Sick Nick cartoon blog

October 2, 2003 7:13 AM

One would think that sicknick.org would be the ideal link for MeFi. Nikahang Kowsar isn't quite mainstream, so a lot of people haven't seen his stuff before. His stuff is very interesting, and should warrant discussion. AND YET...! [more]
posted by ZachsMind to MetaFilter-related at 7:13 AM (34 comments total)

I was originally gonna post this in the MeFi thread in question, until I realized what I had to say is more about MeFi's reaction to sicknick.org than about sicknick.org itself. So this post more properly belongs in MeTa.

I just happened upon this Nikahang Kowsar guy from a non MetaFiltery source. Though his stuff is derivative, repetitive and preachy, it's mildly amusing and very thought provoking. I thought maybe I'd found something interesting to post to MeFi. Maybe it'd stir up interesting conversation. Did a search on his name to see if he'd already been linked here. I'm five days late. This happens all the time, I'm sure. I haven't posted a FFP to MeFi since April, then last October before that. Nowadays I'm much more selective, and just no longer care to stick my neck out in this place.

In the five days since Hoder posted sicknick.org, there's a total of five replies, and relative silence since the first day. I'm not saying that's a bad thing. I'm not saying that's a good thing. I can't tell which is which in this place.

I can't tell if I'm relieved I didn't post this link myself, since it's apparently a bad link that wasn't thought provoking and didn't encourage conversation, or if I'm not so much relieved but frustrated and mad that Hoder beat me to it. And then I'm like, well people complain that MeFi becomes NewsFilter. Too many daily links comprise of a news report about a current event that is otherwise a boring link to a boring news oriented website that we all know about, said link gets a hundred replies. Most people seem to become engrossed in the discussion of the subject matter, forgetting that MeFi's supposed to link to the Web, not just current news items. If people like it, and it's popular among the MeFi community, it should be okay.

Does sicknick.org suck raw eggs as MeFi links go? Why?

Sicknick.org is about an artist's interpretation of current events as well as the history of journalistic integrity and censorship throughout the ages. It's right up MeFi's alley one might think, yet it barely gets lip service. I mean.. Nikahang Kowsar's work is arguably not the best in the world, but for MeFi's sensibilities it should be the best of both worlds - both kinds of links that show up in Mefi. His Internet home, sicknick.org, is a culmination of both NewsFilter AND it's just a unique and intriguing place on the Web. It's just the kinda link MeFi aspires to ...and yet there's like, no love in this thread.

Just when I think I understand how MeFi works, I see this. I can't help but think this is indicative of.. of something. I can't put my finger on it which is why I'm starting this MeTa thread. More grey matter and all that.

Does a MeFi link need to be more than just new, interesting and something that encourages discussion? Are there other factors? Perhaps several other factors? The whys and wherefores of MeFi FPPs are elusive, enigmatic and transient. I'm sure there are other FPPs recently which fit the criteria and did engender good conversation, just as there are bad links that get attention, and bad links that don't. For some reason this sicknick one stands out for me.

sicknick.org appears to be the ideal kind of Mefi link destination. Just the kinda thing the place should be linking to, yet the response was cold. In the broader picture of how MeFi and its community operates, how does this happen? Why? Is it a good thing or a bad thing? Is this normal? Should we as a community accept that NewsFilter pumps our hearts more and just go with that flow? What's intrinsic about this that can't be changed, and what can we learn about how this community operates so we can improve both linkage and interactivity in the future? Or maybe we should just leave well enough alone?

Maybe there's nothing to learn here? Or maybe there is?
posted by ZachsMind at 7:14 AM on October 2, 2003

Since when is the number of comments indicative of the quality of the post?
posted by PrinceValium at 7:42 AM on October 2, 2003

You could use a hitcounter / redirector script to see how many people actually clicked on the link if it's attention one is after. # of comments being the only indicator of interest at the moment, and probably a poor one given that a discussion will get a life of its own once someone says something mildly controversial.
posted by Space Coyote at 7:49 AM on October 2, 2003

It was a good post. Obscure, interesting, and without overt agenda. The number of responses are completely irrelevent to the validity of a post, considering this site is based upon linking to something on the web, not commenting upon something on the web.

Zach, when did MeTa become your personal blog? Because I'm pretty sure Miguel has the title locked up indefinitely.
posted by BlueTrain at 8:38 AM on October 2, 2003

Like PV said. In fact, when I don't have time to read everything (most days), I often find the best posts by looking for the ones which only get five to ten comments in three days.
posted by walrus at 8:50 AM on October 2, 2003

In the five days since Hoder posted sicknick.org, there's a total of five replies, and relative silence since the first day.

I think you'll find that (unless, as Space Coyote indicated, someone says something controversial) most posts tend to get the majority of their comments during the first day. Posts are more and more beginning to resemble Hollywood blockbusters: you'd better have a great opening because business will drop off sharply after that.

Of course, I come by this cynicism naturally, what with my Mini*Pops post failing to achieve the critical mass it so richly deserved. What can I do? You can't force everyone to admit to the crimes against musicality committed in the 80s — for some people the pain is still too...*chokes back tears*...fresh.
posted by filmgoerjuan at 8:51 AM on October 2, 2003

Mini-Pops all round.
(mini wheats for zach...KIDDING)
posted by clavdivs at 9:11 AM on October 2, 2003

There have been plenty of good posts that don't get any comments - I remember there was a link to an excellent story about Tehelka in India that no-one commented on. Can't say it particularly bothers me; if people don't have anything to say, it doesn't mean they didn't like it.

To be honest, I would say that the number of comments a post gets is hardly correlated at all with its quality (my perception of quality, that is). There are some topics that Mefi loves talking about (politics, Apple, technology) that will always draw in comments, even if the link is just to a well-known news story.
posted by adrianhon at 9:22 AM on October 2, 2003

Since when is the number of comments indicative of the quality of the post
It isn't, but it feels like it is. Last link I posted got a minimal response and I felt pretty bad about it. It was really hard not to believe that my post had simply been ignored.

However, great FPP's are hard to comment on. There's only so much "This is good" style commenting that can go on.

So I suppose the implicit nature of Metafilter is such that it punishes good posts in the favour of contentious subjects. The only way I can see to encourage posts like the one referenced by ZachsMind is for people to force discussion in the comments box for these posts.

I'm guessing that kuro5hin might have something to say on the subject
posted by seanyboy at 9:34 AM on October 2, 2003

I think there's also perhaps an element of people not wanting to crap on the decent posts. A lot of teh sub-optimal posts these days become rapidly filled with funny (and not so funny) drivel, but the decent ones don't tend to silt up. Sadly there are also a number of complete dogs which don't collect comments, so having few comments isn't a precise indicator of quality either.
posted by walrus at 10:10 AM on October 2, 2003

The number of comments an FPP recieves, are the only visible indicators that what you've posted is valued, or not, by the MeFi community.

When I started posting stories and sites, I was very sensitive to the number of posts that an FPP would recieve, and I would feel like I'd messed up, turd-in-the-swimming-pool-style, if it didn't get at least several comments. I really valued those comments that said, good find (or whatever) because it indicated that I was functioning in an acceptable manner in the group.

Now of course, I don't give a shit. And my recent post of "Money Saving Expert" that only garnered two comments, didn't affect me negatively at all, because I knew it was a good find, and would be of value to some MeFi readers.

It was also my attempt to post a non-NewsFilter link, which is perhaps less susceptible to percieved devaluation, by lack of comments.

Or whatever.

Oh, and what walrus said. Or something.
posted by Blue Stone at 10:43 AM on October 2, 2003

i'm confused. why on earth would you want to post something that's derivative, repetitive and preachy? just because something exists it doesn't have to be posted on mefi - and maybe that explains why it wasn't popular.

i followed the link and read the thread at the time and the only way i could see in which it looked interesting was along the lines of "how difficult it must be to make a living at social commentary when you're forced into a different culture." maybe that would have been an interesting discussion, but mefi is about links to good sites, and consequent discussion, not links to middling-to-poor sites for the sake of disussion.

at least, that's how i thought it was supposed to be. i agree that these days there's all the newfilter and opinion pieces and tedious american politics...
posted by andrew cooke at 10:49 AM on October 2, 2003

Hey don't complain. I just posted and all I get are recipes.
posted by konolia at 11:07 AM on October 2, 2003

"Does sicknick.org suck raw eggs as MeFi links go?"

No. You pretty much answer this authoritatively yourself.

"Maybe there's nothing to learn here?"

Correct. You pretty much answer this authoritatively yourself.
posted by y6y6y6 at 11:12 AM on October 2, 2003

PrinceValium: "Since when is the number of comments indicative of the quality of the post?"

I did not mean to imply quality of the post as a whole. Perhaps a bit more specific and telling: It is indicative of the MeFi community reaction to said post. Not the post itself.

Among other things, I am asking, does this lack of interest mean the link itself is bad? I dunno. Or that it doesn't engender conversation, and is that bad? Or is that good? And if so, then are we not trying to engender conversation in MeFi? Is the purpose of this place something else entirely, and then if that's the case why does so much about MeFi seem centralized around the conversations that links instigate rather than the links themselves? See we can't have it both ways.

BlueTrain: "Zach, when did MeTa become your personal blog?"

It's not. Your insinuation I don't know that might have been funny on your end but it's insulting on mine. I comment and participate in MeFi less now than ever. And comments like yours are one of the reasons why.

You can't sneeze in here without someone accusing you of doing it wrong. "No, it's AA-choo not aaa-CHOO!"

"The number of responses are completely irrelevent to the validity of a post"

Is this true though? Maybe that's how it should be. Maybe that's how it is. However that's not always how things are perceived.

Oftentimes (not every time but often enough) Bad 'newsfiltery' links encourage good conversation, and good links encourage little to no attention? I mean is this normal behavior? Is this where the MeFi community as a whole finds contentment? Because this is how we behave, and then people get upset that bland news stories are posted. We wonder why this happens. Well the reason is obvious, the news stories encourage conversation, which is what people in here obviously want, so they seek out posts that are not necessarily good examples of web design or enlightening and with meaty info or whatever -- they look for stuff that'll get people's panties in a wad and make them participate in the conversation.

But if that's not what we're here for... do you see the conundrum? There is relevance here but we refuse to inspect it, because we don't want relevance to interest versus quality. And yet there it is staring back at us, and it's in reverse. Bad quality good interest. Good quality bad interest.

Isn't that kinda weird?

FilmGoerJuan: "Posts are more and more beginning to resemble Hollywood blockbusters: you'd better have a great opening because business will drop off sharply after that."

Precisely! And should MeFi posts be like movies? Is this what we want? Is this the way it is regardless of how much people whine? Should we just accept it?

AdrianHon: "if people don't have anything to say, it doesn't mean they didn't like it."

Understood. We don't want "me too" posts in here by people who have nothing to say other than, "good post. nice link. thank you." But at the same time sometimes I see such posts and they don't really bother me. At least someone's weighing in. So if the really good links don't encourage conversation, why do we bother with the whole thread thing in here? Do the threads connected to the link posts actually get in the way? Are the two completely separate things? I mean, Matt came up with this concept for a reason. Are we utilizing this place correctly? Should there be no relevance between a link and the thread, or is there a relevance that we're ignoring?

People like bad links if the topic is good, and people may like good links but don't react if they don't encourage discussion. Am I the only one who sees this as weird? It's like Masterpiece Theater (when given a chance) does entertain and enlighten but it doesn't interest the vast majority of an audience. Whereas Jerry Springer still gets ratings years later even though it's the lowest form of entertainment ever concieved by man since the invention of the fly swatter. And we wonder why?

SeanyBoy: "So I suppose the implicit nature of Metafilter is such that it punishes good posts in the favour of contentious subjects..."

I love it when someone smarter than me comes along and is able to say in less than twenty words what takes me twenty screens to fail to say. =)

AndrewCooke "why on earth would you want to post something that's derivative, repetitive and preachy?"

Well I meant that despite the fact there are negative things about it, there's also a lot of positive things about the work. I mean, I personally can't stand Picasso but I acknowledge he was talented and he has interested a lot of other people. I didn't personally dig Nick's art completely but I could appreciate it on a certain level and based on what I know about MeFi naturally assumed it'd be a shoe-in for this place. I still believe that. So I'm shocked to find it get so little 'copy' so to speak.

And for some reason I just think the answer to why in this case can illuminate a lot about what makes MeFi's community tick, and I just find that fascinating.

"maybe that would have been an interesting discussion, but mefi is about links to good sites, and consequent discussion, not links to middling-to-poor sites for the sake of disussion."

And yet poor sites with good topics do encourage discussion. And discussion is good. No need to discourage discussion. It makes the MeFi community flow. However, when links to good sites are largely ignored (or perhaps clicked on and not commented upon), how are we as a community supposed to know the community liked it?

How can we encourage the good stuff and discourage the bad stuff, when the EXACT OPPOSITE thing is happening? And then people complain but nothing gets done. It's been like this as long as I can remember and I've never been able to wrap my mind around it. I think this is partly why the 'guidelines' are often contrary to what people want to do in the space, because of these incongruencies in community reaction to individual action.

I'm not necessarily saying something needs to be done. I just find this blatant contrast between links and threads very interesting, and worth investigating further.
posted by ZachsMind at 12:15 PM on October 2, 2003

Dude, it's just a link.
posted by angry modem at 12:19 PM on October 2, 2003

Sicknick.org is hosted by Hoder Interactive. Isn't that kind of a self-link?
posted by eastlakestandard at 12:26 PM on October 2, 2003

We've talked about this before, but thanks for bringing it up again Zach. For what its worth, I share your frustration. I put a lot of work into my posts, and while I greatly and profoundly appreciate the time that people take to say "good job", it makes me crazy that no one ever seems to want to talk about the things I post.

Or, maybe I misunderstood the memo and I'm not really making good posts. But I sure feel like I'm hitting the intent and spirit of MeFi.

Looking at yesterday's posts - there were 11 posts sourced from 'major news outlets' (drudge, BBC, SF gate, etc.), with an average of 30.09 comments (skewed slightly by the 113 comments in the Macintosh post. On the flip side, there were 14 posts from other sources, with an average of 18.5 comments per post. 6 of the 14 had less than 10 comments, while only 3 of the 11 'news posts' had less than 10 comments.

Where am I going with all of this ... well, I'm not sure. But maybe the fact is that this is 'Newsfilter', because the news current events are certainly what the MeFites seem to want to talk most about.

But maybe I'm just bitter. Zach, come sit by me... ::pats pillow next to her::
posted by anastasiav at 12:33 PM on October 2, 2003

"I am asking, does this lack of interest mean the link itself is bad? I dunno."

Bullshit. You do know. We all do. What the hell are you on about?

"But if that's not what we're here for... do you see the conundrum?"

These's no conundrum. This *thing* that has your panties in a wad is the basic premise behind the culture we have here. We like good links, and we like to converse about stuff, many times the two don't match up, the man/god Matt has refused (wisely) to smite the pure discussion threads, and ....... Boom, we have MetaFilter.

Next? What obvious thing shall we anally deconstruct now?

"Isn't that kinda weird? "

No?

99.99% of consumers say they'd prefer it if gas were free. And yet we continue to be charged for it... do you see the conundrum? Isn't that kinda weird?

"But maybe I'm just bitter."

Then you're playing the wrong game. People who need affirmation for things like this should never, ever post links to MetaFilter. For good or bad, this place is a meat grinder. I'm glad people post links, but I'd never do it.
posted by y6y6y6 at 12:51 PM on October 2, 2003

People who need affirmation for things like this should never, ever post links to MetaFilter.

I don't post links for the affirmation. I do it to be a good member of the community - MeFi gives me a lot (information, entertainment, heartburn, new perspectives) and I believe I should try to give back in return.

Affirmation and feedback are two very different things.

I accept the fact that silence=good job (at MeFi, as at many other places, including my place of employment) and you'll only get yelled at when you screw up. But I share Zach's frustration that the community only seems to want to discuss the very thing ('news') that we claim to not want to encourage.
posted by anastasiav at 12:56 PM on October 2, 2003

OK, I'm going to say this again .... Read the kuro5hin link. There must be some way of applying this new-fangled "Game Theory" to Metafilter and FPP's.

People who need affirmation for things like this should never, ever post links to MetaFilter.
I post for affirmation. If I say something's cool, I want everybody else to say it's cool and then talk for ages about it.
And then I want people to say I'm cool too.
posted by seanyboy at 1:10 PM on October 2, 2003

".... frustration that the community only seems to want to discuss the very thing ('news') that we claim to not want to encourage."

Maybe I'm missing something.

It seems beyond obvious to me that we'd want to discuss the same things that pretty much any cross section of humanity would want to discuss - Politics, social issues, top 10 lists, pretty much any ideological divide.

It also seems obvious to me that we wouldn't find much to discuss when it comes to things we all agree on. Right?
posted by y6y6y6 at 1:38 PM on October 2, 2003

SLS!
posted by clavdivs at 1:55 PM on October 2, 2003

My favorite post only got 11 comments, and I don't use comments as a measure of quality, I think the number of comments is based on a variety of uncontrollable factors. Namely, will quonsar say something funny, or will hama7, 111, myself, or some other glutton for punishment say something controversial?
posted by insomnyuk at 2:07 PM on October 2, 2003

Sicknick.org is hosted by Hoder Interactive. Isn't that kind of a self-link?

Hey, you're right. What the hell's up with that?
posted by soyjoy at 2:36 PM on October 2, 2003

Perhaps no one gave a fuck about yet another Iranian dissenter. Even back in the late 70s you couldn't swing a dead cat in most european metropoli without hitting a middle eastern political exile.
posted by mischief at 2:43 PM on October 2, 2003

soyjoy: That reminded me of the Blogs by Iranians link, posted by Hoder; I just found out that the site was created by him as well. The fact is, while people liked the link, self-linking is not allowed on Mefi. If it was, I would've used it several times for my own sites. Very disappointing indeed.
posted by adrianhon at 3:31 PM on October 2, 2003

I think you're cool, seanyboy, and I give you five gold stars for the kuro5hin link.

As we've said in the past, some sort of system of indicating that something is a good post would be helpful. As we've said in the past, many of the greatest posts are not really great conversation fodder. I also think that the sheer number of posts means fewer comments for the not-so controversial/newsy items, and doesn't lead to much chance of any conversations developing, because within hours, it's basically a "dead post" with 30 more in front of it.
posted by taz at 3:48 PM on October 2, 2003

...
Still, once one or two people chime in with a "great post" comment, I'd certainly be disinclined to add my "me too" to the mix. I don't know about other people, but I don't generally post a comment unless I think I have something new to add or where there is significant disagreement on both sides of an issue, and I want to weigh in with my vote. For some reason, "hey, great post" doesn't seem to fall within those reasons I may contribute a comment parameters.

I think most times, people look at the number of comments as an indicator of how the community feels about a post. Lots of comments must mean good thread, so we get people who are trying to construct posts that will lead to a lot of comments. We've hashed this out before, but even knowing that there is generally an inverse relationship between the number of comments and the quality of the post/thread, I still find myself thinking wow, 87 comments. I wonder what's going on in here. Or, "Oh, only 3 comments. That's too bad. It was a great post too".
...
posted by willnot at 1:56 PM PST on July 31

Mushkelley - there is often an inverse relationship between the quality of a post and the number of comments in a post. I hope to one day find a post so spectacular that it leaves everybody speechless and I achieve the nirvana of a zero comment post. Posts that rake in lots of comments are easy to come by - just find some news story that pushes people's hot buttons - but avoid the temptation of that. There be dragons.
posted by willnot at 1:11 PM PST on August 6

I'd rather have a double post than one of those sad sad posts that everyone ignores.

just a quick note: oftentimes some of those "sad sad posts" that everyone ignores are very very good -- it's just that they don't generate discussion, which is perfectly fine, and sometimes even preferable (as compared to threads produced by the notoriously voltatile subjects of : israel/palestine, weight, vegetarianism, SUVs, and partisan politics). Ask Su, who consistently posts art-type links that i (and i'm guessing many others) enjoy, but don't always garner a lot of comments (i say we break off -- all five of us! -- and form avantfilter! where we can compare the relative merits of hating Jeff Koons vs hating Damien Hirst [i suspect they're one and the same -- birthed by some porn star sex czar.])
posted by fishfucker at 1:14 PM PST on August 6

etc.

etc.

etc.

Look at my posting history: 8, 12, 20, 154, 4, 4, 3, 5, 8, 5, and 5 comments. I consider anything above 15 to be a failure on my part, even if I enjoy the commenting process. A truly great post should suck the reader so far into the moment that he/she forgets that MeFi even exists.
posted by The Michael The at 4:10 PM on October 2, 2003

Hang in there Zach's mind...
Notice many factors can make a "good post" be overlooked.
Timing, too many other good post that day that "it" is overlooked.
Theme, just had a similar post/subject so seems repetitive.
Bad Titling, gives "it" a wrong impression.
No supporting links, "it" is an unknown subject that by itself stands alone.

Also a main reason, no member feels the way you do;P
Post a linK striking a chord or nerve, my 2 cents you will surely read.
posted by thomcatspike at 4:13 PM on October 2, 2003

I comment on the links I DON'T read and vica versa :)
posted by carfilhiot at 6:01 PM on October 2, 2003

Asking why people don't post a lot of comments to your FPP is kinda like jumping up and down wearing a silly hat and wondering why more people didn't look at you.

Is your reason for posting so linked to your frail ego that we must pat you on the back and give ya an 'atta-boy' every single friggin' time? You want warm fuzzies? Go find some damn BBS that moans over your pain. This is MetaFilter, we don't take prisoners, we rarely ask questions and I, for one, could give a fuck how you feel.

I like this place but it's not my life and it shouldn't be yours.
posted by Dagobert at 4:06 AM on October 3, 2003

We don't want "me too" posts in here by people who have nothing to say other than, "good post. nice link. thank you."

This boggles my mind. OK, maybe it would be a little silly to have 15 [this is good] posts in a row, but that's not how it works out - everyone has their own little way of giving thanks for a good link. I don't understand why it's uncool to simply say that the link is appreciated. I guess that makes me the MeFi version of the Star Wars kid.
posted by widdershins at 9:43 AM on October 3, 2003

I acknowledge that similar queries have been presented in MeTa before, but people just dance around the issue. I'm suggesting further investigation and understanding of this phenomenon, and as usual I get lamblasted for it.

**dutifully and politely sits on the pillow at anastasiav's feet, puts on his jester hat and makes Smeagol faces at y6y6y6 and Dagobert**

Dago, dude, it wasn't my post. I could care less what you care about personally. I ain't askin' for atta-boys. I'm askin' why are the atta-boys going to threads that others accuse of being "newsfiltery" and I'm askin' why is that a bad thing?

What kind of a NAME is why six anyway? **crosses eyes** "why?" "six." "why?" "six." "why?" "six.." **rolls eyes**sounds like a rejected line from the Who's On First routine. Sesame Street is brought to you today by the letter Y and the number six.

"Then you're playing the wrong game."

So this is a GAME then?

Oh!

I get it now!

I thought it was a community, but it's a competition!

Who can post links more and who can diss other people for posting links more. It's just a game. That explains everything!

Thanks for clearing that up. **sticks out tongue**

You've got me all wrong, Sesame Street. I'm not complaining about the thread. I'm not complaining about anything. I'm questioning the validity of other people complaining about other threads that are what they consider to be poor linkage but that get lots of replies, when there are perfectly good links getting posted and very few people respond to them.

A good link causes someone to go to that link, and they spend several minutes to a few hours there, completely forget to come back to MeFi and notate what they've found. So it just sits there. So if a thread gets little to no replies is this a good thing? Is this what we should encourage? People to not respond to posts? Of course not. So just how do we encourage more good posts, discourage the bad, and improve the community as a whole?

Or should people just stop using the word "newsfilter" as if it were an insult, because if we don't want to do the encourage/discourage thing, then we really need to quit whining about newsfilteryness as if it were unmetafiltery.

Cuz if ya don't wanna fix it, it must not be broke.

Either change behavior to encourage only the links you like and ignore the ones you don't, OR shut the heck up about it and let MeFi be what the masses want it to be.

I mean do we as a community want to see:

• an end to newsfiltery FPPs?
• an end to the insulting use of the term "NewsFilter" in reference to perfectly acceptable FPPs?
• more FPPs that represent good links but do not illicit discussion?
• more FPPs that illicit good discussion but are just posts to cnn or nyt?
• more FPPs that do both?

Once we as a community figure out what we want, then we can get there quicker.

Perhaps Matt coulda set things up long ago so that cnn.com, yahoo.com and every well known site out there could have only been linked to once, and subsequent links to the same domains would either get removed or would never save. If someone wanted to post about a current event, they'd have to find a news report on a domain that hadn't already been posted. This way would encourage more variety in linkage. Everybody knows about Reuters news copy, so why link to another one, even if the topic is different?

Yeah. I know. It sounds ludicrous and I'm the one typing it.

Yet people continue to complain about threads that link to news stories, because the linkage isn't new and novel and creative. It's just yet another stupid news story. But other people obviously like that. I'm not saying stop the linking. I'm not trying to press judgment either way. I'm just suggesting a direction be taken that either stops the bad linkage or stops the whining about newsfilteryness.

I should point out by the way, how much I adore when someone like why six or dogbert takes a topic someone like myself suggests and twists their reply around to be passive agressive backslaps at the person suggesting the topic rather than rationally addressing and approaching the topic itself. Instead of trying to work the topic, they just actively attempt to dismiss it out of hand, as if the naked emperor were wearing clothes. It's really quite charming. It helps make MeFi such a wonderful place to be.

Could we at least stop using the word "NewsFilter" as if that were a bad thing, because the active majority obviously believes it's a great thing. Either that, OR investigate further why this phenomenon happens, better explain what makes NewsFiltery a bad thing, rationally and politely persuade others to agree with you (because I'm just not convinced), and then offer constructive solutions on how to improve MeFi rather than just calling it NewsFilter. Or just go make your own place that doesn't allow news filtering threads.

Shit or git off the pot, is whut ah'm a tryin' ta say.
posted by ZachsMind at 9:58 AM on October 3, 2003