Symbol Etiquette

January 8, 2003 10:39 AM

Kettleblack's got an annoying habit of using "o<" in almost all of his posts, but I can get over that. However, his /. stylings in his recent post and comment are really grating.
posted by Irontom to Etiquette/Policy at 10:39 AM (66 comments total)

o< is also settle's favourite emoticon.
posted by riffola at 10:47 AM on January 8, 2003

correct link, user
weird error in user page?
posted by andrew cooke at 11:00 AM on January 8, 2003

Anyone figured out how he does that?
posted by timeistight at 11:14 AM on January 8, 2003

Sorry to be such a dunce, but what exactly does that emoticon mean?
posted by widdershins at 11:15 AM on January 8, 2003

o< = duck
posted by riffola at 11:22 AM on January 8, 2003

So the problem here is that he quacks at the end of each statement?
posted by widdershins at 11:34 AM on January 8, 2003

Oops, sorry, just reread - it's the /. thing. o<
posted by widdershins at 11:39 AM on January 8, 2003

I thought it was a goldfish swimming to my left.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 11:42 AM on January 8, 2003

I thought it was half of a sphincter.
posted by machaus at 11:47 AM on January 8, 2003

lol crash.
o< is a bit how i draw people, but i never forget the arms.br> But what is this then? (-3 Troll)
posted by ginz at 11:54 AM on January 8, 2003

Where did that br> come from?
Must be Oolongs ghost haunting us already.
posted by ginz at 11:56 AM on January 8, 2003

I thought it was someone shouting.

And glad I'm not the only one: what is that (-3 Troll) thing?? Degree of trolldom?
posted by widdershins at 11:56 AM on January 8, 2003

(-3 Troll) means that "no more than three trolls are allowed in this thread at any time. "

That, or something about the Billy-Goats Gruff.
posted by bradth27 at 11:56 AM on January 8, 2003

I was reading it sideways, as with :) et al, and thought it was an angry cyclops.
posted by jennyb at 12:06 PM on January 8, 2003

The emoticon I can handle, but the word "teh" makes me cringe. It's a meme I'm seeing more of than I'd like. o/<
posted by elwoodwiles at 12:17 PM on January 8, 2003

" However, his /. stylings in his recent post and comment are really grating."

So? What is your suggestion? Banning emoticons? Only allowing emoticons from an approved list? Banning snippets that don't follow someone's style guide? Not being so easily grated? Having Matt pull Kettleblack asside and explain that we don't annoy Irontom with non-standard style?

Picky picky.

Why does this grate on you? Seems fine to me. Does this grate on anyone else? If Kettleblack says he/she is sorry and will never do it again, what exactly should he/she never do again?

Please advise. Grating is very rare here at Metafilter and we might want to avoid grating emoticons.
posted by y6y6y6 at 12:21 PM on January 8, 2003

For me the duck emoticon isn't grating so much as the fact that he tacks it on to almost every comment he makes. Me no like sigs on mefi (they work on some forums, though).
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 12:25 PM on January 8, 2003

o< is also settle's favourite emoticon.

Isn't that interesting? Any thoughts? And isn't settle a previously banned user?

The real problem with the duck face, as ginz just found out, is that it features a less than symbol, which, in HTML, opens a tag. Try to imitate settle.... uh.....I mean KettleBlack without using "ampersand + lt;" and you get a bunch of broken line break tags.
posted by eyeballkid at 12:33 PM on January 8, 2003

Here's where settle started the ascii duck thing.

Did we ever come to a consensus on whether kettleblack is settle, or is just pretending to be settle?
posted by yhbc at 12:33 PM on January 8, 2003

Who cares.
posted by crunchland at 12:48 PM on January 8, 2003

Apparently I am not very bright.

Is that a duck as in the circle is his head and his beak is open, or is it the verb 'duck' and the little round guy is ducking under the ledge made by the less than sign?
posted by Karmakaze at 12:51 PM on January 8, 2003

So is having a distinct personality against the rules now? I hope Matt yanks this MeTa thread as a clear message to any of you prissy, cliquish, whiny Jr. High School girls who need to publicly demean and groan over someone even the slightest bit unique. Pathetic.
posted by dgaicun at 1:25 PM on January 8, 2003

The emoticon I can handle, but the word "teh" makes me cringe. It's a meme I'm seeing more of than I'd like.

Wait a minute - am I to understand that spelling "the" "teh" was intentional? WTF? Where did this sloppy trend originate? I thought it was just the sloppiest FPP in a good long while.
posted by vito90 at 1:35 PM on January 8, 2003

And glad I'm not the only one: what is that (-3 Troll) thing??

http://slashdot.org

the helplessness of people often amazes me.
posted by quonsar at 1:39 PM on January 8, 2003

dgaicun: "slashdot stlylings" aren't really a personality thing. So if I start making "frist post!!!!!" posts, that's OK with you?
posted by turbodog at 1:42 PM on January 8, 2003

dgaicun: you are SO lacking in history and context that you can't possibly be aware that your remark in this thread is SO pitiful that you would gladly slurp it up off a filthy sidewalk in order to prevent anyone else seeing it. if you only had a clue.
posted by quonsar at 1:44 PM on January 8, 2003

So if I start making "frist post!!!!!" posts, that's OK with you?

Only slightly less annoying than the ten-times-a-minute MeFi pancake references and simpson quotes. Or is Meta fine as long as everybody obeys the right memes. Really TB- Get over it!
posted by dgaicun at 1:50 PM on January 8, 2003

This thread is teh funney.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 1:52 PM on January 8, 2003

quonsar: Like, as if.
posted by dgaicun at 1:53 PM on January 8, 2003

I ? quonsar o<
posted by jpoulos at 1:53 PM on January 8, 2003

(that ? should be a [heart])
posted by jpoulos at 1:54 PM on January 8, 2003

Only slightly less annoying than the ten-times-a-minute MeFi pancake references and simpson quotes.

Can't stand the local memes get yo' ass out the kitchen where they, uh, "bake the local memes". Or something.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 1:55 PM on January 8, 2003

MetaFilter: Local memes only.
posted by WolfDaddy at 1:58 PM on January 8, 2003

Did we ever come to a consensus on whether kettleblack is settle, or is just pretending to be settle?

Perhaps kettleblack is really settle pretending to be kettleblack pretending to be settle? *head explodes*

Kettleblack spent some time at #mefi a while ago and it was concluded after he/she left that the settleisms were a bit too forced and produced too glibly to be real. If that makes a difference. Either way, he/she/it is most likely basking in the glory of a personal MeTa thread and laughing like a well-fed duck.
posted by dg at 2:14 PM on January 8, 2003

I didn't want to start a whole new post about this, but as you brought it up, imho signatures on MeFi are evil. The simple linear text format makes signatures even more obnoxious than on other boards. And you can't turn it off, because it's not something done by the software but manually. And it isn't done in the software because, iirc Matt quite rightly doesn't like signatures (anyone have a link to the comment?)
posted by fvw at 2:18 PM on January 8, 2003

So is having a distinct personality against the rules now? I hope Matt yanks this MeTa thread as a clear message to any of you prissy, cliquish, whiny Jr. High School girls who need to publicly demean and groan over someone even the slightest bit unique.

That cliquish whiny thing is a distinct personality too. Show some respect.

Besides, what's unique about speaking Slashdotese?
posted by rcade at 2:24 PM on January 8, 2003

dgaicun: i, for two, welcome pancake-less, vibration-free and un-Simpson's-quoted posts.

dg: So is having your own MeTa thread bashing you like karma whoring over at Slashdot?
posted by turbodog at 2:25 PM on January 8, 2003

Can't stand the local memes get yo' ass out the kitchen

That was supposed to be rhetorical- I actually am mostly indifferent to memes, MeFi and other (even slightly enjoy some). I would definitely get my ass out'da kitchen if people started making entire MeTa threads just to bitch about how much I don't belong.
posted by dgaicun at 2:26 PM on January 8, 2003

A petty, meaningless MeTa post about petty, meaningless BS... *sigh*
posted by Shane at 2:30 PM on January 8, 2003

Jeez, doofi: Kettleblack--as explained here.
posted by y2karl at 2:40 PM on January 8, 2003

No, it ain't me.
posted by timeistight at 2:46 PM on January 8, 2003

I don't like "teh" because I can't force myself to see it as intentional, and "the" is the kind of word the brain just slides over, so making you stop on it to mentally correct it is annoying as hell. But, what I really hate, I mean hate with the white hot passion of a thousand suns is "pr0n" (the textual affectation - not the lovely nudey pictures thems I like just fine thank you very much).

That sig reads to me like a bit of a troll to the site, so I'd prefer there wasn't this thread gratifying the person. However, if Matt did a find and replace that removed every instance of that emoticon for now and ever from the site, I think that would be pretty damn funny (although maybe not funny enough to justify the time investment).
posted by willnot at 3:03 PM on January 8, 2003

dg: So is having your own MeTa thread bashing you like karma whoring over at Slashdot? Yes. Hey, attention is attention and some don't care what kind.
posted by dg at 3:19 PM on January 8, 2003

I didn't know "teh" was intentional. What (if anything) is it supposed to signify?
posted by timeistight at 3:49 PM on January 8, 2003

Don't know if it's true or not, as I don't typically see it used in this way, but:

teh:
Misspelling of the. Indicates that teh sentence to follow is not to be taken seriously.
Example: Teh money ate my dishwasher. cite

I think it just eveloved out of a common AIM typo and took on a life of its own with some of our younger net brothers and sisters.
posted by willnot at 3:58 PM on January 8, 2003

Perhaps it's from when Jim Carey's character in Dumb And Dumber is trying to read a newspaper article and has problems pronouncing the ..."teh, teh?"
posted by Witty at 4:05 PM on January 8, 2003

I blame JeffK.
posted by WolfDaddy at 4:06 PM on January 8, 2003

I love JeffK.
posted by holloway at 4:14 PM on January 8, 2003

But, what I really hate, I mean hate with the white hot passion of a thousand suns is "pr0n"

I choose "d00d".
posted by hama7 at 4:15 PM on January 8, 2003

whether kettleblack is settle
actually, kettleblack is most likely kaycee nicole.
posted by quonsar at 4:32 PM on January 8, 2003

I thought it was an angry cyclops

That sentence alone made it worth reading through all of this drudge delightfully pithy conversation. That, and I always enjoy reading about what drives other people nuts.
posted by iconomy at 4:43 PM on January 8, 2003

All hail JeffK.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:04 PM on January 8, 2003

pr0n

that one serves a purpose though, it allows you to talk about porn without invoking the wrath of many different kinds of filters. My understanding is that it was a workaround to having every email you send with the word "porn" in it gratuitously blocked by mailfilters. Anyone know?
posted by jessamyn at 5:59 PM on January 8, 2003

jessamyn, this site claims it started as a simple typo.

I tend to lean toward the "filter-defeating" answer, m'self.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 6:01 PM on January 8, 2003

I didn't know "teh" was intentional. What (if anything) is it supposed to signify?

Severely limited mental capacity? Slavish adherence to pre-teen blither-syntax under the misapprehension that it makes one look "cool" and "with it?"
posted by rushmc at 6:20 PM on January 8, 2003

Personally, I lean more heavily on my chocolate-brown corduroy flares and massive sideburns to publically verify my with-itude. Coupled of course with my ability to digest disconcertingly large quantities of cheese.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 7:05 PM on January 8, 2003

This is like a archeological dig. As long as we have gone this far, does someone dare to offer a complete "profile" of this person from the available evidence.
posted by JohnR at 7:31 PM on January 8, 2003

explamation mark exclamation mark explamation mark exclamation mark explamation mark exclamation mark explamation mark exclamation mark numerical one.
posted by holloway at 7:39 PM on January 8, 2003

Slavish adherence to pre-teen blither-syntax under the misapprehension that it makes one look "cool" and "with it?"

Oh, okay, so 'teh' = 'pancakes' or 'newsfilter'!

Now, I got it! ;-P
posted by mischief at 12:13 AM on January 9, 2003

The 'o< ' thing is not a slashdot idiom. in fact, i haven't seen it there in three years of daily use. (-3 troll) is also clearly not a slashdot idiom. you can't have a -3 moderation at slashdot. the levels are -1, 0 default for anonymous posts, 1, 2 for high karma posters, 3, 4 and 5.br>
'teh' is also not Slashdot slang. JeffK si probably teh cause of tihs.

First post has somewhat died down on Slashdot since they refused to accept FPs.

Slashdot is actually low on memes right now. 'IN SOVIET RUSSIA' and 'PROFIT!!' are the only two I can recall in common usage, and even the latter is almost dead. Oh, and the odd 'Stephen King Dead at 53 - This is off topic, but Stephen King died today, he will truly be missed' post too.
posted by wackybrit at 5:03 AM on January 9, 2003

chocolate-brown corduroy flares

Actually these are now 'with it' again, although they're called 'boot cut' rather than flares.
posted by Summer at 6:06 AM on January 9, 2003

(-3 troll) is also clearly not a slashdot idiom

It is a slashdot thing, in that it's clearly referencing slashdots moderation system. The fact that you can't go below -1 just adds to it. The post is so bad, it goes all the way down to -3.

Adding your expected moderation to a comments title is in no way uncommon.
posted by inpHilltr8r at 10:58 AM on January 9, 2003

I was reading it sideways

I "o>-< to the emotion signs sometimes. yet discussing through a monitor it may help in using with folks who take the internet discussions too seriously at times or distinguishing snarky comments from just being play. br>
Surprised a clever FPP was not done on this yet or is this it. :O

Strav, I teh hee this thread too. :P

Ps, I'm seeing things in preview that are not in my post a comment box. ??? Like a missing " and an added br> after play, not a joke.
posted by thomcatspike at 1:06 PM on January 9, 2003

Yes I even deleted the whole line I question and it still appeared.
posted by thomcatspike at 1:07 PM on January 9, 2003

you can't have a -3 moderation at slashdot.

For months now users can set custom additional moderations to others they deem friends, foe, etc. So slashdot can have -3 moderation.

Before this I remember some posts being modded (presumably by the admins) below -1 and you could only see them by changing the threshold in the url.
posted by holloway at 2:22 PM on January 9, 2003

For months now users can set custom additional moderations to others they deem friends, foe, etc.

I'd forgotten about that. I found it all a bit creepy, especially when I discovered that one of my 'fans' (none of whom I knew) had no other 'friends'.
posted by inpHilltr8r at 2:31 PM on January 9, 2003