What constitutes newsfilter?

April 8, 2004 7:47 AM

TODAY'S THE DAY (unless my math is off): "make room, mefites - there's a new crowd in town just itchin' to drop a buttload of newsfiltery, double-posty, self-linky, farky, snarky FPPs your way." Any last-minute tips on quality FPPs before the newbie deluge? Or pledges to stay "pure" from any of y'all before you post? Or, once it starts, old-timers, feel free to complain here rather than starting a new MeTa thread for every little offense.
posted by soyjoy to etiquette/policy at 7:47 AM (32 comments total)

well since i started this whole "over-eager newb" thing I get the first comment!

I'm waiting on popping my cherry until the moment I have an fpp so great, everyone will stop posting just to mavel in it's grandeur. ok not really. I am waiting though.

As for suggestions, please no newfiltering. I get the morning paper just like everyone else. bastards
posted by bob sarabia at 10:48 AM on April 8, 2004

just--please--no references to it being your first post. it doesn't matter. If you [meaning, any new posters] get called into metatalk, then you can use the first post defense.

my first posts were newsfilters back before it was a problem, and totally noob double posts of things *everyone* had seen.
posted by th3ph17 at 11:02 AM on April 8, 2004

bob - no newsfiltering? but can i coffeefilter? please?

i would be pleased if i start out with an FPP that gathers at least one favorable comment from someone who's been here long enough to know a good post from a bad one. that's what i'm aiming for.

as for you old-timers, how about (prior to flaming a questionable post) tempering the abuse with a "well you did X pretty well, but then you went and did Y and thus i hate you". at least let us know what we're doing wrong. there is actually a polite way to emphatically disagree with the quality of someone else's contribution.

i'm not asking for you to go easy on us, by any means. i'm just suggesting that giving us examples as to why a post may or may not be good (such as linking to previous MeTa threads or archived discussions if not willing to rehash it for our benefit) would help us learn to contribute to the blue more effectively than a one-word "X-filter" callout or automatic "matt please delete this @#%&*! post" comment. some of us have been lurking long enough to get an idea of the personalities behind the nicks of longtime mefites, but none of you know if we're tools or not yet, so please give us the benefit of the doubt until you've established the degree of appropriate admiration or contempt that we earn.

(if it's something as obviously awful as a three-week old triple posted fark link, of course, no niceties necessary...)
posted by caution live frogs at 11:07 AM on April 8, 2004

Boobies-R-Us
posted by petebest at 11:12 AM on April 8, 2004

*mavels*

*newfilters*
posted by mr_crash_davis at 11:26 AM on April 8, 2004

Considering this steamer of a post, perhaps there are a few existing posters who need a refresher course, eh?
posted by dflemingdotorg at 11:47 AM on April 8, 2004

My thing would be, don't take up more lines of the front page than you really, absolutely need to. Try to avoid paragraph breaks within the post - it confuses some of us who are easily befuddled. And no, putting half of it in small type doesn't really help.
posted by soyjoy at 11:50 AM on April 8, 2004

I have found this Metafilter Wiki site very useful for both considering a FPP and figuring out the origins of some of the inside jokes. Ponies, pancakes, and Pepsi Blue, oh my!
posted by fionab at 12:10 PM on April 8, 2004

You all will have to wait till tomorrow for my partisan newsfilter FPP. Oh well.
posted by Gyan at 12:25 PM on April 8, 2004

oh yeah, regarding the post length. i agree that you shouldn't take up too much space on the front page, but also think about not taking up enough . dont post three words and then " [more inside]". That annoys the hell out of me. there's an index for a reason, use it. that goes double for AskMe
posted by bob sarabia at 1:41 PM on April 8, 2004

Threadjack:
Since I don't have fpp-credentials yet, and quite frankly don't know if I would dare post this on the front page, I give you - Dear Readers of Metatalk - the South Park clip that won't be aired. Highly offensive, not even remotely sfw, but still. Funny as hell. Don't know if this is some kind of leaked in-joke or just a spoof, but still. Funny as hell.

Feel free to complain here rather than starting a new MeTa thread.

Tada!
posted by mr.marx at 2:01 PM on April 8, 2004

I'm waiting on popping my cherry until the moment I have an fpp so great, everyone will stop posting just to mavel in it's grandeur.

Good luck. I've been waiting two and a half years to find that post.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 3:10 PM on April 8, 2004

you should've posted that, mr.marx (definitely omfg-worthy)...did they make that for themselves?
posted by amberglow at 4:08 PM on April 8, 2004

No idea, but that seems to be the most plausible explanation.

Btw, I gave it to the monkeys now. I just had to give it to someone.
posted by mr.marx at 4:13 PM on April 8, 2004

amberglow surely you jest. That link has no redeeming value whatsoever except perhaps for scholars of South Park, which alas I am not. Not even remotely funny.
posted by cbrody at 6:24 PM on April 8, 2004

dude. that's fucked up.
posted by papercake at 6:27 PM on April 8, 2004

If only it had built up to something funny.
Being 'outrageous' is tired.
posted by Blue Stone at 6:37 PM on April 8, 2004

I think Space Coyote explains it well : >
posted by amberglow at 6:40 PM on April 8, 2004

There's no accounting for taste.
posted by cbrody at 6:45 PM on April 8, 2004

I thought it (the South Park thing) was hilarious because it was so over-the-top.

Yes, there's no accounting for taste. But, if I may, I think the humor in that is that the ante is continually raised, punctuated by Stan's attempts to interrupt—and then, of course, that the joke isn't actually funny. A lot of the humor is in the delivery.

I really have no problem with the fact that people's tastes and sensibilities vary; what I do have a problem with is the insinuation that if one personally doesn't find something "funny" or "scary", that it really isn't.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 7:20 PM on April 8, 2004

Kyle, Ethereal, KYLE's attempts to interrupt.

Sheesh, if I didn't already know you were an oldie-von-moldy, that was a dead giveaway. :)
posted by Ryvar at 7:24 PM on April 8, 2004

Also, about the joke, somebody posted a link in #mefi - apparently this is an old (decades) joke that old stagehands would tell the newbies behind stage to freak them out. The details change with each telling, but the basic structure and theme is the same, as is the punchline (except in Europe, where it's 'Debonairs' (spelling?) as opposed to 'Aristocrats').
posted by Ryvar at 7:31 PM on April 8, 2004

Oh, thanks. That makes me feel great. Hey, I'm only THIRTY-NINE! Dammit.

I get Stan and Kyle mixed-up.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 7:32 PM on April 8, 2004

apparently this is an old (decades) joke that old stagehands would tell the newbies behind stage to freak them out.
Oh, it's like that famous joke (someone used it at a Friar's Club roast on tv recently--Gilbert Gottfried?)...apparently it's famous for being the last-ditch thing when every other joke you've told has flopped.
posted by amberglow at 7:50 PM on April 8, 2004

and Ethereal--don't feel bad--we can sing the HR Pufnstuf theme song, and they can't : >
posted by amberglow at 7:56 PM on April 8, 2004

If you read Meta regularly, you will learn that there is only one true lesson. You can get away with anything you want, as long as you don't give a damn what anyone else thinks. Only one person can stop you, and he's not inclined to.
posted by darukaru at 9:18 PM on April 8, 2004

Uhhhh... so my math was off? Matt enabled the signups on April 1st, right? So newbies have to wait seven calendar days plus the rest of the day they signed up? Harsh. You'd think I'd remember something so traumatic. Oh well... TODAY'S THE DAY (here, anyway)...
posted by soyjoy at 9:23 PM on April 8, 2004

"Kyle, Ethereal..." said ryvar.

But c'mon. Granted, if you know their outfits or pay careful attention to the voices, they're obviously different fictional animated 2D kids.

But from a more casual point of view, Stan and Kyle are totally fucking interchangable when the topic of discussion is not (1) Wendy, (2) Kyle's mom, or (3) Jews.
posted by cortex at 11:00 PM on April 8, 2004

um, no, mr.marx, putting that thing on the front page would have been um, a mildly uncomfortable experience for you here. hell, that thing was immediately tossed in the blort shitcan the moment it was submitted. (i should probably explain that the blort shitcan is where stuff that doesn't get posted goes, you know like that cat decapitation thing going around... ah fuck, maybe i'm getting too old). i did watch the southpark thing and laughed out loud a dozen times in between cringing, but sometimes even a pile of dogshit on the sidewalk which precisely resembles george bush in profile is still a pile of dogshit on the sidewalk. although, i would post that.
posted by quonsar at 8:48 AM on April 9, 2004

quonsar, I always appreciate your occasional sly self-links in the comments because it reminds me to go over to blort and check out the stuff that's been piling up (ha!) over the past couple weeks or so.

Man, that fractal-patterns thing from last Friday is definitely worth the trip - and I use the word advisedly.
posted by soyjoy at 9:23 AM on April 9, 2004

Jump in and try it... remember, 'Illegitimi non carborundum!'
posted by plep at 11:01 AM on April 9, 2004

OK, so now that all is said and done... as far as I can tell, it went like this...

drpartypoopercrankypantsesquire was the first of the new breed with enough balls to break the ice, followed shortly by
ChasFile. gesamtkunstwerk violated th3ph17's dictum (only the SECOND ONE on this thread, after all), with "This isn’t the freshest post, but I’ve been waiting to join Mefi for a long time, and today is the first day I can post." Awwwww. Then mr.marx, stringbean, reklaw and others, all interspersed with FPPs from the usual gang of idiots. So after all that, there was no flood of new stuff to deal with - it's all been dissipated within the overall flow. Whatever happened to "Monkey see, Monkey do," huh?
posted by soyjoy at 6:46 PM on April 10, 2004