The truly beautiful thing there is that 'Dipnut', rather than being an epithet selected by Emerson to characterize his interlocutor, is the idiot in question's self-selected pseudonym. Self-knowledge will out.
I feel like Crooked Timber comment threads are a battle everyone loses. Even though Emerson is a truly talented commenter, his skills are wasted there.
Yeah, what's up with the CT comments? They really are horrid.
It's high profile, intellectually respectable, and very very left from an American point of view, while being unapologetic about it (have I mentioned my massive blog-crush on Daniel Davies? There's something about someone who can be that reasonable and that unpleasant simultaneously). Rightwingers find that threatening, and comment accordingly.
That's a generous take. You don't think they're (except for Kieran and Daniel) just too uptight and thin-skinned, which makes trolling there extra satisfying?
Part of it is, I think, that they (posters, and the reasonable habitual commenters at CT) think of themselves as running an intellectual discussion of issues, rather than partisan teambuilding (which I've got nothing against -- I love partisan teambuilding) so it's harder to not feed the trolls. Anyone who makes any kind of superficially reasonable argument gets engaged with, even when it's pretty clear that they're trolling. At that poin, everything goes straight to hell.
Well, at the risk of self-congratulation, I think CT could use more of what the apostropher described here.
Hm, I've been prone to explode in flaming righteousness over there, and I think grinning and patting idiots on the head wouldn't work at CT. The problem is that the idiots are thick on the ground as well as in the head, and they often express some really vile views. The first CT thread that I remember going to shit quick was one where Chris Bertram posted on a story about a working poor woman and said that it was a shame that anyone had to live like that in the US, and about a hundred helpful souls explained basically that the woman was an idiot and it was all her fault. Head-patting just won't work there.
Also, some of the conservatives at CT make some valuable points. Unfortunately, some of those also occasionally say fairly ridiculous things as well.
And really, Ogged, number 7 makes me want to ask if you're descended from the Shropshire or Dorsetshire Pot-Kettles.
Are you calling me thin-skinned? I'm hurt.
I'm largely with ogged on this one. The problem (if that's what it is) with CT is that every troll gets answered; this is magnified by the number of semi-regular commenters there. People go to CT for arguments and stay for the brawls. And, yeah, I agree that Healy and Davies are the most fun.
It remains an indispensable blog.
"Uptight" and "thin-skinned" are certainly the first words that leap to mind to describe John and Belle, I'll admit.
Sorry, sorry, you're right about that--I think of CT as the original CT crowd; I wasn't even thinking of John and Belle.
And I think the word I'm looking for is "humorless."
Crap, Barlow is also not humorless (looking at their author list now...)
Mm, that was snippier than I expected--just it seemed that not enough luv was being shown to our pals.
Right now all the front-page posts are by Henry, Chris, Kieran, John Quiggin, and the guest poster. Clicking through the last couple of pages, the CT posters definitely work in waves--Holbo's on p. 2 (and Ezster), Ted and Daniel dominate p. 3, but Henry's pretty much constant and perhaps sets the tone. Which is I think as LB and SCMT describe--scholarly, left, unapologetic, and not suffering trolls gladly.
I think the CT guys know the unfogged comments are better. Henry at CT had a post and I put put a http://www.fpri.org/enotes/20041101.middleeast.sageman.understandingterrornetworks.html "> link in the comments that I cribbed from Matt Yglesias. Henry doesn't click on the link in the comments for his own post (Why check out a link from the comments of CT?), but does check out the link when I post it here">http://www.unfogged.com/cgi-bin/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=2924#011494">here and does a new post.
Ha! Much as I'd like to believe that, I think the situation was anomalous, as Henry was probably only reading the comments here because the post linked to his post.
I agree that Unfogged's comments are better than Crooked Timber. In fact, I'm looking into some kind of fellowship that will allow me to devote all my time to keeping up with them.
ALL!
Whatever happened to the long-ago mentioned comments RSS feed, Ogged?
I see what you mean. Well, I didn't know enough about RSS at the time to have much of an opinion. But I'd be all over a post-with-comments RSS feed.
Let's not all start sucking each other's dicks just yet. [FN. Pulp Fiction] CT's comments turn so furious b/c of the earnestness of the people that read it. Earnestness seems in short supply in the haus, and, in any case, w-lfs-n's earnest correction of commenters earnest comments would kill that earnestness pretty quickly.
I'll look into it again. Currently, I'm not-doing w-lfs-n's recommended site search project.
You should just give me access to the machine the site's hosted on.
You should just give me access to the machine the site's hosted on.
Well, I don't have real access to it; just cpanel access to my own account. If you think that's sufficient, I'd be grateful.
I don't know what cpanel access involves.
My guess is: not enough. I'll talk to my hosting people.
OMG! You're giving w-lfs-n access to the back-end of the site. Did you never see Tron? Must we learn the inherent danger of ceding too much to the Master Control Program again?
Through the pipes, straight to your living room.
Apostropher, try this one:
http://www.unfogged.com/comments.xml
Waddya thinK? What would you change?
What would you change?
I would make me funnier. But overall, that's loverly. Thank you, kind sir.
I don't think the CT problem is trolls, precisely. The first half of this LB comment, however, strikes me as excatly corrrect:
Part of it is, I think, that they (posters, and the reasonable habitual commenters at CT) think of themselves as running an intellectual discussion of issues, rather than partisan teambuilding
Right! And it's very hard to run intellectual discussions without shared assumptions or (failing that) extensive ground-clearing. Half teambuilding and half disspassionate academic analysis isn't a stable mix.
But overall, that's loverly. Thank you, kind sir.
I'll probably keep messing with it a bit, just so's you know.
Like taking out the timestamps, for example...
Waddya thinK?
Actually, it doesn't appear to update the comments after the first time the post is downloaded, though that may be on Thunderbird's end rather than yours.
I was just about to mention those. Also, is there a way to get the links to show up (aside from the signatures)? Wouldn't want to miss any gems.
Otherwise, it's great.
Apo, right, in my reader (newsgator), I get a new entry every time there's a new comment. That's one reason I wouldn't use this. But if your reader never updates, that's another problem. Ideally, you'd want to see that it's updated, without a new entry being created; I think that depends on the software you're using. (You can see why I didn't pursue this.)
eb, I'll take a look at that.
Also, I don't think my car is shifting into fourth gear, causing the engine to really tach up really high once you get much above 40 mph. Could you do something about that, too? I'm going deaf trying to drown it out with the stereo.
Commenting while driving can't be very safe. At first, I thought it would be illegal in some states as well, and it might be under a general reckless driving law. But the interesting part (if any of this is interesting) is that, at least under New York State's law for driving while using a cell phone, it specifically says that you have to be either making a voice call or holding the phone close enough to your ear to hear a voice call, in order to violate the law.
Are you commenting while driving?! That must be a first! Woohoo!
Are you commenting while driving?
Uh, no. That's just a general complaint about the car.
It is healthy, I shall come on your site more often, thank.
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