Comments on: Top Ten Best List Posts.

By: Brandon Blatcher

Brandon Blatcher — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 12:58:13 -0800

No, nothing should be done, except deleting the bad ones and giving me mocha almond ice cream.

By: JanetLand

JanetLand — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 12:59:04 -0800

Maybe you could make a list of the reasons something should be done?

By: fandango_matt

fandango_matt — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 12:59:34 -0800

Something should be done about Steve Miller's gasping for air before each lyric.

*GASP* Leavin' home, *GASP* out on the road
*GASP* I've been down before,
Ridin' along in this big ol' jet plane,
I've been thinkin' about my home,
But my love light seems so far away,
*GASP* And I feel like it's all been done
*GASP* Somebody's tryin' to make me stay, You know I've got to be movin' on
*GASP* Big ol' jet airliner
Don't carry me too far away
*GASP* Oh, big ol' jet airliner
*GASP* 'Cause it's here that I've got to stay

By: ND¢

ND¢ — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 12:59:50 -0800

I think that they can be fun and all and they aren't hurting anybody but, as I said in this thread:

I'm going to start a website called heywhatdoyouthinkofthislist.com where people just post lists of the top x y's and other people go "No way should z be on the list" and "Hey they forgot to put my favorite y! Bogus!" and I am going to call it Metafilter.

By: Alvy Ampersand

Alvy Ampersand — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 13:00:44 -0800

Things To Do:

i) Nothing
ii) Flag bad posts
iii) Steal Brandon Blatcher's mocha almond ice cream

By: fandango_matt

fandango_matt — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 13:03:00 -0800

Things to do:
1. Everybody have fun tonight
2. Everybody Wang Chung tonight

By: ND¢

ND¢ — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 13:04:29 -0800

I don't mean doing anything officially, but a little community shun off can be very effective. So if we all say "Sometimes list posts are not very good." then maybe someone will read it and not post "Best Octopus Death Scenes of All-Time" one day and a crisis will be averted.

By: ND¢

ND¢ — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 13:05:39 -0800

Would you kill baby Hitler?

By: hermitosis

hermitosis — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 13:06:07 -0800

Something should be done about Steve Miller's gasping for air before each lyric.

As a sympathy-breather, it really bothers me when singers do this.

In fact, just reading the song you quoted made me begin to struggle for air.

By: klangklangston

klangklangston — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 13:06:41 -0800

"No, nothing should be done, except deleting the bad ones and giving me mocha almond ice cream."

Oooh, is this the line for ice cream?

By: Afroblanco

Afroblanco — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 13:08:10 -0800

Wow, ND¢. I request that the post be deleted, and you MeTa it anyway.

Classy.

By: Brandon Blatcher

Brandon Blatcher — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 13:08:49 -0800

and I am going to call it Metafilter.

I don't want to be a killjoy, but that domain is taken. Would you like some ice cream?

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 13:13:59 -0800

if we all say "Sometimes list posts are not very good."

It's true, sometimes list posts are not very good

then maybe someone will read it and not post "Best Octopus Death Scenes of All-Time" one day and a crisis will be averted.

I would like to subscribe to your strangledcephalopod tag.

By: ND¢

ND¢ — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 13:16:01 -0800

Wow, ND¢. I request that the post be deleted, and you MeTa it anyway.

I wasn't MeTaing you or your post and I didn't mean to hurt your feelings or make you feel bad about posting it. It is a type of post that I notice a lot and this was just the most recent example. Sorry if I appeared to calling you out personally.

By: Brandon Blatcher

Brandon Blatcher — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 13:18:16 -0800

Oooh, is this the line for ice cream?

Yes, but you're not on the list.

By: Afroblanco

Afroblanco — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 13:20:07 -0800

It's alright. I guess I just figured that you could have picked a post where the poster hadn't already bowed to peer pressure and requested a deletion.

By: Afroblanco

Afroblanco — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 13:20:46 -0800

And yes, I understand why you guys didn't like it. I'm not trying to defend it or anything like that.

By: brina

brina — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 13:20:59 -0800

then maybe someone will read it and not post "Best Octopus Death Scenes of All-Time" one day and a crisis will be averted.

You mean that the world would be deprived of what would most certainly be the very best of the web, right? Because I haven't really seen any octopus death scenes, but if someone made a list of the best ones, I'd definitely want to see them. They'd make pop culture history.

Seriously. Forget LOL cats. I'm thinking LOL-dead-cephalopods. Or just LOL cephalopods.

By: fandango_matt

fandango_matt — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 13:24:04 -0800

cephaLOLpods.

By: joseph_elmhurst

joseph_elmhurst — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 13:43:15 -0800

I'm just bummed that my screed on the illogic of anyone finding "a girl so fair" in the "darkest depths of Mordor" who, coincidentally, was taken by Gollum shortly thereafter, was killed in the posting queue.

By: Wolfdog

Wolfdog — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 13:45:58 -0800

Welcome to List Universe, the number one source for top 10 lists on the net.

There. Somebody link to that, and we'll have done "lists" and can get back to focusing on the core MetaFilter post genre, "Whatever I've been listening to recently that can be found on YouTube."

By: Dr-Baa

Dr-Baa — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 13:55:04 -0800

Would you kill baby Hitler?

You know who else would kill baby Hitler?

By: Terminal Verbosity

Terminal Verbosity — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 14:03:43 -0800

Baby [he who shall not be named]?

By: It's Raining Florence Henderson

It's Raining Florence Henderson — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 14:06:29 -0800

Baby Ava?

By: It's Raining Florence Henderson

It's Raining Florence Henderson — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 14:07:51 -0800

No, wait - It was Scrappy Doo, warn't it?

By: ND¢

ND¢ — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 14:11:35 -0800

Baby [he who shall not be named]?

He tried to bite him to death. And he would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for you meddling fused together teeth.

By: Phire

Phire — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 14:35:19 -0800

I can't believe they included Kiedis mutter mutter and Californication of all things mutter mutter stupid pompous assholes criticizing people because they have nothing better to do with their time mutter mutter.

By: psmealey

psmealey — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 15:16:24 -0800

Something should be done?

By: John Kenneth Fisher

John Kenneth Fisher — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 15:37:48 -0800

I like list posts.

By: InfidelZombie

InfidelZombie — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 16:00:09 -0800

Could you give us your reasons, preferably ranked in descending order?

By: Devils Rancher

Devils Rancher — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 16:47:15 -0800

I can get behind the ice cream part of this.

By: cortex

cortex — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 17:10:41 -0800

What we need are more Lisp posts, dammit.

By: Kwine

Kwine — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 17:25:58 -0800

thorry, cortexth.

By: dersins

dersins — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 18:00:14 -0800

40. Dulce de Leche
39. Vanilla
38. Limon
37. Vanilla Ice
36. Butter
[Next Page]

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 18:08:02 -0800

Here's a Lizst post. Can I have some ice cream now?

By: Brandon Blatcher

Brandon Blatcher — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 18:32:01 -0800

This thread is useless without Liz.

By: Devils Rancher

Devils Rancher — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 20:38:04 -0800

Here's a Lizst post. Can I have some ice cream now?

I've got my Chopin Lizst, but I B flat baroque.

By: Jimbob

Jimbob — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 22:38:44 -0800

Yeah, what is the thing with lists on the net at the moment? I can only assume some SEO-guru wrote some highly influential blog post some months ago explaining how making a completely arbitrary list of "the best this" or "the funniest that", complete with some basic research, is the instant way to getting your blog on the front page of Digg.

I mean there's not anything inherently bad about that - I've posted links to lists on Metafilter myself, but does anyone know why lists are suddenly blooming like a field of sunflowers all over the net?

By: Dillonlikescookies

Dillonlikescookies — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 22:47:27 -0800

1) Write List Post
2) ???
3) Profit!

By: ND¢

ND¢ — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 04:51:59 -0800

Glad to see the shunning was effective.

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 04:56:13 -0800

Glad to see the shunning was effective.

Heh ehe. I reckon FPPer fuse theorem is still blissfully unaware of any of this?

By: fuse theorem

fuse theorem — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 11:40:26 -0800

Well, I am blissfully aware of it now, since an admin pointed me here. I don't read every single post in MetaFilter, AskMe, or MetaTalk but I did a search before I posted my fpp and afroblanco's post was already gone.

Sorry I committed such as huge sin but I had no idea, a) that it was a double post; and b) that list posts are so offensive some people's tender sensibilities.

NDc, not sure "shunning" is the correct word. Looks like a number of people commented and were still commenting early this morning until it got deleted. But whatever, it's not the end of the world that there was a post some people didn't like...Consider me properly chastened.

Oh, and fandago_matt, I like what did up there.

By: ND¢

ND¢ — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 11:55:27 -0800

Lots of people always comment in list posts. They say "I can't believe that they didn't put [insert example of what the list is here] on the list." or "They included [insert example of what the list is here] on the list?! No way should that be on there!" In other words, they don't inspire a very meaningful level of discourse, which is part of what I don't like about them. Another thing I don't like about them is how they are very much in vogue right now, so I see them all the time here or elsewhere. Finally, I don't like what I imagine is the very cynical reasoning behind those that create the things. They know that all they have to do is string together some kind of list of something and call it "The top ten [insert example of what the list is here]", slap in a couple of youtube links or mp3s and they will drive a lot of traffic to their site and inspire a lot of comments of the variety described above because people have opinions about things and are inspired to express them when they feel that they have been either validated or contradicted by a list. There is nothing inherently wrong with any of that, but it rubs me the wrong way. All these together, make me dislike list posts of the variety that you posted. I like lists of things that people may not be familiar with or of useful information, but "Top Ten Best Martial Arts Fight Scenes" or "Top Ten Best Sci-Fi TV Shows" or "Top Ten Rockinest Metal Albums" are just so much wankery, and in my opinion a waste of time.