So our friends from the FunMansion snuck into Googleplex, which is nearly as fun as sneaking into the private forums of Blog Networks. Check it out. And thanks for the tipster you sneaky bastards…

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The Cowboy threatened to shoot me if I didn’t post this. He says “The site ProBlogging.com is viewable. Not fully completed but damn near closer than it has been. He’s working hard behind the scenes getting sponsor deals and flirting with the pretty girls who manage the web server, ad server, and handle the accounting shit for BlogMedia.”

Also Cowboy says that “The Wordpress Theme Contest has been continued because he only received 3 submissions. So if you don’t submit something by March 1st he will have to take the money and run. ”

I’m actually starting to wonder what he does if he isn’t blogging. How much administrative work can he have???

Can we all say slackmeistro in unison?

And we’re not just talking human bodily functions here. Dick-cognito unleashed the now-famous expose this past week, and at this point, all the sane individuals appear to be headed for the doors of blog networks, especially those of 9irrelevancies. It’s an exodus of biblical proportions – only, well, real! The king is dead, long live the king!

Allow me to enlighten you for a moment on why this is all so very, very stupid.

Reason #1: Networks don’t equal cash

If you think you’re going to get rich from your website, odds are incredibly good that you’re dreaming (and probably living off daddy’s money). If you’re as smart as this guy, then maybe it’ll happen for you, too; but until that day comes, you kool-aid drinkers out there can look for the “egg” network badge on his site.

Reason #2: You believe everything you read, and that makes you a dummy

Here’s what 9flames has to say about their once-heralded network of independent blogs (wtf?):

9rules will put your site in front of millions of eyes each month, exposing your content to a much larger audience.

In bonerrific fashion, Rundle spilled this can of beans on Thursday:

9rules.com, a site that receives…about 300-400k pageviews per month

Oops. Even if you count two eyes per view (which is dumb as a box of rocks), you still don’t get a million. You damn sure don’t get millions. Maybe they just meant to say “year” instead of “month.” Riiiight.

Reason #3: If you’re going to idolize someone, make sure it’s an insanely rich fucker

Paul Scrivies (pun on underwear there – Dickster is so funny!) isn’t rich, and neither are his buddies. Paul Graham, on the other hand, is rich. So is Seth Godin, or maybe Steve Rubel. Denton and Calacanis, too. If you have an insatiable desire to attach yourself to a nutsack and start suckling, then make sure you unleash your parasitic tendencies on a worthy target, ok? I’m looking out for you here – trust me on this one.

Reason #4: Pr0n IS the internet

I haven’t seen this much denial since Bill Clinton was sticking cigars in Monica Lewinsky’s baby-chute. As soon as you censor content on the internet, you’re going to piss people off. Fer crissakes, people, this is the last bastion of complete freedom. Listen – you can’t accept content; act like you love it; and then drop it because you suddenly decided to become the fucking WB of the internet. Nobody gives a shit about your 7th heaven, they just want their risque content mixed in with the stuff that pays the bills and makes the work day go by faster. If the porn ain’t stayin, then neither am I.

The 38 billion dollar a year industry and I will be over here counting comments if you need us.

Remember, no one spreads confidential information like a leaky Dick!

Will somebody please tell me what the fuck is going on? Today I heard that 9rules was actually removing some sites from their network, and not half an hour after hearing this, I learned that Girlspoke was probably the first site to get the axe. The reason? Apparently Girlspoke features too much sexually explicit content, so they can no longer be a part of the 9rules values network, which now appears nightly on ABC Family.

Wait a minute, though…I remember reading something where Scrivs talked about how much he loved Girlspoke. Oh, that’s right, he talked about it on the 9rules blog! How convenient is that? Moreover, how freaking weird is that? Let’s do a little thought experiment here where you’re in Scrivs’ shoes. Why would you, at the drop of a hat, decide that a departure from your network’s stated values suddenly warrants the booting of a site that you previously listed as one of your favorites?

You know what? This looks extremely fishy to me, and I’ll tell ya why. Remember all that shit that went down in late January about Cowboy, and then later he had to step up and apologize for being such a snarky assmunch? Word on the street was that Scrivs was pretty pissed about the whole deal, and it only served to stoke the flames when a “confidential” announcement of a new sex network (sexnotwork.com) got leaked out to the masses (but what the fuck do you expect with e-mail this day in age?). Anyway, Cowboy was clearly in a bad way with Scrivs.

I don’t know dick about what’s happened behind the scenes, and I have never spoken with Cowboy about Scrivs. I want that to be perfectly clear to all you who would conjecture that I’m Cowboy, Sidekick, The Deuce, Matt, Jesus, Mohammed, Allah, Buddha, and that bald guy from the top of the mountain in Ace Ventura 2. I’m none of these assholes; I’m just an observer. Moreover, I’m not friends with Cowboy either. That’s like trying to be friends with Stephen King – he’s a fucking hermit.

Anyway, if you were to take a snapshot of all the 9rules member sites before Scrivs made this announcement about cutting the fat, you would see that no site had a higher “Cowboy correlation factor” than Girlspoke. Girlspoke linked directly to Cowboyspoke, and I think the connection therein was probably enough to piss off, scare, or instill paranoia in the 9rules team. As a result, Girlspoke, one of the best content sites the 9rules network will ever have the pleasure of associating with, got the proverbial boot.

And thus, it came to pass that Scrivs dissed a site that he said “might be my favorite because it is continuously updated and continuously funny.”

We will see how deep the rabbit hole goes, but sources are telling me that the snowball is still at the top of the hill. From a purely objective viewpoint, I think 9rules has made a critical mistake here. I agree that sites need to be looked over time and again to make sure that content does not go sour or stagnant, but cutting a grade A site like Girlspoke under the name of sexually explicit content? That’s just stupid. Is this a potshot at Cowboy? Is this the knee-jerk reaction of a team of young professionals who simply got pissed off? Time will tell.

One thing is for sure – whatever protocol Scrivs established for cutting member sites, he ought to follow to a “T.” The blogosphere has a way of using words against you, and being a high profile individual means that you’re going to be under a lot more scrutiny than the average Joe. Either way, I think this raises some interesting questions for 9rules in the future, and I am confident that we will all be keeping this issue very close to the hip in the days to come.

[ Update: 2/15/06 ] Tyme White has accepted responsibility for this mess and also honored us with a post about the reasoning behind this whole clusterbang. I appreciate her explanation, and I’m sure many others out there do too. Although it looks as though this site and also Blog Herald were assholes in retrospect, I’ll gladly offer up my complete disagreement with that idea. Here’s why we’re not assholes…

The smart move for 9rules would have been to openly discuss the fact that people are concerned over sexually explicit content. Since Scrivs was apparently bummed about having to potentially remove Girlspoke from the network (and I’m glad to know that he was concerned), he probably should have posted something indicating that certain members’ status may likely be jeopardized by a changing network policy. In hindsight, this would have been a much better way to handle the issue, and it probably would have saved a lot of headaches over the last day or so. I’m sorry to see that Tyme was so upset over this whole deal, but again, had it been handled differently, all this could have been avoided.

Note to would be commeting jerkoffs – It’s NOT ok that Scrivs mentioned a month or so ago that 9rules would be trimming the fat. Cutting sites due to a changing policy versus cutting sites due to lackluster performance are two very different things.

Thanks, and remember – don’t be a Dick!