Amazing post.

December 4, 2004 7:39 AM

Positive Callout:

I just wanted to say, I've been reading MeFi for quite a while, and this is probably one of the most amazing posts (both formatting and content) I've ever seen. Thank you, jefgodesky!
posted by dirtynumbangelboy to MetaFilter-Related at 7:39 AM (33 comments total)

It's obvious a lot of work was put into it, and jefgodesky links to a lot of excellent content. However, I find the formatting just a tad overwhelming.
posted by Evstar at 7:53 AM on December 4, 2004

Your joking about the formatting right? I thought all caps was hard to read but a paragraph of 100% links is way worse. The whole post just sort of swims about on the page. And the post doesn't really tell you what the post is about until you start clicking on links.
posted by Mitheral at 7:53 AM on December 4, 2004

i thought it was good. but then i can read blue text as easily as black, so i appear to be at an advantage here.
posted by andrew cooke at 7:56 AM on December 4, 2004

(maybe you need to switch to the other colour scheme?)
posted by andrew cooke at 7:57 AM on December 4, 2004

I'm glad others enjoyed it, but a "collection of my favorite unrelated Flash sites" didn't strike me as particularly earthshaking (or interesting). And I recall seeing this kind of thing before some time back. But it seems to have pleased more folk than not, so c'est la vie.
posted by rushmc at 8:07 AM on December 4, 2004

Ahh, MetaFilter: where you try and be nice for a change, and people poo all over it.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 8:17 AM on December 4, 2004

It's not the colour (I use a classic mosaic scheme for everything) but the underlines.
posted by Mitheral at 8:21 AM on December 4, 2004

My favorite part was the Flash links.
posted by dhoyt at 8:21 AM on December 4, 2004

Ahh, MetaFilter: where you try and be nice for a change, and people poo all over it.

Your threshold for poo is way too low for Metatalk my sensitive friend.


I liked the first link alot and haven't gotten beyond it yet.
posted by sic at 8:31 AM on December 4, 2004

Your joking about the formatting right?

If he's a True Geek he's probably not.

I thought all caps was hard to read

I didn't. I always wondered what the fuss about ALL CAPS was about. What I frigging hate is native English speakers who can't punctuate, can't find their [Shift] key, and/or can't grasp the difference between "your" and "you're".

but a paragraph of 100% links is way worse.

Actually it is pretty nifty. It shows the same kind of "devotion" that some people show to the 2004 election, except that instead of Saving Democracy the point here is to show off what a S0up3er Geek the precocious 14 year old poster is. I want to pat him on the head, then tell him that trying to impress folks with whom you'd like to make nooky with what you can do in your room by yourself ain't likely to get you as much as whoopee as actually talking to them.

The whole post just sort of swims about on the page.

How so? I must've missed that. To me it kind of sits there, till I start mousing over a few links -- to discover quickly that actually following all the links and trying to keep it all straight in my head would confuse me, give me a headache, and waste most of an afternoon, if I was interested enough in the alleged topic to bother.

And the post doesn't really tell you what the post is about until you start clicking on links.

True. Then it turns out to be about that Flash movie shit, which I can't freaking stand, especially since its major use is to clutter up web pages and make living without a DSL line for a week utter hell. (Adbuster is a wonderful Extension though.)
posted by davy at 8:44 AM on December 4, 2004

You: Ahh, MetaFilter: where you try and be nice for a change, and people poo all over it.

Me: Your threshold for poo is way too low for Metatalk my sensitive friend.

Davy: "¡¡¡POO POO POO POO POO POO!!!"

See?
posted by sic at 8:59 AM on December 4, 2004

If you're going to the trouble of putting together a link-upon-link thread like this, go the extra mile and use the title attribute to help clue us in.
posted by Wolfdog at 9:15 AM on December 4, 2004

The purpose of Metatalk is to flip out and kill people.
posted by dirigibleman at 11:09 AM on December 4, 2004

Hasn't happend... yet.
posted by euphorb at 12:48 PM on December 4, 2004

I find that an entire paragraph of links is just a little too much for an fpp. When I read "one of the most amazing posts (both formatting and content)" and linked the link, I was quite amazed you thought the formatting was nice, really. But the content was good and well thought out, so I say -

fuck it.
posted by puke & cry at 1:59 PM on December 4, 2004

Ahh, MetaFilter: where you try and be nice for a change, and people poo all over it.

What were you expecting? Everyone to come in here and post "Yes, I agree!"? No offense to you but I'm sure there were more than a few people who didn't particularly care for the post yet it stood on it's own. Thats fine. Fifty comments in the thread itself stating "This is good" or "awesome post!!!" should suffice. I understand your passion but I'm not sure MetaTalk is all that great of a place for it.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 2:28 PM on December 4, 2004

Mad props to jefgodesky, my favorite n00b so far. Ignore tha haters, yo.
posted by Hildago at 3:04 PM on December 4, 2004

The original post already had enough comments giving praise. Posting it again here was just asking for trouble.
posted by smackfu at 3:18 PM on December 4, 2004

Thumbs down.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 3:23 PM on December 4, 2004

Haters.
posted by ChasFile at 3:46 PM on December 4, 2004

A positive callout is quite a nice change of pace. Who says the only news is bad news.

Thumbs up to both, especially considering we just had that torrent of "I live in..." and "Are you wearing pants?" posts in MeTa. (Though, those were amusing too.) Sucks to your assmar!
posted by loquacious at 3:54 PM on December 4, 2004

Second rate crunchland.
posted by The God Complex at 10:56 PM on December 4, 2004

heh, somebody said poo. heh heh heh. heh hee hee hee.
posted by ashbury at 11:39 PM on December 4, 2004

An interesting post with plenty of depth to plumb. I didn't get that far into it myself but the sites shown were certainly cool looking, quite above the standard I'm usually exposed to.

Way more attention went into it than I have to spend in the next week, too. That's gotta be worth something. A fine job, and from a neoFite.
posted by scarabic at 12:42 AM on December 5, 2004

I appreciated that someone knowledgeable who has spent a lot of time looking for the best of this kind of work has shared it with us; I've bookmarked it, and have really enjoyed some of the sites I've visited so far.
posted by taz at 2:37 AM on December 5, 2004

If anything, I was impressed at the more positive feedback regarding Flash, which normally gets shit on with great heaps of green apple splatters 'round these parts.
posted by bluedaniel at 3:43 AM on December 5, 2004

If you're going to the trouble of putting together a link-upon-link thread like this, go the extra mile and use the title attribute to help clue us in.

I always try to do this in my more abstract posts. The post was good in that it contained good links. It was bad in that the text did not relate directly to the tags (use of title attributes can help a little here).

I liked it, for sure -- and I like variety in front page posts -- but if it's going to be given special mention I have to say that I don't think it warrants it. For formatting and content, the posts by cmonkey, owenville , tizzie and y2karl are all better examples, I think -- although I wish y2karl would quit it with the small tags, because if it's worth writing, it's worth writing readably.
posted by nthdegx at 6:53 AM on December 5, 2004

To clarify: my objection is not to the quanity of links but the formatting. If the links had been on just one or two words instead every single word in the paragraph such that there was no normal text I think the post format would have been ok. Though it still could have used clearer text giving some idea what the links were about and possibly a flash warning if any of the links went right to flash.
posted by Mitheral at 2:03 PM on December 5, 2004

How does linking fewer words improve the formatting? I guess it might it easier to tell where one link ends and the next begins, but it would also create two styles of text to read in a single paragraph that has over a dozen links, and that just sounds too messy. While you need to rely on mouse-hovers to see the boundaries between links the way this post was done, I think it's more readable overall than the alternative. And considering that it's a huge shotgun blast of Flash links, it doesn't seem all too crucial to be able to tell all the links apart at a glance. The post invites you to just dig in and start clicking.
posted by scarabic at 4:28 PM on December 5, 2004

link density doesn't hold a candle to this oldy.
posted by juv3nal at 8:44 PM on December 5, 2004

Inthesamewaythissentenceislessreadablethantheonethatfollows. Same with all caps. I know davy doesn't find all caps hard to read but I think it was be a hard row to convince most people that an all cap post is easier to read than a post with mixed cases. When was the last time you visited a web page where entire paragraphs were links?

I'm not saying we need perfect spelling, structure and grammar, any persual of my posting history will turn up numerous errors, but we should at least be trying to make something that is easily readable. In this post I didn't care where one post started and others ended because I didn't follow any. I would have completely ignored it if it weren't for dirtynumbangelboy's praise of the formatting. Too many of the nOObs might feel this formatting was the way to go.

True juv3nal however tamim 's post is a lot more readable because it isn't all link.
posted by Mitheral at 7:17 AM on December 6, 2004

jefgodesky, in a blue-page comment on my first FPP, writes: Thanks for the links, davy .... I so often forget that not everyone realizes that their own religion/philosophy/worldview isn't the only one with depth and complexity.

Dammit man, that just ain't fair: I crapped on your post, then you turned around and praised mine! That ain't what I figure I got comin' to me. Nuh-uh. I want my POO, jefgodesky.
posted by davy at 5:39 PM on December 7, 2004

How does linking fewer words improve the formatting?

1. it makes it easier to tell where the links start and stop, in case you wanted to go back and couldn't remember the difference between "to our offline world" and "and to one another"

2. it likely decreases the links. i didn't click on most of them b/c several didn't impress me. instead of 25 decent links, there could have likely been 10 awesome links. how many other Flash sites out there are just as good and just as "organic"? hundreds, i'd guess. but i don't want them all listed in one long paragraph.

A for effort, C for execution. thumb sideways, wavering.
posted by mrgrimm at 6:06 PM on December 7, 2004