August 10, 2004

9:32 AM

New Yorker Filter? I've noticed a fairly steady stream of posts to New Yorker articles. Now, I love the New Yorker, but I also like other periodicals. People finally seem to have topped posting Onion articles to the front page. Perhaps an end to NY FPPs would also be nice. Or am I totally bonkers?
posted by Outlawyr to etiquette/policy at 9:32 AM (19 comments total)

I tend to ignore anything from the New Yorker, simply because the caricatures always look so snooty. Am I the only one?

I don't think it's a problem, though. Not yet.
posted by Evstar at 9:37 AM on August 10, 2004

Well, if this (discussed here) is any indication, you should issue your little fatwa against roughly 32 other sites, before going after the New Yorker.

Go on, get busy! We're all waiting for MeFi to be saved.

*taps feet*
posted by stonerose at 9:41 AM on August 10, 2004

The New Yorker has a lot of really good articles online. They also have a very extensive archive that's online (reading the Truman Capote profile on Marlon Brando was really cool). This makes it an unfair analogy to the Onion which has a "you've seen it once, you've seen it all" quality to it, which isn't surprising given its state as a satirical newspaper.

The New Yorker is obviously a very respected magazine with (for the most part) top notch writing. I don't have time to read the magazine (The Onion only takes maybe 15 minutes on a lunchbreak), so I do not at all mind people picking out the best of the best or most relevant to me (I mean that's why I go to Metafilter, because people pick links that I have interest in, not just a random assortment of links).

Of course that's just my opinion. The Metafilter Orthodoxy will probably decry the New Yorker as not being unique enough, where as I assert that quality trumpts uniqueness.
posted by geoff. at 9:42 AM on August 10, 2004

I haven't noticed this so-called trend. But the last couple of New Yorker links that I've followed from MeFi over the past coupla years have been pretty good.
posted by DrJohnEvans at 9:57 AM on August 10, 2004

I'm pretty sensitive to NewYorkerFilter, because I subscribe. It's somewhat entertaining fluff most of the time (my girlfriend likes the cartoons,) but about once or twice a year there is an article that absolutely blows me away and entirely justifies the year's subscription cost in 8 pages. Those types of articles deserve links, and generally get them. Occasionally some of the fluff gets posted, too, but if that's the price we must pay, so be it.

In terms of stories-run-to-FPP-ratio, the publication is probably a bit over-repressented. Which is to say, the New Yorker publishes 2-3 features a week and gets (in my estimation) 3-4 posts a month. This ratio is especially high compared to similar outfits like the Atlantic Montly, Harper's Weekly, etc, which are equally worthy publications but get far less postage. I don't think this warrants moritorium, however I would like a bit more variety in my LiberalRagFilter.
posted by ChasFile at 10:57 AM on August 10, 2004

Fair enough, ChasFile, but a lot of us aren't subscribers, and find these posts useful. Out of 7,300 front-page posts in the last 12 months, only 34 have contained links to the New Yorker, and several of those were multi-link posts to many different sources. Less than half a percent. More than a few parts per million, admittedly, but then New Yorker articles aren't particularly toxic, as I'm sure a subscriber would agree.
posted by rory at 11:21 AM on August 10, 2004

My only objection to this objection is that New Yorker articles tend to spark some of the more civil and intelligent discussions around here. I'd imagine this is because New Yorker articles use too many polysyllabic words and not enough exclamation marks to excite the usual thread agitators.
posted by vacapinta at 11:37 AM on August 10, 2004

U.S. Military Clears A-Team Of Charges
heh... heh.
posted by seanyboy at 1:09 PM on August 10, 2004

Funny that this should come up in MetaTalk--I just noted in his newest thread that Semmi has posted four articles from the New Yorker just in the past three weeks or so.

I think we all know who's not getting any juice and cookies at naptime today.
posted by Asparagirl at 1:46 PM on August 10, 2004

*gives Semmi my juice and cookies so he won't feel left out*
posted by amberglow at 2:30 PM on August 10, 2004

the caricatures always look so snooty.

Dear boy, the proper appellation is "cartoon." Clearly they are too urbane for you.
posted by CunningLinguist at 8:41 PM on August 10, 2004

You know what would be cool?

A newyorker.com scraped archive, so you don't have to go randomly poking around the randomly named archives looking for an old link. Not terribly germane to the discussion, I guess, but it's something that drives me nuts whenever I'm trying to dig up stuff from the past that I saw in the mag or online.
posted by mwhybark at 9:05 PM on August 10, 2004

I should clarify that all I want is search and contents, not wholesale piracy. Sorry if I was unclear.
posted by mwhybark at 9:07 PM on August 10, 2004

mwhybark, this is the closest to that out there.
posted by Vidiot at 10:11 PM on August 10, 2004

That is, until the New Yorker's website quits sucking quite so much...
posted by Vidiot at 10:11 PM on August 10, 2004

Metafilter: Quality trumps uniqueness.
posted by rushmc at 11:02 PM on August 10, 2004

You got me, Rory. I must admit that I briefly considered fighting this battle, at a time when I felt that the NewYorkerFluffArticle to NewYorkerQualityArticle ratio was trending a bit high. But like I said above, if it costs a few FPPs to 12-page articles on writers' block (no paradoxy intended) or human interest stories on gas station owners refusing to pay their franchise fees in order to get posts to the New Yorker's coverage of, for instance, Abu Grahib - which has been the best I've read - well then at that price its a bargain.
posted by ChasFile at 8:46 AM on August 11, 2004

There is an art to putting a magazine issue together, and The New Yorker manages a number of times a year to have in one issue of well researched "Fact", inspired "Criticism", well written Fiction", and cartoons to resonate together in support of one underlying contention. Sometimes one needs to read them together to get the whole complexity.

I post TNY articles when I find them highly informative and a good read, and assume there are kindred spirits who will also enjoy reading them, or unkindred spirits it will touch to make more kindred. But I never assumed anyone would tell me that they want me to post something else.

Brings to mind Lichtenberg, “A book is a mirror. If an ass peers into it, you can’t expect an apostle to look out.”
posted by semmi at 6:39 PM on August 11, 2004

So, then, I guess that means I am totally bonkers.

Damn.
posted by Outlawyr at 9:25 AM on August 13, 2004