How did this self-link get through? May 1, 2002 3:07 PM   Subscribe

Blatant self-link. How is it not obvious that this is not okay?!?
posted by gohlkus to Etiquette/Policy at 3:07 PM (92 comments total)

Even worse, the page with his article that he links to pops up a Citibank ad! "not pretty," indeed.
posted by gohlkus at 3:08 PM on May 1, 2002


either people haven't read the guidelines, they think that somehow everyone will be so impressed with the piece that they won't care, or they just don't care about being *part* of the community, only what the community can do for *them*.
posted by rebeccablood at 3:10 PM on May 1, 2002


Funny thing is, I'm probably sympathetic with the actual article, but the way he drew attention to it completely turned me off from reading it.

Not to mention: on that site, he posted the first comment to his own article.

surprisingly, he liked it. "Nice one," he says.
posted by gohlkus at 3:13 PM on May 1, 2002


it's not ok, gol, but this stuff doesn't get removed right away either. check back in a few hours.
posted by moz at 3:15 PM on May 1, 2002


removing the post isn't enough justice for me. I want his ovaries in a shot glass!
posted by mcsweetie at 3:16 PM on May 1, 2002


i just can't get over my disappointment that this was not a Red Sox FPP.
posted by boltman at 3:22 PM on May 1, 2002


moz, yeah, true. To be sure, I don't expect Matt on self-link patrol 24-7.

To clarify, I meant that it should have been obvious to the poster that it was a no-no, if that person had spent more than 20 minutes on the site. (And they had....)

It just seems like we've been talking about this sort of thing a LOT recently, and it's hard to imagine it going so far over someone's head (or below their radar).

his ovaries in a shot glass

Bwah?

on preview: boltman, no kidding! What other "Green Monster" is there?
posted by gohlkus at 3:24 PM on May 1, 2002


I can't get over my disappointment that people are still fucking using the abbreviation "FPP".
posted by anildash at 3:42 PM on May 1, 2002


FPP (A Poem For Anil)

Their fingers get so tired,
on coffee their minds are wired.
Abbreviations are so sexy,
NFSW is so dyslexy.
posted by RJ Reynolds at 3:56 PM on May 1, 2002


my desire to expose you to this creative piece is greater than my shame at self-promotion.

But apparently not greater than his desire to stiff Mathowie the $10 it would cost for a textad.

So, to summarize: sense of shame < $10.
posted by Shadowkeeper at 3:58 PM on May 1, 2002


I smell a MasterCard commercial parody coming.
posted by darukaru at 4:02 PM on May 1, 2002


What's wrong with FPP?
posted by mischief at 4:04 PM on May 1, 2002


"his ovaries in a shot glass"
Once I threw up so hard that fish n' chips came out my nose.
posted by Catch at 4:06 PM on May 1, 2002


What's wrong with FPP?

matt feels that it is too jargon-y. he prefers MFP (metafilter post) for things that appear on the top page, MTP (metatalk post) for things that appear on the top metatalk page, MFC for a metafilter comment, and MTC for comments in metatalk.

that way, newcomers don't feel like metafilter is a club where you have to know a special language to join in the conversation.

hth!
posted by rebeccablood at 4:10 PM on May 1, 2002


"What's wrong with FPP?"

the webmaster HIMSELF doesn't like it. that's reason enough. kthxgg.
posted by jcterminal at 4:14 PM on May 1, 2002


Riight. 'FPP' is soooo much more jargon-y than MFP/MTP/MFC/MTC, and folks will feel part of the crowd much faster having to learn four acronyms instead of one.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 4:16 PM on May 1, 2002


... and MFP, MTP, MFC and MTC aren't jargon-y? Oh, brother!
posted by mischief at 4:18 PM on May 1, 2002


haha, you guys are funny.
posted by muckster at 4:19 PM on May 1, 2002


he prefers MFP (metafilter post) for things that appear on the top page, MTP (metatalk post) for things that appear on the top metatalk page, MFC for a metafilter comment, and MTC for comments in metatalk.

For those that didn't get the joke, I prefer no abbreviations. FPP is stupid because it's not too hard to just say post or front page post, and the alternative is a vague abbreviation that means absolutely nothing to most anyone except for the hardcore 10% of users.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 4:22 PM on May 1, 2002


most anyone except for the hardcore 10% of users

Which assumes anyone else ever visits MetaTalk. At least FPP is deducible.
posted by yerfatma at 4:26 PM on May 1, 2002


Here's to the sanity, common sense, and generosity of calling a post a post.
posted by muckster at 4:32 PM on May 1, 2002


It makes me feel tall when I see things go over other people's heads. Is this what it's like all the time for you, Matt?
posted by anildash at 4:36 PM on May 1, 2002


he prefers MFP

Wasn't that Colgate toothpaste's acronym for Maximmum Flouride Protection?

Does this mean MeFi can stop tooth decay? I'd recommend it to my patients who chew gum...
posted by jonmc at 4:38 PM on May 1, 2002


i would like to propose typing without vowels for the sake of brevity. i'm sure it would take a load off the server if we didn't use all of those a, e, i, o, u and sometimes y's.

posted by eyeballkid at 4:42 PM on May 1, 2002


I prefer LS/MFT.
posted by Kafkaesque at 4:47 PM on May 1, 2002


i prefer you KMA!
posted by quonsar at 4:51 PM on May 1, 2002


hrb thrwng m spprt bhnd ybllkd's lrnd prpsl. t's bt tm w gt rd f ll ths fckng vwls.
posted by cortex at 4:59 PM on May 1, 2002


MFP, MTP, MFC and MTC....WTF?
posted by mkelley at 5:20 PM on May 1, 2002


HELLO.

ovaries? shot glass?

C'MON PEOPLE.
posted by mcsweetie at 5:24 PM on May 1, 2002


SYFF, UF.
posted by mcwetboy at 5:40 PM on May 1, 2002


C'MON PEOPLE.
Do it yourself. Kids these days have no motivation.
SYFF, UF.
YAC-SA-LUF.
posted by darukaru at 5:42 PM on May 1, 2002


MFP, MTP, MFC and MTC....WTF?


PYHBYL and KYAG!!
posted by jonmc at 5:43 PM on May 1, 2002


Um, what was the original link? My outrage is borrowed and hollow, second-hand, in its absence.
posted by donkeyschlong at 5:53 PM on May 1, 2002


the SMF Friends of MetaFilter
posted by mikhail at 5:59 PM on May 1, 2002


mikhail my fellow SMF, don't forget MetaFilter- WASP...
posted by jonmc at 6:05 PM on May 1, 2002


FPP is stupid because it's not too hard to just say post or front page post

Except, as I've mentioned before, the button that one presses to make a 'comment' says 'post', and I've seen less technical MeFites clearly scratching their heads when trying to parse out that you 'post' a comment, but that a post to the front page, which is also created with a 'Post' button, is called a post, while in-thread 'posts' are called comments.

Got that?

My suggestion, humbly offered as fucking always (thanks Anil), is to change the button text in-thread from 'Post' to 'Comment'.

Not that it matters to me. I never make bother with making FPPs these days anyway, after a long string on ignominious doubles.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:16 PM on May 1, 2002


OR change the post posting button to 'Post your Post'.
posted by quonsar at 6:41 PM on May 1, 2002


MYOB.
posted by crunchland at 6:43 PM on May 1, 2002


The Green Monster and Materialism. Do you worry that we live in a materialistic society? Do you share my concern that the extreme search for convenience, ultra-targeted products and our throw-away culture have thrust us in an illusion of pseudo-happiness that is essentially emptiness? Perhaps, the experiences described in this article will help you think about this. (Let the rare lightning from the Seattle clouds strike me! I have sinned- for I have plugged an article that was typed by these shameful hands. Yet, my desire to expose you to this creative piece is greater than my shame at self-promotion. I hope you will understand. Forgive, ye great soul and read on.)
posted by SandeepKrishnamurthy


Yeah, "blatant" pretty much describes it.
posted by NortonDC at 7:16 PM on May 1, 2002


Maybe we should just move away from the imprecise language of "front page post" altogether. We could call an FPP something more intiuitive, like a Highly Visible Container Of Comments.

This would also better justify the use of trendy and inscrutible initializations. "Post your HVCOC" really hits they eye in a special way.
posted by cortex at 7:20 PM on May 1, 2002


Hell, let us free ourselves entirely of these vestigial spatial references! In cyberspace, "front" makes about as much sense as "tall" or "graveolent!"
posted by rushmc at 7:34 PM on May 1, 2002


OFCS!
posted by y2karl at 7:35 PM on May 1, 2002


Hey anyone remember that site which mirrored MeFi's deleted posts?
posted by riffola at 7:35 PM on May 1, 2002


rushmc, 'front' makes perfect sense metaphorically, which is why it sticks and 'graveolent' doesn't.
posted by muckster at 7:41 PM on May 1, 2002


riffola - you could always go to MeFi-LoFi. It doesn't have the thread, but you can see what the link was.
posted by plemeljr at 8:04 PM on May 1, 2002


D'oh! Thanks for the reminder plemeljr :)
posted by riffola at 8:14 PM on May 1, 2002


I, personally, dislike abbreviations like FPP, IMHO, and all that crap.

I deal with enough of that at work. Plus, while reading, it takes more time to translate than to just read 'post' or 'front page post' or whatever. ROTFL and all that chat-like stuff don't belong in a place where you can take your time to type what you want to say.

And, uh.. traffic whore. That's what I think.
posted by rich at 8:18 PM on May 1, 2002


While we're discussing acronyns: would this be an appropriate time to note that people who abbreviate the word "you" to "u", or "for" to "4", really get on my nerves to a degree completely out of proportion to the actual grammatical offense? Almost as much as those few who include a .sig, however tiny, in every MeFi post, as though "posted by xxxxxx" wasn't going to appear in the very next line anyway?

I didn't think so. But I feel better having gotten it off my chest. Thanks for caring.

That said, I thought the black album was fucking genius. But I was probably stoned at the time, so grain of salt and all that.
posted by ook at 8:26 PM on May 1, 2002


nyms. nyms. nyms. nyms. dammit.
posted by ook at 8:27 PM on May 1, 2002


dieplzkthx
posted by Danelope at 9:08 PM on May 1, 2002


Uck...God, I read the post, BTW, and read the article linked to it. First, the post was begging to be deleted. Second, the link wasn't all that great because it simply portrayed common sense at its utmost. Third, and finally, what a worthless MeTa thread. Banish him I say! Wahh...he self-linked, and admitted it. Do we need a post debating how badly he posted? Do we need another masturbation session, so quickly after Dreama's magnificant, yet useless, etiquette/policy post?

Really...have we gotten that bored that we need to call out the most simple infractions? Well, gohlkus, congratulations on pointing out the obvious. I really woundn't have seen the sun, the clouds, or the wind, unless you decided to show me them yourself.
posted by BlueTrain at 10:04 PM on May 1, 2002


i'm with u on the black album, ook.
posted by muckster at 10:08 PM on May 1, 2002


i think 'post' should be changed to 'demand anal'.

but that's just me, i could be wrong.
posted by jcterminal at 10:43 PM on May 1, 2002


> Once I threw up so hard that fish n' chips came out my nose.
> posted by Catch at 4:06 PM PST on May 1

Maybe that's why they call you Catch.



posted by pracowity at 11:07 PM on May 1, 2002


BlueTrain, although I agree that this thread might not have been necessary, I don't see the point of you posting a comment with dripping sarcasm that belittles both gohlkus and Dreama in one fell swoop.

If you're not happy with a user's actions, how about trying to positively and constructively point out ways they might be able to adjust their behaviour or improve their contribution to the community?

Or, simply state your opinion on the subject in a matter-of-fact fashion and leave it at that.

It's pretty unlikely that your comments will be well-received as written and will instead get defences up. If you truly want to make a difference and guide people into "appropriate" posting habits, you might want to think about tempering your messages.
posted by cyniczny at 11:54 PM on May 1, 2002 [1 favorite]


I always had a head-scratch about "Front Page Post" too. I mean there, like, aren't any other pages. There's the Front Page, or... yeah that's about it. Where did that expression even come from?
posted by rusty at 1:15 AM on May 2, 2002


According to the GoogleGod, it would appear that the first use of the 'FPP'acronym was on November 15, 2001, by HoldenCaulfield in this 'post' (silent ironic emphasis on the word 'post').

The same day saw a MeTa thread about that very post, wherein the Dreaded Acronym was also quoted.

Google claims this earlier thread also contains the string 'FPP' but I can't find it anywhere.

You can buy me a beer sometime.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 3:36 AM on May 2, 2002


"I don't see the point of you posting a comment with dripping sarcasm that belittles both gohlkus and Dreama in one fell swoop."

muhahahah. two down, a thousand more to go....
posted by jcterminal at 4:58 AM on May 2, 2002


Do we need another masturbation session, so quickly after Dreama's magnificant, yet useless, etiquette/policy post?

If you don't know yet that the answer to that question is always "yes!", you don't belong in MetaTalk. Go back from whence you came.
posted by rcade at 5:36 AM on May 2, 2002


You mean BlueTrain's question wasn't a subtly ironic self-referential thread-end-bantering joke-within-a-joke intended as a glittering example of the exquisite art of affecting disdain for MeTa noise while simultaneously adding to it?
posted by rory at 5:59 AM on May 2, 2002


Ook, another person complained about my signature-line once, and I've felt slightly uncomfortable about it ever since... but I've been banging those five chars out at the end of every message for over a decade now, and it's a hard habit to break. The message just doesn't feel *finished* without it.

I don't know - help me out, here, metafilterians: does the "-Mars" at the end of my messages bug you?

-Mars
posted by Mars Saxman at 9:26 AM on May 2, 2002


When I first started here, I put "k" at the end of my comments, just like I do in email, and a couple of people mentioined that it was annoying. So I stopped.

Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better.
posted by Kafkaesque at 9:36 AM on May 2, 2002


Without "-Mars" the comments wouldn't feel the same.
posted by riffola at 9:47 AM on May 2, 2002


from whence you came

rogers, really. You know that "whence" includes the "from", right? Go back whence you came.
posted by anildash at 9:49 AM on May 2, 2002


I don't think you need it, Mars. I understand the need for consistency but it always says "posted by Mars Saxman" underneath anyway.
posted by D at 9:54 AM on May 2, 2002


Mars, I like your comments a lot, and I look out for them specifically, but the -Mars has always seemed superfluous. If it were anyone but you I would suspect you of engaging in some nefarious branding exercise. (It also reminds me of a particularly obscure Unix command flag combination--"smurf -Mars /usr/lib/*" or something.)
posted by rodii at 10:10 AM on May 2, 2002


I used to always end with "rcb" but I quit because people always complain about sigs. but, sure enough, people address me as "rebeccablood" in their responses, and no one needs that kind of trouble.
posted by rebeccablood at 10:54 AM on May 2, 2002


Rebecca - please convince Matt to allow us to separate our first names from our second. Like you, I had no idea we could have a space in between.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 11:03 AM on May 2, 2002


Why not just ask him yourself?
posted by darukaru at 12:03 PM on May 2, 2002


Hey, Miguel! What's wrong with having your name smushed together? I kinda like it. Makes me feel like WordPerfect.

(BTW, we need to invent a word that means "two words smushed together with a capital letter right in the friggin' middle.)
posted by ColdChef at 12:23 PM on May 2, 2002


When I first started here, I put "k" at the end of my comments, just like I do in email, and a couple of people mentioined that it was annoying. So I stopped.

This is why I stopped ending every post with "L8R SK8R!"

(BTW, we need to invent a word that means "two words smushed together with a capital letter right in the friggin' middle.

InterCapping.

-- L8R SK8R!


posted by Shadowkeeper at 12:27 PM on May 2, 2002


(BTW, we need to invent a word that means "two words smushed together with a capital letter right in the friggin' middle.)

I second that.

perhaps we could call it, "BlueTrain". You know, like, "All of my online personas use the BlueTrain technique." Eh, just babbling out loud. Carry on...
posted by BlueTrain at 12:35 PM on May 2, 2002


Shadowkeeper's my hero. thanx.

~Bubbles McTalkalot~
posted by ColdChef at 12:45 PM on May 2, 2002


CamelCase is the much more popular term (57 vs. 1550 at Google) for such capitalization hijinks.

I've also heard upper/lower camelcase distinctions based on the initial character of the string, used for to establish purposefully clashing naming conventions for elements and attributes in XML.
posted by NortonDC at 12:58 PM on May 2, 2002


BTW, we need to invent a word that means "two words smushed together with a capital letter right in the friggin' middle.

That naming convention was, so far as I know, invented in 1983 for Bill Atkinson's "MacPaint". Apple's initial suite of Macintosh desktop applications were then named "MacWrite" and "MacDraw", so every Macintosh developer mimicked this and the market was full of MacThis and MacThat.

Eventually someone came up with a graphics program that was just like MacPaint, only better, and named it "SuperPaint". This also caught on and eventually supplanted the "MacWhatever" convention. Somewhere around 1990, a MacUser columnist (see, there it is again!) dubbed this word-formation the "InterCap". I've thought of it that way ever since.

-Mars
posted by Mars Saxman at 12:59 PM on May 2, 2002


It's also called the camelBack style (though maybe that specifically means that it starts with a lowercase letter).
posted by rodii at 1:14 PM on May 2, 2002


Whoops, I missed Norton's post entirely somehow. Sorry!
posted by rodii at 1:18 PM on May 2, 2002


Was it Apple that staretd the whole "i" thing? Like iMac and iPod and iSub and iMovie and iTunes and iPhoto...?

What does the "i" stand for, internet? If so, what does internet have to do with the iPod or iDVD? Maybe "i" stands for information, which still doesn't make sense. Maybe it came on the heels of the whole "e" thing.
posted by evanizer at 3:57 PM on May 2, 2002


It started out as 'iMac' for Internet Mac; after that it sort of metastasized.
posted by darukaru at 5:25 PM on May 2, 2002


Maybe now it stands for invasion.
posted by mikhail at 5:27 PM on May 2, 2002


What does the "i" stand for...
Maybe it came on the heels of the whole "e" thing...


Yeah that's the way it goes , E I E I ...

When's the oMac coming?
posted by jonmc at 5:38 PM on May 2, 2002


Pugachev does the sig at the end of his/her posts as well - seeing Mars or puga at the end of a post does not bother me in the least. I recall there was a girl who used to do it too; she joined right around the time of the Kaycee Nicole scandal, and she was routinely blasted for putting her name at the end of all of her posts. She didn't last long.
posted by iconomy at 6:05 PM on May 2, 2002


'Reggie', right? No she did not last long...

*diabolical laughter, steepling of fingers*
posted by Karl at 6:48 PM on May 2, 2002


"Redgie"!
posted by rodii at 7:13 PM on May 2, 2002


The .sig thing is just a pet peeve of mine, it's nothing personal. One of the reasons I find slashdot et al unreadable is that there are so many cutesy siggies to wade through. Nobody here does anything that bad, obviously -- so I guess it's not so much that seeing "Mars" or "Puga" or "Ash" at the end of a comment is annoying, as that it reminds me of something else that's annoying, and therefore picks up a ghostly annoyance-by-association.

And I totally understand the habit aspect of it... I routinely have to backspace over my own name in preview (which would be really stupid because I'm not "ook" anywhere but here.)

As annoyances go, I think this is one I can cope with.

The "u" thing still grinds my teeth, though. They better never come out with a uMac.
posted by ook at 7:40 PM on May 2, 2002


That naming convention was, so far as I know, invented in 1983 for Bill Atkinson's "MacPaint"

I thought all it started with McNuggets.

[runs like hell]
posted by StOne at 10:12 PM on May 2, 2002


My particular beef is with forae wherein users attach ornate, 60-line sigs to every "lol" post and my scrollwheel begins to age rapidly, like Bowie in The Hunger. There was one Mac maniac site where one freak's sig file contained a list of every Mac he had ever owned, along with mHz, RAM, yada yada... Not at all even remotely interesting the first time you see it, but every ... goddamned ... time ... he ... *shudder*

But as long as fingers are being steepled, everything is A-OK.
posted by D at 11:25 PM on May 2, 2002


When's the oMac coming?

I'm holding out for the sometimesyMac, myself.
posted by nath at 12:50 AM on May 3, 2002


steepling of fingers

Wonderful. I'd never heard the expression before and now wonder how I got along without it. It's going to be difficult resisting it these next few days. Thanks, Karl.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 1:10 AM on May 3, 2002


Wikis sometimes refer to it as BumpyCase. BumpyCase is important in a Wiki.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 1:46 AM on May 3, 2002


BumpyCase sounds like a hip new phrase that could replace "doin' the nasty". "Hey baby, wanna do the BumpyCase?"
posted by mikhail at 7:43 PM on May 3, 2002


i've always heard it as 'intercaps'.

it's a sign of being a child of the 80's.
posted by jcterminal at 10:40 AM on May 4, 2002


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