MetaFilter: It is what it is

July 11, 2008 7:39 AM

MetaFilter: It is what it is?

I'm curious as to what the membership (and particularly the MODS) thinks of the sentiment of this comment. Yes, I come to MeFi for links to things I may not have been aware of in the past. (Even the most dedicated web addict can't have seen everything. "New products are arriving daily!") But the main thing I come to MeFi for is to see and sometimes participate in a level of discourse that you don't find everywhere. I hate the "Farkification" of MeFi as much as anybody and ONLY turning every thread into a LOL opportunity gets a little old. But if I learned anything recently, it is that even a comment thread that starts out appearing to be insipid can be redeemed by the signal overcoming the noise (even getting a comment side-barred).

I guess what I'm saying is that each of us can be part of the problem or part of the solution.

posted by spock to MetaFilter-Related at 7:39 AM (91 comments total)

People read different blogs. Certain things on the web gain popularity. Sometimes I see things on mefi first, other times I see it elsewhere.
posted by frecklefaerie at 7:44 AM on July 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

As far as the "path" I do kind of lament hitting popurls and then seeing something from there subsequently end up on mefi. But it's nice to see sometimes, because I'd much rather read the comments and reaction here than anywhere else. When the comments seem to somehow drift over from those other places too, that's when the lament starts to creep in.
posted by cashman at 7:49 AM on July 11, 2008

I'm curious as to what the membership (and particularly the MODS) thinks of the sentiment of this comment.

I think it's a well-worn one. Assertions of what mefi is or was or isn't or shouldn't be are one of the threads from which the site's history is itself woven; folks have been opinionating on the topic since back in the day was back in the day. (I did a quick roundup of "isn't" comments a couple years ago. Same general territory, if not precisely on point with what you're citing here.)

The conversation here is great. It's indispensible. It's why I stick around. It's why I registered an account in the first place, after however many months of happily lurking and following the links on the front page in 2000 and 2001. But the links are still the main event ("It's not not about the links" is how I put it a month and a half ago), so it's tricky to really diapose the two ideas because they need to co-exist.

The web is a different place than it was in 2000. Metafilter isn't one of relatively few sifting points anymore; "blog" is part of the common parlance and freakin' everybody has one and there has been just an explosion of content-filtering resources as a result as the good ones have blossomed. And the both intentional and organically emergent networking of all those resources has made it so that good, interesting content comes to light faster and more easily than it did years ago.

So I think to a degree there's some nostalgia in joeclark's comment that is, well, just that: nostalgia for a time when the territory was less mapped and links were quiet discoveries more often and didn't cascade from big link blog to big link blog. But here we are: it's 2008 and the world is a lot different.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:55 AM on July 11, 2008 [2 favorites]

I'm curious as to what the membership (and particularly the MODS) thinks of the sentiment of this comment.

Well, I don't read all the "blogs of increasingly greater readership"; in fact, I probably hardly read any of them. And then there's, what, several thousand of us making FPPs and many more thousands reading FPPs? I think it's safe to say that for every post, there are going to be people who have seen it and people who haven't.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 8:02 AM on July 11, 2008 [3 favorites]

Ha ha!
posted by Grither at 8:05 AM on July 11, 2008

It's a lot easier to see growth and change when what you're talking about is a kid or an automobile and a little different when what you're talking about is a website. I agree pretty much with what cortex says. MeFi used to be different becase the web was different and I get a little ootchy when I hear people using descriptors and phrases from a long time ago as a bludgeon against what the site is now.

I came here originally in aught-aught because it was a place to come to get pointed to new stuff on the web that was interesting and it was where my friends were "hanging out" online. I still feel like if the same link posted is posted here and other places on the web, I like to read about it here because

1. my people are here, in some weird way and I like to talk to them about things. The site skews geeky and funny and sharp in a way I relate to and don't see in a lot of other places.
2. I like to see what other people here have to say about things and I find that often there's insight here that really interests me. My example for this is this comment. The subject of a good post on MeFi just happens to be a longtime MeFi user. Woo.

That said, I'm on AskMe much much more than the main MeFi part of the site and I'm here in MeTa probably more than any of those, so I'm not a typical user of the site at all. In fact the site has grown so that we have people who hang out on various parts [AskMe, MeFi, Music, even sometimes here] who really don't venture much to other parts of the site. That's fine, but it does definitely fracture the "we're all in this together" feeling the site used to have and I think that's a natural part of time, change, whatever.

I feel that saying "it is what it is" has become the late 90s way of shirking responsibility for whatever it is being described [not pointing at you in any way spock, just an observation on what I think is this year's "whatever" phrase] and MeFi had and still has a deeply loyal committed group of users who post cool stuff, have neat discussions and seem to genuinely like the place and that shows, even if it's also got the standard helping of trolls, miscreants, whiners and jerks like every place else on the internet. I like it here.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:07 AM on July 11, 2008 [2 favorites]

I find this kind of metafiltration very useful, as it saves one the time it would take to wade through the insipid mess that is the web these days. As a bonus, MeFi commentary on stuff that migrates here from places like slashdot or the other blog is usually better than on the original sites.
posted by ghost of a past number at 8:07 AM on July 11, 2008

I hate when comments include stuff like "I’m sure this comment will go over like gangbusters." Seriously? That's like on Slashdot, where you can guarantee positive mods simply by including the text "I'm sure this will be modded to oblivion". Just let the comment speak for itself.
posted by inigo2 at 8:09 AM on July 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

The problem is that in order to get the "unique" anymore you realy have to dig. When MeFi started out in the early part of this decade, you didn't have Digg or Reddit. You had Slashdot for the techie stuff and a nascent Fark for... Fark stuff.

Now, there are what, a dozen Digg clones? And the total number of people on the Internet has grown exponentially since 2000. So "unique" is going to be almost impossible to find. You see that in the increase in double posts here. You see that in the "yeah, I saw that elsewhere" comments.

I've seen something similar happen with local news blogs. I have all the hyperlocal Seattle blogs in my Google Reader (given I blog for one of them), and I can watch a story spread across all of them over the course of a day. And all of them are saying the exact same thing, usually quoted verbatim from a local news source. At some point, it's so redundant that you're getting way more noise than signal between all of them.

I think we're seeing that too here. OTOH, there are 30-35K active members, maybe 3-4 times that many lurkers. They may not read Digg (I mean, I don't), so they missed the article. One person's redundant is another's fresh and new.

Remember, MeFi was never about "unique" or "stuff you can't see anywhere else." It might have been eight years ago, when there weren't a lot of options, but that's not what the rules suggest makes a good FPP.

From the FAQ:
"A good post to MetaFilter is something that meets the following criteria: most people haven't seen it before, there is something interesting about the content on the page, and it might warrant discussion from others."

With this font-handwriting post, I hadn't seen it before. Having seen it, I think it would be something that, had I run into it elsewhere, I would think it would make a good MeFi FPP. Why? Most people haven't seen it before, it's interesting, and it could lead to some discussion.

I think the fact Joe looks at it and thinks he'll see it on MeFi is a sign that there's a MeFi motif. Maybe the motif is becoming cliche, but it's a motif that people here already have ingrained. It's the same motif that tells us when we see someone axegrinding over religion or politics that the post is ripe for deletion.

But the redundancy we're seeing now, well, that's going to happen. I've seen it in so many other places on the web that it just becomes part of the noise and cruft. The only solution is to seek uniqueness, because there's still value in it even after we've passed Peak Uniqueness.
posted by dw at 8:17 AM on July 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

I read that comment as meaning, 'Yeah, i'm going to piss on this because i'm bored, but i'm going to dress it up as nostalgia for an half-remembered, almost entirely fictitious yesteryear of the internets.'
Dude's stealing my act.
posted by Jofus at 8:23 AM on July 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

No one points out posts that weren't already on boingboing.
posted by smackfu at 8:29 AM on July 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

I can has special snowflake ?
posted by y2karl at 8:38 AM on July 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

dw: there are currently no google returns for "peak uniqueness" (not in its intended usage there anyways). I think you have a research consortium site to build.
posted by Burhanistan at 8:39 AM on July 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

People read different blogs. And blogs of high volume also predictably have high overlap when they cover overlapping topics. But keep in mind that a site that gets a million visitors a day is still only serving a fraction of one percent of English-speaking web users. The odds are high that any link that's made the rounds is going to be brand-new to a significant number of Mefites when posted here.
posted by ardgedee at 8:40 AM on July 11, 2008

Like TPS, I don't read those other sites, so I don't give a damn what's on BoingBoing. Even so, I find stuff here that I've already been exposed to somehow or other. I don't see the need to freak out about it; I assume that not everyone has seen this thing. This kind of assumption can most often be confirmed or repudiated by reading the comments.

If you've already seen something, great! You are the man/woman/entity. It doesn't somehow cheapen this already vile site.
posted by Mister_A at 8:48 AM on July 11, 2008

But the main thing I come to MeFi for is to see and sometimes participate in a level of discourse that you don't find everywhere.

Probably a lot of people feel this way, me included. But in order to do that, I think posts on Metafilter have to be of higher quality. It shouldn't just be a single link to a CNN story, there should be history, background, unknown details, perhaps counterpoints or opposing views. After all, I can get a hamburger anywhere, but if I want a GOOD hamburger, I go to specific place in town* that does hamburgers a bit different that the usual. Sure I may hear about the latest political news story somewhere else, but I come here to see if Dashiv has anything to say about it, 'cause he makes sharp observations about politics here.

*B&D Burgers or Sweet Leaf or Sunny Side Up in Savannah, GA. Damn, it's lunchtime.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:55 AM on July 11, 2008

I would have to agree and say the discourse is what attracts me. I don't comment often in depth, but I enjoy discovering the variety of different viewpoints that come up here. We discussed this briefly at the last Amsterdam meetup and We all sort of agreed that the discourse was what metafilter offered that most sites don't. I think we also discussed if it is the $5 signup fee that partially allows this discourse to flourish as opposed to the discussions denegrate into a shitfest similar to reddit/digg/youtube/4chan. It is kind of like an evolutionary filter of sorts. I have seen this question asked before, but I wonder how the level of discourse would be different if the fee was $10 or $20.

But the redundancy we're seeing now, well, that's going to happen. I've seen it in so many other places on the web that it just becomes part of the noise and cruft. The only solution is to seek uniqueness, because there's still value in it even after we've passed Peak Uniqueness.

I agree. When MeFi was starting out, it was a new kind of thing. Now reddit and digg and so many others do essentially the same thing but there is no signup fee, moderation is shit and the motivation is different. Here we want to see new things and discuss. There it's all about points or diggs or karma or whatever the fuck it is this week.

Although I think this uniqueness of the posts is not as fresh as it once was, it is still good. There are a ot of members that craft good posts (I am sadly not among them). They go deeper and present something of substance that make others stop and think.

Oh and...

Metafilter: There will be snark.
posted by chillmost at 8:58 AM on July 11, 2008

Thanks for linking the handwriting post spock, I hadn't seen it yet.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 8:59 AM on July 11, 2008

I never really read Digg or Reddit. The post referenced from the comment was an absolute joy to read, and I fav'ed it because of that. I appreciate oneirodynia taking the time to make this post.

Friendly note to joeclark and other awesome people just like you: If you're too cool for school, take your coolness to Metatalk so that we can discuss your awesomeness here. Don't pollute threads with comments about how cool you are.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 9:00 AM on July 11, 2008 [2 favorites]

I am cool.
posted by smackfu at 9:02 AM on July 11, 2008

I am hawt.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:06 AM on July 11, 2008

My first post here was a single-link video that had apparently been around for, like 3 days (i.e ages) on the internet before I posted it (not that I knew this at the time). For all the reasonably positive responses, I still remember the "i saw this on fark" comment most. It really affected me as first-time poster, and made me question what I should try and post here (I don't read Fark, btw). To me, comments like joeclark's run along the same line. They give the impression that metafilter readers should be going to all these other sites for the "common variety" internet websites, and that metafilter is a place that should be reserved for the truly unique. Which I can understand, I guess, is in keeping with the "best of the web" ideal. But I like the all-encompassing nature of the present-day metafilter. I don't want to go anywhere else. And for all the extra apparent mundaneness that this new metafilter brings, I now get the choice of reading comments by (what I think, by the large) an incredibly intelligent community on a larger variety of topics, ranging from the more everyday newsfilter issues, to the unique and/or obscure posts that would fit joeclark's criteria for the truly best of the web.
In short: If you see something here that you've seen before elsewhere, feel free to not let us all know about it, and move on to commenting (positively, I hope) on those posts that truly garner your admiration.
posted by kisch mokusch at 9:07 AM on July 11, 2008 [2 favorites]

Sometimes I feel like people are posting to Metafilter just out of obligation. "OMG, this hasn't been posted here yet?"
posted by smackfu at 9:12 AM on July 11, 2008

Brandon Blatcher: It shouldn't just be a single link to a CNN story

Because of the current "first post stays unless the poster of the first post requests his gets taken down" policy NewsFilter is going to be dominated by single link news site posts. Though I haven't thought of a better policy for this kind of situation myself.

And well, MetaFilter finds things last, sometimes it finds thing first and every once in a while it digs up things so obscure that no one's heard of it. I think MetaFilter does it better than any other site on the internet, that's why I started to come here and hung around until I felt like I was part of a community.
posted by Kattullus at 9:17 AM on July 11, 2008

Though I haven't thought of a better policy for this kind of situation myself.

Merge the two posts. I'm guessing the mods don't want the hassle of having to choose which one is better and all the arguments that could spawn, so just merge'em as opposed to having to make the user repost it.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:22 AM on July 11, 2008

I had seen the font handwriting post before, but I didn't feel compelled to mention it in the thread. There's nothing that bugs me more on this site than people's need to interject "This is Old"* or "via bOING bOING?" into a discussion. I mean, who gives a fuck? Typically the front page is a bunch of links that most people haven't seen before. This is pretty obvious to anyone who regularly visits. So you've seen something elsewhere. What's the use of dropping a little turd in the thread to tell everyone you've seen it?

Oh. Yeah. To tell everyone you've see it on all the other high profile blogs. I READ HIGH PROFILE BLOGS. LOVE ME.

*Of course, there is a line. AYBABTU, Zombo, Get Your War On, I can haz x. These things everyone has seen, even your 70 year old Grandma with the new Facebook page. But Metafilter doesn't typically traffic in things that moldy anyway. (The links, I mean-- not your grandmother.)
posted by eyeballkid at 9:22 AM on July 11, 2008

Here's my translation of that comment:

I was wondering how long this would take to hit the front page.

I read this a long time ago, so I'm cooler than you.

There seems to be a defined path now along blogs of increasingly greater readership.

I read this a long time ago in a more exclusive blog than this one, so I'm cooler than you.

(I’m contrasting this scenario with the original intent of MetaFilter, which was to show you what you hadn’t already heard about.) I’m sure this comment will go over like gangbusters.

I'm definitely not writing this to point out that I'm cooler than you; it's for the good of the site.
posted by scottreynen at 9:24 AM on July 11, 2008 [6 favorites]

Because of the current "first post stays unless the poster of the first post requests his gets taken down" policy NewsFilter is going to be dominated by single link news site posts. Though I haven't thought of a better policy for this kind of situation myself.


Funny. I thought about this too. The only thing I came up with is this:

Posts made to the front page appear on the front page right away but no comments are allowed until after X minutes (lets say X=30)

So, if there's an obit post or something, everyone can see the multiple posts. And an admin can easily delete the weak one in favor of the stronger one that arrived a few minutes later. The wait on comments also has the potential benefit of allowing people to actually take time to read the post before posting a comment...
posted by vacapinta at 9:26 AM on July 11, 2008

I'm with you fellers.
posted by sciurus at 9:30 AM on July 11, 2008

I hate the "Farkification" of MeFi as much as anybody and ONLY turning every thread into a LOL opportunity gets a little old.

You must realize this website began with scanned cats. Like, images of cats from scanners.

You can post a history of Haitian slavery, or maybe a Foucault discourse on the panopticon, but it really comes back to cats wedged into scanners.
posted by plexi at 9:30 AM on July 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

I like the idea of an enforced wait for commenting to discourage the LOLOBVIOUS thread crappers out there, but it wouldn't really do to have a set time. What if it was a short video link that was only 3 minutes long? What if it was a few short articles that only took 8 minutes to read, even with careful, non-skimming style reading?
posted by Burhanistan at 9:31 AM on July 11, 2008

*stands up, clears throat*

Man, FARK is always taking it in the dumper around here. I'll say it: I check out FARK pretty much daily. Sometimes they have good links. Sometimes they're shit. Just like some other site whose name eludes me right now. (I generally don't bother with reading comments, as they don't do "discussion" well there, which is what I think most people here get shirty about occasionally, which is fine. Though I will occasionally check out the photoshop threads.) ANYWAY. It's common to hear people grump about MetaFilter turning into FARK; people have been saying it for years, and I'm just gonna say: don't worry about it. This site is not FARK, it never has been, and I don't see any more signs of our slide into it than I did five years ago. They are two different sites with two starkly different ways of going about their everyday business, and that's cool.

Boy, I love MetaTalk. I mean it. Nobody does a dog park quite like MeTa, complete with endless ass-sniffing and occasional anarchic frisbee parties.
posted by Skot at 9:31 AM on July 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

And an admin can easily delete the weak one in favor of the stronger one

The reason we don't do this is because sometimes it's really hard to decide which is stronger and the last thing we need in the obit post world is more contention. We try really hard to avoid as many judgment calls as possible. Merging the posts is something that won't happen, it's "editing" for all intents and purposes and against the Mod Code of Conduct.

So if someone posts a really superduper weak link obit and there's another much better one hot on the heels of it, we'll go for the second one. Otherwise we just try really hard to encourage people to not post lousy obit posts if they can possibly help it. Obit posts are weird because for some people they're like a breaking news story and to others they're a way to honor the deceased or in some cases let people know about someone who was great who they may not have known about.

Most of the time obit posts work fine here, they're just glaring when they don't because of the emotional component involved.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:34 AM on July 11, 2008

I don't read ANY of the other major blogs, ever.
Mefi, mefi, mefi,
Mefi, mefi, mefi,
Mefi is all you need.

Also:
It shouldn't just be a single link to a CNN story, there should be history, background, unknown details, perhaps counterpoints or opposing views.

No, no, no. It shouldn't be a link to a CNN story at all, regardless of how it's padded out.
posted by signal at 9:34 AM on July 11, 2008

i came here for THE SEXY MODS, baybeee.
posted by rmd1023 at 9:37 AM on July 11, 2008

I don't read ANY of the other major blogs, ever.
Mefi, mefi, mefi,
Mefi, mefi, mefi,
Mefi is all you need.
posted by signal

That would have made a better haiku:
Mefi Mefi Me
FiMe FiMe FiMefi
All that one could need
posted by Grither at 9:43 AM on July 11, 2008

I come here for the thin-skinned passive agressive whining.
posted by Artw at 9:45 AM on July 11, 2008 [5 favorites]

I posted a rather promiscuous article yesterday (the WSJ/4chan one), only because it puzzled me that no one else had already done so. The way I see it, if something gets passed around among a bunch the blogs I read, there's no reason the MeFites who don't read those blogs should be left out of the loop.

It's admittedly not the best reason for posting something, but there you have it.
posted by Sys Rq at 9:49 AM on July 11, 2008

I come here for the thin-skinned passive agressive whining.

Don't be so hard on yourself Artw, sometimes you make posts about SF too.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:50 AM on July 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

I'm so tired of not quite knowing what you mean when you say things like that, Artw.
posted by sciurus at 9:51 AM on July 11, 2008

O no she di'n!
posted by Mister_A at 9:55 AM on July 11, 2008

I come here for the pileons on Artw.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 9:55 AM on July 11, 2008

I come here for the thin-skinned passive agressive whining.

Mefi is just like America!!
posted by inigo2 at 10:09 AM on July 11, 2008

I came here for an argument.
posted by Mister_A at 10:12 AM on July 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

cm hr fr th lck of dsmvlwng.

Best place on the net, at the moment, to have an actual discussion of something rather than just a hyperlink. And while that discussion can range from snark to flippant to joyous to sorrowful, many of them I feel more of.. well.. enriched, then I did before reading. And when I say many, I heartfully mean many, many more than any other site I've had in my routine.
posted by cavalier at 10:13 AM on July 11, 2008

I come here for the thin-skinned passive agressive whining.

And if you didn't come here, it would be a lot scarcer.
posted by jamjam at 10:29 AM on July 11, 2008

Back in the day, when MeFi started, I read lots of blogs. But there was so much new "cool" web stuff happening that I'd still find things here that I hadn't seen somewhere else first.

Now, eight years later, I don't read other blogs or meta-blogs at all. So I still find here that I hadn't seen somewhere else first.

So for me nothing has changed.

The conversation is hit and miss. Usually it has the most value when it leads me to more links. Usually.
posted by Ragma at 10:32 AM on July 11, 2008

Warren Ellis's thoughts are somewhat pertinent. I don't agree with him entirely, but I found it interesting.

Of course there is huge overlap between high-profile link blogs, but as Jess and others have pointed out, there are markedly different "flavors" between them. I like MeFi, it's the soft-serv with colored sprinkles among big linkers.
posted by everichon at 10:32 AM on July 11, 2008

Also, I would like for "it is what it is" to be put up in the attic along with "step up to the plate" and "at the end of the day". Gah.
posted by everichon at 10:37 AM on July 11, 2008

I came here for an argument.

Oh! I'm sorry. This is abuse
posted by solipsophistocracy at 10:54 AM on July 11, 2008 [2 favorites]

I'm another person who pretty much only uses Metafilter*, so I appreciate it when links that have gone up elsewhere are put up here, and my mental response when I see a I-saw-this-on-whatever comment is "So fucking what? I didn't."

And the discussions almost always make it worth it, I think. There's no point in reading comments on Digg or Slashdot. They're almost as bad a YouTube comments, most of the time, whereas here, there is almost always either something insightful or at least witty to read.
posted by Caduceus at 11:04 AM on July 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

Er...

*I do troll Digg when I'm really, really bored. I usually just end up reading Cracked.com lists. So I haven't done that for a long time now.
posted by Caduceus at 11:06 AM on July 11, 2008

*Footnote misplaced. -Eds.
posted by Mister_A at 11:07 AM on July 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

*Ach! Ruined my joke!
posted by Mister_A at 11:07 AM on July 11, 2008

Metatalk: anarchic frisbee parties
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:08 AM on July 11, 2008

Metatalk: Footnote misplaced.
posted by wendell at 11:37 AM on July 11, 2008

I come here for the thin-skinned passive agressive whining.

I'm the guy who sucks. Plus I got deleted.
posted by octobersurprise at 11:43 AM on July 11, 2008

Warren Ellis's thoughts are somewhat pertinent. I don't agree with him entirely, but I found it interesting.

Of course Warren Elllis general approach to running anything on the web is basically Stalinist, if Stalin randomly shut down countries and enthusiastically started new ones all the time. I will say this for him: He's relatively open and unapologetic about it, unlike certain other internet media figures named in that piece..
posted by Artw at 11:51 AM on July 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

it's the soft-serv with colored sprinkles

I'm so so happy you didn't say jimmies.
posted by inigo2 at 11:52 AM on July 11, 2008

I'm so so happy you didn't say jimmies

Jimmies are "chocolate".
posted by everichon at 12:00 PM on July 11, 2008

Of course, in Milwaukee we call them Braunwinzingköstlichen.

No we don't.
posted by everichon at 12:06 PM on July 11, 2008

I just stick to meta too. I may check out gizmodo or other tech blogs once in a while when there is some iphone stuff to be had but I can count on seeing all the good stuff here. I appreciate not having to wade through all the drivel.
posted by pearlybob at 12:07 PM on July 11, 2008

I actually still look at Slashdot a lot, as they occasionally touch on stuff I'm interested in, but the volume of ham-fisted attacks on MS to real posts is often disaspointing, and the comments are a dead loss. Pre Boing Boing flap I'd pretty much wound down looking there, as they're going some place I'm not interested in, and I'd never actually looked at the comments.
posted by Artw at 12:13 PM on July 11, 2008

Way back in the dayi had a Plastic account, I'm always vaguely suprised that they are still going.
posted by Artw at 12:15 PM on July 11, 2008

Here's my translation of that comment:

I was wondering how long this would take to hit the front page.

I read this a long time ago, so I'm cooler than you.

Or, alternately...

I live in my parent's basement.
posted by y2karl at 12:32 PM on July 11, 2008

9/11 changed everything, even Metafilter. Genie's out of that bottle, and it ain't never going back.

*shuffles off to reminisce about Yahoo!'s days as a hand-crafted link directory*
posted by mkultra at 12:32 PM on July 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

I’m sure this comment will go over like gangbusters.

If you mean that it will open with a lot of useless shrill noise, you're right.

Like others here have said, I don't usually read other sites, and as a result, everything that is here is usually going to be new to me. Now, I'm thrilled that you are so fantastically well read, that you have seen all these links already, but as a personal favor, next time you notice some cross-site action, rather than letting everyone in the thread know it, how about you just put a little gold star on your monitor. When you've covered the whole thing, you will have won at the Internet.

Won't that be fun?
posted by quin at 1:00 PM on July 11, 2008 [4 favorites]

Even the most dedicated web addict can't have seen everything.

Yeah, OK, maybe not everything.

But if you voraciously consume all the feeds from reddit, del.icio.us, popurls, etc - you'll end up seeing about 99% of what will be posted to MetaFilter before it is posted.

Not that I would know anything about that. No, I don't have a problem. I can quit any time. Right now? Ok, go for it HEY FUCK YOU BUDDY PUT THOSE BOOKMARKLETS BACK OR I'LL PUT YOU IN THE FUCKING HOSPITAL.

OK. Maybe I have a problem.
posted by loquacious at 1:18 PM on July 11, 2008

you'll end up seeing about 99% of what will be posted to MetaFilter before it is posted.

I'd put that figure closer to 70% rather than 99%. There is still a fair amount of pet interest posting to Metafilter that doesn't really make the rounds in the same way as other links. It would be interesting to see a real breakdown of what gets posted where and when.

Maybe?
posted by Burhanistan at 1:23 PM on July 11, 2008

more seriously, i don't bother with digg or reddit or slashdot et al. metafilter has a much higher 'interesting signal' to noise ratio for me.
posted by rmd1023 at 1:39 PM on July 11, 2008

Or, alternately...

I live in my parent's basement.
posted by y2karl

That might make sense if the comment came from an anonymous source. I'm pretty sure if Joe Clark is living with his mother it's his choice.

I'd put that figure closer to 70% rather than 99%. There is still a fair amount of pet interest posting to Metafilter that doesn't really make the rounds in the same way as other links.

If we're throwing numbers around I'd definitely go somewhere in the 90s. It was disconcerting the first time I was sent a link by my grandmother that appeared on metafilter a week later, but then again, my grandmother is pretty hip.

Times have changed and that happens far more often today than it did when I first joined metafilter, but that doesn't mean metafilter hasn't a lot to add in other ways. If I had one site to follow for links, I'd still pick metafilter, even if my grandmother laughed at me.
posted by justgary at 1:44 PM on July 11, 2008

Times have changed and that happens far more often today than it did when I first joined metafilter, but that doesn't mean metafilter hasn't a lot to add in other ways. If I had one site to follow for links, I'd still pick metafilter, even if my grandmother laughed at me.

I'm here for the discussions. Good, raw, hot text. I hardly ever click on links in FPPs anymore because by the time they make it to the front page I've already seen them. Occasionally there's additional supporting links - or, thank god, all original special-interest posts.

Which is nice, 'cause then I can jump right to the front of the line for foisting my snarky windbag commentary on all you nice folks, because I already RTFA.

Yeah, I was that weird kid in your class that read the whole textbook in the first couple days of the school year, then proceeded to sleep for the rest of the year and not do any homework at all.
posted by loquacious at 1:53 PM on July 11, 2008

I'm curious about this, loquacious... could you, for a week or so, note how many of the FPPed sites have already appeared on digg, del.icio.us, popurls et al? It would be interesting to get some actual hard data on this.
posted by Kattullus at 2:01 PM on July 11, 2008

Yeah, I was that weird kid in your class that read the whole textbook in the first couple days of the school year, then proceeded to sleep for the rest of the year and not do any homework at all.

We are legion. ;o)
posted by everichon at 2:01 PM on July 11, 2008

Or, alternately...

I live in my parent's basement.
posted by y2karl

Hey man, lay off. The economy ain't exactly stellar right now, and grad school isn't cheap. I need to save money wherever the fuck I can.

Oh wait, you were talking about someone else. I said nothing. Move along. These aren't the droids you're looking for.
posted by Caduceus at 2:04 PM on July 11, 2008

oddly enough, I've never seen lolcats, All Your Base, or many other internent memes everyone says are so universal, because they weren't posted to mefi. and I'm fine with that.
posted by nomisxid at 3:40 PM on July 11, 2008

I hate when comments include stuff like "I’m sure this comment will go over like gangbusters."

Yeah, I read that as "Don't bother to take anything I say seriously," so I don't.
posted by languagehat at 3:42 PM on July 11, 2008

lolcats, All Your Base

I hate to break it to you...
posted by cortex (staff) at 3:51 PM on July 11, 2008

Metafilter: like anything else, it's whatever you think it is, except when it's not, then you get mad.
posted by rooftop secrets at 4:16 PM on July 11, 2008 [1 favorite]

Whenever anybody talks about 'upgrading the level of discourse,' I take that as code for 'this place would be so much better if everyone here talked, thought, and wrote exactly like me.'
posted by jonmc at 4:40 PM on July 11, 2008

so what cortex, do I now I you a meow-culpa?

in my defense, the lolcats were posted at 7:46pm, and AYB at 8:47 pm, well outside of standard business surfing hours.
posted by nomisxid at 4:41 PM on July 11, 2008

er, "do i now owe you"
posted by nomisxid at 4:41 PM on July 11, 2008

IT IS WHAT IT IS

Used exclusively by TV know-it-alls to summarize something they do not understand, repeatedly vomiting it up at the end of thoughts where they have to mask the fact that they have just said several seconds or minutes of NOTHING.

(p.s. not pointing at you spock! in fact, i can't even tell why you used it)
posted by poppo at 4:42 PM on July 11, 2008

I am cool.
posted by smackfu at 9:02 AM on July 11 [+] [!]


I am hawt.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:06 AM on July 11 [+] [!]

I am both cool and hawt, and I am full of gas. What am I?

answer: a sterling engine
posted by davejay at 5:48 PM on July 11, 2008

I'm kind of lukewarm, myself.
posted by jonmc at 5:57 PM on July 11, 2008

You're a dead, bellyslit tauntaun?
posted by cortex (staff) at 6:07 PM on July 11, 2008 [3 favorites]

darth vader hot air balloon?
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:10 PM on July 11, 2008

Aw, DUDE. That would so sound just like him!
posted by Sys Rq at 6:11 PM on July 11, 2008

I understand where joeclark is coming from, but I think cortex expressed it well, the internet is different than it was in the first years of mefi. There are a bazillion link blogs, many quite good, and good links spread through the tubes of the internets with blazing speed. Someone who visits a number of linkblogs every day will be pretty much up on all the current cool links, memes etc. One thing has not changed for me about mefi though, it is the lazy surfer's paradise. I don't have time to visit all those cool link blogs. If I just surf mefi I am assured of seeing most of the best stuff with few exceptions. I hit a few other blogs regularly, like digg and BB, but mefi serves most of my needs.

It's funny that he complained about that particular post. For whatever reason I have been surfing up gads of linkblogs in the past few days and that thing never came up. It hardly seems universal.
posted by caddis at 7:32 PM on July 11, 2008

nomisxid: oddly enough, I've never seen lolcats, All Your Base, or many other internent memes everyone says are so universal, because they weren't posted to mefi.

All Your Base was how I found this place, way back in 2001.
posted by Kattullus at 8:52 PM on July 11, 2008

jessamyn: "...I'm here in MeTa probably more than any of those, so I'm not a typical user of the site at all..."
Maybe not typical, but perhaps more common than you think. I almost never comment on MeFi any more (although I read it most days), because I just don't have time. I try to catch up with AskMe at lunchtimes, but mostly don't get lunch breaks these days, so that's pretty much gone. Anyway, if I had to choose one place where I feel most at home, this is it. That probably doesn't say much that's positive about me, but I am what I am.
posted by dg at 4:08 AM on July 12, 2008