OldNewsFilter

November 3, 2003 11:41 AM

WaybackmachineFilter.

This story is NewsFilter, but not new NewsFilter (which is not so much a problem for me as it is for others) it's OLD news which by definition is not news. Not only that, but the new news of this old story (which was covered in many a place) is that the patent was considered invalid:

"A panel set up to look at the Patent Office has concluded that the current system is not working very well. Given that the USPTO managed to conclude in a breathtakingly fast 12 months that a patent for how to swing on a rope swing was invalid [no, I'm not making this up...], I don't see what the big problem is. Meanwhile, Amazon announced their intention to seek a patent on the printed word, and possibly on stone carvings." from Linuxworld.

Although the poster admits it's old news, this raises the question of why post it at all. It's been widely covered.
posted by Blue Stone to etiquette/policy at 11:41 AM (9 comments total)

The point's moot, isn't it? It's a doublepost. Don't see why this needs a callout to Metatalk.
posted by PrinceValium at 1:26 PM on November 3, 2003

Or, to put it another way, all you needed to say was:
Double post.
posted by languagehat at 1:39 PM on November 3, 2003

It was in violation of my patent.
posted by ed at 1:47 PM on November 3, 2003

Patents is a virtue.
posted by nthdegx at 1:54 PM on November 3, 2003

Virtue gets you maced;
posted by i_cola at 1:58 PM on November 3, 2003

Well my point wasn't really about the double post, or rather only incidentally.
I brought it here rather than bitching about it in the thread, as I thought I was supposed to.
posted by Blue Stone at 2:26 PM on November 3, 2003

So it was a bad post. Why bring it to MeTa? Is it that cringe-worthy?
posted by pizzasub at 2:35 PM on November 3, 2003

This is what MeTa is for. Blue Stone is perfectly right to bring it up.

A post need not be cringeworthy -- merely worthy of some sort of meta-discussion not appropriate in the thread itself -- to warrant being discussed in Metatalk. It's not a freaking torture chamber, much as it may seem that way sometimes. It's a place to go meta, you see, and talk about the talk.

[/pedant]

If you don't care to discuss it, move along. Nothing to see here.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 3:03 PM on November 3, 2003

My MeTa post was maybe a little long-winded. I could have just said,

Double post of old news that's now innacurate. (With the appropriate links.)

Am I supposed to post said criticism in MeTa or in the thread on MeFi, though? Now I'm kinda confused.
posted by Blue Stone at 9:54 PM on November 3, 2003