so, um, if you don't like metafilter, don't participate.

May 6, 2002 1:14 PM

so, um, if you don't like metafilter, don't participate.
posted by moz to Etiquette/Policy at 1:14 PM (35 comments total)

being camworld, which is much grander than simply cam, i suppose the stern email could be waived. it's still pretty crap to come and take a piss on a thread, even if it's old (to you). the dark horse possibility would be a hacked account (!).
posted by moz at 1:18 PM on May 6, 2002

I don't think it was really 'taking a piss' on the thread. Saying something like 'it's a double post your fucking moron, now stop bothering me and go away!' may have been uncalled for, but making a general comment that there is a lot of 'what is old is new again' links and the decreasing value it gives metafilter is, well, valid.
posted by rich at 1:24 PM on May 6, 2002

rich, zombo.com was never posted as a thread on metafilter but was mentioned in two (very old) threads. that doesn't count as a double post to me, as it would seem to me that you must have a lot of time here and an elephant's mind to remember them. what bugs me is that cam basically ruined the thread. most of the comments following his, which was the first, had to do with cam and not the posted thread. that was rude, in my opinion. perhaps he'll apologize? (perhaps not.)
posted by moz at 1:30 PM on May 6, 2002

have spent a lot of time here, i suppose i should have said.
posted by moz at 1:31 PM on May 6, 2002

I have no clue what Zombo.com is, and I've been here awhile (I think). The other day a poster posted to Megnut.com, oblivious of the relationship between her, Matt, and this site. There's a lot of people here for the first time around. I think that for them to re-link to things that were posted before is valid. It meets the *requirements* of a good post: something a lot of people haven't seen before, worth discussing, etc.

If you don't like Metafilter, because you're a snob then feel free to go.
posted by xammerboy at 1:53 PM on May 6, 2002

I don't think cam was referring to it being old news on metafilter, but just old news, web-wise.

and thus, it's relative worth is low.
posted by rich at 1:56 PM on May 6, 2002

I'm with moz here, it may be old to some of us but it seems to be new to others. That sorta "I saw this months ago" jaded bit does wonders to kill peoples enthusiasm for the Web.
Not everybody's been online forever and if they've just discovered something cool and new to them, nifty I say. I'm not saying we should start posting the hamsterdance or something, but acting all uber-hip seems needlessly exclusionary and discouraging to webrookies, which is supposed to be the opposite of what we're about,right?
posted by jonmc at 1:59 PM on May 6, 2002

but just old news, web-wise.

And the web is such a tiny place. I can't believe that there are people that haven't seen everything on it. I mean I saw Zombo, I dunno, in maybe 1986? I was using mozilla .000000001b on a Commodore VIC 20. That's how in tune and cool I am.

Besides moz, didn't you get the Zombo.com memo when it came out?
posted by eyeballkid at 2:01 PM on May 6, 2002

Not everybody's been online forever and if they've just discovered something cool and new to them, nifty I say.

Fair enough. But I feel like this is sort along the lines of newbies forwarding email hoaxes and fake petitions. If someone posts all outraged about bonzaikitten, do we say, "Hey, it's new to them, so it's no big deal?" I agree that Cam was a bit houghty and flip, but I come to MeFi for new stuff, not three- or four-year-old, one joke sites.

There has to be a middle-ground way to say, Hey, nice try but it's old news.
posted by me3dia at 2:10 PM on May 6, 2002

(er...make that "haughty.")
posted by me3dia at 2:18 PM on May 6, 2002

Damn, I thought for a second there you meant haughey:)
posted by bittennails at 2:21 PM on May 6, 2002

I think there needs to be a MeFi equivalent of the Usenet catchphrase "PLONK", only for double posts.

I propose Zippity B...OW STOP HITTING.
posted by Succa at 2:38 PM on May 6, 2002

My comment would be that front page links should be some thing that can be discussed.

I like zombo.com, and even have the t-shirt, but there's not much to discuss about it. Either you get it or you don't.

I don't mind double posts unless there's nothing new to talk about.
posted by Argyle at 3:04 PM on May 6, 2002

so, um, if you don't like metafilter, don't participate.

Well, I'd say do not participate or do make it better.

I don't think Cam's input qualifies for either one.
posted by NortonDC at 3:13 PM on May 6, 2002

You know, I hear you can do anything at ZomboCom.

Including bringing disgruntled MeFi Oldsters back into the fold. Provided, of course, that you wanted to do such a thing.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 3:27 PM on May 6, 2002

There has to be a middle-ground way to say, Hey, nice try but it's old news.

I think you just did, me3dia.
posted by jonmc at 3:37 PM on May 6, 2002

The whole thing is paradoxical, though uninteresting. My own comment shall mimic this fashion.

1)Camworld comes to MetaFilter and takes the trouble to comment that a particular post is the reason why he never comes to MetaFilter anymore.

2)He takes the part for the whole, managing to blame the whole of MetaFilter for one particular post.

3)His justification that it is "old" - an annoying new fashion, btw - is not only old but untrue. There are, in fact, few "old" double posts on MetaFilter.

4)His type of comment has exactly the same defects of the post it's supposedly criticizing. Why bother with the "seen this before" shtick if others have already pointed out the double post. It's just a negative "ditto".

5)It starts a whole new MetaTalk thread about it. And here we are again, devoting excessive attention to throwaway, infertile, hackneyed cracks.

6)The post sucked and the comment too. So they make natural bedfellows.

7)I condemn camworld to a monthly Zombo post for the rest of his natural life.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 4:45 PM on May 6, 2002

didn't you get the Zombo.com memo when it came out?

Pronounced "meme-o," I presume?
posted by rushmc at 5:23 PM on May 6, 2002

It's deleted now, so I guess the world will never know the connection between Zombo.com and Camworld. Hmm, maybe if we bring cliche kitty and domo-kun in we can have a Fark party (the irony of course is that they're busy having a zombo party over at Fark.)
posted by rodz at 6:29 PM on May 6, 2002

It was deleted?!

I mean, I linked to zombo like 18 months ago, but it had never been posted to MetaFilter before... it was interesting, could fuel discussion, etc etc... What guidelines did it break? If you deleted the thread, Matt, because it was too full of "Camworld's haughty" comments, fair 'nuff, but otherwise, this really irks me.
posted by Marquis at 7:44 PM on May 6, 2002

You can delete threads at Zombo.com....Zoooommmmbbbboooooo..........
posted by metrocake at 7:48 PM on May 6, 2002

Mr. Camworld, your problem with MetaFilter is nothing new (Nov 17th), is it? Way back then those obnoxious newcomers were resisting your wisdom. You say that thoughtful commentary and observations attracted you to Metafilter in the first place yet your comment today was anything but.
posted by Mack Twain at 8:01 PM on May 6, 2002

"Imminent demise of Metafilter predicted."
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 8:19 PM on May 6, 2002

Mo Nickels' post from the link Mack Twain cited above should not be missed. His rules for picking what qualifies as a good or bad post make for interesting reading, as does his method for deciding whether or not to comment in a thread.
posted by iconomy at 9:30 PM on May 6, 2002

Whoah, chill out people. I knew the thread would be deleted when I posted my pithy comment, which is all it was: a pithy comment.

My perspective is the same. Metafilter is a site I occasionally read these days. I'm not obsessive about it like a lot of the Mefi fans. Sometimes it is good and has lots of great links and commentary. Other times it is not.
posted by camworld at 7:38 AM on May 7, 2002

It's a floorwax and a dessert-topping!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 8:06 AM on May 7, 2002

I knew the thread would be deleted when I posted my pithy comment...

perhaps you shouldn't have posted it then. like others have said, not everybody has seen zombo - if you've seen it already, why not just skip it and move on?
posted by modge at 8:59 AM on May 7, 2002

(that was the first time I'd ever seen zombo.com.... of course, it didn't really enhance my life in any way.)
posted by gohlkus at 4:33 PM on May 7, 2002

Again, I need to ask - Why was the post deleted?

Old material does not a poor post make. Many who posted comments appeared not to have seen it. It followed the guidelines. And yet camworld assumes it'll get blasted, and it does indeed get blasted. Matt?

And don't force me to make some comment about towing the a-list line.

Oh, and Matt, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt - the discussion in the thread was shitty, and you would perhaps be justified in killing it on that basis. Nevertheless, said shittiness was mostly due to the snarky, worthless, presumptuous comment that started the thread off (camworld's). I really think some comment should be made, one way or the other.
posted by Marquis at 6:10 AM on May 8, 2002

Zombo.com is old news. Very old. It's similar to all those stupid email jokes that your friends and family forward you about a week after they get an email address. Funny the first time, annoying every time after that.

I think that most MeFi members pride themsleves on being around the Internet block a few times and a post about something as old as Zombo.com, regardless of whether it's been on Metafilter before or not, does indeed qualify as being old.

Sure, my comment was pithy but it wasn't pointless. My point, in addmittedly, too few words was: yeah the post was old, old news and likely not worth the bandwidth of most Mefi members.
posted by camworld at 9:37 AM on May 8, 2002

that is your opinion, cam, and you're welcome to it. i hadn't personally seen zombo, so your feeling wouldn't have been valid for me, but who's to say if most members wouldn't have agreed with you? but i have seen that there is a kind of mob mentality at work with metafilter. i have seen threads where one person, posting a very negative response, or posting a mention of pancakes or haiku, start a cascade of similar responses. it is as if people then feel suddenly justified to follow suit. oftentimes, it seems, the clamor of those responses do a great deal to dissuade others from posting thoughtful comments on the thread topic for they are drowned out. you can do a lot of damage with carefully worded and carefully timed comments.

had you instead wrote that this was an old meme, but you liked it (or disliked it) for such and such a reason, i think you'd have communicated your point in a much more positive fashion. we may not have had to delete the thread, in fact, for it is not as if the link were double-posted (outside of comment). what do you think?
posted by moz at 10:02 AM on May 8, 2002

Translation of Cam's last post:
Zombo is not leet enough for MetaFilter, and MetaFilter is not leet enough for me, so I pissed all over the thread.
posted by NortonDC at 10:50 AM on May 8, 2002

Hey, whatever. If that's the way you want to see it, then I won't try to change your mind. However I can say that it's very obvious that you don't know me very well. Good luck with everything.
posted by camworld at 11:12 AM on May 8, 2002

No, I don't, nor does 99%+ of everyone else that read your comment.

Relying on non-existant personal context isn't going to aid communication in this setting.
posted by NortonDC at 2:03 PM on May 8, 2002

I didn't see the thread and I have no idea what Cam said. All I know is it isn't very sporting or even logical to assume that every single person on the web has seen every single thing that every other person has seen. Nobody posts old stuff here on purpose. It's new to them. And everyone here has not seen it before, I guarantee it.

Why don't we just let the "unenlightened" enjoy the discovery? We could chime in or can pass the thread by and let them have their fun. As long as it isn't a double post is there even a problem? This doesn't always have to be a current events class (except when linking to news sites, I suppose). Old stuff rules once in a while. And there's always someone new waiting to discover it.

Here's a perfect example of a site that's 5 years old and it's still post worthy - noodlebox. It's never been a front page post and enough people probably have not heard of it for it to generate a very decent amount of interest. I think it was the first shockwaved site I ever saw and I was pretty amazed by it.
posted by iconomy at 5:37 PM on May 8, 2002