Ravelry and the Bunker
by evilolive
- Published:March 17th, 2009
- Comments:33 Comments
- Category:Crafts
One might think that a knitting community like Ravelry might confine itself to eternal debates like acrylic vs wool and toe-up or top-down socks. However wherever people gather drama and multiple references to Hitler cannot be too far behind, as found in the mass banning of a conservative group on Ravelry called “The Bunker”.
More problems came when we changed the name to “The Bunker”. Small minds went immediately to the Hitler reference, which it wasn’t. The President of the United States has a bunker below the White House as well as bunkers being used throughout military history. If anyone has watched an episode of “24”, the Presidential bunker has been used many times in the show. It’s a command center that provides safety from outside forces – much like our group had become for Conservatives on Ravelry who were under constant attack from Obama supporters all over the rest of Ravelry. That was the meaning behind the name – nothing more. Besides, Hitler’s regime resembles Obama’s thought process, not ours – so the irony is quite humorous.
Let’s just stop dancing around what really happened. Casey and Jess are liberals who have a bunch of liberal friends that didn’t like us being on the site. They did everything in their power to cause trouble for us and complain at every turn. Rather than alienate their buddies and the rabid masses, Ravelry chose to get rid of us.
From the discussion page on an article about Ravelry from the New York Observer:
The owners work very hard to ensure that it is welcoming and inclusive. They have allowed space for all sorts of groups with differing opinions and there are all sorts of political groups with their own forums. The real joy of it is that users may use as much or as little of it as they choose.
I choose to stay well away from the right wing, neo-nazi hatefilled “conservative” groups and I refrain when I can from making comments which would offend my hosts, Casey and Jess, and their other guests.
It’s a shame that some people’s parents didn’t teach them that they are unlikely to be welcome in other peoples’ homes if they are constantly offensive.
Nazi is what the left is all about. look up Communism in wiki.you are on the Left with the commies.You can also go read the Bunker. People complained so much, the Mods. would have to had delete everything, and yes there were members of color ect. It was all about the Libs.
That place is so full of censorship that is it unlivable anymore.
Want to be trapped in like you were sealed in a concentration camp, then join ravelry.
I have requested to be removed over and over and no response. I want my name off there.
Dear Bunkerites,
You were not banned for being conservative. You were banned for hiding out on your private Yahoo group and organizing threadjacks and other disruptive behavior. Before that, your group was deleted for multiple violations of the community guidelines that went unaddressed- even defended- by the group’s moderators.
The fact that you have to hunt down every article written about the site to whine about your removal and throw around insane accusations amply demonstrates the sort of behavior you were banned for in the first place.
We like conservatives, liberals, and jabberwocks with lavender spots when they behave civilly. The 300K users- or 150K active users, if you prefer- are living a more peaceful existence without the two dozen of you.
You were banned from a knitting site. Your rights were not violated. You are not being censored. And most of the world doesn’t care. Get over it.
What? Say it isn’t so! More bunkerettes stomping and sulking around the internet telling us all how they don’t care that they’ve been banned?
Somebody call the Wahmbulance – the brain trust conservatives are playing the Jedi mindtrick again: we’re victims, we’re oppressed, we’re just decent and reasonable while all the rest of you are evil socialist wackos. Waaaahhhh!
“I don’t even care any more that I’m banned; I don’t want to be around that kind of people anymore.”
What a coincidence! We feel the same way. Buh bye now.
33 Comments
I just want to knit!!! Why won’t they just let me knit?!!!!
Violate the terms of use, you get booted. Very simple.
I was banned from Ravelry and I had nothing to do with all this stuff. I wasn’t a member of any kind of political group.
Hey, Amanda, don’t despair. Those of us who got banned accidentally were all invited back with humble apologies. Now you can go back and enjoy talking about knitting without the threats…
I got the email saying they would remove my ban, but I tried to log in and I was still banned!
There are really no words anymore for this whole situation. It’s grown so far out of hand…
Glad you said it. The whining is simply amazing.
Amanda, I’d email them back again, it’s probably just a glitch.
It’s amazing how shocked, shocked the Bunkerites are that the Ravelry mods have decided acting like entitled assholes is Not On. My favorite bit was when one former mod shared a *single undated screencap* from Casey thanking them for not acting like assholes on one particular occasion and saying it ‘proved’ that there was never any conflict between the Bunker mods and the Ravelry powers that be. I’ve never seen a less convincing self-defense.
PURL TWO.
All of this is so the drama.
Don’t be an ass to ravelry, and ravelry won’t be an ass to you.
Yup don’t be an ass and you won’t get your butt kicked.
For the ones caught up in it – it is unfortunate because your IP address will have been banned. With some ISP’s they offer a fixed IP address, others offer randomisation. If you find yourself banned, and your ISP gives you random IP addresses, disconnect from the internet and re-connect – you might hook up on an unbanned IP address
As for the stropping all over the internet and claiming there thousands who are dissatisfied, I’ll just add I’m one of the other thousands who certainly aren’t.
Buh Bye indeed. Here have some cheeze with that whine.
It’s a shame it came to this. I hope those that were banned by accident get back in. I try to avoid the conservative groups as much as I can and I don’t bother posting or flagging. I just roll my eyes. It’s like they live in an alternate reality. They can’t even get Hilter right. Hilter was a facist (extreme right wing), thus liberals cannot both be like hilter and be commies.
IMO, these folks weren’t banned because they are Conservative. They were banned because they are the smallest group that caused problems, thus the least amount of money was to be lost.
I, for one, loved Ravelry. I hated the fighting, but I stayed out of it. I did click links back in, but that isn’t against their TOS. I’ve never harassed anyone, never sent any nasty letters to anyone, never picked fights, never flagged any posts, etc and I’ve been told that I cannot appeal my banning because I am part of the off-site board.
I’m confused as to why Casey would tell our members to go off-site to meet and then tell us we’re banned because we did that. I’m also confused as to why several other groups are allowed to do this – when their sole purpose is to make fun of other Raveller’s – and it is acceptable.
I KNOW I DID NOTHING TO WARRANT THIS HEAVY-HANDED PUNISHMENT. NOTHING.
This is so frustrating, The lies just keep flying. I am a member of the former bunker/before that McCain. I didn’t go around flagging posts randomly. I did flag one or two that were extremely offensive to my religion. Some of the LSG and RR members are really filthy and take pleasure in saying and posting nasty things. They make fun of morals, religion, values and they take great pleasure in trolling and flagging. This is a typical liberal attack were they are pointing fingers and while they are pointing a finger at me there are 3 fingers pointing back at themselves.
They know the truth to why this happened and are extremely pleased with the results. Problem is, they will not be happy now that we are gone. They will find someone else to prey upon. Are you next? If you ever voice a conservative or Christian view, probably. Beware. They are out to crucify whomever they can find.
Wow, this is the most active comment thread I’ve ever seen on this site. Who knew?
“This is a typical liberal attack were they are pointing fingers and while they are pointing a finger at me there are 3 fingers pointing back at themselves.”
This is why I always point with my entire hand.
Granny, gotta love that God complex. The Bunker Beasts were bad and got booted. Now they are whining all over the internet, completely free of shame or dignity.
Dear Lizzie,
Maybe Casey thought that the distinctive Bunker attitude and tone would stay in your off-site group. I’m sure he wouldn’t have been so happy if he’d known from the start that some members of the off-site Bunker intended to use it as a launching site for attacks.
And before you rush out to defend your bunker friends, think twice. Are you absolutely sure that none of them sent abusive private messages to other Ravellers or to the Ravelry admins. Can you vouch for each and every one? If you can, good for you. If you can’t, well, you decided to put your future in Ravelry into their hands anyway.
Some members of your off-site group chose to act against Ravelry’s ToS and by acting thus caused all members of that group to be banned. So if you’re sad or mad, direct it towards the individuals who brought about the mass banning. Your off-site group is still active. Take it up with them and ask if the abusive private emails were really necessary.
Lizzie, The whole thing about The Bunker bashing on the Rubberneckers cracks me up. Pot calling the kettle black. And there are quite a number of conservatives who are active Rubberneckers–the Rubbernecking phenomenon has nothing to do with politics, only with watching people make idiots of themselves.
I think the one or two of the meaner, more vicious Bunker people (and even if you’re nice , there must have been at least one or two in the bunker that were so mean that you wouldn’t want to see them show up drunk at your door) threw the Rubberneckers in as a red herring to get people riled up about something when it got clear that a lot of the nicer people in the bunker were starting to lose interest in the same discussions about liberals over and over. It was someone new to call rotten and evil.
Most of y’all have played right into the Alinsky play book. The Bunkers were banned because of the coordinated complaints by a very few aggitators. Any attempt to defend or debate was twisted into an attack and further complaints ensued. Take it or leave it. That’s how it is. Who’s Next?
Jesus Christ. Don’t you have your own website where you can argue about this?
Would it be too meta of me to turn these comments into their own GOTI post?
Would it be too meta of me to turn these comments into their own GOTI post?
GOTI becoming fodder for GOTI posts would cause the collapse of space-time.
Here’s the thing that the Bunker members don’t seem to understand. They agreed to abide by the site’s TOS. We all did. We agreed that the owners are the site are the final arbiters of everything on the site and that we would all abide by their decisions.
There was never “freedom of speech” on Ravelry. There was and has only ever been “free to say those things the owners allow you to say.”
This isn’t really a conversation about censorship, no matter how badly some people would like to believe that. This is a conversation about a small group of people who clearly don’t understand how websites work.
I just love how you keep saying we broke the rules. Nobody has shown me which rule/rules I broke. I have very politely requested the information but have been ignored. Oh gosh, would that be because I didn’t do what I have been accused of doing. They can’t prove anything because they #1″ There is nothing to prove. #2: They don’t have to. And #3: It would take up to much of their precious time. Oh yeah, their original stupid excuse for banning the Bunker in the first place, their precious time. Well, I will just keep emailing the nutjobs and keep taking up their precious time. I want the specific reason that I was banned. Not their stupid moronic sounding form letter.
Granny, do you realize that the most you whinge on the internet about this, the less likely you are to get back in?
You Bunker Babes are a silly lot, down to your silly t-shirts that you sell through zazzle.
“You were banned for hiding out on your private Yahoo group and organizing threadjacks and other disruptive behavior. ”
This is just an outright lie. It may be the official line, but no one in our group organized threadjacks or organized disruptive behavior. There are maybe 20-35 Bunker members in our off-site venue at any one time.
We never went in as a group to any thread to cause disruption. We may have gone in to read and see what was being discussed, but so do hundreds of other people who belong to Ravelry. If people went to read any particular thread from the Yarn Harlot’s site or from Lime & Violet, those people would be welcomed.
You can say all you want that it wasn’t because we are conservative, but that’s the only common denominator.
OK, the common denominator was that you were conservative, but there are so many conservative groups still on Ravelry that you can’t say that you were banned because you were conservative. You say that you never went in as a group to a thread to cause disruptions, but I don’t believe that. I’m a Rubbernecker and noticed a dramatic spike in disagrees in threads in the Rubbernecking group right before you were banned, including threads where there was no Rubbernecking going on, but people were talking about personal problems and things like that. Now the disagrees have stopped. (No one in Rubberneckers cared because worrying about disagrees is a silly thing to do.) So maybe you weren’t in on the disruptions, but others probably were and just leaving you out of the loop.
“If you ever voice a conservative or Christian view, probably. Beware. They are out to crucify whomever they can find.”
Wow Granny, overreacting much? I hardly think someone making fun of you on the internet is even remotely comparable to our Lord and Savior being Crucified. Get some perspective, please. Frankly, I find this statement far more offensive than any garbage to be found in LSG or RR.
What do expect from a group called Lazy Stupid and Godless? A prim and proper sense of decorum? A reasonable person would think that if one is inclined to be offended by things of a Lazy Stupid and Godless nature, one should ought not click on THAT group.
At what point can we have a Get Off the Internet post about the comments on a Get Off the Internet post?
“They can’t even get Hilter right. Hilter was a facist (extreme right wing), thus liberals cannot both be like hilter and be commies.”
Wow … first of all, you’d think you’d be able to spell Hitler correctly, unless you slept a lot during history class … which you must’ve done because you should also have been correctly taught that Nazi was a verbal shorthand for the *National Socialist Party* … Seems to me that the “right wing” in our country are no fans of socialism … that tends to be the purview of those who lean more to the left.
MizDi, you read my mind! Somebody missed 5th grade history class.
Dayv– would that look anything like a Nazi salute?
Don’t go tossing around your “political” rhetoric unless you know what you’re talking about, people. You may notice that a democracy, nay, a SOCIALIST government that you seem to fear we are leaning toward does not include the eradication of a race of people based on the shape of their nose or their beliefs.
I’m by no means a part of this argument or either party, but I am a student of history. Nazi Germany was a capitalist state. Hitler chose the name “National Socialist Party” in order to get the working class on board. Hitler was backed originally by the aristocracy of Germany because they thought he could keep the working class in line. There mistake was that they thought they could keep him in line. Which as history shows they couldn’t. Joseph Goebbels said it best. “The bigger the lie, the more it will be believed.” Sorry, it annoys me when history is skewed to win an argument. Angie