I have no idea what I am clicking on and I don't like it.

September 9, 2002 6:05 AM

Descriptive posting.

Perhaps this is just me, but I find posts crop up fairly frequently on metafilter with little or no indication within the post of what the linked site actually contains. Clicking links on the half-chance they are going to take you somewhere of interest is a little frustrating - I know it makes me a lot less inclined to follow the link at all - and as a result I'm possibly missing out.

Not to mention numerous accessibility issues, isn't it simply bad practice?

Apologies for not linking to any example posts - I'm not feeling at all confrontational today. No apologies if this has been discussed before - it seems to be an issue, and I think therefore worth discussing again.

posted by nthdegx to Etiquette/Policy at 6:05 AM (10 comments total)

We can't dictate the posting styles, well not as much as we'd like. That being said, there have been numerous threads that have had non-descriptive links, which I have thoroughly enjoyed, and there are many where the main post didn't explain the link, and I wasn't interested enough to click through. Many times I find that a non-descriptive post contains a link to a page that's vague, and I usually have to wait for a couple of comments to understand what it's all about.
posted by riffola at 6:13 AM on September 9, 2002

Chilling.
posted by PrinceValium at 6:19 AM on September 9, 2002

Brought this up 10 months ago; apparently can still taste it.
posted by mcwetboy at 6:21 AM on September 9, 2002

Non-descriptive posts encourage double posts.
posted by mcwetboy at 6:24 AM on September 9, 2002

short, simple, succinct = wows, worthwhile, wonderful
posted by thomcatspike at 6:29 AM on September 9, 2002

brought up two years ago as well. Might be something I could add to the guidelines or posting page, but it's hard to describe a general guideline as there should be some balance between descriptive and interesting.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 8:05 AM on September 9, 2002

A karma point system is the only possible solution to this.
posted by internook at 9:52 AM on September 9, 2002

Actually, what prompted this was a nifty post which was just the perfect thing for my lunch hour... buckets of rain were coming down and this suited my mood. Now this is by no means one of the worst instances of this kind I've seen - the post at least contains a clue - but it is exactly the kind of post I would usually pass over.

I'm not suggesting we cramp anyone's style or creativity. Cryptic links are fine by me. However, I am against lazy minimalism - of which I have seen plenty of examples - three or four word posts, even.
posted by nthdegx at 9:58 AM on September 9, 2002

I have seen karma point systems at other sites and, for the life of me, don't understand their purpose. Help me understand, internook. You could be making a joke or you could be serious and I would never know.
posted by Joey Michaels at 12:08 PM on September 9, 2002

Karma is used by some sites to filter comments based on quality. This is called moderation. The term karma comes from Slashcode, here is a description of moderation from slashdot. Other sites use moderation that is not called karma, Kuro5hin.org uses a different system called Mojo. Moderation helps people filter out the garbage, some slashdot posts get over 1000 comments, and they almost always exceed 100, this is too many to read, so people have to rely on each other to see what is worth reading.

Many people, including me, are opposed to moderation on Metafilter, because it would change what the site is. There are already moderated discussion sites that many metafilter-people go to, we come here for something else. A flat discussion with this many people is somewhat unique, and has its own benefits.
posted by rhyax at 9:32 PM on September 9, 2002