Dimming or blacking out the site is a serious move, and we should only do it when there’s pretty much universal agreement. We can’t do it for any partisan purpose (“partisan” being defined broadly as taking one side of any issue that people care about and can thus be divisive).

Even this was a close thing: Don’t know if you noticed, but I made sure to talk to Tom about it, because private property is a serious ideological point to conservatives, and it was possible he might’ve had a dissenting view. We can never use the site as a whole to express an opinion that some of us don’t share.

I’d say that the HabitableZone is usually likely to take the side of intellectual freedom and freedom of expression, so keeping an eye peeled for occasions much like this one is safe. If you can raise the issue with plenty of advance warning, we can get agreement and orchestrate a coherent response.

I’m glad you brought it up, and even if it was at the last minute, well, you were still the first person to suggest it–we were all tardier than you. Next time we’ll do better.

It’s a tricky thing to decide to shut down a web site. In my university persona, we’d certainly support the strike because we’re all about sharing educational materials (you can actually read many of our courses for free, and only have to pay to get a professional certification); we’re in some ways an “open source” university. But we don’t have the right to shut down the education of our students for a day to make a point.

It’s a shame we were in a rush. That was a clever idea you had about putting something in the public domain to make a point. With a little more time I think that idea could have spread and become a significant form of protest in its own right.

Out of this I think we can develop a doctrine for the future. We have a way to use the site to signal negative emotions–fear, sadness, etc.–by “dimming” it, and it’s the sort of thing that clearly should be used on occasions such as the passing of a Zoner, or of a noncontroversial public figure, or war or threat of legal attack i.e. SOPA, or other grim situations. We can be grim when the situation calls for it.

I have mourned the loss of Eri on such a deep level. I had no idea it would have affected me this way.

I let mcfly and SDAI aware of Eri’s passing. I am going to ask mcfly if I may copy what he wrote about her to me. What a lovely tribute! From all of you.

Don’t be too hard on yourself Robert….THAT Eri would NOT have allowed from you…;)

I have to confess that being upset about Eri’s passing confused me when approaching this protest. I wondered if it would be appropriate to get all fired up and enthusiastic about something, and dragged my feet. Which was silly, because a protest in defense of freedom of expression would of course be consistent with Eri’s views.

I think we can consider the dimming of our colors to be as much or more in honor of Eri as it is in support of the protests. Had I been thinking straight, I’d have dimmed the colors for Eri, and added the protest as a reason later.

I’ll know better how to respond in the future.

Guess I should have thought of this earlier. Sorry, but I only found out about the event a few days , and the idea occurred to me at lunch today.

I’ll keep a lookout for the next event like this, so that we can keep better prepared.

(Also, interesting note of discovery: It initially said “email optional, but then required it. WTF?)