May 9, 2003

2:43 AM

A forlorn plea: is there any chance of reinstating on MeTa the weblog-related category? Blogroots is just not the same - or even vaguely similar. MetaFilter is where so many bloggers hang out and, imho, discussions of blogging are part of the history and character of this place. As it is, items which would have been posted to the old MetaTalk category - such as this one - are showing up on the blue. I doubt whether many users here have the patience and fortitude to take them all the way to Blogroots.
posted by MiguelCardoso to feature requests at 2:43 AM (35 comments total)

1 more Mig and that's 100 posts to Metatalk. Get it in today son.
posted by Frasermoo at 2:51 AM on May 9, 2003

I dunno, man. I personally haven't been annoyed by an avalanche of blog-related posts in the blue... Noone running around shouting "BlogFilter!" or anything like that. I say leave well enough alone! Let the Germans have Poland! It makes the boundaries between MeTa and MeFi a bit clearer, and probably makes more public a few links that would go unnoticed by people who don't bother with MeTa.
posted by kaibutsu at 2:52 AM on May 9, 2003

oooh, I feel so dirty. Is Miguel just in this for numerical gain? TskTsk.
posted by kaibutsu at 2:58 AM on May 9, 2003

There was definitely an underground race on mempool for highest number of posts for a while between a few of us a few years ago...needless to say I fell out of the race.
posted by gen at 4:02 AM on May 9, 2003

all im saying is that celtic will win the uefa cup.
posted by sgt.serenity at 4:10 AM on May 9, 2003

You're right, Miguel. It's so trying and frustrating to post something to Blogroots. It takes so long, all those clicks, and you have to type in the URL if you don't have it bookmarked.

It's such a pain in the ass.
posted by rocketman at 6:46 AM on May 9, 2003

Blogroots isn't closed to new users either.
posted by xiffix at 6:56 AM on May 9, 2003

Well, you know, that's all clever and stuff, rocketman, but posts to blogroots are actually only suggestions, and approved and subsequently posted by (one assumes) Matt or pb or Meg, and so it's not really the same at all as Metafilter or Metatalk.

I actually agree with Miguel here. Blogroots is cobwebbier than hell, for whatever reasons.

Bring back the 'weblog-related category' here at MeFi, or open up Blogroots to open threadposting, the people cry!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:59 AM on May 9, 2003

Is Miguel just in this for numerical gain? TskTsk.

As a new user he finds himself over-stimulated.
posted by PrinceValium at 7:09 AM on May 9, 2003

MetaFilter is where so many bloggers hang out and, imho, discussions of blogging are part of the history and character of this place.

That's not a very good argument for cutting BlogRoots off at the knees. Allowing people to use MetaTalk for chatty-cathy topics about weblogs makes it less clear that this part of the site is devoted solely to navel-gazing.
posted by rcade at 7:28 AM on May 9, 2003

Why have a dichotomy? As I understand it, metafilter is a place to discuss interesting things found on the web (some portion of which may be weblog-related), whilst blogroots is a place to discuss weblog-related phenomena. The two need not be mutually exclusive. To my mind the "weblog-related" category was not right for metatalk anyway. But your mileage may vary.

celtic will win the uefa cup

Gets my vote, after you haggis-eating savages heartlessly knocked us out. You'll never walk alone, sgt. Probably because some LFC fan is walking behind you with a length of lead pipe ;-)
posted by walrus at 7:34 AM on May 9, 2003

I don't understand why a post about a change in Google policy doesn't belong in the blue.

MetaTalk is a discussion area for topics specific to MetaFilter itself, ranging from bug reports to feature requests to questions of content, the posts are sorted by date, and tagged by category.

I think you'd need to find more compelling examples of posts in the blue that are about MetaFilter rather than about the Internet in general to make the case that there's a crying need for the weblog-related category.
posted by anapestic at 7:43 AM on May 9, 2003

good luck on sunday walrus. you'll need it.
posted by Frasermoo at 8:04 AM on May 9, 2003

Bring back the 'weblog-related category' here at MeFi

You can still make posts about weblogs on MetaFilter if they're good things, but no, I will not be bringing back the weblog category to MetaTalk for mostly reasons rcade states. It's mostly just navel gazing and tech support. I'm not going to budge on that at all.

or open up Blogroots to open threadposting, the people cry!

I never thought the difference was all that great between instantly posting something and being approved 10 minutes later when I get an email about it and approve it, but I suppose it's a big difference in the user's mind. We approve almost anything good that comes down, but we get a steady stream of self-links that are better filtered at the start, then after the fact.
posted by mathowie at 8:09 AM on May 9, 2003

Wow, thanks for the link, PrinceValium—what fun to see the Migs taking his first baby steps in pointless, self-reflexive MeTa posting! And no wonder his stats are so high:

Doesn't matter anyway. Posts on Metatalk aren't counted towards your total. :)
posted by daveadams at 8:22 AM PST on September 7

Oh, and the Mets suck again this year.
posted by languagehat at 8:12 AM on May 9, 2003

We approve almost anything good that comes down

Fair enough. I guess I've been trying to figure out why the reality of blogroots (it's pretty darn quiet, you've got to admit) is so much less fascinating and fermenty and feisty than I'd hoped it would be, and had lazily assumed that the reason was the moderated posting policy. I don't know.

I really do wish blogroots was a jumpin' hot jazzpad of bloggy discourse, though. It is true that MeFi has strayed very far from those roots in early webblogdom, so I understand the decision to 'not be bringing back the weblog category to MetaTalk.'

I was just being a shitdisturber, there, basically.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 8:31 AM on May 9, 2003

Oh well, it was worth a try. Thanks, Matt and the others who explained why it isn't such a good idea.

As for Celtic, I'm not yet prepared to betray my country on this one, but give me time. ;)
posted by MiguelCardoso at 8:38 AM on May 9, 2003

stavros, I agree that it's cobwebby, and I've considered shuttering the place every now and again. It never quite took on a life of its own, which is why there doesn't seem to be a critical mass of people contributing stories about weblogs worth discussing, when there are zillions of stories being written about weblogs now.
posted by mathowie at 8:43 AM on May 9, 2003

when there are zillions of stories being written about weblogs now.

I think a lot of the problem is also that many of the stories tend to be the same. Just because the Dallas Morning News published an introductory guide to these so called Webbed Logs doesn't mean that it's all that special when the Sacramento Bee just published an almost exact duplicate the day before.
posted by Ufez Jones at 8:53 AM on May 9, 2003

I've considered shuttering the place every now and again.

Please don't do that yet. If the weblog-related category isn't going to come back (and I can see why that is), then we need a good weblog discussion site.

The ironic thing is that we who are lamenting the cobwebiness of blogroots (Migs, stavros and I) have done very little of the heavy lifting required to build the critical mass that it needs. I resolve to do better from now on.
posted by timeistight at 9:17 AM on May 9, 2003

metacobweblogroots.com?

I resolve to do better from now on.

Me too.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 9:21 AM on May 9, 2003

It never quite took on a life of its own, which is why there doesn't seem to be a critical mass of people contributing stories about weblogs worth discussing, when there are zillions of stories being written about weblogs now.

I don't doubt that you, Meg and PB could get it going, though, the way you started up MeFi -- post links regularly, yourselves, and establish some presence. The site feels a little absentee-landlord-ish, and it just doesn't have the momentum to overcome that, I think.
posted by mattpfeff at 9:25 AM on May 9, 2003

If someone did a contibution index for blogroots I'm sure that Matt, Paul and Meg (I'm really getting into using the given names of people I don't actually know) would be at the top of the list. A site that's just the three of them talking to each other is bound to be a little boring.
posted by timeistight at 9:49 AM on May 9, 2003

If someone did a contibution index for blogroots I'm sure that Matt, Paul and Meg would be at the top of the list.

Sure, but I'm not saying that they don't participate, I'm just saying they could lead the cobweb-sweeping project. Given that the cobwebs are there, I think they'd be the best ones to do it; it's their website, and if other people see them investing their time in it, they'll be more likely to invest their own time, too.

A site that's just the three of them talking to each other is bound to be a little boring.

Well, yeah -- but who's talking about that? (You know MeFi got its start by one person doing almost all the posting until it built up some momentum, right? Blogroots wouldn't need anywhere near as long, I suspect, but obviously it isn't a community-in-a-box, either. Someone needs to actively fill in the dead spots, the weeks when no one else submits a new link, and people who click by see a ghost town.)
posted by mattpfeff at 10:18 AM on May 9, 2003

You know MeFi got its start by one person doing almost all the posting until it built up some momentum, right?

That was in those dear dead days when mathowie and his pals were still in their twenties. They're old now and need our help.
posted by timeistight at 10:57 AM on May 9, 2003

*inscribes Stav's cobwebby into the Official International Internet Lexicon*
posted by MiguelCardoso at 11:47 AM on May 9, 2003

Getting enough members and activity on a -filter isn't easy. We're just now getting to a point where Sportsfilter doesn't have cobwebby days, and it took us 15 months and 700+ members.

When Radio UserLand Kick Start comes out, I'm going to beg the BlogRoots founders to let me do their jobs for a few months. If they passed along the moderator duties every few months to a weblog book author with a new book to shill, it might be a way to keep it going while it builds membership.
posted by rcade at 1:47 PM on May 9, 2003

btw - you got any tickets migsy wigsy ?
in fact , does anyone have spare tickets for the game in seville ? ( this is pretty off topic - sorry)

= lead bars ? scousers are going up in the world eh ?
posted by sgt.serenity at 2:34 PM on May 9, 2003

Why not stick the latest blogroots post in the mefi sidebar? I'd love to notice it's been updated by visiting big blue.
posted by sudama at 12:16 AM on May 10, 2003

Why not stick the latest blogroots post in the mefi sidebar?

hmm... that's a good idea. I could stick that in a new MetaTalk sidebar. It should meet Miguel's criteria as well.
posted by mathowie at 8:41 AM on May 10, 2003

I *heart* that idea.
posted by webmutant at 9:39 AM on May 11, 2003

That would be very cool.
posted by blissbat at 3:58 PM on May 11, 2003

That is a great idea. Wicked bad.
posted by j.edwards at 1:28 AM on May 12, 2003

= lead bars ? scousers are going up in the world eh ?

Think church roofs. Lots of church roofs ...
posted by walrus at 1:59 AM on May 12, 2003

man , no offers of a ticket yet , where's the power of meta when you need it ?
Im lookin at you, cardoso !
22nd of may theres gonna be either a huge celtic fpp or a debka link outlining portugals alliance with al-queda.
posted by sgt.serenity at 4:59 AM on May 12, 2003