Where's the line between being perceived as a shill and a real self-link?

June 7, 2005 1:00 PM

shill?
posted by muckster to Etiquette/Policy at 1:00 PM (22 comments total)

Not a callout, just curious--yes, NotMyselfRightNow's lengthy Pete Tong post pretty much amounts to a link about a single movie, but as he said himself, the focus of the post was the "impressive amount of fake back story" created for that movie, and led to somewhat of a discussion about fake/real movies in general. Still, several people made PepsiBlue/shill comments.

Two questions:

- Why not flag the post or take it here instead of cluttering up the thread?

- The perennial question: what exactly makes a posts about movies/music/products acceptable, and what makes them PepsiBlue? Why was this one in particular offensive? What should NotMyselfRightNow have done differently to avoid being called a shill--or is discussing movies always a bad idea, because they're something that costs money?

I care about movies, so I'm curious about where the line is. Thanks.
posted by muckster at 1:03 PM on June 7, 2005

This thread needs some deep house played in the background. /blows_whistle
posted by AlexReynolds at 1:18 PM on June 7, 2005

Only fake deep house will do.
posted by muckster at 1:20 PM on June 7, 2005

Why not flag the post or take it here instead of cluttering up the thread?

because if you flag it and move on, no one knows your opinion of it. and we are on metafilter after all.
posted by puke & cry at 1:24 PM on June 7, 2005

I am, for the most part, going to avoid commenting in this thread and just seeing how it plays out. I'm interested in seeing the discussion and group opinions.

The only thing I would point out is that not only is there a great discussion going on about real/fake movies (as muckster points out), but there are also people commenting in the thread that they didn't realize it was all fake until someone pointed it out (jokeefe's hummus moment excluded, of course!). My point for the thread was the backstory, as I stated, and I think these comments prove that my thoughts on the matter were well grounded.

I could have very easily posted, "Hey! Look! It's a movie with fake websites! Check them out!" It would have made the same point, but that would have really sucked as an FPP.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 2:01 PM on June 7, 2005

As pointed out before, the inherent problem with the 'flag this post' system is that there isn't any feedback. Like pressing the elevator button a few times when you're impatient, it provides no solid indication that it was worth the effort. Sure, the post may end up 'disappeared' later on, but that could be due to a multitude of reasons, the least of which, apparently, is the action of flagging the message.

I have no idea what the solution to this could be that wouldn't involve more time-sucking communication from Matt (or Jess), aside from just granting me (ok, us) the power to delete messages that offend us... and that road leads only to ruin.

As for this particular post, maybe it was just the "go see the movie" line that just struck me that the poster had other motives than informing the mefi readers about some otherwise obscure, deaf dj. If this sort of thing is acceptable, then please allow me to introduce you to the wonder that is the new Pepsi Blue.
posted by crunchland at 2:32 PM on June 7, 2005

I immediately thought "shill" too, but first impressions are often inaccurate. ("see the movie" did it for me, too)

Good post. I probably won't see the movie, but I appreciate the links.
posted by mrgrimm at 2:35 PM on June 7, 2005

To crunchland's point: What if after flagging, you got a note saying "Thanks. X users have flagged this post."?

It wouldn't tell you whether they were good or bad flags or whether the admins were going to do anything about it, but you would know that you were contributing something that would show up, if only in that basic way, for other people who cared.
posted by soyjoy at 2:39 PM on June 7, 2005

What if after flagging, you got a note saying "Thanks. X users have flagged this post."?


I'm afraid I'd start flagging posts just to see how many other people had flagged them.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 2:54 PM on June 7, 2005

What if after flagging, you got a note saying "Thanks. X users have flagged this post."?

There would be posts in Metatalk saying "wtf matt? 72 people don't like this comment and you haven't pulled it down yet?!"
posted by mathowie (staff) at 2:59 PM on June 7, 2005

Stop yapping & get back to work Haughey...
posted by i_cola at 3:38 PM on June 7, 2005

Since this has happened a few times recently, I wonder : do people who get upset about 'Pepsi Blue' check the user's post history? It seems a few times I have seen this called on people who have posted 57 comments and 5 posts and etc. I know that's not a failsafe indication that it's not Pepsi Blue, but it seems to make me feel less suspicious...
posted by Slothrop at 3:43 PM on June 7, 2005

"Why not flag the post or take it here instead of cluttering up the thread?"

Commie!
posted by mischief at 3:51 PM on June 7, 2005

Check the user's post history? Well, I admit, I sometimes do an extensive background search on each poster, including Google, DMV, IRS, scholastic, criminal, FBI, Homeland Security and Interpol records. I run probability studies on the likelihood of crimes, misdemeanors and sexual proclivities of all suspicious message writers, and I compile dossiers on the most heinous metafilter ones.

Or sometimes I just hover over their name and see how new their id is.

Or sometimes I don't even do that.
posted by crunchland at 4:02 PM on June 7, 2005

Checking out the user seems like a pretty mild first step when you have a problem with something they've posted. I would think it would come before flagging and certainly before MetaTalk. We are, after all, using a relatively emotionally flat medium. Context can be a good thing to have.
posted by OmieWise at 6:22 PM on June 7, 2005

That snarky comment is going right in your permanent record with me, crunchland!
posted by Slothrop at 6:24 PM on June 7, 2005

crunchland, please let me point out that my credit report is erroneous in the matter of the late payments on my Victoria's Secret card. That was all cleared up by transferring the charges to Slothrop.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 7:21 PM on June 7, 2005

Don't worry, he wouldn't have gotten past your user number...
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 7:27 PM on June 7, 2005

There would be posts in Metatalk saying "wtf matt? 72 people don't like this comment and you haven't pulled it down yet?!"
posted by mathowie at 2:59 PM PST on June 7 [!]

Yeah Matt, what the fuck's up with that?




BTW, I thought it was a pretty good post.
posted by sic at 6:23 AM on June 8, 2005

mathowie writes "There would be posts in Metatalk saying 'wtf matt? 72 people don't like this comment and you haven't pulled it down yet?!'"

Right. Instead the we should be able to see:

username has posted X links and Y comments to MetaFilter
and X threads and Y comments to MetaTalk
and X questions and Y answers to Ask MetaFilter
and flagged Z posts as "fantasic post/comment"
and flagged W posts as .... etc, etc, ad nauseum.
posted by terrapin at 8:44 AM on June 8, 2005

"wtf matt? 72 people don't like this comment and you haven't pulled it down yet?!"

Knowing Mefites, that's probably true, but just for accuracy, that would be groundless for what I'm proposing, since no one would know what the other flags were. But since when has lack of knowledge stopped anyone from posting here, right?
posted by soyjoy at 8:55 AM on June 8, 2005

Yes, those Sotheby's auctions function solely as extravagant, exclusionary diversions for the superrich. Despicable.
posted by gramschmidt at 12:33 PM on June 27, 2005