Statute of limitation on double posts?

September 27, 2004 8:21 PM

A repost this may be, but it's highly worthy and should stay on the front page, because the chap has made more 'critters' since I last saw the site, and I very much appreciate being reminded of it, and for flip's sake, it was last posted in 2002.

[more inside]
posted by chrid to Etiquette/Policy at 8:21 PM (21 comments total)

'Double post' calls irritate me somewhat, when the original FPP occurred some time ago. Is anyone who happens across Metafilter now, supposed to go back and read all the archives from the very beginning? The web evolves, pages change, pages die. If something was the best of the web a couple of years ago, and has changed and improved, why not repost it? I'm not, of course, saying that we should constantly get fpp's saying "HAR HAR JEFFK IS TEH FUNNAY" or similar.

I find Monkeyfilter very rewarding to browse simply because it's younger than Mefi, and therefore contains loads of links that, though new to Mofi, have been to posted to Mefi ages ago. Otherwise I would not see these, unless I ploughed through the Mefi archives, trying to find all the good stuff amongst all the dead links of yesteryear.

Maybe there should be an arbitrary time limit outside of which a double post is no longer a double post, as it were? A year maybe?
posted by chrid at 8:23 PM on September 27, 2004

A year is good. And if things have changed on the site, then that's even better.
posted by amberglow at 8:42 PM on September 27, 2004

A year? So any post today would be a welcome post a year from now? Can we post a link to the vibrating broom every year?

Not trying to be snarky, but unless things have changed significantly a year seems really short.
posted by justgary at 8:55 PM on September 27, 2004

It's hard to fix a universal time period - for some things a year would be way too soon, for others not. Unless the previous post was such as to become legendary (e.g. vibrating brooms), posting something from a long time ago hurts nobody and can be a positive thing. As evidenced by this post itself, BTW, people still could stand to use the search more.

But when someone posts a news item that had just been posted back when it originally occurred, a week ago, that's arrogant and obnoxious. It says, Hey, look at me, even though I can't be bothered to look at you.

Use common sense. That's the ticket!
posted by soyjoy at 9:04 PM on September 27, 2004

I wish someone would repost that vibrating broom thing--the front page is full of death, destruction, genocide, voting outrages, dystopias, antisemitic books, hateful pols, a ferry disaster...kinda dark stuff.
posted by amberglow at 9:06 PM on September 27, 2004

amberglow: anything to brighten your day.
posted by falconred at 10:19 PM on September 27, 2004

Double Posts and their call-outs, at the Wiki. A year has long been the rule of thumb, but there's also nothing wrong with pointing out prior discussion, which is what warhol did. (Often the supplementary links are better in the earlier threads.)
posted by dhartung at 10:51 PM on September 27, 2004

One year, you say? Hey everybody: What time is it? It's time to get your war on!
posted by naxosaxur at 11:17 PM on September 27, 2004

Well, I said it in the thread, and I'll say it here. The constant rush by some people to be the first to call out 'double post!' about something that was posted a year or more ago still strikes me as assholeish. Dickish, even.

Read it before? Good. Ignore it. Maybe other people haven't, and aren't interested in how quickly you can post 'double post!'

I don't know, maybe if one wanted to simply point out a previous discussion, maybe something like 'as previous discussed here' would work better.

I guess it's a question of connotation. It's hard to get someone's tone over the web sometimes. 'Double Post' just sounds harsh to me.
posted by geekhorde at 11:27 PM on September 27, 2004

Look again. Your 'harsh phrase' was never used. In fact, Warhol did as you suggested, and merely pointed to previous discussions. Lay off.
posted by crunchland at 12:13 AM on September 28, 2004

aw thanks, falconred : >

*insert "so this broom..." here*
posted by amberglow at 5:18 AM on September 28, 2004

i was going to post the link, the day before it appeared, and then found it was already posted via google (it wasn't hard), so didn't. the callout didn't seem offensive to me - i was more annoyed by blue stone's shifting the blame with "someone might want to look at that".
posted by andrew cooke at 6:37 AM on September 28, 2004

it's not like we're starving for front page posts. unless the content has changed dramatically, a double is a double.

and a huge pet peeve of mine is "it's new to me". everything is new to someone.
posted by jpoulos at 6:51 AM on September 28, 2004

This is one of the interesting side effects of having so few new members. Since most of us have been here for the past year, there's even less incentive to re-post an old link since the same sets of eyeballs were here last time it was posted. My personal feeling is that since my attention to this site waxes and wanes, I don't mind double posts with reasonable lag time since I often missed them the first time around. I'm with soyjoy on the common sense thing. If people tried to Google it, or thought there was a good reason for a re-post, it just doesn't seem beatdown-worthy.
posted by jessamyn at 7:35 AM on September 28, 2004

Wouldn't want to see it back on the front page, of course, but I gotta say, thanks, naxosaxur. I fell out of the habit of checking to see if there were any new GYWOs a half a year ago, and it was good to go drink from the well of blind, profane outrage.

"Seriously, what recent high-profile fuck-up has Richard Perle not been involved in?"

It's tragic because it's true.
posted by soyjoy at 7:43 AM on September 28, 2004

andrew, I accept the blame - I did forget to check from 'day one', despite trying several permutations of strandbeest in an attempt to be thorough. I believe "d'oh" is the polite expression ("Oh for motherfucking pissflap's sake," being the other).

I can only say that, in mitigation, I wasn't even a member of Metafilter when it was first posted, and it was totally new to me, even two years on; and it's a ... er... great link! :D !!

Oh, and, er ... there's a button for searching from day one? Shouldn't that be the default search option for posts? Someone might want to look at that! Goddamnit!!

<cough>
posted by Blue Stone at 8:24 AM on September 28, 2004

1. Repeat posts after a certain time are OK.
2. Even better if you add something new that was not in the previous post/discussion.
3. If you're aware, when posting, that it's been posted before, link to the previous discussion yourself.
4. If someone else points out that it's been posted before, and links to the previous discussion, do not automatically assume that that constitutes some sort of "call-out," nor that the person who linked to the previous posts disapproves of this one (chrid, geekhorde, I'm looking in your direction).

(And yes, someone did die and make me Matt Haughey, thanks for asking.)
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 9:04 AM on September 28, 2004

Oh, and, er ... there's a button for searching from day one? Shouldn't that be the default search option for posts? Someone might want to look at that!

You are kidding, right? If not, perhaps membership should require "Posting Ed," a la driver's ed, so that at least the very basics are presumed to be understood before someone is allowed to get behind the wheel.

Again, posting something that's way old, eh, not that big a deal, but then when the poster tries to weasel out of responsibility by pointing fingers elsewhere... that's another thing that grates on my (and I know others', as well) nerves. So Blue Stone, if you're parodying that attitude, great. If not, grate.
posted by soyjoy at 9:18 AM on September 28, 2004

This thread is a double. A double-double, even.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 11:24 AM on September 28, 2004

It's a fourple. A fourple-fourple, even.
posted by chicobangs at 12:20 PM on September 28, 2004

snicker-snack!
posted by crunchland at 3:07 PM on September 28, 2004