Can we have a "Newsfilter" prefix?

October 27, 2005 7:19 AM

I'm sure this must've been suggested, but I've read a lot of the Newsfilter Debate threads, and I can't recall specifically seeing this. If and when someone has a Newsfilter link, could the prefix "Newsfilter:" be a cue for a killfile that would block such posts from appearing on the front page for those who wished to avoid same? I for one find threads like Miers' withdrawal (even with only a one-sentence link) both appropriate and inevitable here, but I can see how others would not. If such a killfile existed and posters played nice, could this be settled once and for all?
posted by soyjoy to feature requests at 7:19 AM (58 comments total)

If such a killfile existed and posters played nice

Posters don't play nice. Also, those who link to op-eds could rightfully point out that their posts are not NewsFilter. 'Tis the op-ed pieces that do the most damage, but as seen recently, those posts do not get deleted automatically.
posted by mischief at 7:26 AM on October 27, 2005

I don't mind news links, as long as they have some extra information and value added. The Miers thread shows absolutely no effort in providing any information about the resignation, other than it simply happened. Now, discuss. Why did the link even appear? The poster could have simply stated the fact. If it was simply a question of being first, well I guess cillit bang wins. But we would have all discovered that Miers resigned without that post. How about just trying a little harder?
posted by Roger Dodger at 7:30 AM on October 27, 2005

Posters don't play nice.

With this in place, any honest-to-god "Newsfilter" post such as the Miers one could either have the prefix added by the poster or by the admins. The op-ed problem is not exactly the same and would, rightly in my opinion, not be covered by this. But if this worked, there could also be an actionable "OpEdFilter:" prefix.
posted by soyjoy at 7:41 AM on October 27, 2005

The "OpEdFilter" generally is called deletion. If Matt and Jess can't delete every OpEd, how can you expect them to tag every NewsFilter?
posted by mischief at 7:45 AM on October 27, 2005

"as long as they have some extra information and value added"

If that link said anything more than Miers withdrew, that is your "extra information and value".
posted by mischief at 7:47 AM on October 27, 2005

I hadn't read the link, I see your point. That post has no defense.
posted by mischief at 7:48 AM on October 27, 2005

If Matt and Jess can't delete every OpEd, how can you expect them to tag every NewsFilter?

Well, for one thing, tagging is easier than deleting because you don't need to come up with a reason.

But I'd like to stress that the op-ed problem, though it riles many of the same people, is not the same as real newsfilter such as the thread I pointed to.
posted by soyjoy at 7:52 AM on October 27, 2005

Many op-ed deletions had no more reason than "single-link op-ed". Anyway, I am derailing your point with this niggle, so I am dropping it.
posted by mischief at 8:02 AM on October 27, 2005

I think the focus should be improving the site and quality of the links as a whole. Segmentation for killfiles and the various ilk just encourges posters to make crappier newsfilter post. If the post is not good enough to be seen by all, it should be deleted and preferably not posted at all. I terribly dislike huge sites that have different cliques based on various topics. The joy of Metafilter is simply less is more in terms of interface and moderation.
posted by geoff. at 8:21 AM on October 27, 2005

Seems to me that it would be in the interests of the Newsfiltery folk to start doing this. What could be better than becoming invisible to your biggest haters?

Of course, we could always code up something like Remixed, except specifically to filter out News. Maybe a full set of posting categories could be included in such an effort, so that people who hate Flash games could weed their own pet peeve out as well.
posted by scarabic at 8:39 AM on October 27, 2005

"the interests of the Newsfiltery folk"

I believe many NewsFilter posters want their detractors to see their posts. That's the business of news.
posted by mischief at 8:43 AM on October 27, 2005

An appropriate way to do it would be a "newsfilter" tag rather than prefixing text to the post, since that would support some fairly obvious future enhancements, such at the ability to filter on tags in your preference page, or inclusion of tags in the XML version of this page allowing you to filter in your aggregator. String processing on the body of the post itself is a pretty ugly kludge by comparison.

(I was tempted to call out the Sox winning thread as the worst kind of newsfilter; anyone who cares about the topic already knew about it, so it's a completely pointless post. But it really wouldn't have done any good.)
posted by George_Spiggott at 8:44 AM on October 27, 2005

It would fail the instant someone decided their post was so important that everyone had to see it.

In other words, 0.05 sec after being implemented.
posted by darukaru at 8:52 AM on October 27, 2005

I believe many NewsFilter posters want their detractors to see their posts.

I'm not sure that's true. I've made a newsfilter post or two, and I'd prefer only having people on the thread who wanted the thread to be there. Contrariwise, though, I wonder how many people who love to complain about newsfilter would actually miss it if they couldn't see it. Note that mediareport, who called out the lameness of the post in question, is also an active member of the ensuing discussion. I think this lends credence to the notion that these posts are going to happen one way or another and that many see them as part of what MeFi's about.

And yea, tagging would also work - I just thought of this because it would also grab all the pre-tagging posts that were already done this way. The central question is just whether there is something that could be done to make the two opposing constituencies happy.
posted by soyjoy at 8:53 AM on October 27, 2005

Maybe instead of this fancy new pony, we could all just agree that if you don't want to read the newsfilter posts, you can just page down past them?

"we could all just agree"... matt, pony up with that pony.
posted by goatdog at 9:07 AM on October 27, 2005

NewsFilter posters want their detractors to see their posts.

Yeah, true to large extent, but I think they also want their detractors to like their posts, or at least shut up and let them live. I'm a little leery of instituting a tag, actually, because I think it would be so attractive to newsfilterers. No longer would they need to worry about adding research links, or making the item itself a very significant one. A single tag and poof! their little item is up with no fear of reprisals. Meanwhile, the rest of us have to wrangle with some kind of greasemonkey thing to hide their stuff, and we begin the era of two sites existing on top of each other, but in parallel universes.

Newsfilter is here to stay, alas. I think the best thing we can probably do is encourage it to be better, not give it tools that allow it to be bad. My jury is still out on it though.
posted by scarabic at 10:09 AM on October 27, 2005

if you don't want to read the newsfilter posts, you can just page down past them

Unless ALL posts belong here, it's lame to offer the "solution" of just scrolling past any time anyone engages the debate of WHAT posts belong here.

Don't like FARK links? Scroll past!
Don't like self-links? Scroll past!
Don't like hatefully editorial rants? Scroll past!
Don't like doubles?

...you get the idea. The line is drawn somewhere. Telling someone to pretend there is no line doesn't work.
posted by scarabic at 10:14 AM on October 27, 2005

(btw goatdog, i do realize you were bringing it up in jest - it's just that a lot of people bring it up seriously)
posted by scarabic at 10:15 AM on October 27, 2005

It is serious. Scrolling past something is somehow a hardship? It's not like work or even a pain to scroll past stuff. We all do it every single day on every single site we visit online. This is a site with many different types of posts, and we all scroll past the ones that don't interest us. It's not about a slippery slope, or some line being drawn. It's like walking down a street--you go past the stores and buildings you don't want to go into--you don't trash them for existing. It's SOP everywhere online, and off.
posted by amberglow at 10:24 AM on October 27, 2005

soyjoy: Note the weasel word 'many' in my comment.

Anyway, the biggest problem here is determining what constitutes NewsFilter. Does any post containing a news site link qualify, or does one link to a non-news site disqualify it as such?

Further, this tagging would have to be applied by hand by Matt or Jess on a case-by-case basis. You may get some who comply voluntarily, but you certainly will not get all.
posted by mischief at 10:28 AM on October 27, 2005

"you don't trash them for existing" : Well, not all of them anyway.

I agree with you about scrolling, however your building analogy has one major flaw, zoning.
posted by mischief at 10:30 AM on October 27, 2005

I think the FPP page should have a really really large text area and implement a 1000 word minimum.
posted by srboisvert at 10:32 AM on October 27, 2005

Scrolling past something is somehow a hardship?

You say that like it doesn't involve weeding through a bunch of stuff and deciding what I do and don't want to scroll past. This isn't just a flick of the finger, amberglow. I don't know that anything on MeFi could become a "hardship" for me. But yes, absolutely, positively, having a bunch of noise introduced into a site you look to for signal does subtract time, effort, and value.
posted by scarabic at 10:46 AM on October 27, 2005

we weed through a bunch of stuff and deciding what I do and don't want to scroll past when we go anywhere on Earth for any reason, when we purchase anything anywhere, when we check our email, when we grab the tv remote control, when we go to a bar, when we go to a library, when we open the fridge to see what there is to eat--when we do anything and everything, pretty much ...

It really is that simple and common a practice. We filter thru noise all the time, everywhere, and usually don't even register it as noise. Why bother to do it here?
posted by amberglow at 11:24 AM on October 27, 2005

mischief, I think you need to find a new example post for what you think should be deleted. That post about the officially raped woman is about the least problematic newsfilter/op-ed post on the front page right now. and this isn't the first thread you've brought that up in.
posted by shmegegge at 11:39 AM on October 27, 2005

Amberglow: Yeah, we already weed and filter all the time. Why is having to do more of that a good thing?
posted by klangklangston at 11:57 AM on October 27, 2005

Too many people seem to think they are FIGHTING THE POWER and SAVING THE WORLD by making political posts to Metafilter. They will not abide by any system that makes it easy for the rest of us to avoid their posts. But I would still favor requiring a news/politics filter tag (and a killfile), if only to illustrate their bad faith when they purposely don't use it.
posted by LarryC at 12:00 PM on October 27, 2005

The way to do it is just to open tags. Let us all tag posts with whatever we want, and create filters based on those tags.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 12:05 PM on October 27, 2005

Hey, I just thought of a truly remarkable idea: if you don't like the looks of a link don't click on it. Problem solved![*]

As for requiring tags, don't be silly.[**]

* "Yes to what amberglow said!" is so unimaginative, no?

** LarryC, did you get idea that cleared by the Politburo first? You know they hate it when people try stuff like that before we're told to.

(Of course scarabic is being a moron again; what else is he good for?)
posted by davy at 1:28 PM on October 27, 2005

Well, for one thing, tagging is easier than deleting because you don't need to come up with a reason.
Until the first MeTa thread saying "why did you tag my post as NewsFilter? It's something that everyone needs to see"

It's like walking down a street--you go past the stores and buildings you don't want to go into--you don't trash them for existing.
Except that this is supposed to be a filter, where the crap is pre-screened for us so that we should be able to pick any doorway and find something interesting.

Of course, it would be a lot easier if we all found the same things interesting.
posted by dg at 3:14 PM on October 27, 2005

I, for one, find all the same things interesting.
posted by cortex at 3:35 PM on October 27, 2005

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush's nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court, White House counsel Harriet Miers, announced on Thursday she was withdrawing her name from consideration.

That's the entire content of the link that inspired this post. Now, does it really deserve front page space? I understand that it's topical and everyone has an opinion on it and wants to talk about it. But there has to be a better way to present it.
posted by Roger Dodger at 3:46 PM on October 27, 2005

Maybe we should prepend Meta posts like this one with "MetaNewsFilter:". That way, people who are offended by the idea can skip or killfile them.
posted by boaz at 3:47 PM on October 27, 2005

Of course, it would be a lot easier if we all found the same things interesting.

That's the whole thing. And that's why people should just skip the posts they don't like or don't want to go into.
posted by amberglow at 4:11 PM on October 27, 2005

instead of http:// we could use newsfilter:// that way even our browsers wouldn't open the link, and everyone would be happy.
posted by blue_beetle at 4:20 PM on October 27, 2005

Is ignoring them not good enough?
posted by fire&wings at 4:23 PM on October 27, 2005

Well, I think we can all agree that the important thing is that we repeat this debate every 6-10 days. Tradition is important.
posted by LarryC at 4:29 PM on October 27, 2005

If it was simply a question of being first, well I guess cillit bang wins

I didn't try to be first. I actually waited a short while for better stories to appear or someone else to make the post. They didn't. So I went ahead, in the knowledge that better links would be posted within the thread as they became available, which they were. That resulted in a much better collection of links in a much more timely manner than if we'd waited until they were all available to be put on the front page.
posted by cillit bang at 6:13 PM on October 27, 2005

hey i tried to post a non one sentance link but was 4 minutes too slow, mostly because i added a bit more content to it...
posted by stilgar at 6:34 PM on October 27, 2005

Mischief is well named. He/she wishes to damage the site by introducing a thoroughly bad new idea, namely that all political posts should be deleted. Let's neuter MeFi as a political discussion forum, yay. Make it more like Microsoft's version of MeFi - just technology, fashion, and discussion about Hollywood movies.

Delete Mischief, instead.
posted by cleardawn at 7:05 PM on October 27, 2005

OK, well this is turning out well.

It seemed to me that there would be a tradeoff, and for the right to post newsfilter with impunity, even to a one-sentence story, people would tacitly agree to be tagged if they didn't do it themselves - and if they wanted to whine about it, they could watch the post get deleted instead.

But it's easier to propose something like that than to have to administer it, so I agree the whole thing would be more trouble than it's worth.
posted by soyjoy at 7:13 PM on October 27, 2005

amberglow, your position would be improved if you addressed the point scarabic raised here. Are you against double posts? Are you against self-link posts? If so, your "just overlook it" refrain looks a bit glib.

I'm surprised you haven't addressed a relatively sharp logical point that was raised *before* you posted in this thread. That's usually not the way intelligent debate works.
posted by mediareport at 7:38 PM on October 27, 2005

"I think you need to find a new example post for what you think should be deleted"

It's not that I think it should be deleted; what I think is the site censors should be more consistent in deleting OpEdFilter. That woman was only raped, yet OpEd posts concerning mass killings have been deleted. As that post illustrates, any OpEd post is legitimate so long as the poster gives it a tearful writeup and throws in an extraneous news link. As long as OpEd is handled this sloppily, I will continue to bring up that crap post for the next few years. I have it bookmarked. heheh

Just as Matt had to decide a few years ago whether or not to allow NewsFilter, he now has OpEdFilter staring him in the face.

Ah, dammit, now look what you made me do! I said I was dropping the OpEd issue to allow soyjoy to make his point. ;-P
posted by mischief at 7:56 PM on October 27, 2005

Unless ALL posts belong here, it's lame to offer the "solution" of just scrolling past any time anyone engages the debate of WHAT posts belong here.

Don't like FARK links? Scroll past!
Don't like self-links? Scroll past!
Don't like hatefully editorial rants? Scroll past!
Don't like doubles?

His point was lame, not sharp and logical. It's not up to us whether all posts belong here--we're not the moderators, and MeTa exists for us to point those things out already, as well as flagging posts. There's already a solution to those things, and we already have recourse.
posted by amberglow at 8:26 PM on October 27, 2005

It's actually the equivalent of people saying "people will marry their dogs!" "brothers will marry sisters!" when you bring up same-sex marriage. There's no slippery slope and we all have a choice whether to click on any link or enter any fpp or not.

And you know what? it's easy to scroll past all those anyway. We have doubles, we have farkish posts, we have editorial rants, and we have self-links. Some people point them out by flagging them or bringing them here, or emailing matt/jess, etc. Some people aren't satisfied with that and want labels and filtering now. The easiest solution is always to scroll past. It's not a new idea.
posted by amberglow at 8:32 PM on October 27, 2005

And you know what? it's easy to scroll past all those anyway.

Hokay, thanks for at least addressing the point, like folks do in intelligent argument, instead of bulldozing past it without comment. For the record, I disagree completely with the killfile/separate Mefis solution, but think your poo-pooing of the legit complaints about lazy-as-shit posting is way off-base as well.
posted by mediareport at 10:24 PM on October 27, 2005

can the killfile keyword be "lazy-as-shit posting?" because i really believe that's the best word for it.

less posts, better posts. thank you.
posted by shmegegge at 11:12 PM on October 27, 2005

Except that this is supposed to be a filter, where the crap is pre-screened for us so that we should be able to pick any doorway and find something interesting.
posted by dg

That's your mistake. Metafilter lost the filter long ago. It's been stomped on, kicked about and left for dead. If you ever doubted that, this thread should confirm the obvious. They don't want the filter, name be damned. Do it yourself is the name of the game. And if you have 12 hours to spend on metafilter, that's really no problem. But if you get on for 10 minutes every morning, looking at a few key blogs would actually be much more useful... build your own filter.

Metafilter use to be like a specialty shop. Most of it was high quality. Now it's like the 5 dollar dvd bin at walmart. Most of it's crap but if you've got the time you might can dig out that one dvd worth the 5 bucks. Think of it as a treasure hunt, with more hunt than treasure.
posted by justgary at 11:53 PM on October 27, 2005

dg made no mistake that I can see. He used the phrase 'supposed to be', which is entirely accurate. Whether the reality matches the expectation is another matter entirely, it seems clear.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 12:19 AM on October 28, 2005

"There's already a solution to those things, and we already have recourse."
Isn't the goal to have zero MeTa thread callouts, not to have them for every three threads?
And Cilit Bang: If that was the best you could do, then sit back and don't post. The goal shouldn't be timeliness, we're not Fox News calling an election (where we have to be first, first, first). Most people heard about this through their primary news sources (it was on the Beeb at ass-o-clock this morning). Metafilter should not be a primary news source, but rather a place where important news stories are discussed in a rich context. You couldn't think to link to essays about Bork? Or, say, Edward King (which I learned about from the call-out above this one)? Or any number of other supreme court nominees that were pulled and or rejected?
Timliness is not an excuse for laziness if we're concerned about quality.
I like quality. Amberglow does not— even though his posts are often pretty solid, he apparently doesn't care about reading quality posts on this site. (Sure, he's going to say that he has different criteria for quality, based on the "discussion," but I'm going to just characterize that as wrong as a bit of rhetorical conciet and note that he's willing to PartisanFilter more than I am.)
posted by klangklangston at 1:40 AM on October 28, 2005

The post was lazy, but if cillit bang had sat back and not posted it, someone else would've.

And as others have pointed out, the solution to Newsfilter FPPs is not to dress them up in non-Newsfilter costumes by, say, adding essays about Bork. Dressed up or not, they're still newsfilter, and lead to the exact same kind of discussion, usually with everybody ignoring the filler links and just focusing on the issue at hand.

Like it or not, a lot of Mefites want not only to chat about the issue, but to learn about it. Newsfilter posts usually generate additional links in comments that both develop forward, and supply background for, the main link story (yes, even on those where ericb doesn't participate!). As noted above, even mediareport seems to have had a good time discussing the issue on this thread, before and after calling out its laziness. The constituency of those who find the evolving Mefi thread to be a superior way to understand news does seem to be more than a handful of users.

Additionally, I can't be the only one who first learned (and was gratified to do so) that Miers was out by pulling up MetaFilter, the first site I hit after my home page.

So saying the solution to newsfilter is "No Newsfilter" or "Newsfilter in Disguise" is simply naive and pointless. Maybe the tagging/killfile solution is also naive, but it does seem that there's a need here, and a lot of this discussion seems to be ignoring how to address that need in favor of recycling old debates. (Big surprise, huh? I know, I know...)
posted by soyjoy at 7:11 AM on October 28, 2005

So saying the solution to newsfilter is "No Newsfilter" or "Newsfilter in Disguise" is simply naive and pointless.

Ah, come on, soyjoy. Requesting a bit of effort in a breaking news post is hardly asking for "Newsfilter in Disguise." I can understand a lot of different opinions on this issue, but the consistent distortion about "dressing up" news links - as if it's a necessarily trivial or ridiculous thing to do to a news story - is baffling. What we're asking for, I think, is simply respect for the community you want to have a discussion with. Encouraging folks to care enough about their news posts to provide relevant context is more than a superficial "dressing up" of the news, and I wish those of you who've given up on this one would at least stop distorting the position of those who haven't.

As for my participation in the thread, once I saw Matt had joined in, despite the post being one of the lamest I've ever seen here, I knew it was going to stay, and so figured I'd do my bit in the face of what I saw as an error on his part that was inconsistent with some of his past actions as moderator of the site. *shrug*

It happens. The ridiculously low quality of the post remains, regardless.
posted by mediareport at 7:35 AM on October 28, 2005

"dressing up" news links - as if it's a necessarily trivial or ridiculous thing to do to a news story

Well, now you're distorting my position. I said nothing about "trivial" or "ridiculous;" there have certainly been Newsfiltery posts where additional links did make for a higher quality FPP. The point is just that this is "dressing up" - taking the essence of the post (newsfilter) and putting it in a costume that may make it look better/different to the naked eye but doesn't change what the post actually is.

Your explanation about joining in on the thread makes sense, but doesn't contradict my point: If you thought we didn't need such a thread, you would have felt no need or desire to do your bit - but the fact that even you who felt that the post was of ridiculously low quality (which again I have no quibble with) still wanted to talk about it suggests that there is a place for these FPPs, and whether or not they're dressed up with additional links is irrelevant to the purpose they serve.
posted by soyjoy at 9:11 AM on October 28, 2005

What we're asking for, I think, is simply respect for the community you want to have a discussion with.
Communities have history, and memory. We've had many Supreme Court posts in the past few months. Those stand as the additional info, and as backstory. There's not a need for each post to be a thorough examination of anything, unless it's something unknown. It IS showing respect to post about something that's been discussed here before. It's the equivalent of saying "hey, remember that woman? Well, did you see what happened now?" It's normal community behavior.

klang, you have no idea what i like or not--nor do you care. You're really too busy assuming shit about me. I'll just say that just because you don't think news can be quality says far more about you alone, than about this place.
posted by amberglow at 9:14 AM on October 28, 2005

Communities have history, and memory. We've had many Supreme Court posts in the past few months. Those stand as the additional info, and as backstory.

They also have threads on the subject which are still open... for instance, as well as this. So once again, does it really need front page treatment? I think not. But, obviously, that's just me. And maybe a couple of others.
posted by Roger Dodger at 10:05 AM on October 28, 2005

dg made no mistake that I can see. He used the phrase 'supposed to be', which is entirely accurate.

Perhaps a bad choice of words, but I'm agreeing with dg.

The mistake in my mind is giving the word 'filter' any credence as it stands today. Those days are gone and likely not coming back.
posted by justgary at 11:33 AM on October 28, 2005

I don't oppose Newsfilter because I think it's a slippery slope that will take us somewhere worse. I think it's already bad, and already of significant volume. So please stop implying that the opposition is based on a slippery slope fallacy.

Newsfilter is a category of posting that can be spoken about in somewhat general terms: major news sources, timely info (not evergreen), and frequently thing posts (with few supporting links). To say that we're all disinterested in some things and need to scroll past those anyway isn't a great comparison, IMHO. We need to allow for breadth of content subject. But newsfilter is a debate about form, not subject of content. I think it's valid to discuss whether people want to see news headlines here or not, whether that suits the strengths of this community and advances its purpose.

Basically, we can talk about it plenty, and there are various opinions, but I find "just scroll past" an invalid way to try to cut that conversation short, without actually engaging it in substance. That's what I object to.
posted by scarabic at 1:34 PM on October 28, 2005

"klang, you have no idea what i like or not--nor do you care. You're really too busy assuming shit about me. I'll just say that just because you don't think news can be quality says far more about you alone, than about this place."
Amberglow, you're too busy frothing and foaming to read what I wrote, and that says more about you than it does about me. Take your pills.
posted by klangklangston at 2:38 PM on October 28, 2005