Yes. I sat and read the MeTa thread last night (first time I've read Mefi in months) and followed a few links. Full disclosure and transparency aside, GiveWell looks dodgy.
i read it after being prompted by wendell, and it's just about the best thread since daisy may. it also reaffirmed why in my world m*fi will always contain an o, not an e.
I've been following this for a couple of days now...
As the ED of a NPO, this has been fascinating... Holden and his group give everyone in the nonprofit sector a bad name...
My opinion is that the folks at Metafilter handled this well...
es el Queso, what is it about this that you objected to? Just curious.
too big of a pond for me, it attracts too much flotsam. so much going on, it's hard to keep up with it all... and i don't like the idea of paying to be part of a discussion. most of all, i just lubs youse monkeys. and maybe i like stirring up a little rivalry, sue me.
Almost makes me wish I had five bucks to give away to somebody.
I have to admit, every time I actually bother to read the comments on a Mefi thread, I cringe at the level of vitriol and general asshattery. Some threads (like that one) are great, but 99% of them... yikes.
Plus, we're way cooler than them.
There are 1143 comments in that thread.
I wouldn't read a thread with that many comments even if it involved supermodels discussing their competing levels of sexual awe and gratitude for me.
Didn't Daisy May eventually earn that many comments here?
I have to admit sneaking over there to read a few threads in the last little while, just because things are so damn quiet around here lately. And when I saw a few familliar names, I thought of joining -- like how you don't want to go to your first grade nine dance until you know that some of your friends are going to be there. But anyway...
I only read about the first quarter of the thread. Personally, I couldn't care less about what the guy was doing. I'm much too jaded to be either surprised or outraged. What got me, though, was how self-important the tone was. 'You poked the tiger.' 'When we tell the New York Times, we're gonna get you shut down.' 'Have we put him out of business yet?' C'mon. Not to defend the guy, but what was the guy's "crime"? Agressive self-promotion. Self-linkery. Say to someone in the real world that someone was a self-linker, and they think you called him a masturbator. They're most likely disgusted that you care to raise the topic with them, much less discuss buddy's habits.
But that's just me. I don't care for anyone who takes themselves too seriously, and that thread was just full of it. Plus, it had a cast of thousands, and I couldn't keep them all straight in my walnut-sized brain.
YMMV. Whatever. I won't be jumping ship. You're stuck with me, baby. 'Til the death of MoFi do us part.
one thing i think we can all agree on: don't get on Miko's bad side. talk about handing someone their hat!
I mean This. I guess my New Years Resolution is to learn how to Post.
I don't get the anti-Blue vibe.
It's the mothership.
No blue, no you.
Banana breath.
Ah, yes...
MonkeyFilter: competing levels of sexual awe and gratitude
*wonders if a supermodel could actually craft 1143 posts about her lust for bernockle*
*throws blue poo at monkeys*
Pants-Man - :) Thank you. I abandoned MoFi (thank to es el Queso for that moniker!) for exactly that reason. I want my $5 and thousands of clicks and keystrokes back.
Back in the early 90s there was a BBS called "Heinous" that was run by someone whose behavior and personality was very befitting of the BBS's name. It attracted an almost identical crowd of self-important, self-righteous, tunnel visioned weirdos that seemed interesting at first but who ultimately prove John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory. es el Queso's comment that it's just too large to keep track of is largely responsible for that. It's a victim of it's own success. Just like any organization that gets too big, ultimately it is weighed down by bureaucracy, bickering, and a 400 pound gorilla level of resistance to change.
I appreciated the blue for a long time, but then again, I'm a smug jerk-ass that lives in San Francisco, once voted for a Bush (the former, not the latter) and now I spend my time wandering the lonely streets of data on the web largely ignoring the mumblings coming from the other crazies around me on the street. In the words of Tom Servo, "“The only question worth asking is, what am I going through?"
what am I going through?
In my case, about twenty cigarettes and half a stone of monkey nuts a day.
My monkey nuts are half a stone each.
Oh, and Britney has gone into hospital, but we should all LEAVE HER ALONE!!2!!
mmmmm, cigarettes.
How I miss thee, o little incendiary stick of cloudy enjoyment.
The progress of posts on the "GiveWell" blog is comedy gold:
December 31st, 2007
I had a lapse in judgment, did a horrible thing, and I apologize.
By Holden
December 27th, 2007
Transparency, measurement, humility
By Holden
(link to the blog is on the MeFi page)
Just like any organization that gets too big, ultimately it is weighed down by bureaucracy, bickering, and a 400 pound gorilla level of resistance to change.
I AM NOT FAT!!!
Have you considered vertical stripes, or dark colors?
I only read half of that MeTa thread. How does it end?
Remarkably, in at least a partial victory for the forces of justice. Various non-profit blogs and news agencies start picking up the story. There is currently a cliffhanger where the board of GiveWell has called an emergency meeting, and one of the board has, unusually, posted to her own blog asking what she should do. "Already have a better idea of what to do than the people reading your blog, since you are a Company Director" has yet to be mooted.
Pretentious? Moi?
oh come on. it's threads like this that keep me reading Mefi, just waiting for these operatic cataclysms of human wankery and snark.
Well, this was a MeFi perfect storm. Somebody got caught in a relatively minor infraction, but then, rather than disappearing, came back with a series of scatty apologies, offers of money, attempts to make amends (this man gave up a $200,000 career, and can barely string a coherent series of thoughts together. I despair). _Then_ he confessed to other wrongdoings. _Then_ yet more wrongdoing was uncovered, unconfessed. _Then_ members of his board and friends of his started to join MetaFilter just to tell them what a great guy he was. _Then_ those affected started to blog about it, giving MeFi even more links. _Then_ other Internet sites started reporting on it. All of this combined with the fact that the New York Times had reported on the chap in the first place, so a sufficiently proficient scalping might get into the proper press.
It's actually quite an entertaining read.
Thank you for the summary. That was entertaining.
The phone book is a great book, but if I didn't know what it was I would much rather have someone summarize it for me in a few lines than read its contents.
I am now even less inclined to read the comments.
I can't help but feel that if this does lead to the CEO of this company resigning or being fired there really will be no stopping. Next week, a MeFi march on the White House, fueled by the suspicion that some of those guys posting about how great Ron Paul is are not really interested in the discussion of Optimus Prime's best transformation to which they have contributed.
What I'd like to know is whether this wight - Holden Karnovsky, or something to that quite wonderful effect - thought of turning up at blogs and asking if anyone knew a really good website for analysing the quality of charities, before slipping on a false beard and recommending this terrific site called Brand X and dissing the market leader, as his job>. Was the time spent posting to Lifehacker counting in his head as part of the hours he put into being a Chief Executive? Because if it's really that easy, I'm going to launch a coup.
MonkeyFilter: self-important, self-righteous, tunnel visioned weirdos
MonkeyFilter: it's a victim of it's [sic] own success
MonkeyFilter: weighed down by bureaucracy, bickering, and a 400 pound gorilla level of resistance to change
MonkeyFilter: I am now even less inclined to read the comments.
*bows*
MonkeyFilter: Pretentious? Moi?
Yey! I got called out for apostrophe misuse! Or as I like to call it, apostrophe catastrophe! Many thanks and bows to the BlueHorse. *hugs*
:) Thank you es el Queso.
Punk'd-uation.
I have made a nice little post about paintings of monkeys on the blue. I hope this makes monkeys here feel more at home there.
*screeches, lunges forward, picks up poo ready to throw*
Where's our paintings of monkeys HERE, 'nculus?!?!!!
They don't deserve paintings of monkeys there.
*screeches, flings at all and sundry*
Several times in the past I have had to explain (slowly and carefully) the difference between, say, Google Ad Words and astroturfing. Not to friends or family, but to the C-level executives who employed me at the time.
From the perspective of an executive responsible for driving traffic and garnering cash, the difference between AdWords and astroturfing is that astroturfing is free, and appears inline with the discussion. Whereas AdWords costs money, and you only get like 25 words, and it's over there on the sidebar in every visitor's blind spot. They may be aware that there's some kind of disapproval attached to astroturfing, but it's very abstract and vague. *flaps hand dismissively*
Desperate times, desperate measures, and if they don't get those stats up by the end of the month, there's a very real chance they will be fired. They can't afford to care about a social contract they don't understand, for a community of millions of internet strangers. All they see is a free source of traffic and cash. It's too tempting for them to pass up.
Astroturfing is going to happen more and more as this newfangled internet thing filters up the executive ranks. It doesn't matter how great the outcry against astroturfers - each astroturfer comes to the internet afresh, unaware of the history of the form.
Personally, I suspect that ten years from now the astroturfing problem will be as great as the spam problem is today. Some day we'll look back at today and think how wonderful it was, back when communities were relatively pristine, 99% of comments could be taken at face value, and the occasional instance of astroturfing was cause for a great cry of outrage. Threads like the Givewell thing will seem downright quaint.
Don't feel bad about my dire predictions, though. You know what helps? A refreshing, delicious Snapple (tm) brand iced tea!
*adjusts tinfoil hat*
I believe the goverment has been astoturfing for years. Pre Iraq war there was just wayyyyy to many people beating the drums of war in the online forums.
MonkeyMetaFilter: I would much rather have someone summarize it for me in a few lines than read its contents. heh heh.
*bows again to The Cheese*
Got cheese? Tasty, builds strong bones.
Eat cheese today!
Where's our paintings of monkeys HERE, 'nculus?!?!!!Here ya go!
MonkeyMetaFilter: I would much rather have someone summarize it for me in a few lines than read its contents. heh heh.