have we completely given up on any standards in the Blue?

June 15, 2004 11:01 AM

Matt, have we completely given up on any standards in the Blue? Is the whole "best of the web" standard officially dead? It seems so, but I would like to hear it from your own mouth.
One look at the wonderful posts on the blue today which will surely continue the so pleasant conversations we have had:
[continued inside]
posted by Seth to etiquette/policy at 11:01 AM (288 comments total)

Your Daily Dose of Shit in the last 48 hours:

1. Fourteen Characteristics of fascism (to be applied to our present administration).

2. The US as becoming the most fundamentalist country in the world (because of all those Jesus freaks).

3. AP report about F. 9/11 getting a R-rating. (ooh! An AP report! We can now speculate about conspiracy theories in this thread!)

4. Allen Plan (a deiliberate troll post which is a disservice to the site that it wasn't deleted).

5. The "Apartheid Wall" thread (nothing starts a nice discussion better than using inflammatory rhetoric)

6. Temporary Coup (y2karl's daily offering of shit coupled with a completel cut and pasting of everything else that karl has read that day on DU)

7. Guardian articles about secret jails (postroad daily single-source link... someday I would love to hear why Matt never does a damn thing about Postroad just openly shitting all over the standards.)

8. A nice reporting of a under-the-radar news story like the Supreme Court ruling on the pledge case (though monju gets some points for linking to the opinion. Nevertheless, the conversation predictably was another chance to show our dislike of Christians and to snark them).

9. How we are ruining the planet (specialk's nice Green offering which nice slanted links)

10. Some anti-corporate discusision post from EternalBlight (at least most people didn't fall for the bait)

11. Another daily F. 9/11 update warning about some vast right-wing conspiracy to keep it out of theaters (with the resulting elevated discussion)

12. Tinfoil speculation about the DoD and Patriort III (more great dicussion fodder from a Newsweek article)

13. Mutilation of Muslim prisoners being ordained by Muslim law (a neat one-sided discussion about how evil them Muslims are---though not any different than the evil Christian FPPs, but notice the difference in responses)

14. Postroad's daily shit---an article about Saddam's poor daughter.


That's 14 shit posts in 48 hours. And that isn't even counting the resulting MeTa arguments.

Why? Why are we letting MeFi go to shit? Why are you doing nothing about it, Matt? Do you like the tone that is taking over MeFi increasingly every single day?
posted by Seth at 11:03 AM on June 15, 2004

Eh?
posted by DrJohnEvans at 11:06 AM on June 15, 2004

This is one of your better MeFi tirades, Seth. Bravo.
posted by trharlan at 11:13 AM on June 15, 2004

hey sethy. go find another web site. there's lots.
posted by quonsar at 11:16 AM on June 15, 2004

Why are you doing nothing about it, Matt?

Have you noticed "AskMetafilter" and all the other stuff he's been doing lately? In an ideal world he wouldn't have to be needed.

Unfortunately people are passionate about such things and you cannot stop them from posting. It's liking stopping the Mississippi with your finger. You'd need a reall big fucking dam to stop it, or the power of Matt's discretion. This may be unfortunate but as a community goes from small to large, political issues naturally come up.

It's hard to find something universally interesting and it not be esoteric, as is the main flaw in such a large community. Me? I'd post more things but I have finished the web.

I'm not promoting apathy to the situation, just an observation and possible reason why this is happening.
posted by geoff. at 11:17 AM on June 15, 2004

[14:17] * trharlan is a badass.
posted by quonsar at 11:18 AM on June 15, 2004

Why are you doing nothing about it, Matt? Do you like the tone that is taking over MeFi increasingly every single day?

I edit with a light hand and although I'd agree a handful of the posts you referenced sucked, they didn't quite suck enough to be removed. Deleting lots of posts is a pain in the ass for me to manage, which is why I generally hope people act accordingly and only remove the most egregious posts.
posted by mathowie at 11:20 AM on June 15, 2004

MeFi has bad days, and I guess this is one of them. It gets better on Friday.
posted by brownpau at 11:22 AM on June 15, 2004

I'm sick and tired of Seth and Albert Belle pissing all over MeTa!
posted by Kwantsar at 11:26 AM on June 15, 2004

Can I have a "kiss my fat ass" contact option for Seth?

Seth has posted no links and 128 comments to MetaFilter
posted by Stynxno at 11:29 AM on June 15, 2004

Oh my god, that broken record is spinning a dead horse!

*snaps photo*
posted by The God Complex at 11:29 AM on June 15, 2004

If this discussion gets really good, I'll save it and archive alongside that first notorious seth-metatalk post, as "Netnanny2"

Here's Netnanny1 (Metatalk 3913)
posted by troutfishing at 11:34 AM on June 15, 2004

Just for shits and giggles here I'll state for the record I'm with Seth here. Not that, you know, it'll matter.

Along similar lines: am I the only one who's irked by this sort of thing? The politicization of the front page is bad enough, but random PoliFilter snarkery in wholly apolitical threads is obnoxious as fuck. I've given up on stopping the MeFi partisans from pissing in their own pool; when they start pissing in mine I get angry. This seems to be a growing trend. I don't mean to single out fenriq, or this example, which is less egregious than many and will probably not derail the thread, but there's been more and more of this. It reminds me of nothing so much as the habit certain breeds of evangelical Christians have of turning every conversation into a proselytization. It's obnoxious when fundies do it and it's obnoxious when lefties do it.
posted by IshmaelGraves at 11:42 AM on June 15, 2004

I submit that "Best of the Web" was a worthwhile idea back in 1999, but now it won't work. We're all kind of over it now.
posted by Stan Chin at 11:51 AM on June 15, 2004

Wolf! WOLF, I say!
posted by leotrotsky at 11:51 AM on June 15, 2004

The greatest challenge, and equally greatest blessing, for politics is the fact that everyone considers themselves an expert, of sorts. Everyone has an opinion; everyone feels that each of their own opinions is equally valid to all others.

As has been said before, this community is closed to new members, and its therefore less likely to evolve further. I was once of the opinion that we should work out some of our bugs before opening the doors once again. I was mistaken because those bugs were/are our humanity; something that cannot be changed.

I think this community could learn a lot from the front page posting habits of hama7 and matteo. Two posters who are on completely different political wavelengths, who often get nasty with each other in particular political threads, but NEVER post any politics to the front page. I don't really agree with either poster most of the time, but still find their restraint to be admirable.
posted by BlueTrain at 11:57 AM on June 15, 2004

DU? What the hell is that?

And I might add that, posts aside, Postroad is more interesting by the day: -My only excuse? I spend much time with my taped Jerry Springer shows...I have a tape of every show he has so far done! It gives me insights into my family life. That cracked me up. You can't help but feel affection for the guy.

Seth--you have a choice between controlling other people and controlling your feelings about other people. It's tough, I know--I've let two people get to me in the last week. But I don't carry a grudge against either one, nor do they carry a grudge against me.

I have a Steller's Jay gurgling at me now that the peanut dish on the balcony is empty. I must attend to its needs. Life is so sweet.
posted by y2karl at 11:58 AM on June 15, 2004

I think Stan hits it on the head here. The best of the web these days is a lot more broad than it was back in the day. For many people (and I've heard people say this) the best thing about the web is that you get to find political fights and op-eds. Obviously somebody really thinks it's good stuff, or it wouldn't get posted. And figuring out where to draw the line is a toughy. We'd all draw it in a different place.

Personally I like the light touch. But I think it's a bit too light. I've seen several post where even 90% of the people in the thread thought it should be deleted. If the vast majority of users here think something should be deleted, well then I really think it should be.

For myself, all of the things I've thought about posting were op-eds and tin foil hat stuff. While I thought it was very interesting, I didn't think it was good to cause more fights. So I haven't posted anything.

Shame on us if we don't "act accordingly", but that not a good business model.
posted by y6y6y6 at 12:03 PM on June 15, 2004

Wait, wait. Isn't Seth the guy who's been married for like eighteen years and has never once farted in front of his wife?

Seth, my man, you are the kind of guy who would rather pave the world with buttery calfskin than spring for a pair of shoes.

You will never perfect
(a) the world
(b) the human body
(c) nor even something as relatively trivial as this site.

They are all organic, complex, nonlinear things. You can't fix them. You can't make it so they're all nanometer smooth and laminar and seamless. About all you can do is enjoy the ride.

So unclench, in every sense, and enjoy. You live longer, and have a better time while you're here.
posted by adamgreenfield at 12:07 PM on June 15, 2004

As much as I deplore the "Hey Matt, wake up, fuckwit!" tone of this, and other Seth tirades, I do agree that a lot of very thin posts are weighing the homepage down. It's no longer a simple matter of scrolling past one political shitbag to the very next post, which will no doubt be delightful. The front page is in fact full of them, and you have to squeeze it pretty good to get a few "Best of the Web" drops.

While I do appreciate your light hand, Matt, a post doesn't have to be mean spirited to fail the posting guidelines. A link to an interesting article with some neat stats on a major media site just doesn't cut it. If you refrain from deleting it, because there's nothing really inlammatory or egregious about it, eventually, you lose the whole site to posts like this.

I know you want to solve this with politics.metafilter.com, but I'm not sure how much luck you'll have convincing people like PostRoad to limit themselves to posting there. Perhaps you will consider moving posts from the blue to some politics area a "light touch."

To repeat myself: think about the standards we're setting for all the new blood that's about to come in. Them's a lot of axes to grind.
posted by scarabic at 12:08 PM on June 15, 2004

Seth is a great big meany. Not screaming, not blue, just a meany.
posted by Shane at 12:12 PM on June 15, 2004

Seth, one of the standards in the blue is repeat posting; making a brand new Meta post because people didn't pay enough attention to you in your weekly whine about MetaFilter not conforming to your specifics in a thread from an hour or two ago doesn't ring true to proper etiquette either.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 12:12 PM on June 15, 2004

If I sort the main page by date I see 14 posts for today, 4 of which are political if you count these two: 1, 2 (and I personally don't think those two count). If you're sorting by recent comments then yeah, you're going to see a lot of crappy political threads because the users who post in those threads go on and on and on and on and on and keep their crappy whinge fests at the top. So how much of a problem this is depends on how you sort it.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 12:17 PM on June 15, 2004

Perhaps the users could form political parties, and each post would be marked from the party from which the post comes.
posted by the fire you left me at 12:19 PM on June 15, 2004

*joins the MeTa gangbang, cackling*
posted by matteo at 12:22 PM on June 15, 2004

m sick and tired of Seth and Albert Belle pissing all over MeTa!
Albert Belle
Fill me in here please?

Seth, one reason folks come to the site is for "current events" which may be the best of the web today. The post can be sorted by default, dates & times so folks can find where they last read. Heck look at the current 5th top link being viewed today.
Changing your "sort by" will change your view too. I do see your side here as there are "the usual suspects", every member included.

acck, jinx PinkStainlessTail.
posted by thomcatspike at 12:24 PM on June 15, 2004

Wait, wait. Isn't Seth the guy who's been married for like eighteen years and has never once farted in front of his wife?

That is an admirable achievement, if true.

In her list of Rare Things, Sei Shonagon mentions People who live together and still manage to behave with reserve towards each other. However much these people may try to hide their weaknesses, they usually fail....
posted by y2karl at 12:25 PM on June 15, 2004

Seth will you "for the love of God" make a post. I say this with motivation, as you've shown yourself capable in Meta-Talk.
posted by thomcatspike at 12:29 PM on June 15, 2004

in the olden days, people online generally were also creators of things online. Everyone that I knew online in 1997 had a diary, art, poetry, rants on a website somewhere. Most of it was horrible of course. Computer Science poetry is illegal in most countries.

to me classic stuff like the Peeps experiments and the 3 second BBQ where the hidden gems of personal webpages.

i think that now, people online are generally consumers of things and information online.

people create commentary rather than content.

Of course metafilter is going to reflect that the percentage of people who create content has gone down....so...

I think that everyone here needs to try and make something interesting, creative, original, and linkworthy. Fuck complaining. This is your neighborhood, try and make it better. Share things you are passionate about--not just as links on your blog. Create. Then we can find it and link to it for people to comment about what a strange person you must be to collect minature hats for earwigs.

i'm serious. If you can't find anything interesting or create anything interesting online you most likely are a passionless, boring, sheep of a human being. And thats bad.
posted by th3ph17 at 12:32 PM on June 15, 2004

It has been a bit sucky on the blue today. Which, you know, totally merits a MeTa thread.

I post very few links myself, and so I don't really feel like I have the right to complain about the quality of the links that do come up. If this front-page craptitude continues, maybe I'll put forth a bit more effort into finding things I consider to be clever.

But if I did, I'd only be doing it for my own enjoyment. I'm not pointing fingers here (really), but some people are only happy when they're complaining, and so I don't expect the kvetchstorm to ever really go away.
posted by chicobangs at 12:34 PM on June 15, 2004

So, Seth, is there anyone here you do like? I've seen people get called out in MeTa before, but I think singling out y2karl, specialk, EB, and postroad (twice) is a crowning achievement of curmudgeonly bile.

But let me highlight my favorite vitriolic moment:

8. A nice reporting of a under-the-radar news story like the Supreme Court ruling on the pledge case (though monju gets some points for linking to the opinion. Nevertheless, the conversation predictably was another chance to show our dislike of Christians and to snark them).

Let me get this straight: we shouldn't be permitted to post about things that might lead to a discussion where people might share their opinions which might offend followers of a particular brand of religion?

Personally, I find the best way to deal with crappy FPPs is to post a comment or two with links to better information on the topic...
posted by jbrjake at 12:46 PM on June 15, 2004

I think it goes in cycles; seems like I wake up some days and there's a lot of political stuff, and then some days later its free of politics. From my own limited experience I try to post non-political stuff, which seems to garner few comments (was saved from an egg once by languagehat). Flash games with farting badgers or whatnot seem to get more responses.

[I'm not a statistician, but working on the assumption that political/contentious threads get more posts and 'better' threads less posts, I took the MeFi monthly stats and looked at how these thread lengths have changed over time. For the first couple of years it rose, to about 21 comments per thread; for the next 12 months it oscillated between about 21 and 24; and since August 02 has oscillated between about 24 and 29. So you could say posts have generally been getting longer, and therefore there are perhaps more contentious posts. BTW, anyone know the dates for when there were major influxes of new members?]
posted by carter at 12:48 PM on June 15, 2004

However much these people may try to hide their weaknesses, they usually fail....

Damn, passing gas in front of your spouse is a weakness? Now you tell me.
posted by SteveInMaine at 12:50 PM on June 15, 2004

It would never occur to me to complain about anything I like so much...

If you don't like the posts, can't you go somewhere else? If Matt doesn't like the posts, he has more options. I have two suggestions:

1) Matt can institute a Gold Star program, where he gives users a star after their name for posts that really catch his eye. He can take away a gold star for bad posts, or no posts. I’m thinking ewkpates* would look pretty good.

2) Matt can do more hard work for us and create a user ranking system for posts, and the average rank of your posts for the last three months shows up on your user page.

Really, though, I'm curious to know what Seth is personally going to do to improve the posts. It's one thing to complain to Matt, it's another to criticize everyone, but really, to be a man, you gotta step up to the plate and do something.
posted by ewkpates at 12:53 PM on June 15, 2004

Hey people, cut seth some slack!

He's the discarnate entity who sparked the New Age
posted by troutfishing at 12:57 PM on June 15, 2004

FWIW, I agree with Seth. Oh, I've (mostly) learned the futility of MeTa callouts, so you won't see [m]any from me, but I don't want anyone thinking that Seth is alone in his feelings.

I post very few links myself, and so I don't really feel like I have the right to complain about the quality of the links that do come up.

I disagree with the premise here. You exercise great restraint in choosing what to post. If anything, you have more, not less, right to criticize those who are seemingly lacking in such restraint.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 1:01 PM on June 15, 2004

Armageddon Approaches! FFFish Agrees With Seth! Hide Your Loved Ones From The Wrath Of God! The End Is Nigh!

The last few days have been awfully poor. Less politics-filter, more quirky-filter!
posted by five fresh fish at 1:09 PM on June 15, 2004

Damn, passing gas in front of your spouse is a weakness? Now you tell me.

Some people I know were raised by parents who turned every possible sound related to a bodily function into grand opera--or for you younger types, arena rock. Songs of the humpback whale are interesting only to non-captive audiences. Farting may be natural but so is throwing up, taking a shit or peeing. Personally, I resented having to train all my men friends to pee with the bathroom door closed when there are no women present. And to think amost all of them are rabid non-smokers...
posted by y2karl at 1:23 PM on June 15, 2004

Matt, I appreciate your light hand on the tiller, but how can Seth's #1 (Fourteen Characteristics of fascism) possibly not deserve deletion? It's a double post that was immediately called out as such and apologized for by the poster; it then devolved into a pancake-fest as people waited for the Hammer of Smite to fall. For the love of [nonexistent deity], put it out of its misery!

Oh, and Seth, if you want to actually influence anybody, you're going about it wrong.
posted by languagehat at 1:37 PM on June 15, 2004

Less politics-filter, more quirky-filter!

More quirky politics filter--more quirky everything! Less whining assholes!
posted by amberglow at 1:39 PM on June 15, 2004

If this front-page craptitude continues, maybe I'll put forth a bit more effort into finding things I consider to be clever.

I think that's kind of the gist of Seth's post. Everybody essentially agrees with him, anyway.
posted by hama7 at 1:44 PM on June 15, 2004

Matt, I appreciate your light hand on the tiller, but how can Seth's #1 (Fourteen Characteristics of fascism) possibly not deserve deletion?

because no retards were harmed in the making of that post.
posted by quonsar at 1:51 PM on June 15, 2004

Less whining assholes!

Or more entertaining whining assholes!

The problem isn't everyone agreeing or not with Seth. (Yes, it's not been a good week for the FPPs.)

It's that there's one way (and one way only) to fix the problem, and it's not with a MeTa callout.

And you know, a couple of dry days is fine by me. I get bored on the blue quicker, it means I do more work, and the odds of me getting fired go down, which means the odds of me buying you (yes, you) a drink go up, up, up! Silver linings, everywhere you look!
posted by chicobangs at 1:56 PM on June 15, 2004

Personally, I resented having to train all my men friends to pee with the bathroom door closed when there are no women present

You're supposed to pee in the bathroom? {/scratch} {/spit}

Sounds like a subject for AskMe.
posted by SteveInMaine at 2:02 PM on June 15, 2004

y2karl, smoking can kill you, whereas listening to someone urinate can only force you to listen in abject horror to the sound of one liquid being poured into another liquid. It sounds vaguely similar to someone pouring you a glass of water from a jug ;)
posted by The God Complex at 2:08 PM on June 15, 2004

NO, hama7, not everybody agrees with Seth, essentially or otherwise. The call is Matt's to make, no one elses. To claim that we all, essential agree with Seth is to claim that all his listed examples are shit, and you know what, I for one ain't accepting Seth's opinion or aesthetic as if its gospal around this place. If I think its shit, I'll skip it. If Seth thinks its shit, I'll probably read it in the certainty that its more amusing than anything he's ever posted.

Besides, the 14 Characteristics thread actually has given us a meaningful (and necessary) distinction between tyranny, despotism and fascism. If people would read and understand distinctions of that caliber, we'd have less of the "leftys" clubbing others with those bad bad words, and less of the "rightys" blubbering about being the clubbees ... even when they're not ... but maybe, just maybe, their little boy Bush is.

That having been said:

FREE THE MEFI 12, 6, 5!!!

uhhh ... Free quonsar?
posted by Wulfgar! at 2:08 PM on June 15, 2004

...it then devolved into a pancake-fest as people waited for the Hammer of Smite to fall.

*hefts Hammer of Smite, bangs it around on Anvil of Ignorance*

I like this!
posted by Shane at 2:09 PM on June 15, 2004

to be a man, you gotta step up to the plate and do something.

Yeah, so post some links to Bush speeches! c'mon, get on it!

Seriously, i get the impression that it's the politics of the FPPs that are bothering you, Seth. You used anti-corporate as an insult, Green as an insult, etc. People have different opinions than you. i don't think whining to matt is going to help. What do you want him to do?
posted by Miles Long at 2:10 PM on June 15, 2004

Wolf! WOLF, I say!

That's Mr. Daddy if you're nasty. Seth, I've seen nasty and you, sir, are no nasty. Consume, contribute, or get the hell out of the way.
posted by WolfDaddy at 2:18 PM on June 15, 2004

I submit that "Best of the Web" was a worthwhile idea back in 1999, but now it won't work. We're all kind of over it now.

ooh, this is exactly the problem. Yeah, basically almost anything interesting that is specifically an internet kinda thing (someone's kooky website, an extremely rare & previously unheard of condition/fascination, etc) has now been so thoroughly traded amongst people who spend too much time online that we roll our eyes and dismiss most of it ("as if I never heard of time cube/ face blindness/ the political compass!"). I have even simply assumed that certain sites or articles would be double posts because they seem like old news to me, and then they get posted and I search and find out that for one reason or another they never actually got linked here.

But still, the only new news is news. Or the occasional new website or interesting article, but it shouldn't surprise us that the number of new & worthy websites that come out each day is going to be pretty low. These days, when most people set up a website, it's a blog, anyway.

Which isn't to say that we should just all forget it and link AP stories, but maybe we should concentrate more on "best of the world" than "the web", ie, interesting but not that well known cultures, parts of history, artists, etc - I know plenty of people do searches when they come across something interesting irl, and then make posts about it, but maybe others only think to link something if they come across it online, rather than translating something from actual experience into metafilter fodder.

I disagree with the premise here. You exercise great restraint in choosing what to post. If anything, you have more, not less, right to criticize those who are seemingly lacking in such restraint.

I think the point is that it's hard to find good stuff to post. If people actively look for stuff to add to metafilter - if they do creative searches, or look up stuff online that they come across in the real world, or otherwise actively work to find things good enough to add to this site, that's one thing. But most of us don't do that, and so post very little, and if everyone posted that infrequently, it's hard to imagine the site would be as successful as it is (that is, there would be far fewer links per day, which means some portion of users would be bored and stop coming, which means there'd be even fewer links per day, meaning even more would be bored... you get the idea).

Anyway, Seth, having never found a single thing online worth adding to metafilter, is certainly not representative of an ideal member, since it would be a - very zen sort of metafilter if we were all like him...
posted by mdn at 2:19 PM on June 15, 2004

there's one way (and one way only) to fix the problem, and it's not with a MeTa callout.

Why do people continually protest that issue XYZ isn't going to be solved by starting a MeTa thread? The Grey is for discussing issues, not resolving them. The actions that follow these conversations will solve (or not solve) the problem, be those actions banning, deletion, or just a change in general ettiquette or whatever.

Either way, what's the harm in posting and discussing here? There's no cost associated. It's not diverting the Grey from its true purpose. That *is* its true purpose! If you're not interested in discussing the internal issues, why even load the Grey in your browser?
posted by scarabic at 2:19 PM on June 15, 2004

Yeah, just ignore it and keeping smearing crap on the walls of the Blue, like Postroad!
posted by keswick at 2:35 PM on June 15, 2004

scarabic, at the risk of ending up a limed-out tubfull of rotting meat in your attic, I have to respectfully disagree.

The Grey often equals a MetaWank, and nothing more. Call it divesting oneself of MeFi's personal demons, but unless the callout is specific to a user or event, it's mostly a useless endevour ... entertaining to be sure, but useless.
posted by Wulfgar! at 2:36 PM on June 15, 2004

solution?
posted by BentPenguin at 2:37 PM on June 15, 2004

Matt, I appreciate your light hand on the tiller, but how can Seth's #1 (Fourteen Characteristics of fascism) possibly not deserve deletion?

I just deleted it, and yeah you were right, but the thing is I have a full time job outside of this and I don't have enough time in the day to read each and every post. I never looked at that thread and had to do a control-F to find it in the first place.

I submit that "Best of the Web" was a worthwhile idea back in 1999, but now it won't work. We're all kind of over it now.

I disagree completely. Just because there are more web consumers than producers now doesn't mean the web is low on interesting content. Just today, I see several examples of the best of the web: magazine art, comics magazine, zelda stuff, and presidential commerical history (not to mention just about every thread hama7 posts).

Yeah, there are too many stupid political posts here coming from people that should start their own personal political blog instead, but it comes in fits and spurts (we're currently in a bad wave of it). But even granting you all that, these example sites linked in my previous paragraph are all amazing finds that weren't online a short time ago, but are now here for our enjoyment.

The best of the web still exists, it's still out there, it has a pulse, and it continues to be found each and every day here.
posted by mathowie at 2:37 PM on June 15, 2004

There's a lot of candy and stuff at the checkout counter of the hardware store. That stuff is not fucking hardware, and the fact that it's there utterly ruins the hardware store for me. It's literally impossible to buy a drill bit there, because you see that candy there and you have a total breakdown instead.
posted by George_Spiggott at 2:42 PM on June 15, 2004

Aside: on the not-farting in front of his wife thing, adamgreenfield - that wasn't Seth, that was mr_crash_davis.

I *heart* the new Search AskMeFi.
posted by Melinika at 2:46 PM on June 15, 2004

Whoops, nevermind! It was the "18 years" thing that threw me off. You're right.
Disregard the comment I just made. Back to lurking for me.
posted by Melinika at 2:50 PM on June 15, 2004

The best of the web still exists, it's still out there, it has a pulse, and it continues to be found each and every day here.

Hear, hear. Further, I'm bothered much more by the increasing bitterness of the flamewars over Political/News posts than by the posts themselves, even while I agree that many of them are lame.

I watched K5 *destroy* itself this way, splintering into factions arguing furiously over "what the site should be" rather than just trying to make it something good. This is one reason I'm anti-post-rating: i think that made the feedback loop on K5 more inescapable. And this is why I hate the MetaTalk attacking posts and posters. While I agree the self-policing is awesome, and that if things go too far it could injure the site, I see the proliferation and viciousness of these as far more of a threat to the site than the occasional glut of posts everyone scrolls past.
posted by freebird at 3:00 PM on June 15, 2004

"A good post to MetaFilter is something that meets the following criteria: most people haven't seen it before..."

I'd say based on the contents of this thread, the "haven't seen it before" clause should be removed. Seriously, I'm not trolling. Apparently community standards have changed, and I think if we acknowledge this we can avoid a lot of useless argument.

(If this discussion takes off, it probably deserves its own MeTa thread, but let's gauge the reaction here first.)
posted by lbergstr at 3:02 PM on June 15, 2004

The best of the web still exists, it's still out there, it has a pulse, and it continues to be found each and every day here.

for example, the quonsar quote on Wired.Com today.

:-)
posted by quonsar at 3:42 PM on June 15, 2004

Maybe the real solution is to just not post so many damn links to MeFi.

Seriously. It's probably about time people started asking themselves if anyone really will be entertained/informed by their links. The answer, more often than not, is probably "Er, no." In which case, don't post it.
posted by five fresh fish at 3:42 PM on June 15, 2004

So what objective standard of "the best of the web" are we to use, anyway. What Seth thinks is interesting? What Troutfishing does? Quonsar? Hama7? Postroad? y2karl?

All of us have our own interests. Personally, I like the political and current event posts, the economics posts, the science posts, and some of the web technology posts. I find the Flash Friday posts completely useless, as well as any thread that has to do art galleries or the music an movie industry.

You don't hear me bitching about it though (except here, for the purposes of example). Metafilter is not a community to serve any individual person's interests, but is a place to share links to what you think is interesting and others might as well. A place to read the views of others, and debate points of common interest. Not every post is gold, and some are downright offensive (which I have been guilty of, to my chagrin), but that's just the basic imperfection you have when a large number of people are collaborating.

At least, that's how I have come to see it.
posted by moonbiter at 4:02 PM on June 15, 2004

The #1 thing to be done to solve the problem which is not such a bad problem but does exist, is to tell people some truths.

1. Postroad, try to find the most interesting thing you can find every month (or maybe every 3 weeks) and post it. You are one of the best posters in my opinion because for some reasons your threads end up being OK because they don't have an agenda written into the post. But still, take it easy.

2. Y2Karl, you also need to post less often. You used to post wild stuff with tons of links about interesting things. Now it seems that they're all about the political situation, which is boring. Make 1 political post per month.

3. Troutfishing, Amberglow, etc., if you have already posted about Bush once a month, it's enough. If you have already posted about Iraq once a month, it's enough. If you have already posted about Michael Moore once a month, it's enough. What I'm saying is posts with a political agenda are cool, but make it interesting and don't cover the same topics over and over again.

4. Hama7, just post your great links, no opinions :)

5. ParisParamus: just go away, the only reason you ever post is to show how stupid MeFi is. Well if it's so stupid then just leave it alone, it's cruel to torment the retarded.

6. Various rightwing posters: Yes you are the minority, but no it's not a contest. Most of the people on the site are middle-of-the road, and posting 'antidotes' to the left-wing harpies does't make you look any better. Beat them by posting interesting, well-researched stuff and taking the high road. It's often the case in democratic societies that minorities have to work harder, and we all know you don't agree with affirmative action.

Sorry if it annoys anyone but those are just my opinions, take them with a grain of salt because I'm drunk and typing furiously on my Tandy.

So yeah I agree with Seth that there's a lot of crap out there, but the problem is with individual users, not Matt and not the community at large. Even in all those crap threads some good exchanges took place (with a few exceptions), which speaks to the resiliance of the community.
posted by chaz at 4:15 PM on June 15, 2004

not to mention just about every thread hama7 posts

Golly, between this and Matt's recent bravo! for 111's triple-salchow trolling (but who has since, mercifully, disappeared from the scene, oddly around the same time that hama7 was not to be seen -- they must roam in packs), the evenhandedness serenity-now mantra is winning the day!

KlannerKlusters and homorainbows marching side by side, in peace and harmony, all hoping for a better day! Hooray!

[Not to imply that hama7 is a Klanner, or Matt a homo, or especially that 111 is either (or to imply that being a hometeam player is in any way intrinsically a bad thing, god forbid oh dear oh my) -- illustrative example used only for rhetorical purposes only.]

I'm reminded of the shorthand my friends decades old use for this situation, spoken in the beauty-eh? Northern Canadian millworker patois: 'He killed my brother, but he's a good guy, eh? He bought me a beer!'
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 4:35 PM on June 15, 2004

Seriously. It's probably about time people started asking themselves if anyone really will be entertained/informed by their links. The answer, more often than not, is probably "Er, no." In which case, don't post it.

I totally agree. Maybe I'm too much of a chickenshit, but I really feel like something oughtta be really good if I'm gonna post it, or at least good + really off the beaten path. Once upon a time, there used to be an entire competitive culture of artistry built up around this, here. Nowadays, it's just "here's what I read online today." "Here." "Here." Still don't think the occupation sucks? "Here, it's a really interesting article."

Yes, Matt, the best of the web is still out there. More than ever. But less of the links here than ever before are trained on it.
posted by scarabic at 5:03 PM on June 15, 2004

I'd say based on the contents of this thread, the "haven't seen it before" clause should be removed.

Yes, by all means, let's remove the one criterion which could even remotely be considered an objective one. Once we've made the criteria 100% subjective, we'll all be completely free to post whatever we damn well please.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 5:10 PM on June 15, 2004

Patois, eh? You've been away too long.
posted by timeistight at 5:19 PM on June 15, 2004

You've been away too long.

Well, it has been a while.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:43 PM on June 15, 2004

Just for the record, Seth is not propounding an unpopular idea. You all agree that an exclusively news-oriented front page would be a bad thing, and with possible one or two exceptions, you all have complained about "newsfilter" in the past, too.

The strange phenomenon here is that almost nobody likes newsfilter, but whenever someone brings up how much they don't like it, or suggests doing something about it, they get slammed for being an elitist, anal-retentive prick. So the group defends something it hates because nobody wants to be seen as hating it, for reasons which are beyond me.

I don't remember whether or not I like Seth in general, but I agree with him that the front page today sucked ass. I'm not sure whether y'all are in denial about it, fatalistic about it, or whether you just hate the messenger, but there is definitely a smell of crap coming from the blue.

And it's not that we're in a particularly fertile news cycle, because the rest of the web didn't shut down when Reagan died, it's just that we ignored it. And it's not because (Stan Chin) it is impossible to filter the best of the web, because other sites still do that with far fewer resources than we have.

I'm pretty sure the reason that the 15th post of the week about Iraq is tolerated is because nobody did anything about the previous 14. At a certain point in the past, people must have just given up trying to stop useless news posts, and decided to just stop people from complaining about them instead, because maybe they could at least win some battles on that front.
posted by Hildago at 5:58 PM on June 15, 2004

I've foung myself agreeing with Seth's complaints in the past. Here, partly because I'm included in the callout, not as much.

NewsFilter and BiasFilter really annoy me, too. And, honestly, my post wasn't great. I hoped its newsfilterishness was diminshed by it being very local (and so it likely hadn't been seen by most) and it seemed to me to be an unusual and interesting story. But what I think is most revealing is that I didn't consider it to be BiasFilter on my part, since, contrary to Seth's assumptions, I'm not anti-corporate. I didn't have an axe to grind with that post. I did make the unfortunate choice to word some things as if I did, and I've explained that I sorta got too much into the mindset of how I thought the post would be read by most MeFites.

Anyway, my point here is that looking over Seth's list, while many of the posts are objectionable, or at least weak (as I think mine was), what it really seems to be about for Seth is politics he doesn't agree with. Which makes me wonder if his high-minded, principled defense of posting standards in the blue isn't really something else.

Particularly, I was sorta expecting to see the Winer post included. Yeah, sure, it's interesting and involves some interesting issues, but it's relatively major net subcultural news. I always think that if I feel like I'm reading Slashdot and not MetaFilter, something's not right. As Quonsar demonstrates, this was a Wired story today, for crying out loud. (Note: I'm not personally attacking the person who posted the FPP.) Surely there are other posts that don't meet Seth's standards for worthiness that don't have what he considers a left-wing bias? Why aren't they on the his list?
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 6:11 PM on June 15, 2004

I hate the newsfilter, and I'm not afraid to say it. And I already *do* scroll past most of it, so that line isn't going to help anyone.

I'm pretty sure the reason that the 15th post of the week about Iraq is tolerated is because nobody did anything about the previous 14.

Boom! Dead on. This is the weakness of the "light touch."
posted by scarabic at 6:12 PM on June 15, 2004

what it really seems to be about for Seth is politics he doesn't agree with.

I see your point there. It's hard not to. But in all fairness he's listing political issues that typically fall into this great big left/right superstructure, and as such, engender lots of bitching and divisiveness. His opinion is that this is not productive web filtering. I know others greatly value the pearls of wisdom they get out of these sessions. But creating productive political deiscussions is not the primary mission here (and, as has been proven, it doesn't work very often).

Seth is pretty clear about advocating "best of the web." It's his mantra. And perhaps most of today's PoliFilter posts were left wing because most of the people who post here are left-wingers...? Or it's mostly the left-wingers who feel free to post political shit, because most people are on their side? Ya think?

He took a chronological slice of the site to complain about. How can you nail him for bias under those conditions?
posted by scarabic at 6:21 PM on June 15, 2004

He took a chronological slice of the site to complain about.
No, he didn't. He cherrypicked to prove his point. I could just as easily pick 15 other posts and prove the opposite. There were a total of 43 posts on the 13 and 14th. If people were commenting in those other 28 posts (a clear overwhelming majority, btw), that's not the fault of the people that posted the 15 he chose.
posted by amberglow at 6:28 PM on June 15, 2004

oops...make that 14 : >

Here's my picks for those days: Being Bilingual, Cassini, dotcom, Naked Bike Ride, 300 images, cosmetic surgery, mike douglas/john and yoko, that worm thing, holland, pogo stick, elephants, governor's schools, tibetan goddesses, that band samarost-ish game.
posted by amberglow at 6:33 PM on June 15, 2004

oh, and Emotional Labor too.
posted by amberglow at 6:35 PM on June 15, 2004

Well, his point is that the 15 are there at all, isn't it?
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 6:40 PM on June 15, 2004

"Seth is pretty clear about advocating "best of the web." It's his mantra. And perhaps most of today's PoliFilter posts were left wing because most of the people who post here are left-wingers...? Or it's mostly the left-wingers who feel free to post political shit, because most people are on their side? Ya think?—scarabic

You definitely have a point there. The language he uses to denounce these posts seems pretty politically loaded, though.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 6:44 PM on June 15, 2004

No, he didn't. He cherrypicked to prove his point. I could just as easily pick 15 other posts and prove the opposite. There were a total of 43 posts on the 13 and 14th.

amberglow, obviously you are missing the point. I didn't call out the rest of the posts because they were good MeFi posts. What I did call out were the 14 pieces of shit post (of which yours was one of the worst). I could post about what is good about MeFi, but that isn't what needs changing.

I haven't checked this thread in a bit, but I am amazed at the torrent of bad faith I see here. Very, very few people actually refuted what I said. Most of the rebuke has centered around ad hominem, red herrings and straw men. The fact remains that whatever you think about me or about the objective nature of what is good, but the very definition of this site, these posts are shit. And I defy anyone to support these posts by the standards established for this website. Sure, you might find them interesting for your own personal reasons, but when examined by the stated purpose of the site, not a single one of you can defend these 14 pieces of shit.

You can try to diminish my arguments by making the argument about me, but that is particularly pathetic that you are doing so if you can't defend against the substance of my remarks.
posted by Seth at 6:46 PM on June 15, 2004

The language he uses to denounce these posts seems pretty politically loaded, though.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 6:44 PM PST on June 15

It's because the posts themselves are politcally loaded!!!

And that is percisely my argument! These posts are so politically charged that (a) nothing good can come of them, (b) it throws the signal to noise ratio out of whack, and (c) they are things that people who care about them can find on just about any website that is politics-based.

Why not approach my argument head-on instead of trying to make it about me?
posted by Seth at 6:50 PM on June 15, 2004

Sure, i'll defend my post--it was interesting, hadn't been seen or posted before, and was a novel solution to a topic discussed here in the past. The standards are: the point of MetaFilter is to find the best and most interesting of the web to share with others.
I shared. Why don't you try it?

You made this exact post in December, with no results. This is a rerun. Why don't you try seeing the glass as half-full?
posted by amberglow at 6:55 PM on June 15, 2004

I wonder what the reaction would be if 14 of those 43 links were leaning to the right.
posted by jmd82 at 6:56 PM on June 15, 2004

good question, and one that was asked in the earlier post. Seth?
posted by amberglow at 6:59 PM on June 15, 2004

People bitch about Postroad but, me, I ignore his posts if they aren't interesting. Postroad the person is interesting to me--he's full of contradictions and can say the most surprising things sometimes.

Seth takes what people said to him in another thread personally and sarts this squawkfest and posts a comment full of shits and shitting and in ALL CAPS because he's so mad because of what people said in another thread and includes me because I'm on his enemies list. Oh, gee, my feelings are so hurt.

I find the current power struggle going on within the administration a fascinating topic. The office politics of the White House and State and Defense departments really do remind me of the machinations of courtiers vying for the attention fo an absolute monarch.

The CIA deep sixes Chalabi and installs their man Allawi--then the Department of Defense squawks loud enough and George Tenet walks the plank. Two experts on the topic of spycraft and intelligence discuss the back story and the implications are tremendous. I posted a set of good links and the story is interesting.

I get irritated with people, too, at times. But, upon reflection, I realize I am jumping to conclusions and reading into what they write. Or I'm in a bad mood.

I got heated with jonmc the other day but, you know, when I did, I got mad at a stick figure. I read into what he writes based on what I remember him saying a long time ago plus what other people have said about him over the years I have been here.

Seth complains here how everyone jumps to conclusions about what he really thinks here and how no one really knows his thoughts and yet he's jumping to conclusions squared and cubed about what I think.

I thought at first he meant depleted uranium with the DU but then I figured out he meant Democratic Underground. I've never been there--apart from the good writers, like Josh Marshall or Kevin Drum, I tend not to be interested in those sort of sites. I'm interested in stories I am following.

We're all cartoons to each other. I've got you sussed out to a telepathic 't' but how dare you say I'm such a two dimensional null node! I am a unique and intricate individual! One thing I get is that we're all individuals here. Everyone sees a club of others which doesn't exist except as an artifact of perception and lazy paranoid perception at that.

When I'm not in my ego, I can see other people as separate from their rants when they are ranting, see them as complex and interesting individuals. Rather than make prescriptions on what other people should do, I work on not getting mad or trying to say the most cutting and sarcastic thing I can think of. If I remember to stay awake.

The people shitting all over the threads are the people who accuse other people of such. Nobody usually uses the word 'shit' other than to describe bodily functions except when they are ranting about someone they are mad at.

Instead of telling people to stop posting, I propose we tell people to stop flaming and swearing and saying how other people are shitting all over the threads. They're throwing tantrums with all the 'shits' and ALL CAPS. That's who's shitting on the threads. It's not the links that are bad, it's the behavior of the offended parties. They need to get a grip. That's my opinion.
posted by y2karl at 7:00 PM on June 15, 2004

I wonder what the reaction would be if 14 of those 43 links were leaning to the right.
posted by jmd82 at 6:56 PM PST on June 15

My reaction would be no different. Is that really that hard to believe?


on preview: karl, I don't throw temper tantrums. There is nothing personal about me. What I don't care for is that you don't give a shit about the rules, and if no one stands up and tells you to cut out your annoying antics, then it becomes worse. Slowly, the standards devolve away where your crap isn't even questionable any more and even worse stuff is then considered borderline.

I am glad that you are interested, but as you state, it is your personal interest. Where do you get the idea that everything that you find interesting is, ipse dixit, appropriate for MeFi? Matt has REPEATEDLY asked that people quit posting about Iraq. Hell, its on the goddamn post page with the guidelines. But you continually ignore it.

So why don't you answer my question: why do you think you are exempted from Matt's request that people not post anymore about Iraq? Why do you think that you can post about whatever you want and do so in the most obnoxious manner possible by cut and pasting the whole damn article?
posted by Seth at 7:10 PM on June 15, 2004

I wonder what the reaction would be if 14 of those 43 links were leaning to the right.

I was also referring to people who say to just ignore the 13 or 14 lefty posts and look at the other 30 good posts (and I do find it hard to believe that the response would be no different).
posted by jmd82 at 7:18 PM on June 15, 2004

Why do you think that you can post about whatever you want and do so in the most obnoxious manner possible by cut and pasting the whole damn article?

Perhaps you noticed I did not do that in the post you just listed above? Oh, I did quote a few paragraphs inside later on in a comment within but the post itself was a sentence or so and the quote inside was not particularly longer than anyone else's in any given thread on average. You included me out of grudge and habit.
posted by y2karl at 7:26 PM on June 15, 2004

I had no idea you felt this way, seth.
posted by mcsweetie at 7:29 PM on June 15, 2004

So, in other words, you won't answer my question?
posted by Seth at 7:30 PM on June 15, 2004

By the way, Seth, I have a post I am working on--it involves Guantanamo and the prisoners there. None of the prisoners at Guantanamo are from Iraq and the post is not about the war in Iraq nor is it about Abu Ghraib. It's about the law and the defense lawyers involved. The defense lawyers happen to be members of the U.S. military. It will be well researched and have great links to source documents. But it won't be my next post. I have something else in mind for that.
posted by y2karl at 7:35 PM on June 15, 2004

(y2karl's daily offering of shit coupled with a completel cut and pasting of everything else that karl has read that day on DU)

You see, Seth, that was simply not true. Turn off the automatic pilot and wake up.
posted by y2karl at 7:40 PM on June 15, 2004

So you still won't answer the question.

You can pretend that you DON'T violate the spirit of Matt's repeated requests. But no reasonable person can deny it.

Until you explain why you think that such restrictions don't apply to you or why you are permitted to post things that violate that, I have nothing but contempt for you.
posted by Seth at 7:51 PM on June 15, 2004

Yeah, amberglow, he "cherry picked" posts, but he picked the sociopolitical nozzfest posts, not all the left-wing sociopolitical nozzfest posts. Show me the right-wing political post that Seth spared, if you can. The point is that he's against the political crap, not just the left-wing political crap. As it happens, most of the political crap around here is left-wing. So there you go.

I'm to the left of left, I read, I vote, and I'm sick of these serial didacts educating me on the front page. You guys should really become high school teachers. I'm serious.
posted by scarabic at 7:51 PM on June 15, 2004

I'm late but at least I made the meshugenah's list!
posted by billsaysthis at 7:53 PM on June 15, 2004

It will be well researched and have great links to source documents

Please. Please. Please. Sell. Your. Work.

Please.
posted by scarabic at 7:53 PM on June 15, 2004

I had no idea you felt this way, seth.

Classic.
posted by eddydamascene at 7:57 PM on June 15, 2004

Mootish?

Eventually, front page posts will include a topic classification field. MetaFilter members will be able to specify, at preferences, which topic classes to display, default being all. And thus, at long last, there will be no universal front page to high-mindedly mind, because there will be no universal front page; guardian gladiators and sly pugs alike will be forced to exert themselves in sub-topical back alleys, to smaller audiences and to less applause, which I've no doubt they will do, yappingly.

Speculation courtesy of W. S. Baxley Soft Bridal Cigars

/mootish
posted by Opus Dark at 7:58 PM on June 15, 2004

For what little my opinion is worth, I really don’t see the value of this metapost. One of the few things that irritate me about this place is the constant whining and complaining about what other people have written or posted.
As this is a popular community weblog, there will always be posts that do not meet whatever standard you care to propose - move on and post something better.

Why not approach my argument head-on instead of trying to make it about me?
I’d like to but, as I understand your argument , this really is all about you. You seem very disappointed that Matt is not deleting (or perhaps condemning?) weak posts with implicit politics that you dislike. Matt can delete or condemn whenever he sees fit. What’s the point in begging for more? Are we really running out of real estate here?

The metacops working so hard to enforce the will of Matt remind me too much of the other people who try to tell me how their god wants me to change my ways.
And, there have been many political or newsfilter posts that I found to be worth reading and which I would not have seen if they were not posted here.
posted by Zetetics at 8:04 PM on June 15, 2004

Obviously, I don't see things as you do, Seth, so there is no way I can answer your question to satisfy you. I can't control what other people post but I do not post about the evils of Christianity, Israel, Michael Moore, Capitol Hill Blue's allegations of President Bush's mental state, any other aspect of President Bush or Saddam's daughter. I might comment in threads about such now and then but I do not post about such things.

So, Matt, since you are being invoked as final arbiter--does the proposed post on Guantanamo's prisoners as described above violate your sense of what is appropriate for here?

On Iraq, you can be quoted on both sides of the issue and since everyone seems to wave the comment that suits them at the moment, are we not to post about Iraq at all or are well researched posts with good links on the topic acceptable now and then? It seems to me that you are a complex individual with mixed feelings about the subject and that your answer would depend upon the post, post by post. True or false?
posted by y2karl at 8:09 PM on June 15, 2004

As for you, scarabic, you didn't hold your tongue in Ty Webb's post about the apartheid wall. You vented quite royally there. You hate the political posts, eh?

It all depends upon whose ox is gored.
posted by y2karl at 8:14 PM on June 15, 2004

This has been discussed so many times I don't even know why anyone bothers. Here it is, distilled for everyone (you can reference this in the future if you care to know my opinion): your best of the web is not my best of the web--this includes all the drop-dead boring posts about Apple™ products, the posts about Google©, the fucking ridiculously inane flash sites everyone loves, the godawful pictures of trains that hama7 posted earlier, and a number of other techy posts that end up here on a daily basis. I also, for the record, think's Seth's spiel about being "left" is absurd in a very funny way, as are his claims to be politically neutral on this site.

There are a ton of really good political posts on this site and some that aren't so good. Some of the good ones are actually from the BBC online or The Guardian, some of them are from much more obscure sources.

I, however, will continue to read that which I find to be of interest, as I ignore the rest. Thank you and goodnight.
posted by The God Complex at 8:21 PM on June 15, 2004

And, there have been many political or newsfilter posts that I found to be worth reading and which I would not have seen if they were not posted here.

This is essentially the problem with your holy war Seth/Scarabic/ et al: you're right - most people will agree that there're sometimes too many politically focused posts, myslef included; however, many if not most have also found the odd one interesting. So when you turn it into this tirade, most of us lose interest and find the simultaneous invocation of Matt's Rules and excoriation of Matt for not enforcing them enough for your taste to be a bit over the top.

It's not about your political views, it's not about who cares most about MeFi. But it's simply not true that *every* post related to politics pisses off *every* MeFite. That being the case, you're just arguing about what proportion of the populace needs to be happy with every post for it to be somehow "worthy" and I just don't see that as a productive argument. You claim that if it's not stopped now it will somehow metastasize and destroy the site - but when it gets that bad, there will be a lot more people willing to jump on your war-wagon. Until then, do we need to pull out this inflammatory topic (I hear you don't like inflammatory topics that lead to pointless argument) every damn week?
posted by freebird at 8:22 PM on June 15, 2004

Time for some Frankie Goes to Hollywood..

RELAX
posted by cell divide at 8:24 PM on June 15, 2004

Self policing since 1999.
posted by cell divide at 8:24 PM on June 15, 2004

RELAX

Seriously.

I'm going back to summoning the Water Buffalo of Cognition on any of these damn threads that I stumble into. That was way more fun.
posted by freebird at 8:31 PM on June 15, 2004

FECK! ARSE! DRINK!

DOWN WITH THE TYRANNY OF PANTS!!

loquacious removes and burns his pants.
posted by loquacious at 8:41 PM on June 15, 2004

But by burning pants, don't you see that you are in effect supporting the "clothed" paradigm? I know, you seek to "work within the system", but believe me, it will drag you down my friend. You must stand for what you think right, at its extremity, not at the point of compromise.

And if there is anything to be learned from this thread, is it not that compromise is submission? That to seek "common ground" is in effect a race to the least common denominator, as it were?

For if we "settle", if we accept half-measures, sure as the sun will rise tomorrow, we will all end up in shorts. And perhaps mini-skirts.
posted by freebird at 8:52 PM on June 15, 2004

And speaking of mootish--may I remind you of Jon Sullivan aka y6y6y6 aka Plushy Cthulu's Metafilter Killfile ? You will never have to see another y2karl or Postroad post again. There you can control which posts you see rather than fruitlessly complaining and trying to control other people's behavior. Even you--Didn't Germany experience a similar drive to ethnically cleanse its borders, driven by some concept like "we are the real people, these others must go?" It's got to be an Aryan nation? Something like that?--Mr. I Hate The Political Posts.
posted by y2karl at 8:55 PM on June 15, 2004

Go back and look at the archives of 1999 and 2000, just a few posts per day, some interesting, some not. These days, we see many more interesting (non-news) posts per day. Sure, there are more news posts, but as has been said above, that sometimes represents the best of what's new in the world. The web is a far different place than in 1999 and MeFi posts still for the most part put forward the best of today's web. I am glad Matt edits with a light hand. MeFi is better than ever.
posted by caddis at 8:57 PM on June 15, 2004

As for you, scarabic, you didn't hold your tongue in Ty Webb's post about the apartheid wall. You vented quite royally there. You hate the political posts, eh?

What? Yes, I occasionally comment in Israel/Palestine threads, and I do have a major personal axe to grind on that subject in the world at large. But have I EVER posted an FPP on the subject? No. I blog it all, and put my energy into my local arab film festival instead because this isn't my personal soapbox. You, karl, need to get a blog, and perhaps some real-world activism would be a better use of your energies.

Usually I avoid other people's threads on political subjects because I can't handle the psychic radiation that emanates from them (not to mention the ignorance and bigotry to be found in most of the I/P posts).

So I commented in one? What, do I *lose* now? Be pettier, please. Comb my comment history for another cheap shot, please.
posted by scarabic at 9:07 PM on June 15, 2004

I am glad Matt edits with a light hand

And indeed, a "light hand" seldom betrays a "dark heart". Yet this model betrays a certain, shall we say, cultural bias, in that these chromatic descriptors of quality seem rooted in a time when non-western culture was seen as intrinsically inferior. But if we consider not a "dark heart" but rather a "heart of darkness", is this not beneath all the everyday hubbub, a Journey to the Headwaters? What is this river we ascend? What flow of information is Metafilter afloat upon - nay, struggling upriver like a salmon to spawn?

Indeed, what waterfalls and eddies does MetaTalk leap and strive to transcend? Caught, for a glimmering sun-splashing moment in "The Blue" or "The Green", mustn't "The Brown" represent nothing but the river-tossed, weather-turned boulders of discourse? That simultaneously resist and shape the flood?

As Metafilter spawns Metaphors, are we the water or that which moves through it? This, I think, is the crux of the matter.
posted by freebird at 9:17 PM on June 15, 2004

I always enjoy a freebird discourse
posted by amberglow at 9:19 PM on June 15, 2004

If I leave here tomorrow, will you still remember me?
posted by mr_crash_davis at 9:24 PM on June 15, 2004

freebird if my new favorite MeFi artist.
posted by jmd82 at 9:25 PM on June 15, 2004

There's a pretty big difference (and there should be) between the standards for FPPs and comments. Just because scarabic is very politically outspoken in threads doesn't mean his stance on FPPs is hypocritical.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 9:29 PM on June 15, 2004

*flicks his Bic*
posted by keswick at 9:34 PM on June 15, 2004

I really don’t see the value of this metapost

Context and subtext, baby. Context and subtext.

If I leave here tomorrow, will you still remember me?

Are you on leaving on a jet plane?

*lights a doobie off keswick's Bic*

by the by, don't you think they'd sell a billion times more of those little Bics if they called them "Son of a Bic"?
posted by WolfDaddy at 9:44 PM on June 15, 2004

If I leave here tomorrow, will you still remember me?
Are you on leaving on a jet plane?

For I must be traveling on now.
posted by jmd82 at 10:00 PM on June 15, 2004

Thank you, EB, and mind you, I only ever enter a tiny number of them at all. Most of the time I happily scroll past them, just like everyone says you're supposed to do with the stuff you don't like. But when someone posts a MeTa thread on the very subject, naturally I'm gonna say what I think.
posted by scarabic at 10:12 PM on June 15, 2004

The way I see it, there are enough unread blogs in the world already--I have no desire to get one. Get a blog is a synonym for Shut Up. I'm not trying to tell anyone to shut up, myself. And besides, Ethereal Bligh has a blog--yet most of what he writes seems to be here.
posted by y2karl at 10:43 PM on June 15, 2004

doesn't mean his stance on FPPs is hypocritical

The issue is not the *nature* of the stance. It is the fact that, as you say yourself, it is "on" FPPs. Why does it need to be "on" them? Surely this implies a dominance relation, and I fail to see why any one Mefite should abrogate superpositional rights over what is clearly a community resource?

Ah, but no sooner does one mention a "community resource" than someone must drag in that old standby, the Tragedy of the Commons. But I say, can we not strive for more than what is "common"? My God, sir, this is supposed to be The Best of The Web!
posted by freebird at 10:47 PM on June 15, 2004

I'm not trying to tell anyone to shut up, myself.

There's a pretty big difference (and there should be) between the standards for FPPs and comments.

Let it be noted.

I do have my lapses.
posted by y2karl at 10:53 PM on June 15, 2004

The way I see it, there are enough unread blogs in the world already

Ah! The delicious irony - if a blog is unread in the forest of branching discourse we call the web, what have you seen? Yet by placing your subjective narrative in relation to the multitude of these unread ones, do you not lend them fungible existence? Do you not unask the very question you have answered, and by so doing tell yourself to "shut up"?

Ah, thus the self-policing reaches full circle, and like the Great World-Serpent which swallows its own tail, we can regulate ourselves only by allowing complete freedom; we can be free only if we play by the rules.
posted by freebird at 10:56 PM on June 15, 2004

Yeah, Y2Karl, but I know the difference between comments and a post {edit: see important "on preview" coment that follows}. A post is a "an important broadcast on this channel". A comment, even if overbearing and long-winded, is part of a conversation. Pretty much every comment you'll find of mine is a response to what someone else wrote. Pretty much every comment you write, as well as all your FPPs, are statements of your political beliefs or an exposition of your intellectual obsession du jour.

The reason I don't write more to my blog is because I always feel a little ridiculous walking up to the empty podium, and lecturing into the microphone as if (or even if) there's a crowd waiting with bated breath on my every word. My blog entries, unlike many people's (who take the opposite viewpoint with their own blogs) are almost exclusively when I think I have an Original Idea to contribute to the public discourse on a topic.

In comments here and elsewhere, we're having conversations and I ask and answer questions and respond to other people's ideas. It's a different paradigm.

And the FPP is a different paradigm, but you and others don't seem to understand that. People tell you to "get a blog" because to you (and others) that front page is nothing more than a means to an end. It's not an end in itself, it's not "the best of the web". It's an opportunity to effect social change. Which, incidentally, is closer to how I see my own (shared) blog. People voluntarily come there specifically because they are interested in what I have to say about mostly political topics.

People don't come to MetaFilter to hear what you or I have to say about political topics. They don't really care so much at all about our opinions, per se, so much as they are interested in the conversation. Which requires a conversation. Not a soapbox.

On Preview: I'm not sure how to interpret your last comment aknowledging the difference between comments and FPPs. Seems like you agree, and great. If so, I amend or retract everything I wrote above that's relevant. And, dammit, I've no stomach to get you riled up (at me or anyone else for that matter). But the point I'm trying to make above is a valid (and, I think, correct) point that I think you and others don't fully "get". Or maybe I don't "get" something. Fine. Convince me. But there's something to, I think, the criticism of your FPPs (and, very much so, in general about NewsFilter).
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 11:08 PM on June 15, 2004

The way I see it, there are enough unread blogs in the world already--I have no desire to get one. Get a blog is a synonym for Shut Up.

Awww... po' widdle karl caint git no eyeballs. That's a sad story, dude. Wait... I know! Just spam it all to MeFi!

Seriously, you may think "spam" is too strong a word for what you do, but spam is unsolicited information someone slips into a space they know you already look at. You're pretty shameless about doing that here. Why don't you solve the eyebal problem the way the rest of us do: hard work, quality writing, relevance, networking.

I'm not saying shut up, karl. I'm saying get your own thing on in your own space, instead of getting your own thing on in everybody's space.
posted by scarabic at 11:19 PM on June 15, 2004

I find your assertions about what I am saying and thinking absurd and self-serving. I don't try to tell people what they are saying, myself. This all too often falls into the category of making yourself right by making the other guy wrong. And if it's about conversation--why do you go on for so long? That's not conversation, that's monotologue.

Some people like my posts, others don't. That's life.
posted by y2karl at 11:30 PM on June 15, 2004

getting your own thing on in everybody's space.

But if it's everybody's space, how can any "thing" be "owned"? But even this misses the mark - the very concept of a "thing" is a misrepresentation: a spurious reification of a meta concept. Adrift without refence, such a referent becomes less than a shadow. A shadow requires an object, and the negation of a concept requires the original concept. Yet this "thing" of which you speak, it vibrates with potential that cannot be made manifest without the very effort you lend to it's stillborn construction.

In other words, by condemning karl's "thing" you lend it power; by interlarding the pancakes of a flat discourse with your observations, you yourself participate in its construction; just as the curvature induced by a galaxy's gravity creates rainbows of light visible only far beyond it, do you not see that you are as much participant in this spectrum of radiative conversation as those you place yourself in negation to?

That's life.

This is a false essentialization of a rhetorical contruct and I for one resent this bald attempt to apply some normative construct on the fluid and essentially unknowable nature of my experience of biological time.
posted by freebird at 11:37 PM on June 15, 2004

I'm not exactly twisting your words around, here, karl, when you say this:

"The way I see it, there are enough unread blogs in the world already--I have no desire to get one."

It's more or less equivalent to saying:

"I post here because I can't get any attention elsewhere."

Now *that's* self serving, if not absurd.

I don't know what I have to do to make you happy, rhetorically. You're offended, or something, at the length of my comments, I guess. So we're done then? Bye.
posted by scarabic at 11:39 PM on June 15, 2004

And the FPP is a different paradigm, but you and others don't seem to understand that.

Eternal Blight: member since April 2004

y2karl: member since September 2001

I'm sorry. Explain to me again who doesn't understand the MetaFilter front page.
posted by eyeballkid at 11:42 PM on June 15, 2004

No, he was referring to me.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 11:42 PM on June 15, 2004

Seth: member since: sometime in 1999

Ebk, your point again, exactly?
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 11:44 PM on June 15, 2004

Well, I've got to hand it to seth. In constantly posting the same tired critique and often trying to hijack threads with metabitching, he has bascically ruined this site for me. I hardly come here anymore, and never feel like commenting. I used to love this site.

Seeing as how I'm a person who enjoyed political posts, I'd like to point out that as much as people like to say that seth isn't being productive in his efforts, he is. This website is now basically devoted to figuring out where he stands on every FPP (and hearing about ethereal bligh's every thought).

So that's basically the deal with that. Keep up your shit for antoher year or so, and you'll have driven away enough people to call it a victory, seth. Kudos. I doubt I'll ever enjoy this site much anymore as long as you're here.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 11:47 PM on June 15, 2004

I vigorously denounce the blatant assumed correlation between linear time and cognitive depth implicit in the second and fourth preceding comments.
posted by freebird at 11:49 PM on June 15, 2004

My point is that everytime I turn around, you're telling someone what is wrong with their post, what is shitty about this post, why you approve of that post.

You wonder why you illicit responses from people like, "SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP" or snarky front page posts from me? Or a hundred comment pile up in MeTaTalk? Because you act like you're some newfound authority we just dug up, some consultant who's here to show us the fucking light and guide us with his opinions into the MetaFilter promised land, but you're not.

You seem to grace us with your opinion on every thread.

Here's another tidbit from your profile page:
Ethereal Bligh has posted 3 links and 293 comments to MetaFilter
and 3 threads and 333 comments to MetaTalk.

How does one get more comments in MeTa than MeFi? They do what you're doing, which is sit and bitch with multiple comments about what they think the site should be like. Only you bleed it to the Front Page so that every time anyone opens a fucking thread, Mama Eternal Blight is there to approve or disapprove.
posted by eyeballkid at 11:56 PM on June 15, 2004

How does one get more comments in MeTa than MeFi?

I'm on my way to that myself. It's because the posts suck bad nowadays, but the metabitching has gotten exquisitely good.

*Cough*
posted by scarabic at 12:10 AM on June 16, 2004

We could go back to mostly good posts and less bitching. That would be cool, too.
posted by scarabic at 12:12 AM on June 16, 2004

Incidentally, Y2Karl—and I know you'll appreciate this—Plato's Republic is a dialogue even though, for example, Socrates often speaks for pages at a stretch.

The greek is διαλογος, which is the compound of δια, "through" or, in this case, "both ways"; and λογος "language" (in this case). There only has to be two-way communication for a dialogue to occur. Daily proselytizing posts to the front-page of MeFi is not a conversation.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 12:12 AM on June 16, 2004

EBK: I dunno. I do think the responses to me are often illicit. Yours is a good example.

"You seem to grace us with your opinion on every thread."

Ah, but I don't. An average of one MeFi and one MeTa commented thread per day (at least in the last month) does not an "every thread" make. Maybe you're obsessed?

I'm participating in what MeTa was designed for. I recognize that a common and typical human sentiment is that this sort of commentary should be reserved only for "senior members". That doesn't make it right. And it particularly doesn't make it the ethos that matters—that is, the ethos determined by the person in a position to declare an ethos. Maybe I'm wrong, but I haven't gotten the impression that such a senority system is intended for MeFi (or MeTa!). Maybe it is.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 12:20 AM on June 16, 2004

Incidentally:

Get a blog is a synonym for Shut Up.

and then, several comments down:
I don't try to tell people what they are saying, myself.

So much for that.
posted by scarabic at 12:23 AM on June 16, 2004

An average of one MeFi and one MeTa commented thread per day.

Odd seems to me more like an average of 10. (reference)

Which, of course, doesn't mean you comment in every thread ( though I'm far from the only person that shares that perception). You just moderate many of them. Where most users make one or two comments, you feel the need to answer every comment with your own. It's your running commentary on every single one that seems to annoy people.

I'm participating in what MeTa was designed for.

Yeah, you are, but you're also shitting in threads on the Front Page. I'd link to more, but I just randomly chose the links in my previous comment. Anyone could click on five or six more threads in your profile and find two or three good examples of the EB Stamp Of Dis/Approval!™ (here's another one of my faves!)

As for senority: I would easily consider the opinion of a user who has contributed to many of the memorable threads on this site over someone who just joined up in the last two months. That's not senority, that's just nomal community standards. Hell, I've spent time at y2karl's throat but I've learned to appreciate him and like him just fine. (just don't tell Karl that)

Oh, yeah, and if you can't beat 'em, bullshit 'em!

Obsessed? No. You're just hard to get away from on this site.
posted by eyeballkid at 12:53 AM on June 16, 2004

The drubbing isn't over, apparently. But then, it's not surprising to get a little overspray from the subject of the original callout. Teh h4tr3d!!
posted by scarabic at 1:19 AM on June 16, 2004

It's pretty easy to merely go to my user page and count the threads I've commented to in the last X days. The contrib index is a terrible indicator for your purposes since you said "you seem to grace us with your opinion on every thread" and not "you make a lot of comments, albeit most of them to particular threads". And, over the last month, it works out to be about one thread to which I've commented a day.

"Where most users make one or two comments, you feel the need to answer every comment with your own." Yeah, that's a conversation.

Anyway, your original links to my supposedly ubiquitous thread-moderation were so good, it seems you had to use one of them twice. And you wrote: "Anyone could click on five or six more threads in your profile and find two or three good examples of the EB Stamp Of Dis/Approval!™", yeah, the particular five or six which contain two or three good examples. As it happens, out of all my comments, I've probably made less than, say, fifteen (and I bet that estimate is much too high) such comments. Out of, as you point out, 340. Not to mention that fact that while a few are really snarky, the rest were extremely mild and phrased either as questions or qualified as personal opinions ("interesting, but seems to be a pretty lightweight article"). Oooh, my temerity and aggression is just infuriating, isn't it?

Do you work in the Bush admin? Because if you're not exactly making shit up, you're, um, exagerating like a motherfucker.

My comment to Y2Karl about "dialogue" was not bullshitting, it was pointing out that he apparently doesn't know what the word "dialogue" means.

You're free to apply your personal standards about senority as it applies to credibility to your own perceptions, but, in addition, you're using it as an argument to tell me to shut up. Which is a different matter.

You don't like me. Whoopee! At this point, your opinion doesn't mean jack shit to me. It's all hyperbole, sarcasm, sniping, and shitting into the blue worse than I ever have. In my book, that shoots your credibility all to hell. There are other folks who have made their case against what they think is bad behavior on my part that I take seriously. You're not one of them. So stop wasting your time. It'll be more fun for everyone, really.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 1:30 AM on June 16, 2004

Me: "You seem to grace us with your opinion on every thread"

later:

"Which, of course, doesn't mean you comment in every thread."

You: "The contrib index is a terrible indicator for your purposes since you said "you seem to grace us with your opinion on every thread" and not "you make a lot of comments, albeit most of them to particular threads"."

I fail to see where I'm being inconsistent. You seem to be everywhere, offering your opinions on what this site needs, even where it's not asked for. It's what I based that front page post on, after it seemed that the site had suddenly become the world according to EB. Again, keeping in mind that the perception that "Etherial Bligh" has become ubiquitous in the last two months is fairly widely held.

But consistency isn't your strong point: "And, over the last month, it works out to be about one thread to which I've commented a day." That's exagerrating like a motherfucker. As for making shit up, I linked to items that made my point. Dismissal, or in your case denial, isn't invalidation.

My comment to Y2Karl about "dialogue" was not bullshitting, it was pointing out that he apparently doesn't know what the word "dialogue" means.

Ahh, so not bullshitting. It was a condescending insult.

You're free to apply your personal standards about senority as it applies to credibility to your own perceptions, but, in addition, you're using it as an argument to tell me to shut up. Which is a different matter.

Nope. Wrong again. I'm just letting you know you're not helping, just annoying.

As for not liking you, I don't know you. You seemed like a nice guy in IRC, and I didn't spawn this hostility.
posted by eyeballkid at 1:59 AM on June 16, 2004

shitting into the blue worse than I ever have. In my book, that shoots your credibility all to hell.

A minority opinion, shared by you and... you. But there is no valid opinion but yours, so I guess that's enough.
posted by eyeballkid at 2:12 AM on June 16, 2004

How completely predictable that right-wingers would limit criticism of the right wing on MetaFilter.

Hey, if you're losing the debate here and on a national level, why not duck and run and try to shut people up, right Seth? It's understandable. It must be painful to encounter this criticism of your ideas with no apparent means to refute it. You have all my sympathy.

Frankly, more people will tire of meaningless MetaFilter trivia posts (like the latest Nazi helmet extravaganza or the most obscure collection of Korean nut cracker photos) before they grow weary of the posts that Seth cherry-picked for his latest tantrum.

People post to the front page because they feel passion about something, be it politics or animations or period tapestries of 13th century Mongolia nudes or whatthefuckever. Passion makes for far better "conversation" than some timid milquetoasted "golly gee, what do you all think about this?" front page post. Add to the soup. Don't dilute it, as our resident toast and water crew above would do.

This isn't...quite...MetaFlaccid...yet. But I have my doubts.

Telling someone they are "self-serving" or that they should "post in their own space" when they post about their passion would be very much like criticizing someone who....oh.... "self-servingly" asks a lot of questions about things they are interested in on AskMe. Might we then expect the bleating to sound something like.....hey, fuckwit, why don't you quit bothering and "spamming" everyone with your technical questions, and go to your "local" library or your "local" schools and do some "local" work and figure out your own goddamn answers? Maybe some "hard work" and "quality reading" and "networking" would help you with those answers. Maybe you could even start your own blog, and you could ask questions there and hope someone just happens along to answer them.

Hell, maybe some of you top-heavy-comment-to-FPP-ratio cases could just stay on your own blog where you could comment endlessly and proselytize constantly from afar on thread "quality", musing on which are worthy from a distance, thus sparing the rest of us from having to wade through your neverending, pretentious judgments on thread "quality" here on MetaFilter. (Why, maybe those who haven't got "senority" could even spare us the childish spelling callouts and irrelevant, grandiose vocabulary lessons).

Is that really what some of you want in response to your own passions, be they reflected in links, or comments, or questions?

If you don't like a post, skip it. Skip it. If you would like to see different front page posts, post them. Post them. It's that simple.

And some of you...hijack a spine if you have to...and quit telling other people to shut up.
posted by fold_and_mutilate at 2:28 AM on June 16, 2004

MetaTalk: Flash games with farting badgers
MetaTalk: more quirky everything! Less whining assholes!
posted by gen at 2:32 AM on June 16, 2004

"But consistency isn't your strong point"

I just did the hard work you didn't do.

MetaFilter:

EB: 128 comments in 47 threads in last month; 2.7 comments per thread; 1.6 threads per day
EBK: 28 comments in 20 threads in last month; 1.4 comments per thread; .66 threads per day

For comparison, Amberglow, who is second on the contrib list:

Amber: 340 comments in 109 threads in last month; 3.1 comments per thread, 3.6 threads per day

MetaTalk:

EB: 173 comments in 34 threads in last month; 5 comments per thread, 1.3 threads per day, 9 threads were on posting etiquette

What this shows is that your comments "you seem to grace us with your opinion on every thread" and "odd seems to me like an average of 10" (commented threads per day) is a huge exageration; where, in contrast, my "about one a day" is off by about 60%, not 600% (or more, assuming there's more than 10 comments per day, which there is), which is how much you exagerated. Seems pretty straightforward to me about whose perceptions are out of whack (or far more out of whack).

What it also shows is that I've particpated in a moderate number of the posting etiquette threads (add perhaps about the same to that number if the subject is widened to include overall etiquette and friendliness and whatnot), but that's probably about average or less. My participation on MeTa is less threads but more comments than MeFi (although this is skewed somewhat by the thread where I called you out), and still only a bit more than one thread a day.

Everywhere? In your face? You make the call. Well, you are. But you're greatly exagerating.

My posts are considerably longer than others, on average. There can be no doubt that that magnifies the overall effect. But, you know, I have copped to the charge that everything taken together, my prolificacy, my wordiness, my style, my interest in meta conversations, and my newbieness, all work together to create a situation where I'm inevitably going to rub some people very much the wrong way. But the bile they express my way is out of proportion to my behavior, the overall effect raises something above people like yours' threshold and you get really irritated. Then, you look for things to justify your irritation. One and a half threads commented upon a day becomes "every damn thread". And you're sure of that. You don't even bother to count it.

You can't be bothered to count, you just make outraged, self-righteous assertions. Whatever.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 2:33 AM on June 16, 2004

Correction: "or more, assuming there's more than 10 comments per day, which there is" should have shown "threads" where "comments" appears.

Also, I misspelled "seniority" earlier and thanks for the catch, foldy. All these years I've not known that "seniority" included that first "i", not to mention that this explains why people looked at me funny when I explained that I was a "senor" in school. This is what's great about MetaTalk: it illicits such inlightenment from smartypants like you! As always, "Thanks MetaFilter!"

If I hijack a spine, where would I ride it? Is this what they call "barebacking"?
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 2:49 AM on June 16, 2004

Whoops: "exaggerated". But I'm no world class speller. That's why I might make a sly little joke now and then, but pretty much never link typos to dictionary entries. Also, my grammar and punctuation suck ass.

Is Witty buying the sluts and plants tonight? Because I'm in the mood for a Lily. Either kind.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 2:58 AM on June 16, 2004

Member since April 2, 2004. (75 days)
Ethereal Bligh has posted 3 links and 296 comments to MetaFilter
and 3 threads and 337 comments to MetaTalk
and 2 questions and 124 answers to Ask MetaFilter

296
337
+124
--------
757

757/75 = 10.09

Is my math wrong?

Still, that's not my point, and was never my point. You harp on the numbers as if they means something. You could post a thousand times a day. You point to amberglow's comments, and he does comment a lot, but he doesn't provoke the kind of response you do. He's not a new user who peppers his comments with phrases like: "And the FPP is a different paradigm, but you and others don't seem to understand that." The aforementioned "you" being a poster who has spent an inordinate amount of time composing detailed and fascinating posts about everything from modern blues to sci-fi lit.

Whatever. I've made my point, more than once. This is tired and I'm done.
posted by eyeballkid at 3:08 AM on June 16, 2004

Thank god. Because you can't tell the difference between a thread and comment. It sort of makes a productive discussion in this context difficult.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 3:18 AM on June 16, 2004

Ah. Yes, I forgot to mention: you're a pompous ass.
posted by eyeballkid at 3:23 AM on June 16, 2004

And Y2Karl uses MetaFilter exactly like his personal blog. Bush outrage of the day? Post to MeFi. Reading a good book? Google for some links and write a post on it. It's "Hey, look: today I care about this and I'm learning/reading about/interested in this." Often, much of the post is presenting his context for the link. It's a day in Karl's life, basically. It's a personal blog. (And a high-quality blog it would be, I should say. Definitely worth visiting.)

Whatever MetaFilter is supposed to be and this shade into one another, of course. But probably the best acid test for a FPP is whether it could stand on its own merely as a tersely worded link and still not look as if it were a news headline. If it needs context to keep it from seeming like a "I'm feeling lucky" Google result, it's probably not a good FPP. It it's actually not really a link, but an argument for a point of view, it's probably a very bad FPP.

Here's the thing. What's nice about the context of metaconversations at Metafilter is that this isn't a little democratic community that evolves its standards, induction rituals, and heirarchy over time and which remain clouded in some murky social mystery. Rather, Matt built it to do a certain kind of thing, he's said that he's built it to do a certain kind of thing, he writes paragraphs of guidelines on what a good post is, links to discussion of what makes a bad post, makes sidebars directing and/or discouraging certain kinds of posts, comments to threads and expresses his opinion on what are good and bad posts, and, finally, on an almost daily basis actually exercises editorial control by deleting posts and even providing explanations for why he did it. All this means that Seth, eyeballkid, Y2Karl, or Ethereal Bligh don't get to decide what makes a good or a bad post, Matt does. Not only that, but he actually does it. Every day. And not only that, he constantly explains himself. Matt's opinions are not some obscure text that oracular priests obsfuscate. They're plain as day. He's said he doesn't like NewsFilter—hell, he deleted one of the posts Seth criticized after reading this thread and said that others of them were crappy. Furthermore, in this thread he said he doesn't read every thread and every comment; and he's also explained why he created MetaFilter. When I complain NewsFilter posts are bad FPP, I'm not applying my own personal standard, which counts for jackshit. I'm applying Matt's easily discovered and easily comprehended standards. I'm applying them in the context of being a member of this community and participating in the forum he built for just this purpose. I'm applying it because I'm a member of Metafilter specifically because I like Matt's sensibilities about what Metafilter is supposed to be; which, not incidentally, is the single most important thing that's defined what it's become.

There are all sorts of venues online where, if you hang out there long enough, you get to make the rules. This isn't one of them. Here, the rules are set, they're written down, they're frequently explained, and seniority doesn't count for much. (Fortunately for, as I pointed out, to those who disagree with Seth.)

Figure out this distinction: what's appropriate behavior for the purposes of a community are, firstly, decided by whomever is in control of the charter for the community (in this case, Matt) and, secondly, not ncessarily (and in this case, certainly not) the same thing as appropriate behavior for maximizing popularity within the community. A whole lot of people here take it as axiomatic that if someone pisses off they and (assuming) most of the people they know, it indicates that that person is doing something objectively wrong. No, it merely means that they're doing something wrong with regard to the objective of being well-liked.

If Seth's complaints are primarily politically motivated, then by the real standards of this community, as defined by Matt, his unpopularity may be causally related to his violation of standards. (That is, he's attempting to make MeFi be something it explicitly is not.) On the other hand, if his complaints are not politically motivated, but are truly about pointing out violations of standards, then his unpopularity might very well be more a reflection about how the community as a whole is increasingly misbehaving than it is about Seth's supposed misbehavor.

I've been a part of communities that work, really and truly, like you (ebk) and others think MeFi works. Alt.folklore.urban comes to mind. And those are fine places, indeed. The people who make up the community are in every sense the community, there is no authority other than collective authority, and collective authority is individually distributed according to a complex social heirarchy involving respect, longevity, and various other factors. By definition, if you're pissing off most of the people there, you're doing something wrong. But MeFi isn't one of those places. It's just not. It's not totally not that, of course; but in this particular context—what is appropriate for a FPP—it is not in any sense one of those communities. Not at all. Nada. The end.

On preview: no, I'm not a pompous ass—I'm a sarcastic motherfucker with a low tolerance for cliquish, pot-shot-from-the-peanut-gallery-taking, math challenged, can't leave well enough alone, inbred and poorly groomed imbeciles. But my targets usually can't tell the difference between it and a pompous ass. Naturally.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 4:26 AM on June 16, 2004

In summary, you're a rebel and you don't give a damn.
posted by yerfatma at 4:38 AM on June 16, 2004

Actually, no, not at all. Unless you confuse authority with popularity. Which many do, of course.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 4:40 AM on June 16, 2004

Hey, look: today I care about this and I'm learning/reading about/interested in this.

Aren't all posts about that? Should we post things we don't care about?
posted by PrinceValium at 4:40 AM on June 16, 2004

"Aren't all posts about that? Should we post things we don't care about?"

No, but "Best of the Web" indicates that the "care" factor extends beyond oneself. I don't go looking for obscure but valuable web sites and that's why I haven't really contributed either that many, or that high quality of FPPs. What I do actually do, though, is spend a fair bit of time researching obscure subjects in which I have great interest. Not unlike Karl. And there've been many times when I've considered posting a link to some sites I've found along the way, but I've not done so because I'm aware that my interest is not the best measure of everyone else's. In each of the three links I've posted, the determining factor for my decision to post was that I thought it would be interesting to the MeFi readership. None of the three score that highly in my own personal ranking of things I've found very interesting. None of the three were displays of erudition, attempts to persuade, or attempts to generate comments. All three were "hey, maybe this would actually make a decent MeFi post". In the case of the last, my judgment wasn't as accurate as I expected.

I've got a blog where I have a relationship with my readers whereby I can write about anything I like, with completely disregard to what anyone else thinks, and if there is anyone out there that for some reason finds what I have to say interesting, they can self-select their way to reading my blog. The people who read MetaFilter are not reading MetaFilter because of me. Or any one person, excepting, implicitly, Matt (because he exerts editorial control and thus defines for them what they expect MetaFilter to be). I have no right to treat MeFi as my blog; both because that right belongs to Matt, and also because, in a sense, that right is also a negotiation between Matt and the collective readership of Metafilter that I have no place to renegoiate as a writer. As a portion of the readership by voting with my feet? Yep. As a writer? Nope.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 5:00 AM on June 16, 2004

inbred and poorly groomed imbeciles

Mom sister say she love me just the way I are.

*yawn*

Anyway, check out what madam just posted. This is why I come to Metafilter.
posted by eddydamascene at 5:06 AM on June 16, 2004

I've got a blog where I have a relationship with my readers whereby I can write about anything I like, with completely disregard to what anyone else thinks, and if there is anyone out there that for some reason finds what I have to say interesting, they can self-select their way to reading my blog.

Oh but when I encountered this juicy, juicy piece of news, such an unruly boner did ere manifest itself in all its rampant, turgid eagerness and glory!
posted by MiguelCardoso at 6:31 AM on June 16, 2004

Y2Karl just did a great post on Charles Tart concerning - among other things - the concept of "Waking Up" .

It's said in some traditions that the dead are merely shades unable to act or influence that physical reality which they can nonetheless perceive in sad impotence.

And so they yak amongst themselves in quiet despair.

That is how I think of Metatalk - especially threads such as this.

Think of it this way - why not plan to debate, in the great "Metatalk in the sky" the minutia of what constitutes a worthy post when y'all are six feet under ?

This, here, is a very pale and pinched shadow of life. Walk out the door. Smell the flowers, feel the wind and the rain. Be in life a little more. Postpone Metatalk for later. Maybe Matt will be swayed to change posting policy. But probably not and - meanwhile - you'll have lived a bit.

And - if in the end you meet no afterlife at all but, instead, just wink out of existence - you won't miss Metatalk.

In fact, you'll never even notice.
posted by troutfishing at 6:34 AM on June 16, 2004

Seth makes a good point in bring up the fact that MeFi isn't NewsFi. I'm fine with that. It's an election year, so it's in the news a bunch, but fine, whatever... good point.

However, Seth threw around all these important words from the list of fallacies... and that's crap. Especially the ad hominem. Seth - you create this experience with us - if you don't like it, you are partly to blame. That's not ad hominem, that's reality. You share responsibility for the posts being stinky, because you are one of the potential posters.

Now, I'm going to go re-read Matt's guidance on a good post. I'm not saying I'll be able to follow it, I might get exuberant or something, I might get carried away. But I'll try. I'm hoping that you, Seth, will spend this time really combing the net for material worthy of your first post. I'm looking forward to it.

Seriously.
posted by ewkpates at 6:50 AM on June 16, 2004

Migs: you're bitching is getting swifter, funnier and dirtier.

Please keep it up!
posted by dash_slot- at 6:57 AM on June 16, 2004

"Oh but when I encountered this juicy, juicy piece of news, such an unruly boner did ere manifest itself in all its rampant, turgid eagerness and glory!"—Miguel

I hope you immediately called your wife! Because that sort of thing is rare for you these days, isn't it?

Or was it eldery, affable Tempestadinho, flatulently humping his beloved master's leg in his acclaim for your delightful reminiscences of exquisite after-dinner sherries of times past?

Either way, with luck, it'll form the nucleus of that past-due metro magazine piece. All is well.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 7:04 AM on June 16, 2004

the metabitching has gotten exquisitely good

Great line, scarabic! Now if only we had some means to immortalize those words.

However, I personally would use 'become' over 'gotten', but that may be just a class thing. ;-P
posted by mischief at 7:28 AM on June 16, 2004

I got heated with jonmc the other day but, you know, when I did, I got mad at a stick figure.

Hey look, I know I need to hit the gym, but there's really no need to rub it in.
posted by jonmc at 7:35 AM on June 16, 2004

*kicks sand in jonmc's face, hits on girlfriend*

God, Ethereal Bligh, you are the state-of-art long winded bore--the epitome.
posted by y2karl at 7:58 AM on June 16, 2004

Wow, wasn't it just a couple weeks ago that we were hailing EB as the best of the new arrivals?

Ah, the fickle public....
posted by jonmc at 8:14 AM on June 16, 2004

So I don't come here much at all these days, even to lurk, and after this I doubt I shall ever come back.

My reasons are two, and their names are Seth and Ethereal Bligh. Seth because of what he represents, and Ethereal Bligh for what he is.

Seth, you spend so very much time whining about something that you could easily address with your own actions that you strike me as someone who enjoys making prisons for yourself. As the cliche goes, nobody holds a gun to your head and forces you to read Metafilter, and certainly there's nobody keeping you from posting links - obscure, funny, and well-crafted links - that meet your own criteria for excellence.

Your failure to do so, coupled to your incessant bitching, moaning, and whining about the state of affairs, is diagnostic of a particularly unpleasant sort of personality. Every homeowner's association, every PTA, every ACT/UP cell (or what have you) sports someone like you: tireless on the critique, nowhere to be found when it's time to actually do something.

Definitively, then: contribute or shut the fuck up.

Ethereal Bligh, by contrast, you are not representative of an ill, you are that ill. Your words constitute like 75% by weight of many a thread I've peeked into lately - and they are never, ever interesting.

You routinely ignore the well-intentioned, even affectionate advice people give you to tone it down a notch. You seem incapable of summing up your responses to something in one or two simple declarative sentences, and instead feel free to drench the commons in your rhetoric. Here's a hint: I doubt one person in two hundred actually reads to the bottom of anything you write longer than a sentence.

Your jibes at MiguelCardoso, furthermore, are juvenile and repellent. Miguel is sui generis, and probably equally beloved and be-hated therefore, but you are just a bore. You cannot match him, you cannot efface him, you cannot and will not make him go away...

...but you can, and have, made me go away.

I wish to thank the many of you who have provided me with instruction, amusement, entertainment, colloquy and controversy over the years. This always was a place I looked forward to visiting, and I hope it always will be, for those of you who have a stronger stomach (or more free time with which to indulge these clowns) than I do.
posted by adamgreenfield at 8:16 AM on June 16, 2004

*rolls eyes*
posted by monju_bosatsu at 8:20 AM on June 16, 2004

adamgreenfield is precise and on topic... up to the last 70 words. For well known reasons, it is better to fade away on Mefi, rather than to burn up, adam.

Anyway - see ya around...
posted by dash_slot- at 8:31 AM on June 16, 2004

Wow, wasn't it just a couple weeks ago that we were hailing EB as the best of the new arrivals?

Yeah, well, remember Moby Grape was the Next Big Thing until Columbia released 6 simultaneous singles off their first album--it's the over-saturation factor. And the sad thing was, they really could have been the Next Big Thing. At least until Skip Spence went off the rails.

See also Dan Hicks.
posted by y2karl at 8:35 AM on June 16, 2004

I doubt one person in two hundred actually reads to the bottom of anything you write longer than a sentence.

Ain't that the truth.
posted by jerseygirl at 8:46 AM on June 16, 2004

And yet thirty years down the line Spence gets a star studded tribute album and the people who were the next big thing look embarrassingly dated now. And I did some research on a Hicks 60th birthday DVD for my job recently. History has a weird way of setting things straight.
posted by jonmc at 8:50 AM on June 16, 2004

And you, Y2Karl, are yesterday's bore, the nadir or boredom, and cast-off like last season's now-so-obviously-gauche footware. It's no wonder you've been so bitter the last few months. There is nowhere to go but away.

Post haste.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 8:55 AM on June 16, 2004

I confess I don't quite understand the thought process that leads to "I'm quitting Metafilter because of Seth and Etherial Bligh." Wouldn't it be just as valid to say "I'm not quitting Metafilter because of the 17,300 people not named Seth or Etherial Bligh?"

Look, people, unless you want one-sentence cryptic Fark-like links to other places, there will be a lot to read here. In trying to form a community of nearly 20,000 people - plus thousands more non-members who participate via Monkeyfilter and their personal blogs - the "filter" in Metafilter is a crude, underinclusive one. Those of you who don't like political threads need to not read political threads.

If the oversaturation of one topic is so pervasive that it makes it difficult to spot the good threads, that's one thing. To the extent that he argues this point, Seth speaks much truth. But in asking Matt to ban discussions that don't fit your image of what Metafilter is supposed to be, you are asking for YOUFilter, not METAFilter. And that's your job to create, not Matt's. MetaFilter is what you download; YouFilter is what you read. It boggles me that people don't realize that they can be valued, happy members of the site even if they ignore 80% of what's posted.
posted by PrinceValium at 8:56 AM on June 16, 2004

I'm quitting too! I'm sick of all the fricken bullcrap.
posted by mcsweetie at 9:00 AM on June 16, 2004

well, there goes my night's sleep.
posted by jonmc at 9:04 AM on June 16, 2004

Was anyone else saddened by the comment from Ignatius J. Reilly?
I thought he was a consistently interesting contributor to the site and Iv'e missed his comments. I'm a bit surprised to find that Seth has bothered him to that extent but I certainly agree that the constant complaints are annoying and make the site less enjoyable.
If the price of Seth's bitching is losing Ignatius, well, damn, its not worth it.
posted by Zetetics at 9:11 AM on June 16, 2004

What this discussion really lacks, besides more about the sun-splashed salmon of MetaTalk and the weather-rounded boulders of discourse - that was really great - is a frank examination of the nature of relativity - in the physics and philosophical sense - in a society where the objects of culture are recycled at an accelerating rate. Most pertinant to this thread, also - a society where there truly is no dominant paradigmatic "metric", but the cognitive and discursive "space" for multiple orthoganl coordinate systems - again, in in the linear algebraic as well as cultural senses. Who is to determine the "best" of the web when there is no global metric, only a local metric which cannot extend past the "tangent bundle" of individual taste?

Or, more effulgently, Sweet Baby Jesus Don't You People Sleep?!?!
posted by freebird at 9:20 AM on June 16, 2004

Seth is the anti-Postroad. One writes only political posts and never visits MetaTalk, and the other only complains about political posts and "contributes" primarily to MetaTalk. Now that I think about it, I'm not sure I've ever seen them in the same thread together. Hmmm...
posted by monju_bosatsu at 9:21 AM on June 16, 2004

And I thought my thread sucked--Fuck!

ps - I like y2karl's post and was dismayed to see that for about thirty seconds of slow scrolling during this thread, scarabic and EB (tone it down a bit, EB: Migs had the same problem) posted seemingly every (unread) comment in this thread. Talk about running it into the ground.
posted by The God Complex at 9:31 AM on June 16, 2004

Seth-- I understand that you're trying to create a groundswell or critical mass of sorts-- and many people agree with you that most or all of the 14 posts you cited are not good posts. And, while I lack proof, I believe that you probably speak for the majority of the community.

However, you've tried to rally the troops so many times that your message has grown tired and begun to ring hollow. I'm sorry that this is the case, Seth. I really am. I think the endless one-note politics have cast MeFi in a negative light. My girlfriend can't understand why I spend so much time on such a "liberal site"; I can't blame her for characterizing Metafilter that way. It's a shame. But there's absolutely nothing you or I can do about it.

Absolutely nothing.

Einstein once opined that insanity was "doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." Your message is falling on deaf ears. I don't think you're fighting for the minds of undecided voters, because no one is undecided, and no one gets to vote. You're wasting your keystrokes, friend.

As I see it, you have some choices:
1. Continue tilting at windmills with these MeTa posts.
2. Formulate a new strategy to combat the garbage on the front page.
3. Give up the fight, try to salvage what's good here.
4. Leave.

The first choice is insane, unless you enjoy this sort of thing (despite its futility). The second choice is what I'd examine, had I your passion about this issue. The third choice is the one I made long ago. The fourth choice has been made by many, many people-- for a variety of reasons. The decision is yours.
posted by trharlan at 9:36 AM on June 16, 2004

Well, jonmc, Spence was a talent but the real reason Moby Grape foundered, besides Columbia's ineptitude, was Matthew Katz. their former manager. He copyrighted their name and then hounded them into oblivion. That guy did more to destroy the San Francisco scene than any one other person--he is truly an evil fucker.

But, Hicks, man, he was something else, wasn't he? Did you hear him on Rob Wasserman's Duets? Man, the cat can scat.

The Hicks link was for Mr. Never Know When To Say When, of course--the past master of five thousand word self-referential turd bronzing. He needs a dumptruck, baby, to unload his head. Next project--a revision of A Manual of Style. Rule 1--Insert Needless Words. Endlessly.
posted by y2karl at 9:39 AM on June 16, 2004

remember Moby Grape was the Next Big Thing

Thankfully, no. Though it's clear to me people posting on MeTa from 11 to 7 every night sure makes life a drag.
posted by yerfatma at 9:48 AM on June 16, 2004

Mom sister say she love me just the way I are.

It was worth reading through this whole steaming pile of turdwank to get that laugh. I didn't get much sleep last night, and it did me a world of good. Now, we've had a flameout (though I wish it hadn't been Ignatius), we've had some good jokes, can we get on with the group sex and call it a day? 'Cause really, this is going on much too long and nobody's having any fun. Except freebird.
*gives freebird obscure but meaningful hermeneutical sign*

And Moby Grape was great, dammit.

OK, I'm heading out for a beer. Who's with me?
posted by languagehat at 10:04 AM on June 16, 2004

Y2Karl, what I decided tonight was that rather than turning a blind eye to each time you and Miguel pop-up in a thread to personally insult me—something that's happened more than a few times from both of you in the last few weeks, I'll return the favor. Of course you think I deserve it. Some others agree with you. But you can debate whether someone deserves abuse till the cows come home because practically no one can agree on the moral calculus of such things. Abusers, justified or no, are always sure. But then, that's their nature. This sort of thinking should be quite familiar to you from your microscopic examination of the Bush administration and its policies.

On the other hand, most people (but not all!) agree with the doctrine of a right to defend directly from an attack. Best would be some means of actually stopping you from poking a stick in my eye. Sadly, I have no direct means to do that. So, I'll poke you and Miguel back. Other drive by shooters will probably remain unnoticed until, as in the case of you and Miguel, it's been repeated five or more times. Something to look forward to, I'm sure; and I can hear the sticks being sharpened now. Or is that the sound of latent sadism concealed within the tattered velvet glove of failed wit? They sound so alike.

However, what I won't do is initiate it. Unless I feel that someone deserves it. Muahahaha! Hell, I think I'll vote Republican. It all makes so much more sense to me now!
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 10:06 AM on June 16, 2004

oh for chrissakes people - SethFilter is a whiny little bitch who has never contributed a single link. you're all paying him far too much attention. people are LEAVING because of him? give me a break! and bligh? you'd leave because a guy would repeatedly choose to say something like "Ethereal Bligh circumlocuted this point in space at a temporal situs which is negatively corelated with the present moment!" instead of "EB was here!"?
posted by quonsar at 10:11 AM on June 16, 2004

For the young'un's and non-music geeky:

Moby Grape. Rivaled only by Jefferson Airplane, Creedence, Sly & The Family Stone and Santana as the best of the San Francisco bands. And they're still the next big thing. Just you wait!
posted by jonmc at 10:17 AM on June 16, 2004

Wow, EB, you wrote an epigram! For you, that is!
posted by y2karl at 10:19 AM on June 16, 2004

Seth, give it up. At this point the only people who don't agree with you are the ones who benefit from a lack of moderation--the trolls and sociopaths who don't care about any form of 'community consensus'. And they're the ones running the asylum now.

You really only have three options.
a) Start counter-trolling.
b) Leave for a site whose moderation policy is more to your liking.
c) Buy MeFi from mathowie and start the banhammer swinging.
posted by darukaru at 10:21 AM on June 16, 2004

Right, I'm off to pick up a copy of "Moby Grape". Damn you, MetaFilter!
posted by soundofsuburbia at 10:30 AM on June 16, 2004

You people are funny. You act as if I post "incessantly." Look at my posting history. Not sure where you get "incessantly" out of that. If you want to act as if I am the one that turned MeFi into a polifilter cesspool, then feel free. I appreciate the extreme respect you have given to my rather limited comments. A more clever person might blame the perpetrators who have openly ignored the rules, intentionally raised divisive topics, and shit all over the blue. But if my lowly 2 topics and (about on average) .5 comments per week, are causing you that much heartburn, my apologies. However, I firmly believe the daily shit strewn about on the Blue, which has gone unchecked, is much more the cause of the cesspool that MeFi has become.

On a final note, I am absolutely apalled by the fact that y2karl can openly state that he uses MeFi for his personal blog because he wants the readers. As if this was news to anyone, to see him admit it is revolting. The whole point of the prohibition against self-linking is not to whore MeFi for eyeballs. But here is y2karl, refusing to get his own blog, because he wants people to see what he wrote. Absolutely disgusting. So many people here work hard on their own blogs, and some of the more cravenly political people have well read blogs (Steven den Beste was before your time, y2karl, and though I disagreed with damn near everything political he said, I trade him for you in a heartbeat because he at least was not an obnoxious bore and he made lots of interesting posts too). Are you so desperate to grind your axe in public display that you need eyeballs reading your trite in order to get off?
Assholes like you are the ones ruining MeFi. People who think that MeFi is nothing more than a capitive audience of 18,000 to read whatever it is YOU want to share. But it isn't! I am shocked that more people aren't offended by this attitude of entitilement that y2karl is displaying.

Y2karl: Get your own blog, asshat.
posted by Seth at 10:30 AM on June 16, 2004

On a more important note, all night and today that damn Google textad for “Traction Software” has been mocking me with its luscious overtones of 1999. Do they need software for that? Oh, it's their name. Still, do they need software for that? Wait...it's "enterprise blogging" software. Well, fuck, that was obvious from the name. How could I have been so dense? So, um, do they need enterprise class software for that? Blogging, not traction? Hey, they do. It's called a CMS. I bet there's a hefty IPO coming for this. Just you wait.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 10:41 AM on June 16, 2004

Jesus Christ, Seth. You singled me out here because it's personal for you. I do listen to what people say--which is why I didn't cut and paste any long passages in my post before last. Even though you insisted I did. I post something once or twice a week on average. How many other people post in a week? How many are about Iraq? I may symbolize all that is evil to you but if I quit posting, nothing would change. I'm not responsible for what other people post.
posted by y2karl at 10:58 AM on June 16, 2004

If this thread demonstrates anything, it's the principle that less is more. Seth does have a point ("There's lots of less-than-stellar posts on the front page right now!") but since this seems to be a favorite topic of his, it's getting on a lot of people's nerves. Similarly, EB has something resembling a point ("You people are all picking on me!"), but due to his incessant harping on this, especially in the last few days, it's probably getting worse, not better. In my own mind, MeFi would do quite well without either of these posters.

On the other side, we've got Ignatius J. Reilly, who in my opinion doesn't post enough. Despite the fact that I regularly disagree with him, he's reasonable (I mean that literally) and seems to be somebody who posts completely in good faith. It would sadden me to see him limit his participation, or stop completely. So, to me, his "less" becomes far more valuable to me and to MeFi than the previously mentioned posters' "more."

On preview, if anyone figures out what the preceding two paragraphs are saying, email me and let me know.

And Seth, you really need to stop taking this so personally. Y2Karl's posting etiquette, or lack thereof, is not intended as a personal insult aimed at you. Intentionally insulting him is childish and self-defeating. If you're really trying to change behavior here, and not just belching bile, you'd be well-advised to take a different tack.
posted by deadcowdan at 10:58 AM on June 16, 2004

Seth, you accused y2k of not writing further up the thread, simply cutting and pasting--and now you're accusing him of writing--and what's worse, that he wants people to actually see it?!?

Here's shocking news for you, Seth, which you would understand if you had ever posted even one single post in the blue: We all want people to read our posts!--We think what we're posting is good, and interesting, and of some value to the site, and to other members. That's true of every single post here, unless it's a revenge post, like the Thatcher thing the other day (actually, it's true even then).

There's been some good advice given to you here, and you're ignoring it in favor of attacking y2karl--stop it.
posted by amberglow at 11:02 AM on June 16, 2004

How on earth am I taking it personal?

I will concede I am making it personal by singling out offenders, but on earth gives anyone the idea that I am taking things personally?

I have no personal stake in this other than I like MeFi and don't want it ruined further by the same asshats. I get disgusted by the actions of people, not because it effects me, but because it ruins Metafilter. Since I like Metafilter, I try to help effectuate the self-policing function. And I stand by personal attack against y2karl because he is one of the worst offenders, and he is one of the most vocal defenders of their actions.

So, for the sake of clarification, don't think this is some great personal crusade for me. Despite what you people may think, I don't daily toil over this issue (for christ's sake, do you people even look at my posting history?). I just bring it up a few times when the problems seems to get worse.

And karl, I see that you again fail to address my direct critique of you, and instead try to suggest that your last non-offending post somehow absolves you of the rest of your behavior.


on preview: amber, you defending karl is a bit like Cheney defending Bush. If you had your druthers, this place would be a complete cesspool of agenda driven crap. I am not suprised at all that you fail to understand the point behind the "get a blog, asshat" statement.
posted by Seth at 11:11 AM on June 16, 2004

Children, children, please! You're all ruining Metafilter!
posted by Skot at 11:14 AM on June 16, 2004

It's personal for you, Seth. I represent all evil to you.

I remember I posted about Sistani being the target of an assassination attempt--which he wasn't as it turned out but who knew?--and you came in screaming agenda!--yet even clavdivs, with whom I often disagree, said it was important if true. It was a news post at worst. But you saw what you wanted to see. Every post I make on current events is the same to you.

By the way, I was talking about my post on A Temporary Coup just now to you, Seth, which you claimed was another cut-and-paste job when it wasn't. Talk about avoiding the subject.
posted by y2karl at 11:28 AM on June 16, 2004

I feel sure that I wouldn't be going out on a limb here by saying that your opinion has been noted. The question is, do you imagine that by continuing to give it, varying only by the increased instances of the word "shit" and fecal variants like "cesspool", that you'll hit upon the magic formula and everyone will snap into obedience? Or that you will eventually compel, embarrass, or exhaust Matt into enforcing a guideline as a rigid and immutible policy? And what will happen to you if this doesn't happen? What if -- quel horror -- you never actually get your way, and MeFi goes on for at least the remainder of this political season with as many as 10 or 15% of posts being at least arguably outside the guidelines? Will the site die? Will you confront the fact that outside the home you grew up in, you don't necessarily get your way in the end?
posted by George_Spiggott at 11:28 AM on June 16, 2004

And as for you, Ethereal Bligh--my message to you has been consistently this: you are too long winded. Your comments are way too long and too often state the commonplace and obvious. I am not alone in this assessment.

As to responding to every perceived insult with an even snappier comeback--that's a loser's game. You end up writing sentences like Or is that the sound of latent sadism concealed within the tattered velvet glove of failed wit?

That is so awful it's embarrassing.
posted by y2karl at 11:44 AM on June 16, 2004

So, for the sake of clarification, don't think this is some great personal crusade for me. Despite what you people may think, I don't daily toil over this issue (for christ's sake, do you people even look at my posting history?). I just bring it up a few times when the problems seems to get worse.

Yes, I've looked at it. It's true that you don't speak up very often, but it's also true that when you show up everybody is in for a few days of the worst/best/worst again explosion of boring repetition many of us ever experience on metafilter (metatalk specifically). You beat your drum to the same rhythm, and when nobody responds to you in one thread you start another thread saying the exact same thing, only longer and more often.

Then you go on some fucking insane rampage about how you've never shown us your political leanings, despite your constant harping about people who complain about Halliburton (they're helping, guys!) and other similarly transparent bullshit. The thing that annoys me about you to know end is that claim, when every political thread you've ever participated in (and there have been more than a few for someone who doesn't want them here) paints you as at best a moderate conservative.

Plus you're heavy-handed and make comments about this not being a crusade when all I see everytime you post in MT is some guy in a suit of armour riding a dead horse that you continue to flagellate to god knows what end.

On a final note, I am absolutely apalled by the fact that y2karl can openly state that he uses MeFi for his personal blog because he wants the readers. As if this was news to anyone, to see him admit it is revolting.

You know what would be revolting? Someone having the gumption to claim they were posting for the sake of the post. What are we, a bunch of pretentious artists designing posts for ourselves because of the beauty in the post, hoping that nobody will read it and it will live on eternally, a lone, quivering dove flying through the outer reaches of space? Because when I post something you better fucking believe I want somebody to read it. If I didn't, I wouldn't be here.
posted by The God Complex at 12:08 PM on June 16, 2004

Meanwhile, Postroad posts that the 9/11 panel says no substantial Iraq/Al Qaeda connections.

Seth, these guys have a point. If Matt doesn't delete posts like that with an "AP wire headline does not a post make"; or harping about it here in MeTa, which was designed for this sort of harping and to bring things to Matt's attention also doesn't cause those threads to be deleted...then, whatever Matt may claim, or even what he thinks, NewsFilter is indisputably in the MeFi charter. His admonitions against this sort of thing are a sort of elaborate joke. Or something.

There's absolutely no damn point in fighting the good fight because, as I was saying to eyeballkid earlier, the community here doesn't get to determine the standards...Matt does. You should be emailing Matt at this point, maybe, not posting to the gray. Or your approach should be to criticize Matt's failed enforcement of the guildelines, not the people that violate the guidelines. Because, again, this isn't a democracy. We don't get to decide what the guidelines are by group discussion.

I'm serious. If "Reagan Dies" with a link to CNN or, "9/11 Panel Says Iraq Rebuffed Bin Laden" with a link to the associated press (Ha! I thought I was exagerating/joking when I used 'AP wire" in my example earlier!) doesn't get deleted, it's a lost fucking cause. Don't believe the sign on the wall, it's not the rules.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 12:11 PM on June 16, 2004

Like peas in a pod, these two.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 12:21 PM on June 16, 2004

posted by Shane at 12:37 PM on June 16, 2004

I gotta run guys, but it's been a blast. See you this weekend!
posted by rocketman at 12:41 PM on June 16, 2004

So as to never have to hear the comment again that I have not posted an FPP, here.
posted by Seth at 1:41 PM on June 16, 2004

Matt has explicitly stated on less than one occasion that we should refrain from posting any scrap of trivia about Moby Grape, yet several mefites - the same old voices, I might list in order to lengthen my post - consistently do this. They only want to further their agenda of promoting geriatric rock music over the shining sounds of now. Personally, I have no interest in music or anything else, but the posting of uninteresting links here stirs in me a righteous anger and I feel compelled to speak out against the lack of attention that I receive.
posted by liam at 1:42 PM on June 16, 2004

Seth sez:

Y2karl: Get your own blog, asshat.

Pot, meet kettle.

If this were a democratic community, then I'd say count my vote as anything that is the opposite of Seth's. I completely disagree as to what he thinks Metafilter is all about.
posted by moonbiter at 1:51 PM on June 16, 2004

Yeah, but you're one of the evil Taken, therefore clearly untrustworhty, so I'm gonna have to side with Seth.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 2:00 PM on June 16, 2004

Well, your post implicitly validates almost all of Karl's, Seth. Is that what you intended? Merely your very reason for posting it undermines your position, seems to me. Ah, well.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 2:10 PM on June 16, 2004

Heh. Pretty much both sides of folks in that series of books was evil. Kind of reminds me of politics on Mefi ...
posted by moonbiter at 2:11 PM on June 16, 2004

Well, your post implicitly validates almost all of Karl's, Seth.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 2:10 PM PST on June 16

EB, maybe you should read the links before you say that.
If you did, then care to explain what you just wrote?

The thread was not a double post. It was not newsfilter. It was balanced. It was unique to the web. And if you bothered to read the post to understand it, then your comment would be facially wrong.
posted by Seth at 2:19 PM on June 16, 2004

The Lady is my dream woman. I mean, really, she comes to me in my dreams. And she's fucking awesome, man!
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 2:20 PM on June 16, 2004

Seth, do you read all of Y2Karl's links? The ones you've criticized, anyway?
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 2:24 PM on June 16, 2004

Actually, yes EB. But I read them at Marshall, Atrios, Kos, etc.

But I take it that means you didn't read my links before you resumed speaking out of your ass?
posted by Seth at 2:29 PM on June 16, 2004

The whole point about Seth attacking y2K, amberglow, and whoever else on the right here, is to intimidate the rest who sympathise with their posts, agenda, political stances.

The head honchos of the Mefi Cabal which Seth resents so much, may have the bollocks to withstand his assaults, and even to take him on. The lesser beasts may not have the stamina, the fibre, the thick enough skin. In attacking the head, Seth's own status goes up (we are all talking about him, his motivations, his beliefs).

To be honest, I see parallels in current US politics. The politics of the bully in the playground.

Seth, in all honesty, the owner is allowing the site to go this way. Why do you hate Matt so much?

on preview: your comment would be facially wrong. Huh?
posted by dash_slot- at 2:36 PM on June 16, 2004

Sshhh . . . dash, don't ruin this. Let's just put the baby gate up and see if they nod off in here.
posted by yerfatma at 2:42 PM on June 16, 2004

EB, maybe you should read the links before you say that.
If you did, then care to explain what you just wrote?

I think he meant that a lot of y2karl's posts are criticized for being overly long and providing too many links exploring some particular, often somewhat academic, idea, which is just about exactly what your post was. But apparently it's not his posting style, but the content of his politically-oriented posts that bothers you.
posted by mdn at 2:44 PM on June 16, 2004

Seth, in all honesty, the owner is allowing the site to go this way. Why do you hate Matt so much?

on preview: your comment would be facially wrong. Huh?
posted by dash_slot- at 2:36 PM PST on June 16


dash, I don't hate Matt. I think he is a great guy. He has giving me something that I have enjoyed for a long time. I am only asking him to save it from itself.

As for the facially wrong thing, it means that eb's comment would be wrong on its face. That is, one could look at it and see that is completely wrong. If I were to say to you, please write down the most used letter in the alphabet, and you write down a number, your answer would be wrong on its face. Similarly, if one were to ask the question: what does Moynihan's argument support, it would be wrong on its face to say that it supports y2karl's action (as EB suggests).


As for the bully part of your comments, I can't say they are totally wrong. The whole idea of self-policing, though, is subject to the same charge you just alleged against me.
posted by Seth at 2:44 PM on June 16, 2004

On a more important note, all night and today that damn Google textad for “Traction Software” has been mocking me with its luscious overtones of 1999. Do they need software for that? Oh, it's their name. Still, do they need software for that? Wait...it's "enterprise blogging" software. Well, fuck, that was obvious from the name. How could I have been so dense? So, um, do they need enterprise class software for that? Blogging, not traction? Hey, they do. It's called a CMS. I bet there's a hefty IPO coming for this. Just you wait.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 10:41 AM PST on June 16


this is incomprehensible. please post less.
posted by Miles Long at 2:46 PM on June 16, 2004

But apparently it's not his posting style, but the content of his politically-oriented posts that bothers you.
posted by mdn at 2:44 PM PST on June 16

Welcome to the thread, mdn.
Perhaps you can being by reading what I have posted (apparently ad nauseum, according to some). I have never criticized y2karl for academic posts. I have critcized him for his constant newsfilter/polifilter stuff. And I will avoid explaining yet again that it hasn't anything to do with the ideological substance of the post---just try reading the thread above. It has already been explained.
posted by Seth at 2:52 PM on June 16, 2004

As for the bully part of your comments, I can't say they are totally wrong.

Well, I ain't never seen anyone say that before: hoist, meet your petard*.

My comment on hating Matt was joshing you, in the trad. Mefi way - but I think you missed it. Hence that whooshing sound you just got.

As it went over yer head, I'll lay it out, deadpan-stylee:
Matt doesnt intervene when the guidelines have been overstepped in the manner that you repeatedly complain of: therefore he implicitly allows it. You dislike that attitude: ergo, you dislike (hate) Matt.

I know, belly laughs all round. Not. It was a rhetorical joke. Geddit?

*Yes, I know the original phrase and it's meaning, indulge me. Please. It's supposed to be gentle ribbing of your irrationalities.
posted by dash_slot- at 2:57 PM on June 16, 2004

I don't see how PoliFilter "here's what I want to discuss because I feel strongly about X so I've found some relevant links" is different than AcademicInterestFilter "here's what I want to discuss because I feel strongly about X so I've found some relevant links". Both look a lot like a personal blog to me. Both look like opinions and writing, jonesing for an audience. Not links themselves that are just begging to be seen by more than the few people that have already seen them.

Unless it's his politics you don't like.

I'm disapointed. I thought for sure that if you ever did post to the blue, the linked site would be the star attraction, the entity worthy of acclaim and notice. Not your post itself or its writing or the effort that went into producing it. I thought it would be about the link, not the post.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 3:05 PM on June 16, 2004

Did anyone notice this thread? It probably should have have been deleted, for reasons of snark, but the reason given was: "single op-ed link to a war story? no thanks". That's fine and fair, but when Postroad can make the exact same type of post without getting deleted, whether it's Matt's intention or not, it alienates a portion of the community. Which, as discussed in the Witty thread, can really frustrate and cause people to act out.

Basically, if DD's post was crap, so are many of Postroads (although I personally don't mind them). I'm on the "fairly apply standards" side of this. If there is such a side anymore in this thread.
posted by loquax at 3:08 PM on June 16, 2004

EB, the post is a link to Moynihan's great speech. It has links describing all sorts of applications in modern contexts. It contains links to posts that add to Moynihan's theory and some that disagree with it. It exists on its own. People can agree with it or disagree with it, but it is likely that people don't have a pre-existing opinion about it.

I would hope that you can tell the difference between that and the posts referenced above. But if you cannot, well... I explain it to you, but I cannot understand it for you.

If I did not meet your expectations, then oh well.
posted by Seth at 3:12 PM on June 16, 2004

I have no hesitation in agreeing wholeheartedly with loquax.

WTF matt? Where's the fabled swift and true hand of justice blah that cold chef eulogises? The irony of this following from my last point is not lost on me.
posted by dash_slot- at 3:19 PM on June 16, 2004

Actually, yes EB. But I read them at Marshall, Atrios, Kos, etc.

A Temporary Coup

posted at 2:28 PM PST 6/14 on MetaFilter by y2karl
Not yet posted on Talking Points Memo
Not yet posted on Eschaton
Not yet posted on Daily Kos
Not yet posted on Washington Monthly

So, Seth--either A) you imagined you read that link at the abovementioned sites or B) you are a stone fucking liar.

But thank you for proving my point PERFECTLY.

But let's not let the analysis of your hypocrisy quit quite yet:

But I take it that means you didn't read my links before you resumed speaking out of your ass?

*reels* [See above] Boy, talk about pot kettle to the Restoration Hardware max.



PS. It is interesting to note that Seth's first post is about the--at a +10 on the authoritarian axis--necessity for controlling other people's behavior.
posted by y2karl at 3:24 PM on June 16, 2004

I own firearms.
posted by bargle at 3:30 PM on June 16, 2004

y2karl, did I forget to mention salon? Gosh, I guess that was part of the etc. Next time I guess I need to be completely comprehensive in order to get you to engage an argument on its merits, instead of being fatuous.

Christ man, talk being a nit-picker. Do you think you are the only person who reads salon? And since, I know you are an intelligent person, I presume you know what the word etcetera means.

And I am glad you caught the relation of Moynihan's theory to this thread. How perceptive! But surely you are not calling Moynihan authoritarian? (In case you didn't read the biography link that I included in the post, Moynihan is far from authoritarian).

I will happily place my thread against your piece of shit thread that I called out here.
posted by Seth at 3:36 PM on June 16, 2004

Seth:

You eat with that mouth? You kiss your mother with that mouth?

Garbage mouth!
posted by dash_slot- at 3:47 PM on June 16, 2004

I will happily place my thread against your piece of shit thread that I called out here.

Jesus Christ. From "everyone's posts are shit" to "your posts are shittier than mine" in one goddamned day. All in the name of "saving Metafilter from itself."

Seth, I would love someday to meet whoever the hell you seem to think you are.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 3:55 PM on June 16, 2004

Now that'd be a MetaFilter meetup: everyone's vision of themselves in one room. But there'd be no agreement on a place.
posted by yerfatma at 3:59 PM on June 16, 2004

Nie post loquax... that IS exactly what I'm (was) talking about.
posted by Witty at 3:59 PM on June 16, 2004

Well, XQ, you all wouldn't be quiet about my posting history until I posted a FPP. So I did. The existence of that post doesn't change the critique that I presented in making this thread. But somehow everyone thought I was required to make one before I could comment, so I nipped that argument in the bud and made a post. It shouldn't change the merits of my original argument.

XQ, I would rather not meet you.
posted by Seth at 4:00 PM on June 16, 2004

God, I missed that loquax. Good catch.
I would say that I agree with Matt that DD's thread was a piece of garbage (and would have been included in the above list if it was within in the representative sample). It should have been deleted. But that does beg the question of why the other 14 above all remained on the Blue when most of them aren't much better than DD's post.
posted by Seth at 4:04 PM on June 16, 2004

Gee, Seth, I didn't read your thread closely before I misrepresented it? Wow, that must be copyright infringement! Seth--only he can be telepathic and all seeing. I must remember that.
posted by y2karl at 4:07 PM on June 16, 2004

Burning human flesh is the scent of joy.
posted by bargle at 4:07 PM on June 16, 2004

But somehow everyone thought I was required to make one before I could comment, so I nipped that argument in the bud and made a post. It shouldn't change the merits of my original argument.

As the amount of deviancy increases, the community has to adjust its standards so that conduct once thought deviant is no longer deemed so. Consequently, if we are not vigilant about enforcing them, our standards would be constantly devolving in order to normalize rampant deviancy. --from your MeFi post

Your MeFi post is a clearly blatant reiteration of this MeTa post, using the wider society to stand in for here. You're just repeating the same argument you made here, and have made in the past-- standards, deviancy, the community, bla, bla, bla--I get the feeling you're trying to tell us something, yet again and again.
posted by amberglow at 4:10 PM on June 16, 2004

But surely you are not calling Moynihan authoritarian?

Nope. I'm calling you authoritarian. You want to control people according to your standards. You are to Matt as the Grand Inquisitor is to Jesus.
posted by y2karl at 4:11 PM on June 16, 2004

Seth- your front page post was good. You've made Metafilter a better place. speaking absolutely without sarcasm. i liked it.

much more than this post which you knew (don't tell me you didn't) would eventually degenerate into a >100 post quagmire of spite (which i now know gets votes!) and enmity.

There's a lesson to be learned here. someone should state it concisely and humorously so we can all be laughing when the credits roll.
posted by Miles Long at 4:20 PM on June 16, 2004

You don't have to jump for every person who says your posts don't meet their standards, karl, but don't spiral off into characterizing anyone who has any opinions on standards an authoritarian fuck. Do you have any? What are they?
posted by scarabic at 4:20 PM on June 16, 2004

y2karl, you do understand that there are standards that exist totally independent of me, right?

You do read the request on the posting page every time before you post your daily pile of shit about Iraq? I didn't put that there. You do read what makes a good post? I didn't put that there, either. So you can feel free to call me authoritarian if it makes you feel better, but those standards are independent of me, and to ask that you comply to the standards isn't unreasonable.

If you don't want to follow rules to posting, then get your own blog, asshat.
posted by Seth at 4:21 PM on June 16, 2004

If I did not meet your expectations, then oh well.

Please read that which you have written. Then apply it whenever you see read a post on Metafilter. Rinse and repeat.

Note that these instructions do not include "Flame the post as a 'Daily Dose of Shit.'"
posted by moonbiter at 4:35 PM on June 16, 2004

I dunno. I'm happy with the "it's about the link, not the post or me, stupid" acid test. Few people live up to that, though. But that sure seems to be the theme of what Matt goes on about whenever he explains his preferences, posts guildeines, notates deleted messages, etc.

Saying that a post doesn't meet that standard doesn't mean that a) it's not interesting; b) it's not discussion worthy; c) the links are—in the wider-web context—worthless; d) its subject is not important; or e) the poster strangles puppies for fun. It just means that it's not an example of "The Best of the Web" that most people haven't yet seen. You know, MeFi's raison d'etre.

At this point, I'd just as soon Matt go ahead and change the charter already. It'd eliminate a lot of confusion and resentment. I personally think even Seth doesn't really get it, which is surprising. His post is about him, in disguise. Welcome to Y2Karl's (and everyone else's) MetaFilter.

MetaFilter is now, without a doubt, as a practical matter, a content-generating site, not a content-filtering site. And shortly a social networking site.

Brave new future! What will you hold? It might be really cool. But MeFi isn't what it claims to be. I'm not saying that what it is is bad, just that it's not what it claims to be.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 4:38 PM on June 16, 2004

y2karl, you do understand that there are standards that exist totally independent of me, right?

Oh, yes, I do. The funny thing is, the one time I did complain about an Iraq post, I got shot down by none other than... Matt Haughey. He thought it was important. Go figure.
posted by y2karl at 4:39 PM on June 16, 2004

You are to Matt as the Grand Inquisitor is to Jesus.


thank goodness we're sending no.1 to Iceland and not to Jerusalem then!
posted by matteo at 4:45 PM on June 16, 2004

But MeFi isn't what it claims to be. I'm not saying that what it is is bad, just that it's not what it claims to be.

I guess we've successfully Defined Deviancy Down, at least according to some viewpoints. Three cheers for us! : >
posted by amberglow at 4:53 PM on June 16, 2004

Seth, loquax: just for the record, a single link post by Postroad was deleted today.
posted by dash_slot- at 5:03 PM on June 16, 2004

dash_slot-: Thanks, that honestly makes me feel a lot better. But a lot have snuck through in the past, while acknowledging that Matt can't be in all places at all times.
posted by loquax at 5:08 PM on June 16, 2004

Yay! The Haughey, he confuses us.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 5:19 PM on June 16, 2004

I do acknowledge that. Also, personally I think that the topic - extreme Islamic fundementalism - needs discussion (better links may help). I am not sure that it's a post that would be acceptable by the mefite majority tho.

And I'd hate to see us degenerate into the comments page of Little Mouldy Bollocks.
posted by dash_slot- at 5:36 PM on June 16, 2004

Agreed, agreed, agreed dash_slot-.
posted by loquax at 5:43 PM on June 16, 2004

Iraq post #1

Iraq post #2

Iraq post #3

Look at that--somebody else didn't get the Seth memo!
posted by y2karl at 5:46 PM on June 16, 2004

NewsFilter is indisputably in the MeFi charter. - EB : That was pretty much established almost 3 years ago.
posted by mischief at 6:00 PM on June 16, 2004

That was pretty much established almost 3 years ago.

Yeah, some planes crashed into a building somewhere. Then people posted links relating to that event on a website. Then Salon posted a story listing said website as the hottest source of such news on the internet on September 19th of that year. Then I clicked on the link and signed up. Blame Osama.

Now, Seth, are the links posted above Iraq related or not and, if so, are they the best of the web? Better bitch that guy out quick, if not. Remember to say shit alot--you know, you're mad, so you're entitled. Fuck those standards. Think of it as farting in front of 17,000 wives.
posted by y2karl at 6:17 PM on June 16, 2004

Matt's first post of those three seems pretty decent to me, the second and third are a little dodgy in a newsfilterish sort of way (the last in a net subculture newsfilterish way). The first is a find that happens to be related to Iraq. The second and third were probably pretty hard to miss elsewhere. That's my opinion, anyway.

But it's pretty well established that whatever Matt says, and seems to do, he's noticeably inconsistent. Why wouldn't that apply to his own posting choices, too?

I don't think it's neglect or laziness on his part. I think it has everything to do with a "light touch on the rudder" ethos that he thinks—correctly, in my opinion—is important to MeFi's success. Weighing pros and cons of being on-top of this all the time and very consistent against a light touch, he probably finds that the cons of a heavy touch outweight the cons of inconsistency. That's a judgment call. Some of those cons, however, are these sorts of MeTa threads.

But, see, he cleverly created a place to act as an outlet for that confusion, and he largely stays away. :) Clever, clever Mattsies.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 6:30 PM on June 16, 2004

It's the "appeal to authority" logical fallacy.

Better bitch that guy out quick

Matt doesn't always adhere to the guidelines he came up with, he avoids defining them super-precisely, and he sometimes enforces them inconsistently. I doubt he'd deny any of that. This flexibility works well with sound judgement, which he's got in abundance.

Matt has avoided turning the "guidelines" into "rules." So stop trying to invalidate the "rules" because there are exceptions to be found. Guidelines can be flouted, too, but that requires fucking them in the ear daily, not giving them an occasional handjob.

Now, Seth, are the links posted above Iraq related or not and, if so, are they the best of the web? Better bitch that guy out quick, if not. Remember to say shit alot--you know, you're mad, so you're entitled. Fuck those standards. Think of it as farting in front of 17,000 wives.

That whole politeness routine you started out with is pretty much gone now, wouldn't you say? But it's pretty obvious you're mad too, so I guess you're entitled.
posted by scarabic at 6:36 PM on June 16, 2004

Oooh, occasional handjobs!

Isn't an appeal to authority not a fallacy when the matter under contention is the correctness of behavior regulated by said authority? Isn't that exactly when an appeal to authority is the most appropriate line of argument?

The problem is really the whole "do as I say and not as I do" thing. One could argue that especially when the rules are "guidelines" loosely defined and enforced, that authority's behavior becomes much more important, than it otherwise would be, as a valid indicator of the shape of the guidelines.

But then, you see, the problem with an actual authority is that it's actually the authority. And there's no rule that the authority has to be consistent or make any damn sense at all. Maybe Matt, like God, wants to confuse us both with His words and actions such that, in our confusion, we may come to know Him best.

Or, He hates us.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 6:50 PM on June 16, 2004

...
posted by zarah at 6:51 PM on June 16, 2004

Now that'd be a MetaFilter meetup: everyone's vision of themselves in one room. But there'd be no agreement on a place.

Well, clearly, it would be held at the center of the universe.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 6:55 PM on June 16, 2004

"Isn't an appeal to authority not a fallacy when the matter under contention is the correctness of behavior regulated by said authority?"

I should have said: the appeal to Matt logical fallacy.

People think they can overturn anything, even the posting guidelines, by digging up something Matt said in a comment here, or by characterizing a couple of his posts a certain way. I don't think Matt supports Iraq posts. I'm betting that what he says on the posting form is more important than what he implied in 3 out of his 926 posts.

I've also never been one of the "whatever Matt wants" crowd. I think Matt happens to want good things for the site. But I still use my own faculties to consider and discuss the subject.
posted by scarabic at 6:57 PM on June 16, 2004

This is what's great about MetaTalk: it illicits such inlightenment from smartypants like you! As always, "Thanks MetaFilter!"

Okay, two massive errors in the span of three words, I have to pipe up: It's "elicit" and "enlightenment". "Illicit" is for things that are against the law. Sigh.

Was anyone else saddened by the comment from Ignatius J. Reilly?

I certainly was. I wish he would post and comment more, and I hope he reconsiders.

If the price of Seth's bitching is losing Ignatius, well, damn, its not worth it.

I most heartily agree.

There's absolutely no damn point in fighting the good fight because, as I was saying to eyeballkid earlier, the community here doesn't get to determine the standards...Matt does.

Yes, and since you've given up on fighting the good fight, we'll be hearing a lot less of you, we can hope? Look, if Matt doesn't delete it or bitch about it, just let it go. Move on to what you like about this site.

But MeFi isn't what it claims to be. I'm not saying that what it is is bad, just that it's not what it claims to be.

So if you clearly admit it's not bad, you'll stop trying to steer it to the One True Ethereal Blight Way then, yes? And methinks you are a bit mistaken about what the site "claims to be". You know, maybe you'd have to actually be a member for awhile to get a true sense of the ethos here.

Blight, I am just wondering how long we are gonna have to tough it out with your long-winded pompousness before you finally give up and quit commenting so damn much. There are more of us than there is of you, you know. We will outlast your ass. Bet on it.

You know, I am glad I left the Austin meetup before you showed up, because I heard you dominated the conversation there too, again with the longwinded crap no one wanted to hear.

And dude: get on Medicaid, get your hips and knee and whatever assorted parts you need so you can get out of the house and find a goddamn hobby already.

I seriously do not understand why you didn't buy yourself some spare parts when you had that huge load of money a few years ago that you're always telling everyone about how you were so generous with. Dude, if I had a debilitating condition, I would take care of it when I had the cash, yo. I just don't get it.
posted by beth at 6:57 PM on June 16, 2004

I'm sorry but this made my fucking day:

Think of it as farting in front of 17,000 wives.
posted by y2karl at 6:17 PM PST on June 16


Metafilter: Think of it as farting in front of 17,000 wives.
posted by Miles Long at 7:05 PM on June 16, 2004

Wow. That was some seriously ugly stuff, there, beth.
posted by scarabic at 7:16 PM on June 16, 2004

Well, clearly, it would be held at the center of the universe.

Christ, we don't have that kind of room here.
posted by yerfatma at 7:17 PM on June 16, 2004

Ah, but the problem is EB has a machine behind him.

For the record, EB, I do appreciate your intelligence and, er, identify with your enthusiasm. You make me understand why so many fellow members hate me for *cue violins, mature Italian waiter handing me Martini and a bowl of olives, which I spill* I was once like you, probably worse. I think the secret is not to react to everyone's opinion (about you or anything else) and just comment when, you know, you think you can contribute to the thread. And lose the pomposity - it really sits badly with the culture here. Remember why you came here in the first place: to read, to lurk, to enjoy. Look to the blue; use your energy to find good links and construct interesting posts. In short, don't waste time. Specially yours. It's true you're being piled on (I'm guilty too) but it's an old character-building tradition and you do make it irresistible by reacting to every word. Thank you (sincerely, honesty) for allowing me the freedom of bringing out the meanie in me but, hey, perhaps it's now time to surprise yourself and us? I hope so. :)
posted by MiguelCardoso at 7:27 PM on June 16, 2004

I'm just consistently surprised by how much naked hostily is aroused by one man's surplusage.
posted by scarabic at 7:33 PM on June 16, 2004

Umm, yeah, beth, that was more than a little over the top, especially at the end of a dying thread.

You might want to think about taking the bit about the medicaid back, because it was pretty uncalled for, and if I were the type to start MeTa threads, I would start one for that.
posted by loquax at 7:41 PM on June 16, 2004

Not to mention that she didn't get my little spelling joke.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 7:42 PM on June 16, 2004

Actually, it's personal. I thought he was going to be a friend, but when I did something stupid and talked to him about personal, painful stuff, he twisted it around and hurt me quite badly with it. All with a pompous "I'm just being honest" attitude. I think he's a bully. Live and learn.

It had been simmering for awhile and I just have seen too much aggravating verbage from him, every damn day, and I just finally popped like a kernel of popcorn.

On preview: I made the Medicaid crack because one of his defenses to being called out for his endless huge comments was that he couldn't leave the house and didn't have any other interests, due to the fact that he needed hips and a knee. I was suggesting that he get the assistance he needs to get these things.
posted by beth at 7:43 PM on June 16, 2004

Well those sound like good reasons to stoop to making fun of a cripple.
posted by scarabic at 7:49 PM on June 16, 2004

People think they can overturn anything, even the posting guidelines, by digging up something Matt said in a comment here, or by characterizing a couple of his posts a certain way.

Or we can argue like Talmudic scholars or Muhaddithiin on what he really meant, like the blind men with the elephant.

My thought is Matt is a human being and that the guidelines are guidelines and not straitjackets. We are not each other's enemy. To quote Dylan, We just saw it from a different point of view.

I remember hearing Joseph Campbell speak once on how the legend of the Grail, as opposed to guru centered Eastern philosophy, contained the heart of Western spirituality, which was a solitary quest. He closed with a quote from, I believe, the Morte d' Arthur--And each knight went alone into the part of the forest that was darkest for him. That quote has always stayed with me.

Upon review:

My mission statement is, I should hope, to quote Dylan again, I'll let you be in my dream if I can be in yours. Sweet dreams to all tonight.
posted by y2karl at 7:50 PM on June 16, 2004

I don't know about any of that Beth, but I don't think he meant what you think he meant in his callout thread about not being able to leave the house, and he was attacked for it there.

Just not nice, and uncalled for, no matter what. You have a problem with something he said to you, start a MeTa thread about it and discuss it civily instead of tossing out cheap shots. Please don't try to say you were suggesting he try to get help.
posted by loquax at 7:50 PM on June 16, 2004

If the price of Seth's bitching is losing Ignatius, well, damn, its not worth it.

That is eversomuch bullshit. I do not for a moment believe Iggy left solely due to Seth. Indeed, I am quite certain Seth would have played an exceedingly minor role in it.

Iggy left for any number of reasons, surely. Seth was merely the little straw that broke the camel's back.
posted by five fresh fish at 8:04 PM on June 16, 2004

To clarify: Campbell was speaking of how the knights--when all had crumbled and gone to ruin in Camelot, after Lancelot and Guinevere's betrayal and Modred mortally wounding Arthur--upon seeing a vision of the grail around the round table, had sworn to seek it in order to restore and renew their circle, with each knight then going into the darkest part of the forest for him.

Which is where we end and start tonight, I think. I have nothing more to add to this thread.
posted by y2karl at 8:04 PM on June 16, 2004

My thought is Matt is a human being and that the guidelines are guidelines and not straitjackets. We are not each other's enemy.

Yes, that's part of what I was trying to say. In fact, I really hate having to bitch at you about this whole issue, because you do good work, and I think we're fairly close politically. It's just your persistence and volume in posting the politically charged stuff that pushes me over the edge. And even then I only give you shit here, in someone else's MeTa callout. I don't think I've ever shat in a thread of yours, so I can only hope you'll consider what I've said here.
posted by scarabic at 8:05 PM on June 16, 2004

I understand why you think I am evil. My anger, when it comes out, is rather vicious. I am done saying anything about him that has to do with our personal differences. I do not and will not make similar attacks on anyone else.

I am not what I used to be, mental-control-wise. I see my psychiatrist and a counselor, I take my meds. I am not violent (in fact I am quite the wuss). This is a very rare thing for me. This does not reflect how I function as a part of the community the rest of the time.
posted by beth at 8:13 PM on June 16, 2004

No one thinks you're evil.
posted by scarabic at 8:15 PM on June 16, 2004

And your behavior wasn't as bad as you seem to think it was. But it never is.

I don't think Beth intended the medicare thing as a cheap shot. She knows (I think) I've been putting it off for several years, and it has been very, very stupid of me to do so.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 8:33 PM on June 16, 2004

Yeah, beth, evil didn't cross my mind either.

On preview: Ok, I'll butt out then.
posted by loquax at 8:36 PM on June 16, 2004

Oh, and I said something to this effect in the meetup photo thread; but if I was poor company at the meetup, if any others of you are out there reading this, I apologize. I wanted to cram real human relationships with five apparently really neat people into a couple of hours. I didn't know how to do it, and I didn't know where to start. I made some bad choices. Like Beth, I use to be much better at these things (though never a social butterfly). But if one doesn't leave home for months at a time, except for occasional chores, for several years, I've discovered that what live human interactions one has become very emotional, involving little monitoring intellect, lots of confusion, and it's all a haze.

On preview: Loquax, and scarabic, on the chance that she did intend it hurtfully, thanks for speaking up! I dunno if she did, though, and there's reasons to think she didn't. And isn't it for the best that we all decide that she didn't? I think it is.

Now, who's up for sluts and plants? Anyone?
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 8:43 PM on June 16, 2004

Procedural question: Is it possible to include Miguel, karl, beth AND Bligh among my "contacts" without causing severe damage to my userpage?
posted by wendell at 8:47 PM on June 16, 2004

I was just wondering along the sames lines wendell. Will all the little usernames fight when your back is turned? Or for that matter, get up to no good with sluts and plants?
posted by loquax at 8:57 PM on June 16, 2004

I just want to see people stop with the names like "Eternal Blight" and such for people you disagree with. It doesn't make you look any better sinking to that level.

Seth, give it up. At this point the only people who don't agree with you are the ones who benefit from a lack of moderation

And for that matter... please don't presume to speak for all of us.
posted by litlnemo at 10:35 PM on June 16, 2004

Indeed, darukaru. Your "love-it-or-leave-it" argument belongs on a bumper sticker. Why is MetaTalk even here if everything is dictated by the site owner? Ever heard the words "self-policing?"
posted by scarabic at 10:56 PM on June 16, 2004

Iceland is very nice. I recommend eating the Whale Sashimi at the Lobster House -- where else will you be able to do it? And pay no attention to the fact that no one is on the streets of Rejkyavik during the day. The parties do not start until midnight. On the other hand, in the summer, the sun doesn't really quite ever get around to really setting either, so it's not like you're out after dark.
posted by norm at 10:20 AM on June 17, 2004

Iggy left for any number of reasons, surely. Seth was merely the little straw that broke the camel's back.

Oh, I don't know that I "left," it's just that my interest has waned. We can't have an earnest conversation on this website anymore, because someone who doesn't like that aspect of the site will come in and derail the thread. But I also wasn't trying to be dramatic or make empty threats. And while it was pretty awesome to read so many nice things about me in this thread, I also don't labor under the assumption that 'denying this site my essence' is the greatest blow imaginable or anything.

All that aside, I hope I'm wrong. I don't want to wrongly demonize one particular user, but seth is absolutely remarkable in that he contributes absolutely nothing to the site except for negative comments, and to see him taken seriously and to see his words given more weight than those of people who haver poured real creative energy into Metafilter just kind of ruins the whole experience. He thinks that he is batting against people with "agendas," but no one has made as many comments and posts here about one single thing as seth. That's what I call an agenda.

If the "community" in "community weblog" is Topeka, seth is Fred Phelps. He screams and pickets outside of every thread which contains political viewpoints with which he disagrees, in an attempt to simply drive people away, and then he dresses it up as concern for a site to which he has never made any contribution at all. In truth, that's a little bit more than the straw that broke the camel's back. It's just that Metafilter turned into a site where people go to discuss how seth feels about things, and that's not a very interesting theme for a website, I'm afraid.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 9:49 PM on June 19, 2004