Yesterday, in an attempt to get Internet readers to click on something as many times as possible, SFGate.com ran a second edition of "You know you're a real San Franciscan if you..." Somewhere along the way, a Chronicle intern picked out this photo of two Muni transfers from photographer Rubin Starset's flickr stream. The problem with that, of course, is that photographers can be a protective bunch (and rightfully so). So, feeling spurned by the Chronicle's failure to keep his proper attribution intact, Starset did what any good citizen of the Internet would do: he ripped all of the content on SFGate and repackaged it as FriscoGate.com. more ›

Liz Lufkin, who's most recently been the vice president responsible for front-page editorial programming at Yahoo and who once upon a time co-founded SFGate, has been ousted from Yahoo in a reorg. Editor-in-chief Jai Singh, who recently came to the company from the Huffington Post, couldn't find room on his team for Lufkin, as All Things D reports. This means that Yahoo's front page, which sees millions and millions of hits a day, will likely soon be changing, and maybe getting a little less boring? more ›

The most popular story on the 'Gate right now? That would Matier and Ross's column about the wheelchair ramp to the Board President's chair, currently being constructed in the Board of Supervisors chamber, whose total cost looks to be topping out at about $700,000 after design and construction. It's kind of a symbolic ramp, is the thing, with Chiu -- who doesn't require a wheelchair -- defending the project by saying "San Francisco has been at the forefront of access issues, and it's important the board reflect that." John Avalos was the only supervisor to vote against the project, which, because of issues surrounding the historic room, etc., was originally estimated to cost $1 million. more ›

We ourselves tend to avoid doing too much scrolling on SFGate for fear that our eyes will fall upon the shrill, vitriolic, frequently ALL-CAPPED stupidity that is their commenter pool. Today, Phil Bronstein can't take it anymore and pens an editorial about what assholes these commenters all seem to be, now that they pounced upon two recent tragedies -- the three hikers swept over the falls at Yosemite, and a Marin man who got washed into a blowhole in Maui by a rogue wave -- as excuses to mouth off about how dumb the victims were. more ›

On the Bay Citizen's weekend edition, the burning-someone-else's money (but still free) publication reports (sort of) on the Hearst Corporation's sudden decision to (maybe) put a majority of the free content on SFGate.com behind a restrictive paywall. According to the Bay Citizen's many anonymous sources within the city's paper of record, it would appear much of the staff is convinced their parent company will begin charging for a large majority of SFGate.com's currently free content before the end of the month. Unfortunately, none of them seem sure enough about the details to go on the record about it. more ›

Oh, what fun. Objectivity takes a back seat to what will hopefully be a swank bash for San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. See, along with Bloomberg, the SF Chronicle is throwing a party for Gavin. Why? Who knows. No names from the Chron are listed in the invite, so we're not sure how they're involved, exactly. Well, except for their name, that is. more ›

A local online type is reaping heavy praise after the Pulitzer Prizes were announced this afternoon. SFGate's animated political cartoonist Mark Firoe won for editorial cartooning, cited for his "animated cartoons appearing on SFGate.com, the San Francisco Chronicle Web site, where his biting wit, extensive research and ability to distill complex issues set a high standard for an emerging form of commentary" won him the pretty medal and a cool $5,000. What's more, SFGate notes, this is also the first time "an online artist has received the Pulitzer Prize since the category of editorial cartooning was created in 1922." more ›

Under the impression that online internet world wide webloggers are swiping their golden nuggets of wisdom without linkage, SFGate recently infused their site with inane cross-scripting nonsense that automatically adds a url link when you copy/paste any of the Gate's content. Basically, it's like a teddy bear cam for writers who use their site. It is, for lack of a better word, retarded. more ›

We are highly offended that, in a headline, SFGate uses an acronym that includes a letter that stands for the word "fuck." more ›

Well. Hm. So, it looks like the Getty brothers posted another web-log entry over the weekend. They write about drinking lemon juice. Or miracle fruit. Or liquid acid. We can't say for sure. But is Ed Harris telling them to write this stuff, then stick it in a secret mailbox? Because it's starting to look that way. more ›

Conspiracy theorists freaked the holy hell out this morning over a piece penned by Phil Bronstein -- one that was critical of Gavin Newsom as California's next governor -- which was pulled. Or so it seemed. What happened was, local-politics fanboy types, like the anonymous ILoveGavinNewsom and journo Josh Wolf, accused SFGate of censoring the anti-Newsom bit. (While Wolf, a journalist by fame, didn't balls out accuse them of censorship, he retweeted the anonymous blog's assertion without consideration of the source.) more ›

Oh wow. OK, don't be jealous, but one Mr. Peter Getty, it seems, responded to SFist's little ol' post about their new business venture: web-logging for SFGate. Behold: more ›

This story may not beat the Napa gal who faked her cancer so that she could collect donations and disability, but it comes close! We find today, via SFGate's Mommy Files, that a Chicago Mommy blogger who went by the name of "B" and claimed to be carrying a terminally ill fetus to term, turns out to be one Becca Beushausen, a social worker from Mokena, Illinois who mostly just wanted to work through the loss of a child a few years ago by composing this fiction and finding readership. Her primary readership appears to have been abortion opponents who thought her willingness to carry out God's will by not aborting a baby that was likely to die within days of being born. And as the Chicago Tribune notes, it was only after Becca's posts got 50+ comments and she saw her traffic spike that she became addicted to the medium and let her lies get out of hand. more ›

After more than 60 years of broadcasting in analog, television stations across the nation made the switch to digital today -- following on an Obama-mandated six-month delay so that more outreach could be done for people likely to be most affected, namely the elderly and rural poor. But interestingly, Ryan Kim who writes for the Chron's Technology Chronicles, will also be affected because he decided recently to go cable-less. This seems ironic given the fact that the Tech Chronicles' tagline is "News and views from the digital frontier" (emphasis ours). Ryan apparently has some trouble seeing NBC from where he lives in the Inner Sunset, and must concentrate his technology coverage on the digital frontiers outside of the TV sphere -- also, he appears excited by the idea of getting digital TV streamed on his mobile phone via Qualcomm's FLO TV. Why not have it on a ful screen, Ryan? more ›

Dude. more ›

It's rumored that 20 newsroom-based Media Workers Guild employees at the San Francisco Chronicle will be involuntarily laid off today. We're told that a union steward sent a message to its members recommending that, if they are indeed called to HR, to bring a guild representative with them to help protect their interests. Yikes. more ›

Daring to go where no online writer in their right mind should ever, ever, ever go, SF Chronicle's Ryan Kim profiles SFGate's most "prolific" commenters, Kimble McSweeney, a Dallas resident. (!) During the first three months of 2009 alone, "McSweeney posted about 1,400 comments -- about 16 per day -- on a variety of stories." And much to our surprise, he's allegedly none too shabby when it comes to penning his thoughts on the Gate, or at least when compared to the others. (While not necessarily at the level of YouTube commenters, SFGate comments, much like arguing on the Internet, can lean toward the developmentally-disabled side -- or, as Kim too delicately puts it, "playground humor.") more ›

In today's installment of "No One Cares About This Story, So Shut Up and Do Your Job, Journalists," artisan newspaper publication The New York Times -- which is having its own economic problems -- talks about SF Chronicle's demise. Among other things, it informs the public that the Hearst publication is not a serious newspaper, one that "more closely mirrored the city’s irreverent, politically liberal outlook." more ›

So, your industry is collapsing. Hell, your is collapsing. So, what do you do? more ›

Seeing as how the entire American Apparel-on-Valencia brouhaha was traffic gold -- and the Gate/Chron is on no financial position to turn down traffic -- it seemed like writing about the AA store meeting at City Hall was a given for most local pubs. Today, after reading a Tweet asking if the Chronicle planned on covering yesterday's American Apparel planning commission meeting, we asked political scribe Carla Marinucci and editor Audrey Cooper the following. more ›

Chronicle film critic turned amateur psychologist Mick LaSalle has a lot to say about those filthy peons known as commenters. Mainly, that they suck. Hard. In his post "The Real You is the Anonymous You," LaSalle boasts that he never reads his stuff online, only in print. (In between leafing through a well-worn copy of Finnegans Wake, no doubt.) But by random chance, it seems, he ended up reading remarks on his year-end review piece, and was "struck by the belligerence and the willful stupidity of some of those comments." (Welcome to the club, angel. Can we get you a drink?) While he had initially dismissed comments as vessels for which people could play a character, LaSalle now reads them kernels of readers' true selves. more ›

Things are getting prickly over in the anonymous tips section -- which, as you all well know, should be reserved for delicious tidbits of info only -- so we moved the discussion over here. more ›

• Silicon Valley whores less than pleased with Viagra. [Valleywag]
• That Nina "Bad Wife" Reiser trial is still going on, and getting interesting. [SF Gate]
• The rules of PDA during dinnertime. [CHOW]

It was announced today that SF Chronicle's editor, Phil Bronstein, will be "shifting his role from running day-to-day operations in the newsroom to taking on broader strategic responsibilities at the paper and for its owner, Hearst Corporation." Whoa. more ›

The body of the TGI Friday's manager--whose was found earlier this week by an employee inside the restaurant, making this San Mateo's first homicide since 2006--was identified as Douglas Castello, 36, "a mild-mannered guy with an infectious laugh." Reports claim that he was bludgeoned to death by a "blunt force type object." He was reportedly heading down the road toward marriage just before his death, "shopping for a promise ring in two weeks and had already bought tickets for an April cruise in Mexico," according to his choked-up girlfriend, Laura Johnson, 45. more ›

Image credit: Signe's Blog more ›

• School buses to run on waste grease from local restaurants. [SF Sentinel]
• 2007, as Chrissy from Newport Harbor: the Real OC might say, is "o-v-e, but the 'r' is not there yet." Totes, dude. Totes. [SFoodie, SFBG, CHOW, Gridskipper, Yelp]
• "Subprime" is your word of the year, or so says the Gate. [SF Gate]
• Tiger stuff. (An aside: Big-Cat Expert is perhaps the best job title in the world, ever.) [Examiner, SFBG]
• New Jersey bans sexual predators from the Internets. How very boring of them. [ValleyWag]
• A Sunday win by the Oakland Raiders could, like, make them be really super special. Or something like that. [Oakland Tribune]
• Best breakout performance: Mint Plaza. And more over at Curbed SF Awards 2007. [Curbed] more ›

We just heart reading Two Cents to find out what people on the streets of the Bay Area think about a wide range of local, national, and international topics. more ›

-- Fallout from yesterday's tiger-ian death of 17-year-old Carlos Sousa Jr. continues. [CBS 5, SFGate, Spotswood, FCJ, SF MetBlog, Peta (cuckoo!)] more ›

In an effort to tame the trolls, SFGate's site (as well as a few others like ThinkProgress) use software from an outside company that implements a unique "block user" function. This feature blocks all comments made by a user from view by anyone but themselves (upon login). That is to say, whenever the quasi-banned user logs in to the site, they see their comments intact; but to everyone else, the offending comment is simply... more ›