When Ted announced abruptly this week that he was putting the blog on hiatus, I hoped it was only because he was busy with work, (or had a life, unlike me!) and not because of some personal distress or problems. Blogging can become time-consuming. As all the comment sections had been closed, I wasn't quite sure how to get in touch, but enough of us found each other by clicking around on the blogroll, that by Thursday's show we had a group chatting again at the blog Levy on TV, thanks to Nate.
I just received this comment in my earlier post about the hiatus. As several of BSYTYCD's commenters had wondered what was up, I thought would I bump this message from movmnt magazine's Editor-in-chief, David Benaym up to a post. Here's the whole message, which is also on the site. Thanks, David, for sharing this news.
For two years, a blog has made a difference covering Fox’s TV hit show, So You Think You Can Dance. Created by Ted Austin, bsytycd.com brought together accuracy, newsworthy links and stories, always with the right amount of criticism or humor without indecency or any kind of voyeurism towards the contestants, their private lives or rumors. The only focus has always been on their performances and talent. The site gathered information and opinions without censorship, followed by a respectful blog audience inspired by Ted’s spirit to respect one another.
That is until a certain part of this’ season’s audience of SYTYCD and by extension, BSYTCD.COM, showed some disrespect towards some of the contestants and used inappropriate language to express whatever anger they might have felt.
Everyone at movmnt would like to thank Ted for leading the blog community to a respectful and accurate coverage of the show. Just two weeks before the season’s finale BSYTCD is going on hiatus. Ted expressed in a last post that he “tried to make it to the end of the season, but just have too much going on.”
Movmnt will do his best to perpetuate your legacy, Ted; hoping that all the good that happened for the past two years via your blog initiative will be remembered and carried-on by your faithful reader base.
The loss of Blogging So You Think You Can Dance definitely marks the end of an era.
Step into the light,
David Benaym - Editor in Chief, Movmnt Magazine
Originally posted on www.movmnt.com/bsytycd_00933.html
I don't have any more information on this, but I am sad that Ted seems to have experienced incivility and hassle monitoring the comments. There's more than enough of that going on at other sites, as we all know. It's also a reminder to me to remember, when I hit that send button, that careless words can hurt. My rule of thumb for this blog, and for my comments, is that if I were not happy seeing my words on the front page of the local newspaper with my name attached to them, then they don't belong online. (I actually went back through my Disqus comments to see if I had been guilty of having used inappropriate language. I confess I did say "Nigel STFU' in one comment, but I don't think that is quite the level of incivility this message suggests. ) All I can say is that Ted did a great job of shielding us from this, as I never saw any of it on the site. What a shame, and a good reminder about how we are all renegotiating human interactions through this technological interface in ways we do not yet always understand very well.
If Nate continues to be gracious enough to host an open thread next week for the last two shows, I hope we will all feel free to express our opinions AND live up to the standards BSYTYC set during its run. Once again, many thanks to Ted, Sue B. and Natalie!
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3 comments:
That makes me so sad, Ted and crew worked so hard to make BSYTYCD a friendly place to chat. I hate thinking that people abused the forum.
I don't really know how to get ahold of Ted, but extend my best wishes and gratitiude to him, SueB, Natalie, and the rest of the gang.
i noticed a bit of that and people arguing with Ted about their posts!! I couldn't believe it b/c he was the host, i guess there was a lot more that he had to moderate. that is just too bad... it was a great place. My best wishes to him as well. Gabriella
Gabriella, I think he must have dealt with it fast, because I missed it. But I totally understand why someone would not want to play that role. This issue has come up on so many blogs I read. I moderate my comments because even though my readership has been very limited to just a few family and friends, one person was bashing another person in my comments and I had to be able to screen it out.
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