Turned off by posts which have more than two or three links in them January 9, 2002 4:17 PM   Subscribe

Am I the only person turned off by posts which have more than two or three links in them? Usually one of the links is the actual story or the meat of the post and the rest are just links for the sake of linking. I call this disease Memepoolitus.
posted by skallas to MetaFilter-Related at 4:17 PM (22 comments total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: Poster's Request -- frimble



I agree. No memepool style links please.

posted by phatboy at 4:38 PM on January 9, 2002


I call this disease Memepoolitus.

I see. I think that resources are good, but arbitrary linking (a la disney.com) is bad. I also think that taking up space is bad. So, I think that a few concise links directly related to the topic and clearly identified (title tag?) is good. Also if the links provide information and take up very little space, that's good. If you've got a lot of links, putting them in a post right inside the thread is good.

Tamim's post still rocks my world
posted by j.edwards at 4:54 PM on January 9, 2002


It's a web site. Saying a section of text on a web page has too many links sounds the same as saying a song has too many notes. To me, quantity is irrelevant - it's the organization and context that counts.
posted by dchase at 5:31 PM on January 9, 2002


Can we at least agree that Joni Mitchell songs have too many words? I think a lot of this is solved if people would just add title tags to posts with a lot of links. Perhaps the link toobar could have that as a seperate field in the HREF pop-up.
posted by machaus at 5:36 PM on January 9, 2002


I call this disease Memepoolitus.
You would know! I agree though, more links make me less inclined to follow.
posted by thirteen at 6:09 PM on January 9, 2002


What a blatant conflict of interest! You clearly need to recuse yourself, skallas...

...and I claim dibs on having coined the term memepoolitus before you. Neener.
posted by MrBaliHai at 7:06 PM on January 9, 2002


I agree that memepool-style links don't seem quite right for MetaFilter, but I think it's more a matter of posting style than of quantity alone.

Liam's wonderful Wittgenstein post the other day had seven links in it, but it also had one central link at the beginning and a clear guiding theme. The extra links, rather than distracting from it, made it stronger.

In contrast, the Disney Toontown post, though it's a good topic and a good link, is rather hard to follow. It's not initially clear which link is central (there is a central link--Toontown--but it's not the first link, nor is it a particularly long one), and it's not clear what the other links lead to. For me, one big cause of confusion is when people make every word in a phrase into a different link. Ideally, each link should have a clear purpose even before the reader follows it.

On the other hand, I've seen obscure links used very well sometimes--most often to add a humorous subtext to an otherwise innocent phrase--and even massively excessive numbers of links can sometimes be entertaining. Still, I suspect as a general rule it's best to avoid overly linky posts unless you're sure you've used every link well.
posted by moss at 7:06 PM on January 9, 2002


I don't care if there are a lot of links if every link has a purpose. It's especially nice when it's made clear which links are important and which are for background info, etc.
posted by gleemax at 7:19 PM on January 9, 2002


To me, the Web used to be all about links. I would follow every single one, in every post, and every single link on those pages, and so on, and so on...

Then I hit this link, and now I don't know what to do.

posted by mr_crash_davis at 8:41 PM on January 9, 2002


I never read the bloody links, anyway...

(ducks barrage of rocks and garbage)

Joke! Honest!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 8:46 PM on January 9, 2002


I feel overwhelmed looking at the sheer volume of FPP's per day. And then when each of them have 4 or 5 self serving links, I usually just follow stavros' lead.
posted by insomnyuk at 9:16 PM on January 9, 2002


Yeah! *jumping on the bandwagon*

Links suck!
posted by ColdChef at 9:29 PM on January 9, 2002


Hoo! I'm glad someone mentioned this. Actually, I love the links, I just never have time to read them all. If a post has too many links, sometimes I'll think "this looks great, but no time. I'll have to come back later."

And then there never is time...
posted by Badmichelle at 11:11 PM on January 9, 2002


Yes. Links are a drag.
Your much more efficient clone is rapidly congealing in a pool of embryonic fluid somewhere in Virginia right now.
Maybe giving away your DNA just for that lousy flu shot that didn't do anything but make you sick anyway probably wasn't that smart.

posted by dong_resin at 1:56 AM on January 10, 2002


The secret password is not Harry Reasoner .
posted by dong_resin at 1:58 AM on January 10, 2002


There can be too much Lincoln, bordering on the Linquacious. (But thanks moss).
posted by liam at 2:00 AM on January 10, 2002


dong_resin: your subliminable (spelling error on purpose) messages do nothing to me!
posted by insomnyuk at 6:50 AM on January 10, 2002


I totally agree with Moss. Recently, many FPP looked that's better suited on Memepool, but as long as this FPP is well built and informative (and not just junk food), it's okay with me.
posted by XiBe at 8:20 AM on January 10, 2002


I think there should be no links on the web. It really just distracts me from the content I'm interested in.
posted by rich at 10:01 AM on January 10, 2002


This "link' thing you speak of, what is it exactly?
posted by UncleFes at 10:07 AM on January 10, 2002


could be anything. ... Possibly a very mediocre game show?
posted by mattpfeff at 12:00 PM on January 10, 2002


I think the problem is not so much 'too many links' as 'poorly written/structured posts' and 'completely irrelevant links'. If a post is well-written then having more than 1 link shouldn't be a problem.

(btw: sorry to be pedantic, but shouldn't it be 'memepoolitis'?)
posted by eoz at 6:23 PM on January 10, 2002


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