My friend's EBay auction is probably not a good subject for a post.

August 13, 2003 1:47 PM

My friend's EBay auction is probably not a good subject for a post.
posted by mr_crash_davis to Etiquette/Policy at 1:47 PM (38 comments total)

I tend to agree, this may not be a self-link but it seems to be within the same "promo-post" spirit.
posted by Salmonberry at 1:51 PM on August 13, 2003

Or, if you ask me, it's just a boring link in general.
posted by angry modem at 1:52 PM on August 13, 2003

yeah, why couldn't the post be about something cool, like super sticky post-it notes?
posted by crunchland at 1:54 PM on August 13, 2003

If it doesn't get deleted, I'm linking to my folks' Nova Scotia vacation photos.
posted by Mayor Curley at 1:54 PM on August 13, 2003

crunchland, now that you mention it the post-it post was weird, as well as the one about the google calculator (I mean, linking to google! What's the point???).
posted by 111 at 2:05 PM on August 13, 2003

The point is ... we have calculators.
posted by WolfDaddy at 2:13 PM on August 13, 2003

eBay, Post-Its & Google. All pretty crappy. Today's threads I mean. I'd never diss Google.

In happier news, you'll all be pleased to know that Coventry City won tonight.
posted by i_cola at 2:18 PM on August 13, 2003

Yes, but for the beautiful lounge suite, Karl Marx wants to know in what year Coventry City won the FA Cup.
posted by scody at 3:02 PM on August 13, 2003

WolfDaddy, that may be the only time I've laughed at one of those jokes. Congrats.
posted by NortonDC at 3:07 PM on August 13, 2003

It's a trick question! Coventry City have never won the FA Cup!
posted by Mayor Curley at 3:08 PM on August 13, 2003

Nova Scotia vacation photos

*shifts in chair, crosses legs*
posted by quonsar at 3:14 PM on August 13, 2003

I dunno, I thought it had an interesting hook (using e-bay to make a protest).

*ducks*

But it would have been a lot better with some context - political? economic? climatological? It seems there's a bunch of people down in Florida who feel they're being crapped on by the gubmint and the weather, and some background on the issues would have been useful. But as it is, from the original post, I had no idea.
posted by carter at 3:22 PM on August 13, 2003

I dunno, I thought it had an interesting hook (using e-bay to make a protest).

Yeah! Water sucks!


Just a little personal note:
I used to live just south of Pasco county. The area has been in a severe drought for several years and is just now coming out of it. I think in the interim people built in a lot of places that ended up being too close to the water table, but which hadn't flooded in a decade.

Now they're stuck with the proverbial swampland.

As an example, when my family moved to the area in 1985 there were a series of canals through the nearby subdivisions where the current water level was 15 feet below the former average water level. Those canals were basically dry gullies for nearly 20 years. I went driving through the same area this past year and the water was back up to the canal edge. I imagine there are a lot of people that tried building too close to the edge of a lake and are now paying the consequences.
posted by bshort at 4:23 PM on August 13, 2003

the Stickies promotional launch post made me wonder whether some 3M marketer had somehow bought a MeFi account. Just about the most boring post I've ever seen.
posted by scarabic at 4:39 PM on August 13, 2003

bshort - if alas had used the eBay auction link as a supplement to a larger post about the issues you're discussing, it would have contributed some levity to an interesting subject.
posted by scarabic at 4:40 PM on August 13, 2003

But it would have been a lot better with some context - political? economic? climatological?

IMNSHO: No. If the link itself is boring, you could add the friggin Encyclopaedia Britannica as "context" and only succeed in making it even more boring.
posted by signal at 5:04 PM on August 13, 2003

the stickies post was lame, but the comments were pretty good (the rodeo orange ad made it work).
posted by mathowie (staff) at 5:22 PM on August 13, 2003

See, we're all skirting around the subject real subject of this MeTa; namely, "what makes a good MeFi post".

The problem with this post (besides the self-link) was that it didn't have anything to say. There was no real viewpoint espoused by either the link or the post, which made for a very uninteresting combination.

And the thing is, posts don't have to make grand statements (witness the recent post on the relationship between P.I.E. and Hittite), but it does help if the poster is trying to share something of worth, whether it be a philosophy, a pretty flash tool, or a funny site that they found on the IntarWeb.

But this was just some guy sharing an eBay auction...that his friend put up.

This poor, deleted post was really a missed opportunity to talk about things like depressed water tables, global warming, saltwater intrusion, alligator encounters and maybe even water management in general.

Which is really too bad.
posted by bshort at 5:28 PM on August 13, 2003

I hear/read the term "Intarweb" here a lot, and I always wonder what the origin of it is? Why not say Internet? Is the point to make some distinction?
posted by jonson at 8:59 PM on August 13, 2003

jonson, while it's hard to track the origin of the word, this Urban Dictionary definition of intarweb might help.
posted by riffola at 9:20 PM on August 13, 2003

jonson: I hear/read the term "Intarweb" here a lot, and I always wonder what the origin of it is?

see intarweb "in-tar-webb"
see also...Intarweb+Koko=Perfect
posted by gen at 11:07 PM on August 13, 2003

phew. for a second there, i thought we were gonna tell him what it really means.
posted by quonsar at 12:35 AM on August 14, 2003

skirting around the subject

That phrase is so sexist! ;-P
posted by mischief at 1:49 AM on August 14, 2003

im sure coventry won the fa cup , in other news , celtic progress to the group phase of the champions league
posted by sgt.serenity at 3:49 AM on August 14, 2003

didn't coventry beat mabbutt et al. back in 1991.
posted by johnnyboy at 4:30 AM on August 14, 2003

Coventry beat Spurs 3-2 in the '87 Final

'91 was Spurs/Forest

I'll shut up now
posted by monkey closet at 6:25 AM on August 14, 2003

Pur-leese. 'twas 1987. There's even a magazine named after Mr Mabbutt's match-winning limb.

I remember a news story at the time that pointed out that the Monty Python sketch was no longer true.

For any USians wanting to get extra cred points, it's worth pointing out that Middlesborough are the only Premiership team not to have won the FA Cup, next time you're Pythoning.
posted by i_cola at 6:26 AM on August 14, 2003

... and that Hull City are the only football league team with no letters you can colour in (unless you do big girly bobbly dots on your i's)
posted by monkey closet at 6:30 AM on August 14, 2003

oh yeah the gazza final, sorry chaps.
posted by johnnyboy at 6:39 AM on August 14, 2003

Spurs are by the way the only league club who's name ends in r (tottenham hotspur), useless piece of trivia.
posted by johnnyboy at 6:46 AM on August 14, 2003

I always thought "interweb" was derived from Cliff Yablonski's rants over at Something Awful. He used to say it all the time as part of his angry, out-of-touch old man persona ("God dang them kids and their new-fangled 'motorcars' and their 'interweb', and such"). Was it around before then?
posted by dhoyt at 6:53 AM on August 14, 2003

The term "interweb" pokes fun at people who think the Internet and the Web are the same thing. They are dumb dummies because they utterly fail to understand obscure technical distinctions that don't actually have any bearing on anything they do on the Internet. "Intarweb" arose because obviously all dumb people talk with Southern accents.
posted by kindall at 10:22 AM on August 14, 2003

Thanks, Kindall. Now if only someone could explain why it grates on me so...
posted by jonson at 10:35 AM on August 14, 2003

For any USians wanting to get extra cred points, it's worth pointing out that Middlesborough are the only Premiership team not to have won the FA Cup

That's very nice of you i_cola, but Birmingham haven't won it either.

I know, I know, take it to Sportsfilter
posted by squealy at 11:37 AM on August 14, 2003

*heh* Good point. I'm still coming to terms with the bizarre concept of Brum in the top flight.
posted by i_cola at 1:35 PM on August 14, 2003

Please don't discuss cricket here.
posted by rocketman at 1:52 PM on August 14, 2003

_{goddamn furriners}
posted by Dagobert at 1:05 AM on August 15, 2003

*cricket*
posted by i_cola at 2:00 AM on August 15, 2003