to stand in between, you know, being marketable and having a constructive, you know, pleasant, non-abusive experience, the pendulum might be swinging a particular way that folks might not be happy with. These three, these three, where am I? So these three bullet points are pretty accurate, and they've always kind of been talked about, but there's many kind of ways on how we can kind of do this, right? Derek, the book I was actually talking about earlier, actually adds a couple things further, right? And would love to hear, like, any kind of, like, opinions or conversations or actual, extra additional notes that you guys may have, and I might just run up and, like, hand you guys a mic to figure that out and stuff, right? So one of the things that Derek talks about in the book is basically tying in your community to the real world as much as possible, right? And that goes a little bit back to the accountable identities and real names. There might be cases where folks might not have, be able to use the real names, and that's fine. It's not so much getting a name as much as it is the accountability and making sure whatever pseudonym is a regular pseudonym, right? Because what we want to do is we want to prevent the idea of someone coming in, dropping in, like, spewing a bunch of n words and then, like, jumping back out again, right? So it also brings up to, like, a third point, which is the tougher it is to get someone to contribute, the better the content will be. And this is totally true, right?  I can, you know, I can name some off. There's, like, man, there's... Discuss is actually a pretty solid platform, you know.  And for a lot of, like, you know, American users, at least, Facebook is definitely tied into your personal identity. Lifire is a different one. I haven't used them lately, but they also kind of, like, make sure that you are logged into the system so there is a accountability measure. And, you know, basically being able to log in and have, like, the more steps it takes to actually register yourself as a user and put in that content, the better the content will be. There is actually a great example of this. Again, I'm going to go off script a little bit. Who here has heard of Metafilter? Okay, ah, not too many. So Metafilter is also one of those circa early 2000 websites, which has kind of become a sole war for, like, what makes a great community. Matt Howey, the original founder of Metafilter now actually works at Slack, which kind of triggered the tweet by Neil, saying that everyone who works on community sites has either quit or joined Slack. But one of the things that Metafilter is really good at is that they have really, really great, like, you know, conversations, like, comparing, and I'm just, like, doing this off the cuff, right, where the comments, you know, are a little different from, say, like, say, go on YouTube, right, and like the comments there, right. What are some of the ways they do it differently? They have, you know, there is a lot of, there's a lot of things that we pointed out, like in the slide earlier, right. There are content guidelines. There's ways, there is a clear rule of how you're expected to act on a community site, right. One week waiting periods, right. That would sound crazy for anyone that is, you know, doing like a pure business site that would require you to take as many times, like, that would want, you know, your click-throughs and use of registrations as quickly as possible, but this is great because what happens is that this curates the people coming in to, if people really want to join this conversation, they have to work for it.  They'd have to come in and create the new account. Another thing, do they still have the, you know, yeah, but so basically, like a lot of websites will also have like consequences, right. Like being able to have these guidelines is one thing, but actually enforcing them is actually, is a very kind of relevant thing as well, you know, like being, holding abusers accountable for how they, you know, how the actions that they've made for other members of their site. They also have, Derek actually has another really good thing that I didn't put on my slide, which was for those that actually have a community website to find or power users and to make them regular kind of content producers, right. Like that sounds a little nefarious, but it's just a better way of saying making them community managers or making them, you know, kind of having like a risk or like a reward system, right. The same way there's like negative feedback for folks that, you know, don't play by their rules. Positive feedback for those who do, right. So jumping back. So we already talked about eight Asians. And this is where I would kind of like, if I had, if this was kind of like a kind of a round table where I would kind of be like, so let's talk about like what kind of the situations other folks have gone through. So I want to actually put the question out there to the audience. Like what are some of the tools that you use, right. Whether it's a plugin or whether it is a community manager, whether it's a staff, whether it's a combination of the two. I'd love to hear about other folks that run communities especially virtual communities. But real life communities is good too. And I'd love to hear about how other folks kind of moderate or handle cases of abuse. Any, is there any brave souls here? All right. Oh sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure. What's your question? So are there beneficial ways. So let me get this question right. Are there are there beneficial ways of having good community? Has anyone found good ways to hold abusers accountable beyond blocking or marking their stuff as spam, specifically ways that would convert them to a good community member as opposed to a spammer or troll or whatever? Blog comments. I mean, so for me it's like if, it's been my personal experience has been a combination of technical stuff and like human, you know, human curation, right? So the technical stuff like eight Asians was on, let's say a WordPress blog. So I used special things like I had folks register, you know, registered users. I had folks kind of, you know, make sure that they're tied in with a real name. Towards the end of eight Asians I ended up having them actually tied to their actual Facebook account because people were more likely to, you know, write genuine content if they had their name and their face associated with it. That automatically took, you know, some of that down. As far as other people marking, I do think there is, as far as other people that might not be like curators or moderators commenting on commenters, abusive comments, I honestly think that at least the tools we have now for spam and such, that is kind of the way it's been. I mean, there's definitely filters out there, right? Especially like WordPress, right? There's definitely filters that will automatically like flag things for certain words. Of course that only goes so far, which is why there having the personal curation is imperative, right? Yes, you and the, okay. The question was when I started eight Asians, what was the first thing, what was the first topics that started the controversial kind of flame baby stuff? Turns out that interracial relationships are a huge kind of deal. Yeah, so that was kind of like, so there was, yes. So the question was, so the controversial things is what made people, yeah. Basically, there are controversial topics that riled people up and then if people weren't careful, it would fall into personal tax territory. I mean, I can show you what eight Asians looks like now, and I'll give you a caveat, is that I do not have really much part of eight Asians nowadays, and I'll kind of explain why. I will also give you a warning if you are offended to sensitive content. I mean, it's not pornographic or anything, but I'll show you what I mean. So what happened was a couple of years ago, we were like, okay, as an editor, you were like, how do we bring in web clicks? And someone had the great idea of, you know, going the obvious way, right? Of like, are Asians the smartest race? Like, how to basically, by the way, having questions as blog titles is the number one way to get away with the most slanderous things ever, because you're going to be like, are Asians the best race? And the answer is, no, but because you have it in the form of a question, it's totally valid and people will click on it, right? So I fully admit to being part of this terrible, terrible problem, right? And again, it goes into that conflict that we have as web producers to make sure that people read it, but making sure that the people that comment about it are, you know, not terrible, right? So the question is, is like, would I go on discus and start other things on your own? We did try that. We did try going on to say Metafilter and other great Asians. For us, what ended up getting, we took the long tail route. It was literally five years of kind of word of mouth. And then this was the benefit and the curse, right? Because then we started to be like, well, buzzfeed and, you know, other sites are having these kind of like salacious titles. Why don't we do this? And you know, it's so easy to take that cookie and take it all the way, you know, and why are Asians yellow? I mean, really come on now, right? But so on the one hand, it's like the Google traffic fed to it, you know. And then on the other hand, it was like it fed to it, but the wrong people started coming in, right? So that was our, I think that was our downfall, right? But it was weird, right? Because we were also wanting to make this like a profitable site. At that point, this is when I was doing Asians, eight Asians as like my primary part-time job. And I mean, my primary hobby. And you know, it was, if I were to do it again, you know, I think I would definitely find in-person groups, right? Like, you know, there's a lot more Asian-Americans in California. One of the reasons why I kind of ended up selling the site to someone else was because like, I'm in Miami, there's like four Asians here, right? So I move, you know, so if I were to do this again and get the proper cultivated audience, I would probably go to like the Asian-American Film Festival in Los Angeles, right? I'd probably go to the Japanese, but basically tie it into like in-person things, right? Yes, sir? Yes. Oh, why don't you repeat that? My solution for comments was to turn them off. I had a kind of a lighthearted site. It's a city site where it was tourism. And I wanted to keep it light. I had comments on there, but there's restaurants. People started slamming a couple of restaurants. People started making comments about the city. I loved having the quantity of people because it did incite conversation and everything like that about the city. But then I had to curate too much.   Where's my liberty? Where's my, and so I just turned everything off. What I'm, the takeaway that I get from here is that if I do want to have a forum on there, that it's going to be quality-based where I have people quantify themselves over quantity where I'm getting anybody. I can anonymously do that. And I think then I can probably have them curate themselves at that point. Or it'll filter things out as to go into a bot and have that do it. I think that quantity is a good clue. I literally could not have said that better myself. So thank you for that. Yeah. So I think we're at the three-minute market. So I think we're just about, Nizar, want to do some closing thoughts like Maury? I just have another question. It's another interesting thing that you might want to think about. It's just that I often, I have a dark sense of humor. So sometimes I say things inappropriately without intending to. And so with me, I would be concerned about, when I'm responding to these comments, saying the wrong thing. And so on a similar thing, I would be wondering, just get an example of what a good code of conduct would be. What would be your top three things on there? Yeah. That's a great one. And I think it's probably super quick. But a lot of it depends on context. So with a set like 8 Asians, which is totally informal, like we literally had, at one point, had a YouTube video and I don't know if I have time to link it. Yeah, I know. Sorry. Is it there? Yeah. Okay. I have literally linked that as my comment policy. And I've been like, there you go. Right? And of course, obviously, if you're running a business, you probably want some actual content. You probably want to write that popular. But you can phrase it in the style that you're building for. Right? Like you can see it totally informally. Listen, the fact that you have them is just as important.  Those are the two biggest things right there. The way you phrase it, you know, that depends on like the tone of the site, right? The context. That and that. Yeah. All right, guys. That's about it for me. If you guys want, that's my Twitter. Thanks, guys.


Most people go through a kooky phase, really selfish phase, a terrible phase. But what happens when you just don't grow out of it? Keep watching to find out what book we're talking about today. I'm Kyla Denigno and you're watching Kyla's Reading Day. Today we're talking about the book, Reckless Girls. This book was written by Rachel Hawkins. The genre of the book is fiction. The theme of the book is suspense thriller.  Reckless Girls is the titles. It's Reckless Boys. It's Reckless Girls. It's Reckless Teenagers. Everybody reckless. It's like, can y'all get it together? Please, Nika, Lux, Amma, Jackie. What is the problem? Can we get stuff going? Can we get things together? So there was a really big pivotal moment in the book where someone says this isn't murder. Now that's explained in the in the cover, right? So I'm not giving away the entire story to mention that someone says something about murder.  So there is a line in the book where someone says this doesn't count as being harmful because they harmed me first. And that really made me think about everything I know about crimes, about mens rea, about having motive. Because, oh yeah, I went to law school and so I have all this legal background and I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Black is right, but it's not. Law school teaches you that it's gray and you have to write law so that people can say there's black and white but there's always a little gray. This book was all gray. All gray because you can pretty much rationalize anything. And these characters were like, it can't be harmful, it can't be bad. If that person never provoked me, if that person never did anything to me, if this never happened then I would never want to do something else. Cause and effect. You pushed me, I fell down. So it's like, man, what a compelling story about what would you do when no one is watching, right? That's supposed to be the definition of integrity, the paraphrase definition of integrity. But I really was thinking about that a lot while reading this book because I'm like, they have a good point and I see where they're coming from. However, there's gotta be more to it than that. There's gotta be.  So it was definitely suspenseful, definitely thrilling because of that. Okay. So this book was really important to me because it really, really played with your mind. It played with all the blurred lines, all the black versus white, all of the shades of gray that you find when you get people involved, when you get emotions, when you get different personalities and friendships involved. So for that, this book was really, really compelling and really, really interesting and good to read. So coming off of a sentence that this book was really great to read, what I reread it? I wouldn't because when you're in law school, the whole time you're in school, all of your exams are hypotheticals. If this happened, what would Mary do? If that happened, what would Brittany do? What would you do with this, this? And I'm reading the book and I'm processing like that. I'm just like, what if, what if, what if? I was so jumpy reading the book. So no, I would not reread it, but I really did enjoy reading it, right? And that's just my personal preference. Feel free to read the book and tell me, girl, you are crazy. I'll reread this book every day. I have plenty of books that I would reread all the time that will probably surprise you. Maybe not if you're watching a lot of other videos in this playlist. So with that said, thank you for hanging out with me today on Kyla's Reading Day as we discuss the book Reckless Girls. Let me know, have you read anything by Rachel Hawkins? She's written a ton, a ton of things and she really has an interesting way of storytelling that just keeps you hooked. So get in the comments, talk to me and let me know what's going on and how you're feeling about the book Reckless Girls. So until next time, I will see you with another book on Kyla's Reading Day. Bye.