January 25, 2001

2:32 PM

Take a look at Drudge, then take a look at MeFi. Way too many similar links.

Perhaps MeFi could have a separate board for "news and politics" with a setting that posts with 15 or more comments jumps to the main page?

Basically there are just too many Drudge-cribbed news links on the front page.

Ideas?
posted by cell divide to etiquette/policy at 2:32 PM (20 comments total)

Who wants to wager that the "Funeral Home Head Finds Live Body..." story gets posted to MeFi?
posted by pnevares at 2:39 PM on January 25, 2001

No, you're missing the point.

I love Drudge's links-- but I don't need to see them repeated wholesale on MetaFilter.

This site was 1000% better when it wasn't overrun by news and politics links. The benefit of them is for discussion and rarely for the link itself; Drudge is so well read that it's almost redundant to have 10 of the exact same posts on MetaFilter.

I would never want to ban links from a certain place (and by the way, I'm talking about Drudge's 'weblog' not his articles). It's just that the overabundance of 'daily news' on Metafilter has kind of ruined it of late.
posted by cell divide at 4:13 PM on January 25, 2001

I see your point. I guess it just comes down to what each person would prefer to see on the front page. I wouldn't want a separate board though, as I think it would tend to dissect MeFi into two separate communities. I think it would be better if we could classify each front-page link into a certain category as we post it, and then choose in our prefs which categories we want to see. If you get tired of daily news stuff, turn off that category. When you want it again, turn it back on.
posted by aaron at 4:36 PM on January 25, 2001

hey cell divide, i've been around here for a long time & when i think back on when i joined & what attracted me to mefi, i remember a lot of discussion about specific ballot inititives that didn't affect me & i wouldn't have heard much about otherwise, but i was very interested in debating. "no on knight" & whatnot. [per esempio]

also, i'm not sure how valid it is for user #2243 to say that "This site was 1000% better when [anything]"
posted by palegirl at 8:46 PM on January 25, 2001

ooooh pulling rank on me. what makes you think cell divide is my only handle?? I've been on here since literally day one, and became a member the first time in about week 5. so there!
posted by cell divide at 9:44 AM on January 26, 2001

sorry, what i meant was that since people came to mefi at different times each has different ideas of what "the good old days" really were. it came out way harsher than i intended... sorry.
posted by palegirl at 10:48 AM on January 26, 2001

that's OK! I know exactly what you mean though, it has been fun watching MeFi evolve... and in reality the "good old days" really could be at any time in the past 6 months, regardless of when you got hip to the site.
posted by cell divide at 12:08 PM on January 26, 2001

How much do you want for that membership #, palegirl?
And do you take PayPal?

;-j
posted by lagado at 4:32 AM on January 27, 2001

Hmm.. heh. 200 is nice, what about 700? Anyone willing to take it off my hands?
posted by tiaka at 8:20 AM on January 27, 2001

the price is negotiable, but must include your first born son... email me, we'll talk...
posted by palegirl at 8:21 AM on January 27, 2001

I have a dream. No links from Salon, or CNN, or Drudge - we all read at least one of those sites - it isn't helpful to link to them. No links about Pyra and their business plan/funding, etc, made by people who do not work for Pyra, and no more linking to Blogger. Show me something you didn't find on one of these sites - show me something that makes me think.

Instantly cure most of the signal to noise problem, I'd say. Honestly, the next time I read a thread with 72 posts, that consists of a bunch of people who haven't the faintest idea what they are talking about, but all intent on discussing Pyra's business plan, when none of the posters actually work there, I will start to scream, and I am not sure I will ever stop.

posted by kristin at 9:24 PM on January 27, 2001

Nothing that ever occurs in the realm of current events ever makes you think?
posted by aaron at 10:53 PM on January 27, 2001

kirstin's got a good point.

Does unreflective copying of headlines from mainstream media outlets make you think?

In nearly every case, I'd say probably not.
posted by lagado at 2:36 AM on January 28, 2001

"Nothing that ever occurs in the realm of current events ever makes you think?"

My point being that everyone already visits those sites - you aren't showing me anything new by linking to a story on CNN - to me, what was so great about Metafilter was that I would never have seen 90% of what was being linked to, the web being so huge, and there being so much neat stuff out there.

Now, I run my mouse over the link, and if it is drudge, or salon, or CNN, I yawn - read it already, likely - and probably seen it linked on 40 other weblogs already. And I can be assured that, if I post my own comment somewhere, that someone will be sure, as you did, to use it as an excuse to be rude or sarcastic, instead of contributing something meaningful to the discussion.

To me, the point of a public weblog is to seek and post links that make other people go, "Wow. I would NEVER have seen that if it wasn't linked here."
posted by kristin at 6:39 AM on January 28, 2001

Just to be a data point: I never read Drudge, CNN or Salon unless it's linked from here. We're not all the same.
posted by rodii at 12:50 PM on January 28, 2001

Exactly. Kristen, I was contributing meaningfully to the discussion because I knew it would make you admit that what this is about is your belief that "everyone" already reads those sites before coming here. And as rodii just noted, not everyone does. So I'll say again what I say every time this sort of thing comes up: Nobody will ever be 100% satisfied with the links on the front page. We all - ALL - have to learn to skip over the links that don't personally interest us, and home in on those that do. The only other solution (if there's even a problem, which I don't believe there is) is to have a single person make the decisions as to which links get to be put up on the front page, so that nobody can argue over "what's right for posting" ad infinitum. And the only person to do that would be Matt. And I really don't think he wants that chore.
posted by aaron at 11:11 PM on January 28, 2001

Aaron, if you are going to be snarky, have the guts to just be snarky, but don't turn around and later pretend it was all some kind of object lesson.


posted by kristin at 8:52 AM on January 29, 2001

*shrug* Believe what you want; I made my point.
posted by aaron at 2:26 PM on January 29, 2001

Well, as a newcomer (user #349870 something), I must say I feel overwhelmed by the amount of news and politics links.

For me, quantity ruins quality. It isn't because more things are linked to that there are more interesting things out there. It just means that some of the lesser interesting things are also linked to.
Of course, "interesting" is subjective *sigh*.

I have been hearing about metafilter for a long time, and popped in a few times before I registered when it was linked to. And I must say that I (maybe wrongly) expected it to be more MetaWeb than MetaNews.

There are piles of News headlines everyday. So of course, if you are quick enough to post, "most people haven't seen it before" [guideline#1]. And certainly, people will always be ready to discuss News and Politics. But are all the news and politics (mainly US too, from what I saw) links on MeFi really "top"?

I can't help wondering if the standards for "what makes a good link" have been lowered by usage. Inevitably, they should have. Standards of quality naturally tend to devaluate (just look at university degrees).

To get back to the beginning of this thread (and to something concrete!) I do think that classifying links in categories that each user can choose to display or not would be a good thing.
Maybe the community has reached a size which requires some "refining".

A "news and politics" category would be greatly appreciated...
posted by Tara at 2:03 PM on January 31, 2001