5-minute collaborative media quiz (Metafilter included!)

March 17, 2006 6:50 AM

Users of collaborative media are invited by Dan Gillmore to take this five-minute research quiz authored by a Kennedy School of Government student. The quiz is very well crafted and asks lots of good questions, with room for specific written comments by respondents, and Metafilter is one of the sites specifically mentioned. Via BoingBoing.
posted by By The Grace of God to MetaFilter-related at 6:50 AM (37 comments total)

I think this might be worth putting on the sidebar, by the way, in the spirit of Helpfulness to Student Researchers. :)
posted by By The Grace of God at 6:51 AM on March 17, 2006

1. Which collaborative news site do you visit?
- Wikinews
- OhMyNews
- Global Voices
- MetaFilter
- Digg
- Slashdot
- Kuro5hin
- Other (please specify)

I guess it's official, then. We're a news site.
posted by brownpau at 7:21 AM on March 17, 2006

"This survey is currently closed."

"Please contact the author of this survey for further assistance."
posted by NinjaPirate at 7:21 AM on March 17, 2006

Oops. "This survey is currently closed." They got Boing'd.
posted by brownpau at 7:21 AM on March 17, 2006

It's loading here. Odd blip.
posted by By The Grace of God at 7:23 AM on March 17, 2006

It loads fine, but you get through the survey and it says "This survey is currently closed. Please contact the author of this survey for further assistance." I don't see any reason to sidebar it, maybe mathowie will.
posted by jessamyn at 7:29 AM on March 17, 2006

The Kennedy School doesn't even have/host their own survey script? Weak.
posted by aaronetc at 7:47 AM on March 17, 2006

I guess it's official, then. We're a news site.

that, and a youtube.com aggregator
posted by matteo at 8:05 AM on March 17, 2006

I guess it's official, then. We're a news site.

Depressing.
posted by Gator at 8:12 AM on March 17, 2006

I've never really surfed there -- is digg really a news site either?
posted by cortex at 8:14 AM on March 17, 2006

I guess it's official, then. We're a news site.

Depressing.
posted by Gator at 10:12 AM CST on March 17

.
posted by dios at 8:20 AM on March 17, 2006

Yes.
posted by empath at 8:20 AM on March 17, 2006

I've never really surfed there -- is digg really a news site either?

Yeah, apparently. I've never really bothered with the place either, but if you go to the main page, it says, "What's Digg? Digg is a technology news website that employs non-hierarchical editorial control."
posted by Gator at 8:22 AM on March 17, 2006

(Point being that if someone points at us and declares us a news site, and does the same to digg, which isn't really a news site either, then maybe we should lay off the self-pity and consider the possibility that it's not all that goddam "official".)
posted by cortex at 8:22 AM on March 17, 2006

(Nice timing, Gator. I'm trying to rally the troops and you have to go an knock one my axioms out from under me. Fuck it. I'm taking a bubble bath.)
posted by cortex at 8:23 AM on March 17, 2006

I looked at the survey and was confused. All the questions were about using Metafilter as a news site. I don't use it as one, so the survey made no sense at all.

It is very depressing that for some people, the survey will seem like a quite natural set of questions to be asked for users of Metafilter.
posted by dios at 8:24 AM on March 17, 2006

(also, my phrase—"is digg really a news site either?"—sounds weird upon re-reading.)
posted by cortex at 8:24 AM on March 17, 2006

Oh Mighty Calgon, prithee take cortex away to thy comforting bosoms. :)
posted by Gator at 8:25 AM on March 17, 2006

Calgon?

Dude. It's all about Mr. Bubble.
posted by dios at 8:26 AM on March 17, 2006

I don't see why it's depressing, let alone very depressing. Obviously some people do see Metafilter as a news-source; others don't; we've had endless arguments on the subject. The fact that we have those arguments suggest that Metafilter is also conceptually not a news source for a big body of users.

Just doesn't seem like Prozac sort of situation to me.
posted by cortex at 8:27 AM on March 17, 2006

(I shouted that from the bathtub. Rubber ducky, you're the ooooone, that makes something something fum...)
posted by cortex at 8:28 AM on March 17, 2006

Hmm. It seemed to be natural to me..I suppose I consider 'news', in a Web context, to include all of the different kinds stuff that's posted here, such as new software thingummies, obscurities, Flash games, and the like. Not just newspaper news but things new to me.
posted by By The Grace of God at 8:28 AM on March 17, 2006

I suppose it's better and more specifically said, then, that it's depressing for those of us who don't think MeFi should be seen as a news source. As dios said, there are MeFites who will be able to unironically answer every question in the survey with MeFi-as-news-source in mind, though.
posted by Gator at 8:31 AM on March 17, 2006

I filled out the dang thing, and instead of confirming that it registered my data, it sent me to the pricing page because they went over their limit on responses.
posted by planetkyoto at 8:37 AM on March 17, 2006

This is depressing.
posted by shmegegge at 8:39 AM on March 17, 2006

I'll contact the author. He has asked me to link it before, but I completely forgot to do it early this week.
posted by mathowie at 8:48 AM on March 17, 2006

I did it. It worked smoothly.

And a part of MeFi is certainly "news" as long as it means "information new to me", whether in the Blue or in Axme. Debunking rumors, propaganda, bogus news, spam, self-posts, etc. is also part of the general "news" family, and very useful too.
posted by bru at 9:27 AM on March 17, 2006

The author of the survey considers MeFi as part of "collaborative news gathering" so it's not that we're completely a "news" site, but sometimes we sort of make the news here (like figuring out self-links, the kaycee nichole thing, etc)
posted by mathowie at 9:38 AM on March 17, 2006

How does ferreting out a self-linker constitute "news," or even "collaborative news gathering?"
posted by monju_bosatsu at 10:06 AM on March 17, 2006

If you include human interest stories, Metafilter is a news site. And if nothing else, dios, we have the liberal bias part down pat, don't we?
posted by crunchland at 10:19 AM on March 17, 2006

monju_botatsu, if the self-linker is an insidious scourge with tentacles all across the net, ferreting him out could be "the latest on SpumCo" news, in a sense, or in some cases even "we have discovered SpumCo" news.

/shrug/
posted by cortex at 11:19 AM on March 17, 2006

AND NOOWWWWW SAN ANTONIO, GET YOURSELF READY TO BE ROCKED, CAUSE IT's . . . . LIBERAL BIAS!!!!!!

*explosions, heavy metal*

*curtain rises*

THRILL AS UNWASHED GEEKS AND MAC.FAGS BLOG TEH INTERNETS BEFORE YOUR VERY EYES!

CHILL AS THEY TURN A STORY ABOUT THE DISCOVERY OF A NEW BEETLE INTO AN ANTI-BUSH POST!

BE ASTOUNDED AS THEY SLAM THEIR KEYBOARDS OVER ECO-BIAS ON METATALK WITH COMPUTERS POWERED BY F-F-F-F-FIVE THOUSAND MEGAWATTS OF PURE WEB 2.0 LIGHTNING!
posted by Ryvar at 11:21 AM on March 17, 2006

Ryvar, are you Strongbad?
posted by bigmusic at 11:30 AM on March 17, 2006

"news" as in "things which are new"?

DOUBLEPOST!
posted by NinjaPirate at 12:58 PM on March 17, 2006

When I'm doing my study on collaborative "pointless gymnastics on some US law" sites, I'll surely include MeFi. If that's ok with dios, of course.
posted by mr.marx at 5:50 PM on March 17, 2006

buuuuuuuurn
posted by cortex at 6:10 PM on March 17, 2006

cortex, is "Rubber ducky, you're the ooooone, that makes something something fum..." sung to the tune of Tracy Bonham's "The One"?
posted by cgc373 at 9:10 PM on March 18, 2006