A seemingly editorializing post

August 11, 2005 6:51 PM

What do you think about this? (mi)
posted by Count Ziggurat to Etiquette/Policy at 6:51 PM (17 comments total)

I think you'd be wise to contact the Patent Office and bitch loudly at them.
posted by five fresh fish at 6:51 PM on August 11, 2005

It looks like the post is using MeFi to push a campaign. Best of the web?
posted by Count Ziggurat at 6:52 PM on August 11, 2005

Your link isn't working. I'm using Opera. Can you hope me?
posted by Rothko at 7:00 PM on August 11, 2005

Copyright, computer geekery, obscure legal issues -- seems right up our alley to me. Hell, this puppy has it all. That there is one mighty sexy thread.

While the poster made his feelings clear it seems to me that the post was more informative than anything else. This is an issue that, for obvious reasons, isn't going to gain a lot of traction with the general public. The procedure to comment was made clear, nobody said you couldn't comment stating that you were more than happy to stick with IE and the elitist Firefox/Safari/Opera users can all take a hike.
posted by cedar at 7:03 PM on August 11, 2005

Product endorsements for all things Apple, and anything negative of things Microsoft appear to be acceptable here. It is the way it has been from the beginning. Accept it. Resistance is futile. [I do think this latest one though is perhaps a bit beyond the pale. The campaign appeal should have been put into the first comment, not on the front page.]
posted by caddis at 7:08 PM on August 11, 2005

I saw this this morning. It had a few flags [compared to terrible posts which usually have many] but seemed to have sparked some good discussion despite the "sign my petition" vibe of the post. The guy doesn't seem to be affiliated with the campaign on a personal level, and has posted good links in the past. Then I went to work and left it alone and I guess Matt did as well.

I agree with caddis' assessment that the post could have been improved [more than one good link, maybe a more inside for the "write a letter to these guys" part] but people seemed to really not mind it and I thought the idea itself was interesting, about government's decisions concerning what browsers to support and the ramifications of that.
posted by jessamyn at 7:25 PM on August 11, 2005

Suxxors.

But there's been worse.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 7:41 PM on August 11, 2005

meh. It's better than most of the "look what stupid thing the government did today" posts.
posted by sfenders at 7:43 PM on August 11, 2005

Good post, both the blue one and this gray one. I have no problem with activist FPPs, especially when done well like this one.

But it is clearly a "sign my petition" post and there is precedent (my metatalk search skills are failing me) to delete such posts. Bad precedent? Or this one quantitatively different from others? Does the resulting discussion save it, or is it something else?
posted by If I Had An Anus at 7:52 PM on August 11, 2005

I resent any and all didacticism in FPPs. Even though I agree with the sentiments expressed, I resent being told what to do.

Crash is right, there have been worse. And there will be worse. But I don't like the precedent--if activists realize that with five bucks and a few minutes time they reach an audience of thousands, the front page is going to get real ugly, real quick.
posted by whatnot at 8:09 PM on August 11, 2005

Bad post, it could have been done differently to get the same message across: "Want to copyright something? You'd better be using Internet Explorer, according to the U.S. Copyright Office. But it might not be too late to get them to change their minds."

Which would improve the post from bad to bleh.
posted by LarryC at 8:40 PM on August 11, 2005

Goatdog said it best, theres nothing else more to say really.
posted by Dean Keaton at 11:18 PM on August 11, 2005

There's a long history of discussion here about browser incompatibilities and web standardization. I agree that the post was a little shrill in the begining, but it evolved into a generally reasonable discussion. The federal government is the biggest single purchaser of software in the US. How they go about specifying and deploying software has a tangible effect on how the industry behaves and is therefore a subject worth discussing.
posted by normy at 4:37 AM on August 12, 2005

I thought it was a great post.
posted by gd779 at 5:35 AM on August 12, 2005

I thought was stupid and I believe I flagged it, or I least I meant to flag it.
posted by puke & cry at 1:37 PM on August 12, 2005

It looks like the post is using MeFi to push a campaign

Did you miss the last election cycle?
posted by Mick at 6:56 PM on August 12, 2005

I agree with IIHAA.
posted by OmieWise at 12:08 PM on August 15, 2005