This is a bad post. December 7, 2002 5:12 PM   Subscribe

Is this another horribly one sided news post, that does more trolling than informing. If the poster had made any attempt at exploring the other side of this issue, he could have included several examples, that show there's enough hypocrisy to go around, when it comes to this issue, but instead we got a lazy, one sided front page post, that was basically an opportunity for a bunch of gun control supporters to jerk each other off.

He could have posted any number of links about the famous arrest of liberal columnist Carl Rowan, who seemed to have an obsession with gun control. At least that is, until he was arrested for illegally keeping a handgun in his Washington DC residence, but that wouldn't have been as much fun I guess.

If your doing a front page post about a hot button issue, shouldn't there be at least a feeble attempt to post links that represent both sides of the debate?
posted by Beholder to Etiquette/Policy at 5:12 PM (58 comments total)

Is this another horribly one sided news post, that does more trolling than informing.

Yes. So is this.
posted by Hildago at 5:26 PM on December 7, 2002


Yes. So is this.

..an opportunity for a bunch of gun control supporters to jerk each other off..

Indeed. It's a shame Matt so rarely (never?) deletes Metatalk threads.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:28 PM on December 7, 2002


I hate it when gun control supporters jerk each other off, there's always bulletholes in the ceiling.

If your doing a front page post about a hot button issue, shouldn't there be at least a feeble attempt to post links that represent both sides of the debate?

Call me when we start posting links supporting the war on Iraq.

*wank wank wank kaBLAM!*
posted by Stan Chin at 5:30 PM on December 7, 2002


(Err, I sense that due to a brainfart on my part, my comment above could have been construed as being pro-gun, and even though it's off-topic, I hasten to say that that's just plain goofy.)

I hate it when gun control supporters jerk each other off, there's always bulletholes in the ceiling.

Anyone else remember an essay thing by Larry Niven I remember reading when I was a teenager - 'Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex' I think it was called (apologies, MeFiFems, but those were less enlightened times) - wherein he ponders what would have happened to the walls of Superboy's house in Smallville after he discovered the joys of auto-erotic stimulation, and whether the resulting super-spermatozoa that had blasted through the gyprock would then end up circling the planet at supersonic speeds looking for beachballs and stuff to impregnate?

Or did I dream it?
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:40 PM on December 7, 2002


I don't think a balanced post will have any effect on whether the discussion is balanced or not. The problem with posts like this IMHO is that everyone has already made up their mind. And since buz46 obviously has an agenda in mind with his post, it seems a bit naive to think he might have presented both sides - he's *trying* to be biased. That's the point.

And I think it's telling that you include in your call for balance a dig about people you disagree with "jerking off". What was that? Forgive me if I question your plee for civil and balanced discussion. Sounds like sour grapes and little more.
posted by y6y6y6 at 5:40 PM on December 7, 2002


Oh please Hildago, that is so full of shit. MetaFilter is for posting stories and articles from around the net, and MetaTalk is for discussing issues relating to MetaFilter. It's not even close to being the same thing. You'll have to do better than that. Nice attempt at derailing my thread though.
posted by Beholder at 5:40 PM on December 7, 2002


Sorry - back on topic.


Beholder : uh, yes.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:41 PM on December 7, 2002


"Nice attempt at derailing my thread though."

It was never railed.

"Shouldn't gun control jerk-off assholes be fair and include my side of this issue?"

Ummmm..... Right....... Whatever......
posted by y6y6y6 at 5:46 PM on December 7, 2002


And I think it's telling that you include in your call for balance a dig about people you disagree with "jerking off". What was that? Forgive me if I question your plee for civil and balanced discussion. Sounds like sour grapes and little more.

Yeah that's probably true, as I'm normally a bit more diplomatic, but hasn't there been a ton of discussion recently concerning the posting of news stories, especially of the one link kind. I've been guilty of this myself, but I at least make an effort to avoid hot button issues. That front page post was trollish in nature, and it needed to be called out, so I did.
posted by Beholder at 5:47 PM on December 7, 2002


**walks into MeTa thread with submachine gun, ending discussion in hail of gunfire**

That settles that. Let's go back to discussing pantyhose fetishism.
posted by jonmc at 5:50 PM on December 7, 2002


I'm a gun control type person and I didn't think the post was that great either--mostly because the editorializing in the FPP itself was so overly-earnest. The story was kind of amusing, sure, but hardly newsworthy. If it has to be posted, just say something short and witty and leave the bombast for inside the thread. There's certainly no need to use up more than a line or two of the front page.

Also, there was just a gun control post yesterday. That's a really good reason not to post another one.
posted by boltman at 5:53 PM on December 7, 2002


Ouch. Back on topic, hey?

The post was terrible. The article uninformative, the presentation biased, and the comments worse. Buz46 is clumsily attempting to use this (admittedly ironic) incident to push a political agenda. This would be a bad idea in general, and it's a worse idea here.
posted by Yelling At Nothing at 5:55 PM on December 7, 2002


Bravo for poor, partisan, pro-gun-control post!

Where's Charlton Heston when we need him?
posted by hama7 at 6:13 PM on December 7, 2002


Slow day on the da motherfuckin MezzleFizzilter.
posted by Stan Chin at 6:31 PM on December 7, 2002


Does anybody even read MetaTalk? I've personally read about a hundred times (or more) that when you find something interesting on the web, and want to share it with others, then a FPP may be a good idea.

It's like a treasure hunt with 17,000 members looking for great stuff.
posted by hama7 at 6:33 PM on December 7, 2002


[this is bad]
posted by adampsyche at 7:11 PM on December 7, 2002


Nice attempt at derailing my thread though.

This comment seems a little proprietory to me. This is not your thread, you just started it.

If your doing a front page post about a hot button issue, shouldn't there be at least a feeble attempt to post links that represent both sides of the debate?

Why? If it's a hot button issue it's very likely the poster will be put into his or her place very quickly, with the appropriate links.

FWIW, I don't think it was a good post but nor do I think it needed to come to metatalk. The discussion seemed civil enough, with points of view from both sides.

Also, FWIW, I agree with Hildago about your MeTa post. Sorry.
posted by ashbury at 7:41 PM on December 7, 2002


Is Free Republic so awful that the users there are coming here now?
posted by crunchland at 8:13 PM on December 7, 2002


While the post itself may have been weak, I thought that the discussion produced some interesting posts from a variety of viewpoints. Granted, viewpoints that have most likely been stated many times in older threads, but this one certainly didn't devolve into somthing worthless.
posted by gwint at 8:24 PM on December 7, 2002


Beholder: shouldn't there be at least a feeble attempt to post links that represent both sides of the debate?

No.

There should be an actual, concerted, serious attempt to post links that represent both sides of the debate. If you're going to bring DiscussionFilter posts to MeFi (as opposed to the more respected LookeewhatifoundFilter posts of yore), the least you can do is make the discussion interesting by finding interesting resources.

If there's a topic that is so near and dear to you that you'll only present one side of -- don't. Or (I mean this constructively) "get your own blog, wit!" and post it there. The post in question is, to me, a quintessential personal blog post.
posted by zpousman at 8:28 PM on December 7, 2002


Is Free Republic so awful that the users there are coming here now?

Clearly you guys are better at taking cheap shots than arguing the point. If jokes are all you have, just give up, and admit it was a weak front page post.
posted by Beholder at 8:35 PM on December 7, 2002


stavros: Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex. It's in a couple of Niven anthologies, but he released it onto the web a couple of years ago as a sop to the fans. It's exactly what you'd expect from a veteran of college-student bull sessions.

In the same vein, although somewhat more complex, are his essays (also given as talks) On the Theory and Practice of Teleportation and ... Time Travel, suitably informed by the Laws of Thermodynamics and the implications thereon. (Example: if you teleport to the opposite side of the world, what happens to your kinetic energy sending you around the planet precisely 180 degrees opposite from your new position? Let alone the solar and galactic orbits of the earth. And if you travel in time, how do you travel to the future or past position of the earth?)

posted by dhartung at 8:39 PM on December 7, 2002


Beholder, it was a weak front page post, but considering 4 of the 6 posts you've made in your history were from major news sources (and the other one was to announce a new Buffy episode), usually without any accompanying links that "explored the other side of the issue," I'd suggest working on your own style a bit too.

And call me Captain Ad Hominem! Up up and away!
posted by Stan Chin at 8:43 PM on December 7, 2002


If your doing a front page post about a hot button issue, shouldn't there be at least a feeble attempt to post links that represent both sides of the debate?

Absolutely not. If someone posts a Flash game requiring one to smash frogs with a watermelon, would you expect them to provide a second link to a game where frogs got to eat the watermelons? There's a difference between a weak attempt at promoting a political agenda and not pretending to be perfectly objective.

This comment seems a little proprietory to me. This is not your thread, you just started it.

An important distinction that I have tried to make a couple times lately.
posted by rushmc at 9:06 PM on December 7, 2002


considering 4 of the 6 posts you've made... (and the other one was...

"The other one"? 4+1=6 now?
posted by signal at 9:12 PM on December 7, 2002


Oh, sorry, one of the beads on my abacus fell off.
posted by Stan Chin at 9:14 PM on December 7, 2002


Stan, your flagrant math error has dispelled one of my longest held myths... do you know kung fu?
posted by jonson at 9:23 PM on December 7, 2002


that was basically an opportunity for a bunch of gun control supporters to jerk each other off

When you make a MeTa post with that kind of language, you're the last one who should be championing quality control.

Want to represent both sides of the story; drop some gun-control links into the thread, instead of crying foul and using such crude terminology.

You might want to guard your breakfast better, in future, as it seems someone pissed in your Corn Flakes. Chill, dude.
posted by Dark Messiah at 9:25 PM on December 7, 2002


do you know kung fu?

*ducks*
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 9:33 PM on December 7, 2002


Of course I have an agenda, it's up to you to provide the counterpoint, that's what a debate is. if every post was designed to be as inoffensive as possible that would be awfully boring. However , as you may have noticed, most people, on both sides of the topic remained fairly civil towards one another. Which is more than I can say for your Metatalk post; jerking off indeed....
posted by buz46 at 10:02 PM on December 7, 2002


All this useless blathering and pretending non-crucial political front page posts ought to be "better" rather than non-existent is making me horny! Anyone wanna... ya know... *raises eyebrow*
posted by Hildago at 11:03 PM on December 7, 2002


I'll give Stan Chin his due, when he pointed out that most of my front page post contain only one link, and I'd take back the jerking off comment, if I could, but to me, that post represented a lot of what I hate about mefi today, compared to the mefi I was overjoyed to discover, eighteen months ago.

His post had that needling gotcha attitude, that almost assures nothing but snarky comments and divisive one liners. Of course, in criticizing his snarky front page post, I ended up being snarky myself, so I pretty much poisoned my own argument.

Hopefully some people saw the point I was trying to make, in spite of my poor choice of words.
posted by Beholder at 11:13 PM on December 7, 2002


Then, of course, there's the fact that, by executive mandate, we're to avoid politics entirely.

Ahh, Fack it
posted by Yelling At Nothing at 11:48 PM on December 7, 2002


when he pointed out that most of my front page post contain only one link

There's nothing at all wrong with one link only, and some prefer just one link, instead of a wall of links that take forever to sift through.

Point taken: News and excuses for political cheap shots = not such hot front page material.
posted by hama7 at 12:10 AM on December 8, 2002


kryptonite condoms anyone ?



wait a minute.........that wouldnt work out....
posted by sgt.serenity at 2:40 AM on December 8, 2002


“shouldn't there be at least a feeble attempt to post links that represent both sides of the debate?”

No. If you want instant polarization that’s what you do. Life is not like partisan politics — there is always more than one perspective to a story. Including only two, perhaps held by two political parties or two interest groups, is the easy presentation. The problem is no story is never born from some binary mold, so you’re not serving the story when you do that. You’re serving the parties, groups or ideologies, that benefit from the polarization.

It’s much harder and infinitely more intellectually honest to present what you know and let others make of that knowledge what they will.

I don’t mind that the story was posted. I certainly hadn’t heard it, I don’t know if I will be hearing about it anywhere else in the next few days. A simple headline would’ve sufficed, the desire to score points was tactless.
posted by raaka at 4:39 AM on December 8, 2002


GUNS
posted by crasspastor at 5:05 AM on December 8, 2002


Beholder,

isn't it peculiar how right-wingers always complain about Communists polluting MetaFilter precious bodily fluids?

Since pro-gun, pro-corporate welfare, pro-corporate tax evasion, pro-infinite unilateral war people are actually running the US (White House/Congress/Supreme Court, remember?) and will probably do so at least in the near future, do you really have to annoy the few pro-gun control citizens of a relatively small Internet community?

If you don't like pro-gun control supporters jerking each other off on MeFi, as you politely suggest, why don't you just go suck Wayne LaPierre's dick on NewsMax or nra.com or wherever he hangs out online.
Or just go buy yourself a brand new assault weapon and go join a well-regulated militia. Your mood will certainly improve
posted by matteo at 7:40 AM on December 8, 2002


A new low, matteo.
posted by dhoyt at 9:01 AM on December 8, 2002


Enough dick talk everybody. Don't make me get all Freudian on your ass.
posted by jonmc at 9:10 AM on December 8, 2002


hehe, jonmc said dick.

oh, and ass as well!
posted by sebas at 9:13 AM on December 8, 2002


So according to matteo, non-left wing views are no longer welcome here?
Let me ask you matteo, how much did you pay mathowie to buy MetaFilter?
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 10:24 AM on December 8, 2002


I am sorry to have started such an ugly exchange. It was my first FPP, and I did have a biased view point heading in to it. I woke up, turned on the TV, and that was the first story I saw. I suppose I had a knee jerk reaction, and ran to my computer to let fly. However, as others have mentioned, the discussion was fairly civil, and did raise some interesting views from both sides. In the future, I will make a concerted effort to avoid letting my personnel feelings seep into any FPP's I may post. Please forgive my newbie, overexuberance.

buz46....
posted by buz46 at 11:06 AM on December 8, 2002


Beholder, we probably shouldn't try to legislate (that's not the right word, but you know what I mean) the way "hot-button" posts look, even though--let's face it--this one ain't so hot. And yes, I think a Carl Rowan link would've provided an appropriate and enlightening counterpoint to the NBC4 link. However, I also think that the first 15 or so responses to this post were almost universally smartass in nature. Sort of like saying, "OK, if you're gonna post this link this way, well then this is what you are gonna get." I know I did my part.

I love to see the way other Mefiers respond to hot-button issues, so they should be fair game here. Like you, I think that the better the post, the better the discussion is likely to be. The initial responses in this thread, and your MeTa post will hopefully provide the kind of self-policing MeFi needs.

On preview: See, buz46 has seen the light!
posted by samuelad at 11:17 AM on December 8, 2002


matteo, steve, et. al:

So according to matteo, non-left wing views are no longer welcome here? Let me ask you matteo, how much did you pay mathowie to buy MetaFilter?

spirited debate is good. but this is pathetic, pointless debate. i feel like, to some, metafilter is a battle zone. i feel that some believe that if they do not defend their political viewpoints then they will bring shame upon themselves and their parties, that the terrorists will have won, or that their world may end with the morrow.

everyone wants to defend their ideologies. that's fine: you state what you believe, you state why you believe it, and let all be. if you can't convince the other person by the force of your own convictions, you will not convince them. please get over it, because with every disgusting debate even like the one on this thread, slowly do you turn the knife in metafilter's back.
posted by moz at 11:46 AM on December 8, 2002


raaka said it too.
posted by moz at 11:47 AM on December 8, 2002


I will make a concerted effort to avoid letting my personnel feelings seep into any FPP's I may post.

Oops I meant personal, I don't have my own staff or anything...;-)
posted by buz46 at 11:52 AM on December 8, 2002


buz46, really, there's nothing wrong with expressing an opinion in a FPP--I think Matt's even said so somewhere in the metatalk archives (although i could be wrong). Just don't be a) overly alarmist (Ashcroft did X! The sky is falling!) or b) unnecessarily nasty or inflamatory (e.g. the "isn't religion goofy?" thread).

The problem with your thread was simply that the actions of a single crazy NRA member is not a sound basis for a serious policy argument about gun control, which seemed to be your intent. Why not just post the link with a quip about the irony of the situation rather than trying to make a serious point about a story that can't really sustain it?
posted by boltman at 12:10 PM on December 8, 2002


but this is pathetic, pointless debate.

Your assumption that matteo wanted debate, is where you are wrong...
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 12:33 PM on December 8, 2002


The article seemed so sparse that, at the time, I felt I had to enhance it's content with my own commentary. In retrospect, that was not such a hot idea. Perhaps I should have waited for a more detailed article to appear. However, as i said before, it was a knee jerk reaction, and I hadn't had my double latte yet. I plead temporary insanity!!
posted by buz46 at 12:34 PM on December 8, 2002


Buz46, you seem like a good guy. All is forgiven!
posted by Hildago at 1:34 PM on December 8, 2002


Just drop the rock into the pond - don't side-arm it.
(Bonus pun included!)
posted by Opus Dark at 1:55 PM on December 8, 2002


Let's go back to discussing pantyhose fetishism

Some sense at last :-)
posted by dg at 3:08 PM on December 8, 2002


*bursts into thread spraying bullets from uzi at members whilst simultaneously covering them with jizz *

" threads dead baby , threads dead "

*exits on motorbike*
posted by sgt.serenity at 3:19 PM on December 8, 2002


buz: don't worry about it. Most of these guys would go bonkers if they didn't have something to bitch about. ;-P
posted by mischief at 4:54 AM on December 9, 2002


I like guns.
posted by Witty at 10:47 AM on December 9, 2002


i actually want to thank the original poster for this one - it was the only place i saw it (unfortunately) on the web and in the media- and a passed it on to a number of friends. gun control is bit of an issue here in minneapolis where a young girl doing her homeworkat her dining room table was taken out by one of the NRAs sacred handguns last week - would mr.beholder be a little less feverent in his indignance at this post were tyesha one of his loved ones?
posted by specialk420 at 10:22 PM on December 9, 2002


Metafilter: We are feverent in our indignance.
posted by rushmc at 10:34 PM on December 9, 2002


« Older Good FPP derail belongs in Metatalk?   |   I admit it, I monopolized the thread Newer »

You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments