May 21, 2004

11:37 AM

I think this is a great and interesting post. I find it all the more interesting because I got a weird, spam-like email a few moments ago asking me to post the exact same link to Metafilter....
posted by anastasiav to etiquette/policy at 11:37 AM (34 comments total)

what was the email subject? (i want to search my mail filter!)
posted by andrew cooke at 11:40 AM on May 21, 2004

Here's the text of the email:

From: Steve Silberman
To: [my email address deleted]
Subject: MeFi Link Request, if worthy
Date: Fri, 21 May 2004 10:02:33 -0700

Dear Anastasia:

We haven't spoken in a while, but I wish you well.

Please consider linking a new, labor-of-love website that I built with two friends of mine, "Ginsberg's Celestial Homework," http://www.levity.com/digaland/celestial . It's a Web portal to a fantastic reading list that poet Allen Ginsberg gave to his students (including teenage me) in his Literary History of the Beat Generation course at Naropa.edu in 1977. It's a nice selection of international/bohemian/subversive/visionary voices.
I hope you enjoy it!

Steve

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Steve Silberman
contributing editor
Wired magazine
http://www.wired.com/wired
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Now I'm as big a fan of Ginsburg as the next beat poet on the block, but does this seem a bit odd and out of line to anyone else but me? A kind of self-link-by-proxy?
posted by anastasiav at 11:40 AM on May 21, 2004

do you know the guy? (i didn't get one, sniff).

seems like the interesting thing is how many people did this go out to. it's not unknown for someone to send email to a mefite suggesting a post. only the spamming bit seems odd, really.
posted by andrew cooke at 11:44 AM on May 21, 2004

To my knowledge, I've never spoken to or emailed with him (unless it was in #meta and I didn't know it)... It was just the weirdness of my getting the email and then it being posted a few minutes later that set my radar off. I do think its a very interesting post....
posted by anastasiav at 11:49 AM on May 21, 2004

Steve is also digaman. He obviously felt like it warranted a post, but didn't want to violate the rules by self-posting. He was quite polite in his request and it seems reasonable enough to me, although a text-ad and a post to the Mefi projects list seem even more appropriate.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 11:49 AM on May 21, 2004

Assuming the sender's name is authentic, why didn't this user post it?
posted by Gyan at 11:51 AM on May 21, 2004

I get daily e-mails from viral marketers offering me good money to shill for their products. don't you all?
;)
posted by matteo at 11:53 AM on May 21, 2004

Curiosity withdrawn.
posted by Gyan at 11:53 AM on May 21, 2004

I think it's an ok use, people email me stuff all the time and I post the stuff that is good enough (I don't really care who is doing the asking). It's obviously a touchy subject, but if you've ever exchanged email with Steve, it doesn't seem like a total shill to me.
posted by mathowie at 12:09 PM on May 21, 2004

Can non-metafilter members actually view email addresses? It was my impression that you have to be logged in to get that info.

I do like the links.
posted by drezdn at 12:10 PM on May 21, 2004

To: [my email address deleted]

How was your e-mail obtained?
Recently had a lurker e-mail me looking for membership. While replying back realized my e-mail was not viewable by non-members on the site. So mentiioned it thinking, he had taken an educated guess. He replied back, it was from my blog posted here that he obtained it...dope!, me. Hello! David S.
posted by thomcatspike at 12:12 PM on May 21, 2004

Steve is also digaman
Arrggg, missed that fact.
posted by thomcatspike at 12:16 PM on May 21, 2004

I don't see anything wrong with this either. The opening line implies he does remember some previous communication. Either he mis-remembered or you yourself have forgotten. I don't think he meant it as general broadcast spam.

He is just pointing something out which you may, or may not, feel that others may find interesting. It's up to you to make that decision for yourself.
posted by vacapinta at 12:27 PM on May 21, 2004

It was certainly not a "broadcast spam"! I emailed precisely two MeFi users about this -- satapher and anastasiav. I emailed satapher last night, because I know he loves the Beats and Ginsberg, and was simply so excited about finishing the site last night, I emailed anastasiav too after not hearing back from Chris in five minutes [grin], because I am a great admirer of all of her posts, and I thought we had corresponded before about Oliver Sacks. Perhaps I am confusing her with someone else.

So sorry anastasiav, if that was the case. In any case, you're a MeFier I greatly admire, as is satapher.
posted by digaman at 12:36 PM on May 21, 2004

So......It's okay for me to email various members who are my friends and ask them to post my sites to the front page?

Cool. Look for some great links soon.
posted by y6y6y6 at 1:02 PM on May 21, 2004

Cool. Look for some great links soon.

If they don't suck.
posted by The God Complex at 1:10 PM on May 21, 2004

It's okay for me to email various members who are my friends and ask them to post my sites to the front page?

My understanding is it's ok to email people, or suggest they link to something, but friends would probably be a bad choice (as they might be biased towards your creations).
posted by drezdn at 1:13 PM on May 21, 2004

Neither anastasiav, who doesn't recall ever talking to me, nor satapher, are "friends." They are discerning MeFiers who I (thought I had) talked to in the past, which is why I emailed them and only them. Note that my subject line in the email contained the all-important qualification: "if worthy." I would have no problem if a friend who built a non-commercial, purely educational site that I thought was delicious asked me to post a link. Isn't that kind of peer review precisely what the whole idea of metafiltering is? Are we supposed to hear about great sites that have no ad budget etc. from voices out of a burning bush? [grin]
posted by digaman at 1:15 PM on May 21, 2004

It goes without saying, I hope, but I would never post an FPP to an unworthy site just because a friend had made it. Frankly, I'd be too terrified that I would be incinerated by the Awesome, Terrible, and Marvelous Discriminating Power of the MeFi Groupmind, and that my FPPs would quickly be ignored as lame. Quality is the bottom line. I'm not saying that site is a great event or anything -- it's a class handout fergawdsakes, but what a class -- but I would have posted it myself enthusiastically if I hadn't made it.
posted by digaman at 1:28 PM on May 21, 2004

I was kidding of course. I could never email someone and ask them to post my site, as that would make me feel dirty.
posted by y6y6y6 at 1:39 PM on May 21, 2004

Metafilter: Curiosity Withdrawn.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 1:48 PM on May 21, 2004

the Awesome, Terrible, and Marvelous Discriminating Power of the MeFi Groupmind

never mock the jury while you're standing in the dock
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 2:04 PM on May 21, 2004

you are far too nice, anastasiav! nobody dares to email me!
posted by quonsar at 2:19 PM on May 21, 2004

Everybody liked the link, and Matt thinks it's fine. So what's the problem again? Thanks for the link, satapher, and thanks for the page, digaman.
posted by muckster at 2:23 PM on May 21, 2004

"nobody dares to email me!"

I've emailed you my congratulations when you became a granddaddy, and you didn't even emailed me back, you doddering, ungrateful fuck!
;)

anyway, even if I'm against posting by proxy, I think digaman has been posting interesting stuff here. and the Ginsberg link was good. so, let's not throw him to the lions. yet.
posted by matteo at 2:57 PM on May 21, 2004

It actually sounds like a good idea, to prevent self-linking yet still draw attention the the worthwhile projects which MeFites are making (apart from the projects mailingslist ofcourse, but that's a much smaller audience).

How about a "email a random active mefite" function? *grin*
posted by fvw at 3:15 PM on May 21, 2004

Neither anastasiav, who doesn't recall ever talking to me, nor satapher, are "friends." They are discerning MeFiers

Satapher? Sometime in the last few weeks I saw my very first comments by Satapher in 3 years that weren't a single sentence (or phrase) and the equivalent of 'yer all stupid nyah!'

Which is fine, I guess. Live and let live. I got nothin' against the guy, and maybe he's been posting long, informative stuff when I wasn't looking.

But to single him out as 'discerning'? Pull the other one!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:41 PM on May 21, 2004

I could never email someone and ask them to post my site, as that would make me feel dirty.

I could never post a snide, insulting comment like that in MetaTalk, as that would make me feel dirty.

As far as I recall, every time there's a self-link callout someone says "Why don't you just e-mail another member and ask them to post the link?" So now digaman does that and gets called out for it. Sheesh. Matt obviously doesn't have a problem with it, nobody's arguing with the quality of the link, so why are we here?

Oh, and that didn't seem like a "weird, spam-like email" to me, it seemed like a friendly, modest e-mail. But we all have our standards.

And q, you never answer my e-mails either, so quitcher bitchin.
posted by languagehat at 7:00 AM on May 22, 2004

There was always son_of_minya.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 9:24 AM on May 22, 2004

If anyone (lurkers too) has something cool they'd like to see posted, just email it to coolmefipost at timeistight.com. (I reserve the right to reject your idea of cool.)
posted by timeistight at 9:33 AM on May 22, 2004

Thanks, all.
posted by digaman at 11:13 AM on May 22, 2004

Seems to me that some members here (such as digaman) do consistently good, interesting work and perhaps could be exempted from the self-link rule to just simplify things. Anyone who is out of line will get slapped down quick enough.
posted by billsaysthis at 11:24 AM on May 22, 2004

Seems to me that some members here (such as digaman) do consistently good, interesting work and perhaps could be exempted from the self-link rule to just simplify things. Anyone who is out of line will get slapped down quick enough.

*slaps billsaythis down*

no.
posted by The God Complex at 12:26 PM on May 22, 2004

I would like to formally and abjectly apologize to digaman for this Metatalk post. Now that he brings up Oliver Sacks, I do, of course, remember the email exchange I had with him. I feel even worse considering that I posted this and then ran off to Canada for the weekend and couldn't see the resolution. I guess I was just taken aback to get the email and then see that at least one other person had gotten it as well. digaman did not spam me, and I'm actually rather honored that he chose me to send his new creation to. I'm very sorry to have impugned your good name, digaman -- and I love the Ginsburg site!
posted by anastasiav at 8:15 AM on May 24, 2004