Hi-ho Silver!

The wonderful Cheezpeeps at ICHC have asked me to post this announcement for them so here you go:

A very brave little doggie named Silver was attacked by a wolf and survived!!

His heart is much bigger than his mommy’s bank balance and she needs help paying the enormous vet bill. You can read the whole story and donate on the Cheez Town Cryer. http://www.cheeztowncryer.com

The donation is being proctored by LolCatBurglar.

Warning: Lolspeak content on the Cryer.

HAPPY FAILTINE’S DAY!!!

…to all the Peeps out there. Whether you are part of a happy couple or not, you know you are loved by your Failpeeps!

Dealing with Trolls

Peeps, we’ve said it before and we’re saying it again.

When a truly nasty troll hits the blog, DO NOT RESPOND TO IT!!! It craves attention, and when you GIVE it attention it WILL NOT GO AWAY!! Trolls of this sort (such as the troll we’re dealing with today) are only trying to get a rise out of people, and if someone–ANYone–responds to it even obliquely, it thinks it has won and will continue its assault.

If you pretend it is not there and completely ignore it, it will go away and find another place where it can get responses. The troll on the blog today would have been gone within an hour if people had just ignored its existence and pretended it wasn’t there.

Now don’t get me wrong–I enjoy poking entertaining trolls as much as the next person. But I think we all know that this isn’t an entertaining troll. So please. Do not feed the trolls…the consequences are much, much worse that way.

Theng-kew.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!

…to all the Failpeeps, Cheezpeeps, Powers That Be, lurkers, submitters, voters, and failers.

(Oh, heck, and to the trolls, too. Hey, it’s Christmas. )

May your new year be full of WIN!!

Good Neighbors

As many of you already know, we have forged a close and extremely satisfying friendship with our neighbors the Lolcats. Many Lolcatters are now regulars on Failblog, and the blog is a much punnier, enjoyable place because of them. Likewise, several Failpeeps also post on ICHC, especially when the Cheezpeeps are having a special event and tender us an invitation to participate. This relationship works very well, especially when everyone maintains the mutual respect we hold for each other. The Cheezpeeps very kindly refrain from using Lolspeak on Failblog, and we respect their wish to retain a “family-friendly” atmosphere on their site.

However, this past week, a very unfortunate incident occurred in which a Failblog “regular” made an extremely hateful, bigoted, and prejudiced statement on an ICHC thread. The comment has since been removed, but one of the Cheezpeeps copied it and wrote a post about it in the Cheez Town Crier, which you can read by clicking here. Knowing that this person was a Failblog poster, the Cheezpeeps approached a couple of Failpeeps (Dragon and the Admiral) and asked for help and advice, which was very quickly and gladly given. There was some more unpleasantness, including another post on ICHC that has since been removed and a vaguely threatening post on Dragon’s author website that has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to have come from the offending party. However, the point having been made, the matter was dropped without further public discussion or attention.

This message is not meant in any way to castigate or antagonize anyone. Rather, I hope that it will serve as a gentle reminder. We have created something very special on Failblog, and we defend it valiantly when trolls try to tear it down–and we gladly do the same for our kitteh neighbors. But we must be aware of our own behavior and how it can be harmful. I was somewhat disheartened to learn that many of the cheezpeeps believe that Failpeeps in general are still intolerant and judgmental of their community and language, and this is a perception I would very much like to change (and in fact, the Cheezpeeps who frequent Failblog have been very vocal about setting the record straight about that, so we thank them very much. *shakes floofy paws in mutual friendship and respect*).

So in the interests of being good neighbors, there are a few things I’d like to ask you to keep in mind:

1. Please respect the Cheezpeeps’ desire to keep their site “family friendly” and G-rated. Folks who cross that line get sent to the “naughty barn” on ICHC, so if you find yourself asked to go there, you know you need to clean up your language and your act.

2. Please do not make pejorative comments about the Cheezpeeps’ use of lolspeak, either on their site or on ours. Their linguistic calisthenics in no way indicate a lack of intelligence or understanding of language. In fact, it takes an extremely savvy understanding of linguistic rules to make puns in a created language that has rules and conventions of its own. If you object to lolspeak, then don’t read the comments on ICHC. If someone uses lolspeak on Failblog, please politely ask them to refrain and direct them to the Faqquity-faq, where that issue is addressed in detail.

3. If one of our own makes inappropriate or hateful comments on ICHC, both the comments and the perpetrator will be dealt with appropriately–on both sites–by The Powers That Be. Remember, many of the regulars talk to each other AND TPTB off-blog, so word gets around very quickly.

In short…let’s be good neighbors. The relationship can only be mutually beneficial to both communities. Theng-kew for listening.

/soapbox

LET’S GET OUT THERE AND VOTE, FAILPEEPS!!!

It has come to our attention that the quality of fails that reach the main page on Failblog has been going seriously downhill lately. Many of us have stated in the comments section that we are uncomfortable with fails that bring out the haters, the bigots, the trolls and the kind of ignorant comments that make us *headdesk* and *facepalm* ourselves into actual injury. I and at least two other regulars have sent emails to The Powers that Be to ask that such “fails” not be posted on the voting page, but as you can see, the vote pages are chock full of problematic pictures that will inevitably bring the haters.

So. We need to do something about this, Failpeeps. We need to not only actually go and vote for the fails that we like, but we need to VOTE AGAINST the fails that we don’t want to see make it to the main page. The Admiral had an interesting suggestion on the final fail today:

“I don’t think we are doing a good enough job with voting, and if we aren’t voting we shouldn’t complain. I think we, the collective regulars, should institute voting Monday.”

Let’s do it, people. We are always so careful to preserve the community we have forged in the comments section against trolls and haters…let’s start thinking about preserving the integrity of the site itself. Let’s stop letting the trolls choose the fails we see every day. Let’s steer things back towards the truly funny, the HIGH-larious, and the types of Fail we can all truly enjoy.

Memorable Thread List

I’ve created a new sidebar link-list for truly awesome, brilliant, high-larious, and witty threads that we don’t want to forget and may at some point like to revisit. If you guys have a favo(u)rite memorable thread, let us know and we’ll throw it up there! Just provide a link for us and we’ll make sure your thread is preserved in all its glorious awesomeness in perpetuity.

Failpeeps FAQ

The new Failpeeps FAQ is up! Check it out and let us know if you have other questions you’d like to see answered. As always, your input is valuable and necessary to make sure we’ve covered our bases. Remember–this is just a draft and we’ll be tinkering with it as we go, but we’d love to hear your ideas!

Troll Wars

Don’t know about you, but I find troll-bashing very very tiresome. Yes.. I know they keep coming back, and I know they keep posting the same annoying comments, but I think we should refrain from answering them, especially since our answers to them have become so repetitive. Once upon a time it was the tazers (thank God that ended!), now we have the shellacked halibut, the contradiction posts (“FIRST!” answered by “Not!”, etc.), and the just plain calling of names and trying to prove they’re idiots.

They’re seeking attention, which they’re getting, and I think we can make an effort to stop giving them that attention. I love the way the ICHC people deal with trolls: They don’t. They ignore them, post a reminder that there is cake in the break room and move on. I wish we could do the same on Failblog.

Calling all Failers!!!

Welcome to the new, ever-expanding, always-in-progress Failblog blog!

We need your help, failpeeps. We’d like to know your favo(u)rite fails, your most beloved pun-runs, the most memorable moments and the most HIGH-larious threads. We’re building our pages and our FAQ and would not want to miss any definitive Failblog moments. So please…feel free to tells us what you’d like us to include!