68: Best Post Contest Results

January 2, 2012 4:09 PM

Podcast 68 was recorded earlier today and features a discussion of our favorite posts from last month's Best Post Contest, including all the posts we liked and the final winners. It runs nearly 90min long.

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Music in this podcast
Auld Lang Syne, ragtime fingerstyle arrangement by The White Hat
Jingle Bells by flapjax at midnite

Announcement thread for this year's contest

Past winners:
(2006) Effigy2000, madamjujujive, hindmost
(2008) Rhaomi, Miko, Ambrosia Voyeur, CheeseDigestAll
(2010) Rhaomi, Channey, filthy light thief, JHarris

Posts considered:
all posts for december, Sorted by most favorites for December

Best Single-link nominations:
I can't stop acquiring books

Best pole dancing video ever

David Lynch's coffee commercial (it's real)

Free Cabin Porn (sonascope's post about living in the middle of nowhere, my cabin in the woods)

Seeking to the elusive call of the endangered Cthulhu

Cat Serendipity

How to write a 6,000 word adventure story

Carts of Darkness documentary

Hugcam: looping video of hugs

Submarine escape from WWII

Making boxes like a boss

Dull Rock 'n Roll anecdotes

Hanson Beer

THE WINNER IS: Free Cabin Porn by middleclasstool


Best multi-link nominations:

What's it like to understand advanced mathematics?

Mozilla's HTML developer docs

VASSAL, the open-source online board game engine

(lingering one-link post: VW story from Bring a Trailer)

Best of 2011: Space and Astronomy

The story of homosexuality and psychiatry

Every live Fugazi show ever

Microphone pendulum sound experiment

The Jefferson Bible

Next Time, on Lonny

How to fly with instruments

Nameless naked person with no memory of who they are and is still a mystery

In the Cut: how to shoot action sequences in famous movies

THE WINNER IS: VASSAL, the open-source online board game engine by JHarris


Best Megalink/Best Overall post nominations:

India's attempt to put a railway across Africa (map of the network, Megatransect)

Mary Toft, the rabbit lady

Gigographies

Welcome to Muppet Labs

The first crime of the century

Brandon Blatcher's Apollo posts: Apollo 15, Apollo 17

Cereal box records

International Fair Play Committee winners

Sesame Street's David

All about Charlie Chan

The O Brother Where Art Thou music post

History of Falco's career

THE WINNER IS Best Megalink post: Gigographies by Knappster

THE WINNER IS Best Overall post: History of Falco's career by hippybear



Special favorite awards:
jessamyn: Mary Toft by kittenmarlowe

cortex: O Brother Where Art Thou by Rhaomi and What if Sonic ran like an idiot by hot_monster

taz:

The Secret Parisian Painter was my personal favorite post that didn't fit into the other categories. I'd never heard of Claude Verlinde before, and I'm entranced. I love the art, and I love that he seems to have liked painting about books and libraries, dreams, the subconscious, and the psyche, among other things. I pretty much want to pore over every single image, and I like to imagine what he would be painting as a young artist today. As a couple of others mentioned in the thread, I'd really, really love to see his work in a physical medium.

I've gone back to the post and followed the links (and looked up more on my own) many times since it was posted, and the artist himself is still pretty much a mystery. As someone wrote in a blog post elsewhere, I sort of want to live in this painting. (by adamvasco)

pb: One Time Secret by netbros and Rules for Games by griphus

restless_nomad: A Camelot post by kittenmarlowe

mathowie: How Drive got its look by morganw and Halal chicken recipe by AceRock

Winners will be contacted via email/MeFi mail in the next few days to talk prizes. Also, feel free to post what your favorites were in the comments.

posted by mathowie to MeFi Podcast at 4:09 PM (74 comments total)

All worthy winners. Perfect timing, I have a 13 hr flight today. Der Kommisar is pleased.
posted by arcticseal at 4:21 PM on January 2 [1 favorite]

Holy crap. First ever FPP and I win a prize. Thanks!
posted by middleclasstool at 4:37 PM on January 2 [31 favorites]

Awesome. Congrats and thanks to everyone.
posted by rtha at 4:38 PM on January 2

There's no free porn or cabins. I cry foul. I want a free cabin.
posted by cjorgensen at 4:46 PM on January 2

Congrats to all the winners!
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 4:46 PM on January 2

THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS.

Carts Of Darkness, Seeking the elusive call of the endangered Cthulhu, and mmmHop aren't even single-link FPPs, and yet my highly-favorited post It's good to be picky about what you put inside your mouth was snubbed for a nomination?


BKRLLLEEAAARRRHHHHHHOJF:LL: $@!!*%$# ICRYFOUL
posted by troll at 4:47 PM on January 2

Congrats, middleclasstool! That whole thread was awesome.
posted by ColdChef at 4:48 PM on January 2 [1 favorite]

Congrats to all!

And a correction: Rhaomi won Best Post last year for The Post That Cannot Possibly Go Wrong (with the fantastic comment by Yoz Grahame, the main web hacker working on ST and its associated sites)
posted by filthy light thief at 4:53 PM on January 2 [1 favorite]

Rhaomi won Best Post last year

Ah thanks, I don't know how we all spaced that. I added it to mathowie's post.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 4:57 PM on January 2

Awesome! Congratulations, everyone!! :D
posted by zarq at 5:03 PM on January 2

Two wins? Whee!
posted by kittenmarlowe at 5:11 PM on January 2 [1 favorite]

One hears it during every awards ceremony, but in my case it's very true: given the great posts this past month, it's an honor just to be nominated. Thank you very much.
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 5:23 PM on January 2 [1 favorite]

Congrats to the winners!

Also, I can't believe I didn't notice The Secret Parisian Painter. That's a wonderful post. Other than that, my personal top five (in chronological order) are Skeptic's post about the new prime minister of Belgium, timsteil's post about breakin up Christmas, daniel_charms' post about the Futurist opera Victory Over the Sun, ennui.bz's post about Hannsjörg Voth's Boot aus Stein sculpture and its sinking and infinite intimation's post about the bone collecting kid.

It was interesting listening to the discussion between mathowie, jessamyn and cortex. It's always fascinating to me to hear what it is that people look for in MetaFilter posts. My preferences are very different from theirs and I found it really striking to hear them talk about why it is they like the posts they like.
posted by Kattullus at 5:32 PM on January 2 [3 favorites]

Hippybear's post was exactly what has drawn me to Metafilter and keeps me here over time, a relentless attention to detail, obsession with finding all the links and backstory, and lively discussion in the comments. Congratulations to all the winners.
posted by xingcat at 5:34 PM on January 2 [2 favorites]

I'm stunned. I hadn't even considered that it was contest month when I put that post up. I had been researching it for something like 4 months on and off, and it was finally time to break down and actually put it together, and so I did. Like I do with all my mega-posts. When it's time, it's time.

I'd like to thank everyone who made this possible. Starting with my German teacher in high school, Frau Small, and my year in Germany with Rotary Student Exchange... Also the people who invented the web and YouTube... And the mod team for appreciating my work (I'm still stunned)... And of course, Hans Hölzel, without whom none of this would have been possible.

(And this comes along right around the time I passed the 10,000 comment mark on The Blue? Goodness! December... it's a helluva drug!)
posted by hippybear at 5:49 PM on January 2

troll: THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS.

Carts Of Darkness, Seeking the elusive call of the endangered Cthulhu, and mmmHop aren't even single-link FPPs, and yet my highly-favorited post It's good to be picky about what you put inside your mouth was snubbed for a nomination?

That's discussed in the podcast. There's a discussion about what "single link" really means, at least for comments.
posted by filthy light thief at 6:00 PM on January 2

I prefer "BKRLLLEEAAARRRHHHHHHOJF:LL: $@!!*%$#" to "grar".
posted by gman at 6:21 PM on January 2 [2 favorites]

This was a great way to digest the month of December, since I was mostly too busy to hang out and read. Katullus, thanks for posting BReaking Up Christmas - right up my alley and I had missed it. A great month of interesting stuff!
posted by Miko at 6:25 PM on January 2

I think JHarris should get some kind of special endurance award for making one really solid post every single day for the last month. Wow!
posted by Rhaomi at 6:31 PM on January 2 [7 favorites]

Congratulations, everybody!
posted by box at 6:36 PM on January 2

I think JHarris should get some kind of special endurance award for making one really solid post every single day for the last month.

And not only that, most of them are good, multi-link posts, not just an attempt to make some sort of record (which may go to jonson, who possibly had sockpuppets to post more good stuff).
posted by filthy light thief at 6:46 PM on January 2 [1 favorite]

THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS.

Tell me about it. If every day was Christmas, I'm sure I would've won something.
posted by philip-random at 6:51 PM on January 2

Did anyone else make the halal cart chicken? I did and my family loved it.
posted by padraigin at 7:03 PM on January 2

And now I know jessamyn runs like Franklin drives.
posted by filthy light thief at 7:08 PM on January 2

I posted a Santorum pun and got nothing? This whole thing is a fraud.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 7:18 PM on January 2 [1 favorite]

Congrats!
posted by Sailormom at 7:43 PM on January 2

Oh wow cool whoa thanks for the nomination! SERIOUSLY: December kicked ass. Hey MetaFilter? I like you. I learn (and learn about) so much cool stuff here everyday.
posted by davidjmcgee at 7:46 PM on January 2 [2 favorites]

I'll dig into everything later, but I can't believe I missed that monstrous Falco post!
posted by Slack-a-gogo at 8:04 PM on January 2

YouTube has put the Adult Content lockdown on that pole dancing video.

Apparently, gymnastics is porn now.
posted by Sys Rq at 8:06 PM on January 2

Also, hearing about Matt's fear of Beaker makes mee-howie even more sublime.
posted by Rhaomi at 8:18 PM on January 2 [1 favorite]

This was a fun month. Thanks for all the great posts!
posted by SpacemanStix at 8:53 PM on January 2

I think JHarris should get some kind of special endurance award for making one really solid post every single day for the last month.

He did give fair warning that he was bringing his a-game.
posted by SpacemanStix at 8:57 PM on January 2 [1 favorite]

I actually have just the perfect special honorable mention award for JHarris. I'll make inquiries.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:10 PM on January 2

Also also, since reading through the backlog of posts I've missed (150+ in Google Reader!) is reminding me how challenging it can be to digest a "megalink" post you haven't made yourself, here's a distilled list of the best original music and links from the O Brother music FPP:

Above-the-fold stuff:
The full movie: in one piece - as a playlist

behind-the-scenes essay by T-Bone Burnett

multi-part analysis of the film's mythology

The most important link: The great documentary/concert film Down From the Mountain free on YouTube and Hulu, featuring interviews and live performances of the film's songs plus original music by all the soundtrack's star musicians. Not available outside the US, but there are links to individual clips of the concert performances below the fold of the main post.

Best cover versions of the soundtrack's songs:
"Po' Lazarus" - Bright Light Quartet
"Big Rock Candy Mountain" - John Hartford
"Man of Constant Sorrow" (instrumental) - John Hartford
"Man of Constant Sorrow" - Bob Dylan
"Hard Time Killing Floor Blues" - Skip James
"I'll Fly Away" - Johnny Cash et al
"I Am Weary, Let Me Rest" - The Cox Family
"O Death" - Jen Titus
"Indian War Whoop" - John Hartford and Gillian Welch
"Lonesome Valley" - Million Dollar Quartet (Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins)
"Angel Band" - Ralph Stanley + everbody

Original songs from the concert only:
"Wild Bill Jones" - Alison Krauss and Union Station
"Blue and Lonesome" - Alison Krauss and Union Station
"Green Pastures" - Emmylou Harris and Gillian Welch
"John Law Burned Down the Liquor Store" - Chris Thomas King and Colin Linden
"Will There Be Any Stars In My Crown?" - The Cox Family
"Dear Someone" by Gillian Welch, David Rawlings, and John Hartford
"I Want to Sing That Rock and Roll" - Gillian Welch and David Rawlings
"Shove That Hog's Foot Further In the Bed" - John Hartford



And I think I have the perfect request for cortex's banjo (such a cool prize): "I Am a Man Mod of Constant Sorrow"! I'm a fan of your parody songs (bluegrass "Everything I Do" is priceless), and that track's lyrically ripe for it. Maybe even with some spliced-in Matt/Jessamyn accompan... accompani... popping in to add a refrain. I can see the video now...
posted by Rhaomi at 10:29 PM on January 2 [6 favorites]

Shouldn't this be in the sidebar?
posted by mokin at 11:02 PM on January 2 [3 favorites]

John Hartford was the last minstrel in America.
posted by Sailormom at 11:20 PM on January 2

Am I the only one who heard the band start playing during hippybear's acceptance speech, er, comment?

Congrats to you and to all. My contributions are a glib comment now & then, but MF has led me places I wouldn't have found on my own. For that, thanks to everyone.
posted by wallabear at 11:25 PM on January 2

Shouldn't this be in the sidebar?

It's there now.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 11:35 PM on January 2

Ah, sweet sweet dinnertime link viewing. Makes every ~New Year's Day awesome.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 1:19 AM on January 3

Congrats to all winners. Even though my picks would mostly have been completely different (other than JHarris' post on VASSAL), I think all the winners are awesome posters. Also, if there's one thing to learn from this competition it's that the best way to win it is by not trying hard to win but consistently making great posts all year round and just keeping it up through December.
posted by daniel_charms at 1:26 AM on January 3

Consolation prize: Photographic evidence of superior IRL trolling.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 1:34 AM on January 3 [4 favorites]

Wow! I got nominated (Nameless naked man). Thanks!
posted by vidur at 1:42 AM on January 3

One hears it during every awards ceremony...

Thought you were going to thank your parents!
posted by Abiezer at 1:50 AM on January 3

given the great posts this past month, it's an honor just to be nominated. Thank you very much.

Really rock solid posts
posted by infini at 2:05 AM on January 3

That Mary Toft post should get a prize for being simply otherworldly WTF
posted by infini at 2:07 AM on January 3 [3 favorites]

*Blushes* checks taz's profile, sees she has a husband, espouses her anyway.
Seriously, thank you for the consideration. I'm glad that post bought you pleasure. Un abrazo a todos.
posted by adamvasco at 3:27 AM on January 3 [1 favorite]

So that MeTa about Faze didn't receive a nomination? Disappointing.
posted by slogger at 5:41 AM on January 3

Oh. Should have done a post about Apollo 16 then.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:05 AM on January 3 [3 favorites]

"I Am a Man Mod of Constant Sorrow"!

I think that can happen.

I figure by the same thematic reasoning, hot_monster's special mod pick prize for the Doofy Sonic post is the small-frame-count poorly-drawn animated gif of their choice.
posted by cortex (staff) at 6:28 AM on January 3

Has anybody ever seen hippybear and Rhaomi in the same room at the same time?
posted by bukvich at 6:43 AM on January 3

I've not been able to decide if I have a crush on hippybear or we've had fights in the threads before and I should be hating his guts
posted by infini at 6:48 AM on January 3 [1 favorite]

infini: "I've not been able to decide if I have a crush on hippybear or we've had fights in the threads before and I should be hating his guts"

Hug it out.
posted by zarq at 7:02 AM on January 3

Oh. Should have done a post about Apollo 16 then.

Would you, please? Hey: might qualify for best of '12 ;)
posted by zomg at 7:03 AM on January 3

troll: "THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS.

Carts Of Darkness, Seeking the elusive call of the endangered Cthulhu, and mmmHop aren't even single-link FPPs, and yet my highly-favorited post It's good to be picky about what you put inside your mouth was snubbed for a nomination?"

"The favorites, they do nothing!"
posted by Deathalicious at 7:10 AM on January 3 [1 favorite]

BTW I'd hoped one of my posts would get a nod too, but I guess that's just the way the cookie crumbles. For me, the best part of the contest was its motivation for me to post stuff that I found rather than just thinking, "Eh, I'll post it later", with later being a variable equal to or greater than never.

I'm inspired/annoyed by hippybears admission that he'd forgotten about the contest and had just posted that megalith for the love of it. I have a post that I've been pondering for over a year and have pulled up a bunch of links for it; going to start delving into the research for it and do a bunch of reading; expect to see something neat in March!
posted by Deathalicious at 7:15 AM on January 3 [1 favorite]

Deathalicious: "expect to see something neat in March!"

Cool! Looking forward to seeing it.
posted by zarq at 7:39 AM on January 3 [1 favorite]

In a way I'm glad this is over. Off in ten days again to deepest darkest whatsits bitchin' about bandwidth costs, this time till April!! There's a good likelihood what little juice my laptop will get will come direct from teh sun
posted by infini at 8:02 AM on January 3

jessamyn: almost all of the Olympia shows were recorded, so they should be available eventually: they'll be adding to the archive monthly until they've done them all.

I think the VASSAL post was more worthy, but the moment that Matt says that it was "barely two links" drove the ontologist in me totally crazy.
posted by anotherpanacea at 8:03 AM on January 3

Would you, please? Hey: might qualify for best of '12 ;)

Gotta do that post about Apollo 9 first.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:08 AM on January 3 [1 favorite]

I am curious to know what the mod prizes are.
posted by grouse at 8:08 AM on January 3

I just dropped kittenmarlowe a note saying "My prize is some weird book from my collection. I have one about a leper colony, one about typhoid Mary and one about the history of smallpox, any of which might be interesting."
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:10 AM on January 3 [1 favorite]

Mine will be a copy of peacay's book "BibliOdyssey," unless the shipping charge from Amazon UK is something crazy.
posted by taz (staff) at 8:45 AM on January 3 [4 favorites]

and... it's dispatched and winging it's way toward you, adamvasco! Estimated arrival date: Monday, January 09, 2012. (I like that they include the year)
posted by taz (staff) at 1:27 PM on January 3

My concern in the Drive/Bellflower post wasn't self-linking (mathowie mentions this in the podcast), but GYOB.

A post about either of the movies by itself seemed thin but putting them together seemed a little too personal-viewpoint-ish. I used the contact form (it works people!) to send a proposal and got helpful feedback from both mathowie & jessamyn.
posted by morganw at 1:39 PM on January 3 [1 favorite]

Thanks for the compliments everyone. I'm glad people don't seem to think too badly of my weaker posts this month. There were some days when I was really straining to come up with something by the deadline. If I ever do anything like that again, I'm going to have to plan a bit further in advance.

This month did a lot to convince me that my internal post censor is a little overactive (not by much, but still). I was halfway tempted to keep going on through January, but because the system enforces a 24 hour period between posts, I was left with a window of only 13 minutes to make posts in. I do have a couple of leftover ideas though, will probably post them this week.
posted by JHarris at 1:51 PM on January 3

Years ago, I managed to make a post almost every day for a couple months straight. It isn't that easy, and though it might have flown back then, posting for the sake of posting daily isn't something that the site needs anymore.
posted by crunchland at 3:22 PM on January 3

Is the Typhoid Mary book the Tony Bourdain one? Because if so, that's a pretty good book.
posted by box at 3:27 PM on January 3

No it's Typhoid Mary: Captive to the Public's Health by Leavitt. Can't believe I've waited so long to read it. I will be sending kittenmarlowe a book about Leprosy called The Colony: The Harrowing True Story of the Exiles of Molokai.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 5:55 PM on January 3

Ooh, I read a bit about Molokai in Charlie Chan: The Untold Story of the Honorable Detective and His Rendezvous with American History. If The Colony has the jessamyn seal of approval, I might pick up a copy (my local library system has the audiobook, but no print copy, which seems odd to me).
posted by filthy light thief at 8:46 AM on January 4

I figure by the same thematic reasoning, hot_monster's special mod pick prize for the Doofy Sonic post is the small-frame-count poorly-drawn animated gif of their choice.

And limited-time use of the img tag to use it in a thread!

Plus I need to pillage Jessamyn's books. Or get organised and finally join my local library. I'm pretty sure they want to lend me books more than Jessamyn does.
posted by shelleycat at 9:57 AM on January 4

Can we have a January Best Comment contest? I'm really killing it so far this week.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:56 PM on January 4

Rabbets for everyone!
posted by benzenedream at 12:00 AM on January 5

You know, I'm not sure if Knappster even knows he won. I dropped him a MeMail.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 10:06 PM on January 8

At first, I was like, "aw, mine wasn't in there," and then I was like, "wow, mine definitely didn't even deserve to be." Some awesome stuff here, I gotta say!
posted by DoctorFedora at 11:06 PM on January 9