There is always 1 guy in the 13,000 of you... November 16, 2001 5:05 AM   Subscribe

It's things like this that make me reluctant to continue posting to MeFi. (see inside for more)
posted by plinth to Etiquette/Policy at 5:05 AM (50 comments total)

flame:
See, I know that there are nearly 13,000 members on MeFi (although I have no idea how many are active), and in a group of that size at least one person will knee-jerk respond to a lot of the posts, but I'm getting really tired of seeing it.

I like MeFi. I like the format. I like the notion. It's hard to avoid thinking that those who immediately post a derisive remark are doing it for any other reason than glee. I see this in my 7th grade students. I don't want to see it in such preponderance here.

I always have had and will continue to have respect for Matt for managing this herd of kittens. Perhaps I need to learn how to shrug, because I don't want to get driven off by infantile behavior.

The fault, dear MeFi, lies not in our stars, but in ourselves that we are underlings.

posted by plinth at 5:13 AM on November 16, 2001


But plinth, you posted a link to a Yahoo! News! article, which in and of itself is to one degree or another (depending on who you talk to) inappropriate for Metafilter, and not only that, you did it as one great big href link, with no explanatory text whatsoever, which is generally agreed by all to be annoying and contrary to the guidelines for post format suggested by Matt on the very page, in living colour, where one composes a Front Page Post.

I think you doth protesteth too much, my good man.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:18 AM on November 16, 2001


just for the record, i was not posting under the influence of glee
posted by sawks at 5:31 AM on November 16, 2001


Well, you know, if you have to explain the joke...
posted by plinth at 5:33 AM on November 16, 2001


...then you probably shouldn't have told it.
posted by luser at 5:45 AM on November 16, 2001


I think that posting like this:

I am too Krusty the Clown^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HRobert DeNiro!

rather than, say, this:

I am too Krusty the Clown Robert DeNiro!

rubbed people the wrong way and made them cranky. All those ^Hs on the front page, it's just not purty.

Joke's not that funny, btw.
posted by mcwetboy at 5:46 AM on November 16, 2001


It's things like this that make me reluctant to continue posting to MeFi.

If you can't handle negative feedback, don't post links to MetaFilter. As you should know by now, it comes with the territory.

Along those lines, I didn't get the Krusty/DeNiro joke, the wire story you linked to was boring, and you should have Googled the impersonator's name and included a link to one of his photos. I think a little derision is warranted.
posted by rcade at 5:59 AM on November 16, 2001


I thought plinth's post was both interesting and inspiring. The format was fun. And the "too Krusty" tag which ParisParamus didn't get - he that always gets everything - is witty. I interpreted it to mean something like "too Jewish" or "too close for comfort". I.e., that it's silly to try to imitate others but even more stupid to exagerate their mannerisms.
Mainly though I think that new posts need time to breath - shouting them down at the very beginning jinxes them. Jpoulos and I did it yesterday, unwittingly, on the Scalia thread and were mercifully deleted. So no holier-than-thou attitude here. Plinth is absolutely right to protest, IMO.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 6:07 AM on November 16, 2001


Wrong. Sorry Miguel, but wrong. Bad post, bad format, not worth the time.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:18 AM on November 16, 2001


I interpreted it to mean something like "too Jewish"

Miguel -- what are you talking about? I think it was a Simpsons joke. Like, someone on the Simpsons once impersonated Krusty the Clown.

Maybe the reason you are defending the post is because your interpretation was a lot funnier than a Simpsons reference.
posted by Mid at 6:44 AM on November 16, 2001


Interesting set of follow-ups.

stavros, Miguel is neither wrong nor right. He was expressing an opinion. As were you.

I don't mind that people don't care for my posts. I do mind the pervasive cretinous knee-jerk follow-ups (eg, accusations of the inability to use a search engine before posting, double posting, not crediting, dumb post, inappropriate post).

As I said in the comments in the thread, there are real people at the other end. I appreciate courtesy and I assume that other people do as well.

The ^H's don't work on narrow windows in this post. *shrug* It's not visible in the preview and had I the ability to edit, I would.
posted by plinth at 6:47 AM on November 16, 2001


I am too crusty to care. But two shots at using Shakespeare as ammunition? Ha!

Lets see:

> The fault, dear MeFi, lies not in our stars, but in
> ourselves that we are underlings.

Not bad. He even got the quotation right (with Brutus swapped for MeFi, of course).

and

> I think you doth protesteth too much

He missed the original -- "The lady protests too much, methinks." -- by a bit, but he gets credit for recognizing the first quotation and throwing one back.


posted by pracowity at 6:48 AM on November 16, 2001


That was pretty annoying - I refreshed the page 5 or 6 times, thinking that the page was broken, when in reality, the width of that ^H crap just pushed the rest of the page down below the end of the sidebar. I guess thats what I get for not browsing with my window maximized....
posted by skwm at 6:51 AM PST on November 16

plinth: This, I think, is a constructive critical comment, well expressed. skwm registers his protest but also contributes a concrete example, of use to others, and ends on a self-deprecating, ironic note.



posted by MiguelCardoso at 6:57 AM on November 16, 2001


also the ^H breaks the MeFi RSS feed on my portal. boo, hiss.
posted by nedrichards at 7:10 AM on November 16, 2001


I still don't get the ^H thing. What was he trying to do?
posted by jpoulos at 7:31 AM on November 16, 2001


That's = HaHaHaHa, I think, jpoulos.

I've actually just gone and looked at the thread a few hours later and found that it's spawned a quite neato discussion (by my lights, at least), which totally goes against my earlier arguments, in a way.
But, This Is The Beauty Of Metafilter. A crap post (and let's call a spade a spade, it was a crap post) has spawned an interesting thread, thanks to the humour and creativity and wooohooo energy of the folks who 'live here'.
I'm not going to take back my criticisms of plinth's post, but shit hell and damn, it's turned out OK.
And youa know : it usually does turn out OK here, and that's why (I, me, it's all about me) I love this place, and love all you folks too.

Well, most of ya's, anyway.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 7:42 AM on November 16, 2001


jpoulos: it's a technical thing, OK? :)
posted by MiguelCardoso at 7:44 AM on November 16, 2001


I still don't get the ^H thing. What was he trying to do?

Ctrl-H deletes the character to the left of the cursor in Emacs, and when you type those same characters in some other mode, you see ^H. Thus, ^H means "imagine that I just deleted the character before this one" and all those characters indicated that you were supposed to read "Krusty the Clown" as being under erasure, as you would if it had been Krusty the Clown. It's a common trope in some circles--you see it a lot on Slashdot, for example.
posted by redfoxtail at 7:56 AM on November 16, 2001


D'oh. I got it wrong. I am anti-1337.

Thanks redfoxtail for clarifying.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 8:03 AM on November 16, 2001


Although with the amount of ^H's, he would have ended up with "I too Robert Deniro". Yet another reason why he should have limited the number of ^H's. ;)
posted by skwm at 8:06 AM on November 16, 2001


I dunno. I found the ^H thing hilarious, but mainly because I remember them. But frankly, that kind of thing tends to go over best at say, Slashdot(as Red said) or least with precedence. Too large a number of people on the net now have never actually seen control codes, had to argue the merits of Ymodem vs. Zmodem or anything remotely that low-level.

Ned: I'm curious about it breaking the RSS feed. Do you mean it screws up the formatting, or does it actually mess with the feed?

I agree with Stavros, though. The thread has actually managed to turn itself around after the initial bitchiness.
posted by Su at 8:13 AM on November 16, 2001


Although with the amount of ^H's, he would have ended up with "I too Robert Deniro".

<pedant>Nope. It would, in fact, be "I am too Robert DeNiro!" As far as mechanics go, it was perfectly correct.</pedant>

And once again, I contribute only to questions of syntax and semantics, entirely bypassing meaningful content.
posted by redfoxtail at 8:19 AM on November 16, 2001


But it just seems that people are too willing to jump all over someone because it violates some guideline. How about a little restraint? It wasn't the best link in the world, but it wasn't the worst. Why the rush to pigpile on him?
posted by solistrato at 8:28 AM on November 16, 2001


The thread has actually managed to turn itself around after the initial bitchiness.

Anthropomorphic threads! Great lumbering Frankensteinian threads, lurching from the castle with ^H^H^Hs stitched across their foreheads! Aieeeee!

D'oh. I got it wrong. I am anti-1337.

Wow - that makes me anti-anti-1337, and therefore, 1337! Kewlies!

I suppose I should have been less opaque in my comment about using strike tags back at the start of the thread. Didn't think to elaborate, since I was mainly responding to heimkonsole's calling-out of plinth.

Still: 'I am too Krusty the ClownHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHaHa-HaHaHaHaHaHaHaRobert DeNiro'? No wonder it was getting some weird responses.
posted by rory at 8:49 AM on November 16, 2001


No no, this is 1377. 1337 is the thread about the updated posts browser caching problem.
posted by moss at 9:58 AM on November 16, 2001


I just cleaned up the link description, then removed every metacommentary comment.

Go look at it again, it's actually a fine thread now. See? It is possible to have perfectly normal conversations if you're not ripping on people all the time.

I think the culprit was the first comment. I've noticed a lot of bad first comments lately, and they destroy threads. I would bet most people followed the link, knew the simpsons reference, and muttered a short "heh" under their breath. But if they went into the thread, and saw one comment saying "Learn how to post" the thread goes snarky as people dogpile on the poster for ten comments or so.

I should have raised this point earlier, but yesterday I deleted three bad comments, all in the first or second positions on threads. They were along the lines of "oh man, this thread will be ugly, I know it" and I'm glad I axed them because they could have been the kisses of death. Why feel the need to claim a thread is a failure before it starts?

All I'm saying is be careful with those first comments, they set the tone of the thread and can easily ruin a good thing.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 10:22 AM on November 16, 2001


Not to put too fine a point on it, but an apology to plinth - now that his intention is visible - would not go amiss. I, for one, emailed him immediately saying how I'd appreciated his post and his reply came back with a whole lot of strange-looking characters, breaks and unrecognizable tags. So it was a technical thing, i.e., absolutely no graphic abuse or bandwidth contempt.
Perhaps there's a case for OS and browser tolerance? I wouldn't know, being illiterate. I do know, however, that appearances mislead and often throw us off track. Anything too easily miscontrued is probably our mistake, I guess is what I'm learning.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 10:36 AM on November 16, 2001


Excellent decision Matt, but....... could we get a strikethru? The link text makes little sense as is.
posted by y6y6y6 at 10:39 AM on November 16, 2001


Point taken, Matt. As one of those whose comment saw the ax yesterday, mea culpa.
posted by jpoulos at 11:20 AM on November 16, 2001


And thanks for the ^H info. Although, I'm pretty sure that the UNIX cops will be revoking my license (actually, I guess it's just a learner's permit) any minute now.
posted by jpoulos at 11:33 AM on November 16, 2001


im glad i was in jail for i would have just spewed on this one....the thread is fine as matt said. the H stuff seems an error? we make them, unfortunately matt has to clean them up. i feel one must know the mechanics of posting as well as content with link. there are a few exceptions which i feel is fine if taken with stride. My uncle was an ole radio school fellow, did local news on the 'teevee' when it was live. Made two mistakes in 7 years. also being a journalist, he said that news pretraining to famous people, especially movie stars is, well, news. hence i feel the story valid for MeFi front, and was actually good reading.(we all like to see charlatans caught riding others coat-tails, makes good copy.)
posted by clavdivs at 11:47 AM on November 16, 2001


I'm just glad he didn't use ^G, or else I'd have to imagine a long series of beeps coming from the PC Speaker.

Ahh, BBSs.

posted by Hildago at 11:48 AM on November 16, 2001


you want newbie?. i posted some 3 line dude then posted same stuff 7 minutes later and then an another comment to cover up the fact...what was i doing for seven minutes?...oh, made a comment , did i say that?...very telling. matt cleaned it up and left the first comment in. thats integrity versus newbie stupidity. another reason im waiting to post the front page.
posted by clavdivs at 11:53 AM on November 16, 2001


I love this place, and love all you folks too.

Well, most of ya's, anyway.




I just cleaned up the link description, then removed every metacommentary comment.


stavrosthewonderchicken mathowie, I don't use the word "hero" very often, but you are the greatest hero in American history.
posted by y2karl at 11:53 AM on November 16, 2001


y2karl, why did you do that?

mathowie: All I'm saying is be careful with those first comments, they set the tone of the thread and can easily ruin a good thing.

I think this would be a good addition to the guidelines.
posted by gleemax at 5:00 PM on November 16, 2001


and the award for best new verb goes to: [drumroll]

solistrato for pigpile!!!
posted by signal at 5:19 PM on November 16, 2001


Actually, gleemax, I meant it, even if I did use a Lionel Hutz line I've been dying to overuse: meant it about the way Matt cleaned up the link, metacommentary, my comment there in particular. and, by extension, his comment here--like that part you quoted. And I liked what Stavros said, too. Although I should have worked on the damn thing awhile more.
posted by y2karl at 5:27 PM on November 16, 2001


I meant why did you make your entire post bold and italic. I guess it might only be happening in Opera (6.0 beta 1).
posted by gleemax at 5:33 PM on November 16, 2001


not sure anymore..
posted by y2karl at 6:00 PM on November 16, 2001


"im glad i was in jail for i would have just spewed on this one...."

clav was in jail?!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:46 PM on November 16, 2001


Caught dancing with a mailman again eh Clav?
posted by Kafkaesque at 7:07 PM on November 16, 2001


only a story for you my dear K. i miss your stuff man, come on, front page-both barrels. funny thing, i got a ticket yesterday. one of those fix the cracked windsheild for your fined mister. Eldest daughter clipped 10$ from moms wallet(we think) damn near broke. i get pissed at any chomsky thread. I NEED CHEERING UP.
posted by clavdivs at 7:27 AM on November 17, 2001


Dunno if this will work for you, clavdivs, but it did wonders for me: rayparkerjr.com. Suddenly everything seems clearer; there is a guiding force to the universe.
posted by gleuschk at 8:05 AM on November 17, 2001


that did it wheres me burroughs:)
posted by clavdivs at 8:45 AM on November 17, 2001


I'm surprised about the errors coming the e-mail--it was sent via elm. I didn't do anything other than put in a 'thanks'...

The ^H is indeed a reference to in improperly configured shell (eg, forgot to do a 'stty erase ^H'), the goal to let you see what was going on in my imaginativetwisted mind as I put in the entry.

It's akin to something like, "Yes, I did meet Orson Welles. He was one of the biggest assholeshumanitarians I've ever had the displeasure of meeting".

Interesting point of trivia, IIRC, it is not possible to commit slander or libel against someone who is dead (hence the choice of Orson Welles in the previous paragraph).

Matt, I appreciate the judicious application of the Ministry of Truth to my post, and although I wasn't happy with the way the thread turned initially, I am quite pleased with the ensuing dialog there and here.

posted by plinth at 10:50 AM on November 17, 2001


feelinglikeIshouldgiveallthisupandliveinthetrees
posted by feelinglistless at 11:43 AM on November 17, 2001


clavdivs and feelinglistless: this little film reminded me of you. "Down" it's called. The others no, but they're all sweet. From some probably very famous site called Paradox which I chanced on during my travels. CHEER UP you two! :)
posted by MiguelCardoso at 11:52 AM on November 17, 2001


CHEER UP you two!

I supposed to be feeling listless otherwise my nickname doesn't work ... unless anyone's got any better ideas ... (nice film!)
posted by feelinglistless at 12:15 PM on November 17, 2001


I'm supposed to be able to type propre inglish too...
posted by feelinglistless at 12:22 PM on November 17, 2001


takin me spell bad maker yes listless feeling? [pretty cool miguel, thanks.)
posted by clavdivs at 7:12 AM on November 18, 2001


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