From the Webmaster: Save Snopes (Mixed)

We’ve had disagreements with Snopes before.  OK, a lot of differences, but we can’t deny that they are one of the best sites on the Internet.  With “fake news” and “alternative facts” flooding the Internet, they’re one of the best places to go for real news and real facts.

Is this the end of Snopes?

Now they’re facing financial problems and a legal dispute which may force them to shut down.

Since our inception, we have always been a self-sustaining site that provides a free service to the online world: we’ve had no sponsors, no outside investors or funding, and no source of revenue other than that provided by online advertising. Unfortunately, we have been cut off from our historic source of advertising income.

We had previously contracted with an outside vendor to provide certain services for Snopes.com. That contractual relationship ended earlier this year, but the vendor will not acknowledge the change in contractual status and continues to essentially hold the Snopes.com web site hostage. Although we maintain editorial control (for now), the vendor will not relinquish the site’s hosting to our control, so we cannot modify the site, develop it, or — most crucially — place advertising on it. The vendor continues to insert their own ads and has been withholding the advertising revenue from us.

Snopes has setup a fundraising page in response.  As of this writing, it’s still short of its $500,000 goal.  Most of the staff of the Babbler, including myself, have donated.

For over twenty years, Snopes has practiced skepticism in its purest form.  If we’re willing to support it, then maybe all of the skeptical readers who frequent Freethought Blogs should too.

Wendy Onofrey
Webmaster for the Bolingbrook Babbler

From the Webmaster: Around FTB 5/17/16

By Wendy Onofrey 

The staff is busy working on a new web exclusive article, but it’s taking a bit longer than planned.  It should be up tonight or tomorrow.

In the meantime, here are some posts you can check out from our fellow bloggers:

Apparently, Berkeley has a frozen peach problem, which Iris writes about here.

First, there are debates that we do not need to have, anywhere, ever (again)—especially not on college campuses—because they are not legitimate subjects of debate. I’m not just talking about debating whether the Earth is flat, although that kind of wankery should never be given an academic platform, either. I’m talking about debating whether queer people deserve the death penalty because Jeezus. Or whether Native Americans, black people and Jews reeeeeeally deserve the same human rights as Caucasian Christians of European ancestry.

I’m still not sure about her beliefs about squirrels, but that’s for another post.

Freethinking Ahead tells us if you can or can’t recycle campaign signs.  The answer might please some supporters of Mayor Roger Claar.

Finally, Against the Grain writes about transmisogyny and asks this question:

And Murphy is just fine with that. More than that, she defends this belief in the name of feminism. Are we really empowered if we’ve internalized a belief that women are delicate and defenseless? It sounds like the sort of chauvinistic nonsense I’d expect out of r/theredpill.

That’s it for now.  Hopefully, I’ll be uploading a new story tonight from our staff.