So the main complaint given in DougJ’s circle-jerk post (wherein the advent of more dispute on the front page of this blog has somehow been labeled as an ‘Atlantic style circle-jerk’) is that too much of the argument is occurring in posts rather than comments. I guess I’m confused. Why is one more circle-jerkish than the other? And is this a blog or a forum? Some people come here to comment. Others come to read posts and don’t comment. Why should the commenters get to decide how the arguments take place? This smacks of readership capture. I say, if a blogger wants to argue in post-format vs comment-format, well that’s good for the thousands of non-commenting readers who come here. If not, hooray for the commenters. And why should it really matter? This seems like a complaint very unique to Balloon Juice.
Reader Interactions
293Comments
Comments are closed.
MikeJ
I came here for an argument.
Comrade Luke
I’m not sure which one this place is, but I eagerly await reading ten more posts debating the point.
MikeJ
Also too, it’s a complaint unique to balloon juice because a) right wing blogs often just don’t have comments 2) there is a vibrant, healthy commenting community here, III) refusing to read the comments makes it seem as if you aren’t interested in anyone else’s opinion, which makes us wonder why the fuck we should care about yours.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@MikeJ: You did, like hell. You came for the insults.
(I at least skim just about every post on the front page, and read a lot of the comment threads, and I still have no idea what any of this is about. And I really don’t feel like I’m missing anything.)
General Stuck
I came here for love
since no money was offered
arguingwithsignposts
Really? Are you fucking kidding me? You’d better man up in the comments section here EDK, mr. “ombudsman.” In case you haven’t noticed, everyone but you POSTS IN THE COMMENTS! Your work firewall argument is beyond lame.
ETA: This argument from “readership capture” coming from a libertarian free-market worshipper is pretty fucking rich.
In short, engage, dude. I admire your ability to keep being a punching bag, but this is tiresome.
freelancer
Who reads BJ, but doesn’t at least skim the comments?! Surely lurking extends below the fold.
TheYankeeApologist
@MikeJ:
This, but why did you bother? He’s not going to read it.
On the off chance you are, ED, it’s easier for people to follow the back and forth of a particular topic if the points being made are in the same place. I think this was beaten to death in the 200+ comment thread for DougJ’s original post. . . what’s not to understand?
As a further point, if topics are condensed into one FP post, they are a lot easier to skip if you don’t care about the particular topic. I think it’s a matter of streamlining the Balloon Juice experience as opposed to bruising egos.
MikeJ
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Fuck you dipshit. I came here for an argument you stupid piece of filth.
somethingblue
Ain’t no such thing as “very unique.”
Comrade Kevin
It most certainly is not “unique to Balloon Juice”. Why do you think people referred to it as being like the Atlantic?
You should at least make an effort to appear like you read the comments. You have made posts, people have put corrections for you in the comments, and in your next post, blithely repeated your error.
Midnight Marauder
This post is literally the dumbest fucking thing I have ever read on the front page of this site.
soonergrunt
@General Stuck: But would you pay for the love if you could? Or accept payment, even? I mean, now the the Pentagon’s official policy is out, maybe you could hang a sign around your neck that says “Not free but reasonable”, and troll the gates of the nearest military install…
Never mind.
Dennis SGMM
Because comments are the lifeblood of a blog?
arguingwithsignposts
@MikeJ:
No you didn’t.
(see what I did there?)
soonergrunt
@Midnight Marauder: Then you missed John Cole’s wanking about the ‘suspicious timing’ of the Swedish arrest warrant for Julian Assange.
But this does come close.
Midnight Marauder
If this is not a tag within 24 hours…I will be severely disappointed.
@soonergrunt:
I am aware of all Balloon Juice posts.
Corner Stone
@MikeJ: Hey! Jim may be an ignorant ball licker but don’t talk to him like that!
Fuck off you fucker!
frosty
@MikeJ:
I’m sorry, we’re not allowed to argue unless you’ve paid.
soonergrunt
@arguingwithsignposts: Hey, you’re pushing it.
soonergrunt
@somethingblue: LOL.
Linda Featheringill
A conundrum.
The front pagers are quite good and frequently very good.
The commenters pretend to flowing with stream of consciousness but frequently combine to make something brilliant.
And the interaction is delicious.
Besides, what is wrong with readership capture? You got something against free interchange of ideas?
Comrade Luke
The biggest problem I have with all this is that I try to skip ED’s posts entirely, but when there are additional posts rebutting his posts I have to go back and read them anyway to figure wtf everyone’s arguing about.
It would be great to confine the commentary to either the initial post, or an additional open thread if the comments in the initial post get too out of control.
This would serve three purposes:
1. Allow me to skip over E.D.’s posts entirely
2. Minimize the number of posts taking about E.D.’s non-sensical arguments.
3. Reduce the total number of E.D.’s posts. If no one makes posts a rebuttal he’ll have no reason to post a non-sensical argument to support his initial non-sensical argument, since he doesn’t read comments in his own posts and would therefore have no clue the extend to which his non-sensical arguments have been called out.
It’s a win-win-win. A treble-win, if you will.
freelancer
@somethingblue:
JWL
You take yourself way too seriously, Grasshopper…
Relax, E.D. You’re no more full of shit than any one else.
Comrade Luke
@Midnight Marauder:
Could E.D. really be Doug Feith?
J.W. Hamner
I think the ultimate complaint is that there is a trend towards having too many front page posts to follow for the casual fan… and intrablogwarz are a big contributor to that. I could go either way… on a topic I’m interested in I’d probably be totally down with multiple back and forth posts between front pagers, but several 5,000 word essays on garbage collection… not so much. Different people posting about different subjects is one thing… I can easily skip topics/posters I don’t care for… but if the entire blog is taken over by TSA posts there isn’t really much room to move.
junebug
Gee, Ed or ED or who ever you are, at least up until he started posting here, DougJ was doing a pretty good impersonation of you.
You don’t participate in comments. And you made a lame excuse for not doing so.
Anything to say about that or anything else?
No.
But you can find your way to comment elsewhere.
That’s pitiful.
DOUGJ! Please just comment — like you used to. Especially like you used to do.
Call me nostalgic. It is just another form of suicide. (inside reference for any Houstonians who listened to live music in the city circa the 1980’s-90’s).
doubleosoul
I’m a lurker and I hardly ever read comments.
But this post should have been a comment on the previous thread. This place practically drips with Kain’s emo juice, and I really don’t care about intra-blog drama on the front page.
Woodrow "asim" Jarvis Hill
As a fairly rare commenter here, I hope you take this in the spirit of someone who’s been, overall, disappointed in your commentary, but hopeful this can be reconciled.
1) Because you don’t, in fact, engage the substance of most discussions I see you post via front page. Numerous people have asked , for one example, for real-world evidence, even anecdotal, about your theories, and you utterly fail to engage those discussions.
2) Because this blog has a tradition of Front Pagers engaging criticisms in comments, and then falling back to front page discussions only rarely. Every blog has it’s modes and mores, and you seem disinterested in actually learning the ones here.
3) Because your overall style is as if we’re an unruly bunch — which we are — and that, as you implied in your “ombudsman” comment, your job is to reign us in, or even to deliver “truth”. That’s pretty distasteful on the face of it, that BJ needs an “ombudsman” of any sort, esp. as you’re far from a disinterested party in these discussions.
4) Because replying to comments indicates a willingness to actually engage the discussion. This goes with the 2nd point, but is true of many blogs. You don’t have to, of course, but I think you’ll find a more interesting back-and-forth if you actually deal with the comments in the comments, in a forthright and responsive manner.
I enjoy having a different tone on the front page. I don’t enjoy reading you dodge the substance of criticisms in favor of shoehorning them into front-page material that removes the context and complexities of criticisms for a parody. John’s welcome to keep you forever, but I’m extremely disheartened by your tone and lack of substantive arguments.
Blackfrancis
ED is my favorite poster, mostly for all of the comments on the posts, not for the actual posts. It’s like a pie fight without the stickiness.
General Stuck
It’s what we do with trolls, to git their minds right.
El Cid
I propose a bipartisan Blue Ribbon Commission to study the problem and produce a unified report of analysis and recommendations.
MikeJ
I think I’ll go back to reading the in game chat in lotro. It’s no dumber than anything ED writes and less grounded in fantasy.
Chris
I read all the posts, but very seldom read the comments. Just don’t have the time. So I guess I’m with E.D. on this one. In general, I’ve enjoyed E.D.’s contributions, even when I don’t agree with them. I hope he sticks around.
Dennis SGMM
@El Cid:
That’s the easy way out. How about a Steel Cage Death Match?
Comrade Luke
@Blackfrancis:
You gotta admit, for a group of commenters that frequently fight amongst themselves, is posts are notable for being the one place where everyone is in agreement, and scream at him in unison.
He really does provide a galvanizing function.
Comrade Luke
@Midnight Marauder:
Gotta be.
Martin
Well, I think the general consensus is that posts are topical and comments are argumentative. One of the reasons why people like this place is that it’s not a king and his court – John and DougJ and everyone wallows down in the comments with us and we call him a douchebag when he deserves it. It’s all rather egalitarian and arguments get hashed out on equal footing where FPer and troll alike have the same ability to make their case.
Consider that it’s almost impossible to get banned from the place. If John wasn’t interested in the feedback and interaction, we’d either have all gotten banned years ago or there’d be no comments. Clearly that interaction is an important part of the place, and if everything is happening up top then you guys might as well close up the comments, because that’s the action here.
soonergrunt
@Midnight Marauder:
Wow, dude. That was good.
arguingwithsignposts
@Midnight Marauder: someone better fax in their credenza pretty damned quickly, because these … helicopters … aren’t … laughing.
Comrade Luke
“This smacks of readship capture” might be the funniest thing I’ve ever read on this site. Definitely #1 on the Unintentional Comedy scale.
I’m just sitting here laughing my ass off. It’s like Doug Feith and Jonah Goldberg made a baby and he grew up to post on Balloon Juice.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@JWL:
Like I said, haven’t delved into this fight, but that’s pretty much been my overall impression.
@Corner Stone: Your mother was a hamster, and your father stinks of elderberries, you tea-bagger of sheep, you watcher of Sarah Palin’s Alaska!
Stillwater
I hope he was snarking about this, but even so, this is probably the first thing from EDK I completely agree with.
DougJ
Because a bunch of front-pagers politely blockquoting each other about high-minded stuff smacks of the kind of airy-fair elitism people come here to escape.
Every blog has its own identity.
curious
um, doesn’t edk by his own admission not really read comments? what is the point of the questions in his post? because it sounds like a diary entry.
Michael
@General Stuck:
Happy endings are extra.
General Stuck
@DougJ:
Yup. this is an airy – fairy free zone
arguingwithsignposts
@DougJ: firebagger.
Odie Hugh Manatee
This is a comment, it’s not front page material.
freelancer
@Comrade Luke:
Agreed. The New York Times better stop writing stories that make people want to buy their newpaper. They might succumb to readership capture. Same goes for the Rolling Stone, This American Life, Vanity Fair, 60 Minutes, all these organizations are unfortunately held hostage incessantly by their loyal audiences.
Ailuridae
First, I am the person who referred to the pother front pagers treatment of your shoddy argumentation as similar to the Atlantic. I have reformulated that; I think your writing here is much more similar to George Will’s dreck at the WaPo. I suppose that makes John Cole Fred Hiatt or something. The point holds. You are consistently wrong on the facts. You are no more credible on regulatory issues or economics than George Will on climate change or Thomas Friedman on Middle East policy.
Second, I have been pointing out in comments for weeks that you are fast and loose with the facts and are completely unwilling to correct the record. For instance:
1.) There is nothing remotely monopolistic about a municipality competitively bidding an exclusive contract. Nothing. This isn’t an issue of differing opinions; you are grossly wrong on the facts; it is simply not what “monopoly” means. To my knowledge you still haven’t acknowledged this here. That’s amateur league bullshit.
2.) Airlines, broadly, have never run their own security even before 9/11. Airports did and as many posters pointed out airports are government operations whether they are actually run by the City themselves (like O’Hare here in Chicago) or contracted to a private entity (like Midway here in Chicago). Again, wrong on the actual facts. heck you pulled these facts out of thin air. By your (wrong) use above of a monopolistic practice in trash hauling, privately run airports are monopolistic. That you fail to understand this speaks volumes about your ability to think critically. Alternately it could reflect poorly on your intellectual honesty. Regardless you decided to frame an issue to meet your needs. Airport security before and after 9/11 is not a airlines versus federal government issue or even a private versus public issue. The issue amounts to a local government versus federal government issue.
3) If airlines were to each use their own private security there would be an obvious race to the bottom problem. Airlines who scrimp on security would be able to provide cheaper service. Yes, ultimately the consumer would know about the security. Sadly, people in tall buildings, in say NYC wouldn’t get to enjoy the fruits of your free market utopia.
Honestly, I could probably write four times as many egregious examples but it isn’t worth my time. I’ve already written them in many of your posts’ comment threads.
So while the rest of the commenters may find the back and forth on the front page problematic that isn’t what my comment referred to. Instead it was the practice of other front pagers broadly defending you in the face of overwhelming evidence you were and are a hack and that your arguments are poorly thought out and astonishingly intellectually dishonest. This is very similar to watching Fallows or Coates handle McArdle or Goldberg with kid gloves when their bull shit is on in full effect. That, to me, is the “circle jerk” of the Atlantic and to what I referred to in the e-mail.
It isn’t the cross-linking and back and forth that bothers me; it is that you are, effectively, Megan McArdle. And, to be clear, while you take the same smug tone as Megan does I am not referring to tone at all just the content or in both of your cases, a startling lack thereof.
Comrade Luke
@Odie Hugh Manatee: That’s a great, great point.
trizzlor
For what it’s worth, I think the main problem with responding in-thread is that’s just impossible to follow anything over 50 comments coherently. There’s a nice “wall of opinion” effect you get scrolling through a bunch of posts and plucking out random thoughts, but following a single debate, especially with just the little @’s to guide you would be a nightmare.
Martin
I agree with this. I don’t have any problem with EDs posts. I’m of the view that all of us are wrong most of the time to one degree or another. EDs wrongness is not worse than Cole’s or DougJs or mine, simply because it comes from a different angle. But the point of laying out your ignorance for all to see is to learn from it. That’s the ultimate point of debate – for the right ideas to rise to the top. From that perspective, there’s huge benefit to having people come in from different angles – to having libertarians and conservatives and communists and whoever show up and make their case – particularly on the front page.
But that said, we can’t learn from those ideas nor can the FPers learn from those ideas if the subsequent conversation doesn’t happen, new facts absorbed, and ideas refined. Sure, we throw a lot of elbows in the process but there’s a lot of good shit down here nevertheless. Time after time after time we see Cole and DougJ and Tim and the others absorb what gets said below and there will be a followup or the next post on a topic will be turned a bit one way or the other, and the conversation has been validated.
I agree that ED doesn’t reflect that validation back to the community. I don’t know if we’re being ignored or he’s just defiant of what we say, or if he just has a hard time refining positions (though I’ve seen him do it), but the validation isn’t happening. It does feel very one directional. And that’s much of why having arguments across the front page feels, well, dismissive. It’s just not how this place seems to work, and truth be told, I have a hard time naming any other blogs that work as this place does.
asiangrrlMN
@Odie Hugh Manatee: Agreed! This should be a comment in the other post.
You guys are killing me in this post.
I usually like the front pagers, but the back-and-forth is the least interesting stuff they post. I read mostly for the comments. And John’s stories about nekkid mopping. And pictures of Tunchie. And food pr0n. Now, on to the circle-jerk post to make sure I didn’t miss anything interesting.
Michael
@MikeJ:
I’m going to go with trying to decode the commentary on hotchickswithdouchebags.com.
It is far more informative than an ED entry, and the chicks are fun to look at.
Suffern Ace
Hmmm. A week ago you encouraged the emergence of a commentator democracy movement by requesting our opinions on whether you should stay or go…a movent put down by John Cole. Now you are claiming that the readers have captured the blog. Did I miss the coup?
Blog historians will note that almost immediately after their gratest victory, the rabble looked at what they had captured and decided to give it back. They had thought they were taking over the political eqivalent of Maxim, but once it became apparent that the models they thought existed were an illusion, they went back home to jerk in quiet desparation, as most will do.
Comrade Luke
@trizzlor:
Well, hopefully the new site design will nest comments, but I haven’t seen it so…fingers crossed.
Most of the tons of comments to E.D.’s posts are either small groups of people arguing amongst themselves about the degree to which E.D. is wrong, or rather lengthy comments that go into great detail in providing rebuttals to his arguments using actual facts. Comments like those are why I come here; they are very educational, even if they sometimes get lost in the noise if you’re not patient.
Of course the grand irony in all this is that all this debate and rebuttal is going on and E.D. isn’t even reading it, but hey…waddayagonnado…
Michael
@Ailuridae:
Oh, shit. If this was a Harry Potter fan page, that would be an unforgivable curse, justifying Azkaban.
Ben JB
@Ailuridae: I am intrigued by your thoughts and want to subscribe to your newsletter. Or buy you a drink.
Enrico Palazzo (formally RareSanity, temporarily)
I gotta hand it to you E.D., I may not agree with you much, but damn if you don’t know how to stir it up around these parts!
Yutsano
@Michael:
I hate to admit it, but it is a guilty pleasure of mine to peek into that site on occasion. Mostly because I wanna slap those girls silly and go all Sassy Gay Friend on them. Especially the Jeff Reid ones.
@asiangrrlMN:
I’m here just for you hon. Pretty much. Especially since I met you here. And you sparked a friendship between your two hubbies I don’t think you saw coming. Oh and Tunch and the puppehs.
TooManyJens
Sweet mother of fuck, this is getting old.
Who cares if it’s a complaint unique to Balloon Juice? You’re posting on fucking Balloon Juice.
And that’s all I’m going to bother typing since you won’t read it anyway.
IndieRockrocks
I would guess more people read this blog and do not comment than people who do comment. Most of those who don’t comment probably like things as they are or I would guess they’d leave comments. Or maybe they just have better things to do?
Ija
Of course ED would call it readership capture, he holds the readers of this blog in contempt. Why he even agree to blog here I can never understand.
And by the way, I think it is called Atlantic style circle jerk not because the front pagers are disagreeing with each other. It’s because the other front pagers seem to be giving ED a pass, being reasonably polite to him when he spouts nonsensical arguments that would not have received that same treatment if they had come from McArdle etc. That’s where the circle jerk impression comes from, the front pagers are not just ripping him apart for stupid shit that they normally rip apart. Maybe because they feel they have to be polite to him as a colleague on the blog.
I do agree with ED though on the comment versus post issue. I don’t normally read comments and this is my first time commenting, so I would really rather any disagreement take place on the front page rather than in comments. Otherwise, the next time ED spouts off more nonsensical arguments, people who don’t read comments would think that the other front pagers agree with ED, or don’t have a problem with his arguments, hence a greater impression of circle jerkery.
KCinDC
I’ve never understood the level of hostility toward EDK, but this post does irritate me. Why go out of your way to annoy commenters when you never bother to engage in the comments? This has reached the point of self-trolling.
scarshapedstar
Shorter ED:
I dislike reading or writing comments on my posts because I don’t like personally engaging with people who think I am wrong.
This proves (objectively) that comments are The Cancer That Is Killing /BJ/.
Furthermore, some people don’t read comments, so why waste time when I could be pontificating? FRONT PAGE BITCHEZ!
freelancer
@Comrade Luke:
Allow me to take a giant shit all over your hopes. Nested comments suck. Cole hates them, and most of us here loathe them. They will NOT be part of the redesign. If they do, “readership capture” will become a literal term Cole will find himself acquainted with only too quickly.
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: Aw, that’s so sweet of you to say! Love you, too, hon. And, I am so happy to hook you and TS up. I am finishing up NaNoWriMo. Less writing than last year (still made the goal), but a better product. YAY, me! How you be?
@freelancer: I agree with you. I do not care much for nested comments. I like the free-flow form better.
moe99
@MikeJ:
Abuse isdown the hall.
Ozymandias, King of Ants
@Ailuridae: That was beautiful.
scarshapedstar
@freelancer:
QFT.
Nested comments are great if your screen is infinitely wide.
Therein lies the rub.
Dennis SGMM
@freelancer:
I for one find the sudden interest in nested comments right after the Wikileaks document dump to be more than coincidence.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: Enjoying the immense gnashing of teef from ED basically making a sub out of his foot. I’m not even going to comment on that much other than you’re better than this, dude. Watching my kitteh stare at my Starbucks drink like it’s the monolith from 2001, which is just this side of bizarre. Oh and full of teriyaki. I’m glad to hear the writing progresseth. And you don’t even have an MFA!
Carlo
Agreed. I’ve been reading this blog for years but almost never comment; frankly I don’t see what the big deal is re: responding to criticism via comments vs posts. What’s important is that people respond at all, not how or where they do it. If anything I prefer the posts; I don’t usually have the time to pick through 100+ comments of snark and insults just to read the smart discussions buried in between them.
Also, seems to me that lately a lot of the commenters here have acted like hostile, self-entitled assholes to ED, and then complain when he doesn’t respond to that. WTF?
Corner Stone
@freelancer: Nested comments *suck*.
Yutsano
@Corner Stone: A-to-the-fucking-to-the-men.
JGabriel
E.D. Kain:
Because the comments are a linear thread, nominally dedicated to the topic of the main post.
Really? You have to ask that one?
Okay, we’ll spell it out for you: because the people who don’t comment here aren’t, wait for it, arguing here. Since they don’t comment, they don’t set the paramaters for commenting or arguing — because, in order to do so, they’d have to: comment.
Jeebus, Erik, you can’t possibly be that thick.
.
freelancer
@Dennis SGMM:
We’re gonna need Dan Burton and a watermelon to test any theories you might want to prove.
Corner Stone
@Carlo:
People tried. They really laid out honest, thoughtful, factual rebuttal.
Not me, I called him the idiotic twit that he is.
But others, they gave it a real honest run for about 4 or so posts. Then like the starving zombies in the movie 28 Days they began to drop by the side of the road as they were denied nourishment. Leaving a trail of unrevived zombie bodies leading the way to EDK’s perfect Scottish bungalow by the sea.
Ailuridae
@JGabriel:
Jeebus, Erik, you can’t possibly be that thick.
All evidence points in the other direction.
scarshapedstar
@freelancer:
@asiangrrlMN:
@Dennis SGMM:
@Corner Stone:
@Yutsano:
One could also argue that comment nesting would simply be redundant…
Comrade Luke
@freelancer: Well then. Moving right along…
I mean…nested comments SUCK!!!1!
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: I demand moar kitteh pics! And, I do have an MA in writing. I wised up before going for the MFA. My main character refused to finish the last novel until I promised her a sequel with lotsa hawt sex in it. Then, she was ready to work. Remind you of someone?
As for ED, I agree. He is better than that. He’s off his feed.
eemom
omg, this thread is fucking hilarious.
Last but not least, the very fact that E.D. is still showing up here to talk about something called “readership capture.”
Lordy lordy. Literally got tears in my eyes I am laughing so hard.
scarshapedstar
Since people mentioned nested posts, I think I might try to put together a little Christmas present for everyone.
I dunno how many /b/ tards are out there, but 4chan4chrome is god mode. There’s no going back once you use it.
I’ve never tried my hand at this, but I’d love to make a little plugin that would auto-refresh threads and give you little preview windows when you hover over those @ links.
Martin
I agree that nested comments are problematic, however – there is an approach I haven’t seen tried, which would be to have a flat comment area but if a reply chain does develop to have a button that will temporarily hide everything not part of the reply chain so you can see what you might want to reply to.
It’d be functional to conversation, impractical to use exclusively, and not create any layout issues. asiangrrlMN would find it less than useful with her patented triple-reply action, though.
scarshapedstar
@eemom:
IZ IN UR COMMENTS
CAPTURING UR BLOG
Ozymandias, King of Ants
Isn’t about time John talked with his doctor about ED?
duck-billed placelot
@DougJ: Ok, for real, please explain to us now how ED KAIN is your greatest performance piece. This is just…I mean…..if he’s a real person, then he is parodying his own posts.
Also, again, please just stomp all over Kain’s posts with something interesting.
curious
@scarshapedstar: to be fair, this may be a forum and not a blog.
asiangrrlMN
@Martin: Sheesh! You do a triple a time or
eleven-billiontythree, and suddenly it’s a problem! I do like your idea, actually, of the temporary disappearance act. I just don’t trust FYWP to do it correctly.@Ozymandias, King of Ants: Oh god. I’m busting a gut here.
Yutsano
@Ozymandias, King of Ants: Serious fucking win.
DougJ
@duck-billed placelot: You give me too much credit.
Judas Escargot
Why should the commenters get to decide how the arguments take place? This smacks of readership capture.
Oh, the proles. How… boorish.
You can almost hear the powdered handkerchief, fluttering in the air.
TooManyJens
I ask this in all seriousness: did Kain ever read this blog before becoming a front pager? He doesn’t seem to know or care anything about the — I want to say culture, but y’all will laugh at me for being pretentious.
FUCKING BALLOON JUICE, HOW DOES IT WORK?
Morbo
@scarshapedstar: Thirded, as much as I like Wonkette comment threads I can’t stand to actually read them.
slag
At least when DougJ trolls, it’s done in a seemingly self-aware and relatively entertaining fashion.
freelancer
@Ozymandias, King of Ants:
It was there for the taking. And I had to pause what I was watching to laugh so goddamned hard.
asiangrrlMN
@TooManyJens: Readership. I think that’s the word you are looking for. Snicker.
Corner Stone
@Martin:
Which I personally find very discombobulating.
Corner Stone
@Ozymandias, King of Ants: Obviously, Cole is in the denial stage.
asiangrrlMN
FYWP for not letting me edit my own comment.
@Corner Stone: You don’t like my patented triple?
@Martin: Oh, wait. You mean when I reply to three different people! Yeah, I do that all the time. That would be hilarious (I thought you meant when I accidentally hit the comment button three times). I also like responding to comments made after mine.
Comrade Luke
@TooManyJens:
Just the posts. Never the comments.
Martin
@asiangrrlMN: Well, yeah, WP is worthy of being a Microsoft product, but it’s really not that hard to do. Stuff the comment ID and referring comment ID somewhere accessible as to establish a linked list in the DOM, a bit of javascript, a touch of CSS and Bob’s your uncle.
I’ve created similar systems to filter information at work on several thousand items. Blinking out a 300 post thread wouldn’t be a problem.
Corner Stone
Why is the guy from Dieter from Sprockets on TRMS?
Martin
@asiangrrlMN: Yes, your time travel ability is most enviable.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: LET’S DO THE TIMEWARP AGAIN!!
@asiangrrlMN: I’m curious enough to find out!
Morbo
So, any bets on whether Cole’s next “stop being so hostile to ED” post will go up before daybreak?
slag
@asiangrrlMN: Don’t succumb to commenter capture, asiangrrlMN!
asiangrrlMN
@Martin: Cool. I’m down with that. What would my time-warp commenting and patented triple reply do to the format?
freelancer
@asiangrrlMN:
Somewhere, in the low-rises of BJ:
The Kain stay the Kain.
Corner Stone
@asiangrrlMN: I like following the flow of comments. I actually read most comments in a thread I’m active in, even when I know what they’re going to say.
So when you’re flirting with person A, shutting down person B and agreeing with person C (who may not have even commented up to that point in the thread), I feel like I’m following three discussions at once.
menage a quatre
Dr. SkySkull
As someone who usually lurks here, reading comments like the ones on this post — especially after midnight — is one of the highlights of the blog. The front-pagers are good; the commenters are fucking *hilarious*. (I luv u guys!) Anyone not reading the comments is missing half the joy of the site.
I also side w/ everyone (against E.D.) in the observation that having endless front-page posts bickering about the same, relatively inconsequential topics (trash, booze) is tiresome. If you have to make your arguments on the front page, at least do it by adding to the original post. The “circle jerk” appearance comes from reading an entire front page of back and forth on the validity of some libertarian dogma.
scarshapedstar
@slag:
Funny how he warned of “readership capture” as opposed to “commenter capture”, innit?
John - A Motley Moose
E.D. Kain’s failure to defend his posts is further proof of the weakness of gliberterian thought. Instead of countering challenges to his logic in the comment threads, he just reposts his already discredited fallacies.
Arclite
For the record, I like the FP discussions. I don’t always read the comments, and the FPers are some smart people with good insights, so when they go back and forth, it really stretches my thinking.
No one ever called BJ an echo chamber, and I hope it stays this way, in both posts and comments.
curious
@freelancer: that was awesome.
luc
Sorry, I have not a good idea what DougJ meant.
Discussions add to the blog, no matter where; on the frontpage or in the comments. Please continue to have them.
Corner Stone
@Morbo:
That “I’m GWB and I’m flipping you the bird!” picture must be feeling pretty damned tired about now.
Probably not as tired as the “Chill the Fuck out! I got this!” poster from yesteryear, but still…tired.
If everyone else in the known universe has clued into the fact that EDK is a disaster here, then history suggest Cole will grudgingly accept that as reality in about 2017.
Midnight Marauder
@curious:
And this is central to my point. This debate has yet to be settled.
Stillwater
Well, I’ve been as strident as anyone here in criticizing the content of EDK’s posts, but I agree with him that about ‘readership capture’ regarding how one responds to posts. As far as I know, there is no prevailing convention which prevents him from FPing responses to criticisms, either from other FPers or commenters. And really, how can that clutter up the blog so that it becomes unreadable? Don’t people know how to scroll?
slag
@scarshapedstar: I just love how someone who throws up a poll about whether he should stay or go then goes on to complain of capture of any kind. It really is baffling to me.
scarshapedstar
@Stillwater:
As far as I know, when making statements such as this, the prevailing convention is to declare that you are aware of all internet traditions.
freelancer
@Midnight Marauder:
This is how realignments happen.
NobodySpecial
ED, some cheap advice.
Get your hands dirty. Get in the comments once in a while. The only thing that gets hurt is your pride. If you can’t deal with that, you’ve got no business blogging.
RareSanity
ED…you so crazy!
scarshapedstar
@slag:
Yeah. I mean, musicians always hate their record companies, but you don’t hear then complain about “audience capture” because they are performers.
scarshapedstar
@freelancer:
Turning a blog into a forum via Alinskyian Readership Capture is straight out of the Commentist Manifesto.
It’s time to take our blog back from ourselves, so that we can preserve it for future generations.
SILENCE OUR VOICE!
SILENCE OUR VOICE!
SILENCE OUR VOICE!
p mac
On the one hand, I’m with ED. There’s no way I have time to read all the comments, so arguing between the principals makes some amount of sense on the main page.
On the other hand, I’m with the commenters: some of the discussions were done to death on the main page, and would have been much better done in comments, possibly with a final report on the main page. The discussion about TSA vs privatization in particular spread a lot of heat but very little light.
I can see both sides, but there’s no way a 250-500 word blog post will convince me one way or the other.
slag
@Stillwater:
Honestly, at first I was ambivalent about this, but the more people complained, the more I realized how unusable the format was for that kind of thing.
One of the main reasons I wasn’t following the arguments in the first place was that, from a purely logistical standpoint, doing so was a big pain in the ass. So, even though, on a theoretical level, I’m all for a big debate, I’m not going to click back and forth through various posts to get it. And even when I do manage to catch up on the front page posts, I almost never get to read the comments throughout. Of course, since Kain doesn’t read the comments, he doesn’t mind. Personally, I value the comment section quite a bit.
It’s like trying to watch a single ping pong match be played on a bunch of different tables at once. In different rooms.
ED Kain calls it “readership capture”; I call it “user-centered design”.
Midnight Marauder
@scarshapedstar:
I cannot think of anything in recent memory that has made me laugh as hard as “This smacks of readership capture.” Not even
this video from a few months back.
It is just so ridiculous as to be nothing but laughable.
scarshapedstar
@Midnight Marauder:
1-up:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWulZOKANB4
freelancer
@Midnight Marauder:
If I didn’t know you were black, I’d call you a racist for posting that video. FUUUUUUCKKKKKKK. :D
Martin
@asiangrrlMN: Well, the time-warp commenting would have no effect. It wouldn’t care the order of the posts. The worst problem to intercept would be the occasional infinite loop that you and Yutsano tend to set up. But knowing that happens you just check for it.
The bigger problem for you is that because of your triple linking, you end up tieing lots and lots of disjointed threads together. Imagine that each link is a place where two (literal) strings get tied together. Most of the time you just end up forming a long knotted string with the occasional side string where someone made a dead-end reference. In the case of the triple links, you have one string getting knotted to three others, which each might have their own stuff going on. If you later triple link to one of those original three and then to two new ones, you now have 5 threads all tied together. In a late night open thread you guys might wind up knotting together every single comment in a thread. Then the little focus doo-dad would be useless.
But any new innovation is a feedback loop. Behaviors change to adapt to the tool. It’d be fine.
FlipYrWhig
I don’t really have an issue with ED Kain’s opinions or style. I mean, I think he’s wrong on most things and doesn’t really learn or listen, but I feel the same way about Yglesias, and it doesn’t stop me from going back. (Not _eagerly_, mind you. There are only so many different things a human being can learn about Rotterdam, parking lots and barber licensing.)
I do think it’s kind of weird when the front-pagers are posting on the same issue back and forth with each other, and I think it’s because it shuts out the commenters: it seems to presume that the front-pagers are the interesting people and the rest of us just watch them from a respectful distance. That’s not how this place works. Fortunately.
asiangrrlMN
@Martin: Fast fingers, my friend. Fast fingers.
@Yutsano: Yes on both accounts! I think it would be fun.
@slag: My god. I am actually guffawing. Commenter capture needs to make it to the rotating headline. And, this post is WAY more fun than the circle-jerk post.
Gian
as a guy who mostly lurks
the people who read the site and drive ad revenue are in the comments.
ignore them, and they will eventually not click. not clicking means less advertising money.
less advertising money is a sign that the libertarian god of the free market frowns upon ignoring comments.
Based on the bitching, I’m pretty sure EDK reads the comments. He just doesn’t feel obligated to resond to the audience. It’s the whole Galt bullshit wrapped up nicely. He’s above the menial task of responding to mere comments.
I’m a customer, and I’m not buying it, so this is the last thread/post click of mine he gets.
asiangrrlMN
@Corner Stone: Welcome to my brain! That’s how I think all the freaking time.
@freelancer: That was freaking awesome, man. I haven’t seen the show.
@Martin: Ah. I see. Well, I think that would be kinda cool, too. Six degrees of asiangrrlMN of a sort. Let’s do it live! (And, again, welcome to my brain).
Bill E Pilgrim
This is why I stopped reading GOS. Good grief. Aside from anything else, finding that every time I looked at it there were endless ongoing debates about the site itself, rather than you know, the actual world.
“Meta” is the preferred term but that gives an impression of something far more intelligent and interesting than the inbred squabbling about something that no one else cares about or even knows about.
For what it’s worth: If this site is too much like the Atlantic, it’s because it’s linking to and discussing the Atlantic so much. Most people in “the liberal blogosphere”, which Doug insists that this is a part of, don’t link to the Atlantic all of the time. Of course E.D. Kain wouldn’t ever be posting at them either. Personally, I think it’s kind of interesting that there’s a mix here, but that’s why I question the liberal blogosphere inclusion, especially when there are so many people here who openly hate progressives and liberals. Just own up to it, is my point.
And by the way, the response that “That’s because all of the rest are “liberals” and we’re liberals, is no way to demonstrate that others are purity trolling. That’s in fact the very definition of it.
I think it’s more conservative here than you all like to think. That’s my opinion. It’s also less and less interesting though the more the discussion is about the site itself. I mean it’s worth one or two posts but good grief.
freelancer
@asiangrrlMN:
M_C shood tAk noat. THAT’s how you doo a pop-culture reference. Haxxors haz IQ. BJ has IQ2.
scarshapedstar
Man, wouldn’t it be crazy if EDK himself joined the commentariat immediately after I made this post?
That would just be straight-up nuts!
E.D. Kain
@MikeJ: Points for the Monty Python reference.
@DougJ: Whatever. So do bloggers. People around here seem to want conformity to the ‘blog’s identity’ and I say that’s fucking lame.
E.D. Kain
@NobodySpecial: Yep, that’s what they all say. But honestly, the comments here are an unwelcome place for people who the vast majority of commenters disagree with, and I don’t blog to get lost in long comment threads filled with people telling me how stupid I am. I would be stupid to spend any more time doing that then I already do, quite frankly.
General Stuck
OT
TooManyJens
@E.D. Kain:
Refusing to take into account the local customs doesn’t make you a rebel, it makes you that douche tourist who runs around speaking Very Loud English in other countries.
Midnight Marauder
@scarshapedstar:
That is an all-time classic. Local newscasts are perpetual goldmines of comedy. I have long been a fan of this clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKO6G0pC0AM
jacy
@asiangrrlMN:
I always admire your multi-answering. I fear I am too uncoordinated to pull that kind of thing off. Not to mention by this time of night, I’m too mentally slow.
Congrats too on the NaNoWriMo!
Odie Hugh Manatee
@E.D. Kain: “People around here seem to want conformity to the ‘blog’s identity’ and I say that’s fucking lame. “
I’d offer you a shovel but…
Bill E Pilgrim
@scarshapedstar: Yeah, I didn’t see that response coming ;)
As I say, worth a few posts.
Midnight Marauder
@E.D. Kain:
People around here want you to acknowledge when your arguments are factually and empirically proven wrong.
That’s a bit different than the emofest you keep propping up.
Redshift
@NobodySpecial: The thing that’s so ludicrous is that it’s not like it would take a huge amount of effort to match the other FPers in comments. They often post only a few comments, and not in every post.
Or alternatively, if you must respond only on the front page, quote some comments and respond to them. It’s the combination of not replying to people and not responding to their actual arguments (other than FPers), but instead responding to a vague aggregation of what you’ve decided the arguments are, generally ignoring requests for substantiation and other specifics.
Yutsano
@Odie Hugh Manatee: Right now I’m breaking out the popcorn. I’m also rather curious as to what brought all this on. And yes I’m too lazy to go digging back through old threads to find out. A simple synopsis will do just fine.
TooManyJens
@Midnight Marauder:
This smacks of reality capture.
Martin
@Corner Stone: Well, I know where you’re coming from but here’s the problem that I think Cole faces. He’d like to get some new voices going here – call it a nod to the epistemic closure discussions taking place elsewhere. So he reaches out to, and let’s be fair here, one of the more rational conservative/libertarian voices out there. If he wants to have such a voice, there’s not much out there to choose from that we wouldn’t destroy much more aggressively.
EDs fault isn’t that he’s wrong. Fuck, Cole is wrong half the time as well. So are you and I. EDs fault is that he doesn’t take correction. That can be… corrected. But the hard truth is that if Cole wants a different vantage point on the front page, I’m not sure of who else he should invite.
slag
@E.D. Kain: Well…since the option of just not being stupid never occurred to you, it’s hard to imagine that your contribution here deserves much better than getting “lost in long comment threads”. Obviously, John Cole thinks it does. Which definitely brings his judgment into question.
Where’s John Cole? He needs to get lost in long comment threads of people telling him how bad his judgment is.
scarshapedstar
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Whoops, I changed the post completely because the time warp was just impossible to resist.
I’ll reproduce it here:
@Bill E Pilgrim:
Nice meta post. ;)
[/Meta-meta post]
(I guess now I have to throw in [/Meta-meta-meta post].)
Stillwater
@E.D. Kain: I don’t blog to get lost in long comment threads filled with people telling me how stupid I am.
So, why do you blog?
freelancer
@E.D. Kain:
Sorry you feel that way, but that just isn’t true. You’ll find your haters, but we all do here. This site has a LOT of traffic. It comes from all over. You just have to try to deal. It’s that you don’t that you’re rightly raked over the coals. Oh, and no more GBCW posts, please. They’re unbecoming. Really.
Midnight Marauder
@Gian:
@E.D. Kain:
Hilarious.
slag
@Stillwater: He’s trying to learn how remarkably intelligent he is. And you’re not making it any easier with comments like these, buster. Just consider yourself lucky he lets you hang around here at all.
themann1086
@MikeJ: Hell, this post makes the original Barrens Chat seem enlightened. “Readership capture”… hah!
scarshapedstar
@themann1086:
Maybe we can organize a game of Capture the Blog? You get a point every time you inspire/force an FPer to acknowledge one of your comments in any way, shape, or form.
freelancer
@Midnight Marauder:
Oh, man, is Radley gonna hear about this in the morning.
ribletsonthepan
#30 Woodrow “asim” Jarvis Hill
That. Tired of the drive-bys.
zuzu (not that one, the other one)
Christ on a cross, I can see the quivering lip through the intertubes.
The advertisers aren’t paying for your dazzling writing, they’re paying for the readership eyeballs.
themann1086
@scarshapedstar: Do we get bonus points if the acknowledgment comes in the form of “Heh, indeed”?
E.D. Kain
@Midnight Marauder: No people around here want me to agree with them when they think I’m wrong and people around here are arrogant enough to believe that whatever they say is ‘factual and empirical’ and rarely actually use facts or empiricism to ‘prove’ it. They do have the echo chamber on their side though!
E.D. Kain
@Stillwater: Uhm, most bloggers do not take the time to respond to hundreds of comments by a readership who despises them. Or do they? Am I missing that? Could you point me to another situation where this is the case?
duck-billed placelot
@Stillwater: You can’t possibly expect me to respond to a readership who despises me and demand real-life proof of situations upholding my contentions. No one else does that. Show me a real-life proof of it, then.
/Kain
themann1086
@E.D. Kain: Then don’t blog here. I’m sorry, but if you can’t handle the majority of the commenters disagreeing with you while being a “minority report”-type dissenting voice on a blog… then why are you here?
I mean, have you read any of the other comment threads here? On any one issue there are like three or four rival camps, whose allegiances change per issue, and they’re always at each others’ throats. Sometimes it gets annoying, repetitive, and juvenile, but something interesting usually comes out of it. Or at least, something I find interesting.
ETA: and yeah, we think your arguments are sloppy, lack supporting evidence, and are full of pretentious bullshit. So what? You think we’re a bunch of arrogant know-nothings not worth responding to except through passive aggressive comments on other websites (although if this represents a change, I for one welcome it). I much prefer people who call out my bullshit to my face than the weasel who sneaks around talking trash behind my back.
Martin
@E.D. Kain:
Well, you’re essentially butting heads with the commentariat, which is a rough spot here.
When you first showed up, yeah, you got reamed. That wasn’t fair. A lot of people didn’t even give you a chance. That said, a lot of us have given you a chance. I’ve never railed against your posts. I’ve never suggested you not FP here. I’ve taken your arguments at more than face value and pointed out where there were factual issues. Just as a very simple example, when you said you thought the security screening should be out of the hands of the TSA, you never acknowledged my (and others, IIRC) observations that airports have had the option to dump TSA since late 2003, and that a number of airports have already done that. It’s simply not a policy that needs to be changed – it’s an existing function of the marketplace that simply isn’t turning out the way that you’d prefer.
It’s fine that you didn’t acknowledge that in your first post on the topic. Not a lot of people knew that and nobody expect you to have perfect knowledge. So some of us quite politely gave you some new information. But that new information never got incorporated in future posts on the topic.
So yes, you were not treated fairly when you first arrived, so you have a choice – either keep ignoring the commenters and expect a lot more of the same, or take the time to suffer through the audience for a while and show that when the commenters add something to your argument that you recognize it. If you do that, I expect that attitudes will change. Some won’t – some of us are just dicks – but everyone suffers from the dicks so at least you’ll be in good company on that. John and DougJ are willing to drop in the periodic ‘Ok, I was just wrong about that’ post. They usually don’t go that far, but there will at least be some reference back to something said by the commenters, or they will pick up a line of thought refined by the commentators and reference that. We don’t really have any more respect for the FPers than for anyone else, so it’s not like you have a terribly high bar to clear here, but if you come off as not finding us worthy of reading, then we’re going to wonder why you bother to post if nothing more than to hear yourself speak. The long knives will really come out then.
slag
@E.D. Kain:
It’s that you truly do believe this that guarantees this relationship will end badly. If you came to the majority of your arguments from the point of view that you are quite probably wrong about something in them, you would be received much better by all concerned. But you don’t. And you won’t. It’s that simple.
I’ve seen a lot of people try to give you a chance. Hell, I feel like I’ve tried to give you a chance. A lot of us actually want to be persuaded by opposing arguments. In fact, I’ve seen people work really hard to do so. But it takes both sides to make that happen. And you take much more than you give. Which is the main reason why I think you’re a complete asshole.
There…that felt good.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
Worst thread ever.
Calming Influence
E.D., what’s the real world translation for the Libertarian phrase “readership capture”?
“Free market hostile takeover?”
“Survival of the fittest?”
“Kicking the hypocritical douche nozzle out of the generally honest and mostly fun journal club?”
Discriminating readers want to know.
RadioOne
I guess, don’t criticize ED Kain when posting his opinions in a blog. Because otherwise, this site might become a forum of opinions. WTF?
asiangrrlMN
@Yutsano: Briefly, ED posted about abolishing the TSA. Then, mistermix posted about it. So did…Cole, maybe and someone else. Then, DougJ posted about a commenter who said it was becoming like The Atlantic circle-jerk which leads us to this post.
@jacy: Thanks. On both accounts. I just type really fast, and my brain works overtime, unfortunately. As for NaNoWriMo, yep. Another one in the books. April is ScriptFrenzy month, and I’m writing Balloon Juice: The Musical.
@E.D. Kain: E.D., I still think you’re self-selecting. Whenever I read the comments in your posts, roughly half the people are defending you while the other half are telling you you are full of shit. That’s pretty much the same as the other posters. And, I am asking with absolutely no snark intended, why do you post here if you hate it so much?
Yutsano
@Martin: Damn dude. Gotta say this.
@asiangrrlMN: Thanks hon. I kinda glossed over the TSA posts because they were giving off neither heat nor light. In retrospect, that looks wiser.
ED, I’m still of the opinion you’re better than this. Now please support that opinion.
Comrade Kevin
@E.D. Kain:
Then why are you here? The other front-pagers don’t seem to have a problem dealing with comments, many of them telling them how stupid they are.
@E.D. Kain:
Who do you think you are, Andrew Sullivan?
Odie Hugh Manatee
@E.D. Kain: “But honestly, the comments here are an unwelcome place for people who the vast majority of commenters disagree with, and I don’t blog to get lost in long comment threads filled with people telling me how stupid I am.”
What I want to know is why are you here? Did you even bother to scope out the terrain before you accepted John’s offer? Are you so thin-skinned that you wilt when someone says something bad about you (or worse, disagrees with you) on the internet?
Again, why did you join up if this is all so disagreeable to you?
Stillwater
@E.D. Kain: No, not hundreds, you’re right. But usually the salient criticisms come in early, and posters here respond for the first several.
Look, the hostility generated isn’t about the posts themselves so much as the lack of actual response to legitimate (or illegitimate) criticisms. It’s the dialogue we (I should say I) want. To hear you defend your claims with evidence or argument. But it’s up to you, really: the BJ community is full of some of the smartest commenters on the tubes. You can engage and learn, be challenged, sharpen your game. Or maybe that’s not what you want from blogging.
JenJen
I have tried so god-damned hard to stay out of this meta-crap so far, and just ignore it, but honestly, this is the post that takes the cake and I gotta say something.
Like KCinDC, I’ve never really understood the hostility either, but I think I do now. This post rubs me the wrong fucking way and comes off rather haughty.
To be honest, I come here as much for the commenters as I do the front pagers, and find the community contributions to be at least as amusing and intelligent, and at times moreso. So while I can understand that there are those who lurk and never click below the fold, you’re just making it clear that you’ve missed 80% of this Kain Mutiny, if you will, by rarely visiting the comments section yourself. It used to be just mildly annoying, but now that you’ve kind of spelled it out, it’s insulting. Are you even aware of the sniping and knot-twisting and general kvetching you’ve left in your wake?
Ehhh, you’ll never even read this critique so why go on? Bottom line is that I don’t want you to go away, it’s easy enough to just skip right past you and get to the reactions, but cheesus, maybe get over yourself a little.
ETA: And, I see Kain’s showed up in the comments section know, looking and sounding like a tourist.
ETA2: Aaaaaand I see TooManyJens already hit the tourist angle. ;-) Must be a Jen thing? Nice one!
Calming Influence
E.D. Kain posts as if pissing from a great height. He should try to keep in mind that Balloon Juice is not “skippy the bush kangaroo”.
freelancer
@E.D. Kain:
Good lord. The overwhelming majority of commenters here, when YOU put it up for a VOTE, wanted you to stay. You are sane. For all practical purposes, you are pragmatic and could even be called a centrist. You are not “despised”, except when you are mocked, and that seems to be regarding intellectual pride/wanting to be taken seriously by “high-minded” folks, and or getting completely bent out of shape by emotional argument and criticism.
Listen, I’ve had fun tonight at your expense, quite a bit. But as a voice, you are valued here, even if some regulars skip over your posts/hate you. Maybe it’s that we’re the same age, but, I feel like saying, ED, sir, get a thicker skin, and punch back. Don’t get deep in the weeds, and know what the fuck you’re writing about. BJ is a site of mostly self-selected skeptics, we call foul on shit that smells bad. And we are patient, but this drama is beyond ridiculous.
Stay. Keep writing. Know your shit inside and out. If you don’t, show restraint, humility. Be funny, fer fuck’s sake. You get linked here by bigger writers a large footprint, so write from your heart. And that leads me to this last plea: You’re a smart guy, and you’ve made a small name for yourself in your burgeoning career. Good for you. You should feel proud of what you’ve accomplished. What you shouldn’t do, is act like you’re suddenly a VSP and need to couch your opinion in droll conjecture and popular right-leaning tropes.
Don’t feel like you need to be the Ross Douthat of Balloon Juice in order to make that next step. Lighten up, Francis.
WyldPirate
@E.D. Kain:
Fuck the commenters, E.D. You should keep on posting here just to piss them off.
Midnight Marauder
@E.D. Kain:
I guess we are overlooking the numerous posts that have meticulously deconstructed how your logic was faulty and empirically demonstrated how your statements were wrong? Because those are actual things that happened, whether you choose to acknowledge that or not.
You have made arguments, people have rebutted your arguments in kind, and you have largely ignored the substance of those rebuttals in favor of posts lamenting how mean people are to you around here.
It is fascinating to watch you argue that people rarely use facts and empiricism to prove their case against your initial arguments, when that is exactly what happens time and time again. I also find it fascinating that you are bemoaning the mores and customs of this particular blog that you voluntarily decided to write at, and apparently, whose readership you do not particularly care for. These are the kinds of strawmen you keep setting up:
Is anyone legitimately arguing that you need to respond to “hundreds of comments?” No, they are not.
The readership does not despise you. A lot of us just think your arguments are full of shit, and that we have the proof to back up our position. That you can only repeatedly resort to complaining about how mean the readership of this blog is when faced with assertive criticism is quite telling about the strength of your position.
Martin
@freelancer: Well, to defend ED a bit here, when he first arrived he got pummeled. Mistermix and Tom and ABL didn’t get those kinds of receptions when they first arrived. ED was bound to have a rough landing, but I was a bit surprised at just how quickly out of the gate people were outright dismissive of him. I’ve not regularly read ED at his other place, so I didn’t have a preformed opinion of him, but I’ll admit I was shocked at how strong the pushback was. There wasn’t an effort by at least half of the first post commenters to interact with ED – they just wanted him out of their view. ED compounded the problem by admitting early on that he probably couldn’t engage much in the comments – and if Cole knew that, bringing him in was a questionable decision as he should have anticipated the problem that would cause.
But I don’t think people should advance the view that this place gave him a particularly fair shake at first arrival. We didn’t. Maybe he should have climbed that hill, but it was definitely a hill we handed him.
T.F. Gumby
John could barely spell back in the day – he’ll be the first to admit it. Lurkers didn’t come here to read the posts, they came here for the fucking anarchy in the comments.
jacy
@E.D. Kain:
The problem I see with that answer is you make it seem like you started a blog and it was suddenly overrun by unruly vermin who started tearing the place up.
Instead, what happened is you brought a different voice to a well-established place, where a fair amount of the commentariat come as much to interact in the comments as they do to read the front-pagers.
It was not a model suited to the way you usually work, so there were some rough patches. Then the rough patches got rougher, and both sides became entrenched. People wanted you to conform a little bit to the expected model, and you couldn’t, for whatever reason.
(Please notice I am not talking about the content of what you write. I agree with you sometimes and disagree sometimes. I’m only talking about the method of interaction).
The one problem I HAVE had is that it seem there have been several instances where you go elsewhere and complain about us. That’s bad form no matter how you cut it. It smacks of condescension. If we’re all so awful and mean and hurtful, why contribute? All the back and forth on the front page seems like you feel other front-pagers are worthy of discussion or argument, but the little people in the comments are just rabble that need to be brought into line. That make work other places, but it doesn’t here. And, yes, that might be somewhat unique to BJ, but that’s why the people who are so engaged in it come here, whether they lurk or snark or do research on various topics and bring their expertise.
There is vibrant commentariat here, and I learn something every day from them, even when I get pissed off or vehemently disagree with someone. If you’re going to live here, you’ve got to grow a thick skin and buck up your research. If you don’t like an environment where you’re expected to rub elbows with the little people, this is probably not a good fit.
Martin
@WyldPirate: Well, at least now we know why you’re here.
Midnight Marauder
@asiangrrlMN:
Because high school is hard.
Calming Influence
@T.F. Gumby: I’m with you, brother. I shot a front pager in Reno, just to watch him die.
Comrade Kevin
@WyldPirate: says the race-baiter to the twit.
FlipYrWhig
@E.D. Kain:
My experience with you here is that you do the same thing Yglesias does. You think something through to your satisfaction, then you blog it. If in comments someone raises something else, crickets chirp and tumbleweeds blow through, and then eventually you pretty much restate the case in slightly different words in your next FP post.
I actually don’t think you need to muck around in the long comment threads. Most of those degenerate into “Obama isn’t liberal, look at what he’s doing!” vs. “Obama can’t do things as liberal as he’d like” rehashes. But the thing you don’t seem to do, and the thing that Yglesias _never EVER does_, is take into account that someone else in the comments may have raised a valid point. You don’t have to think it’s _right_; it could be interestingly wrong.
I didn’t pay any attention to the brouhaha about the other blog, but it does kind of seem like you feel like you’re here to drop some knowledge on the commenters, and maybe once in a while you’ll spar with the front-pagers. That kind of aloofness, particularly taken in tandem with the libertarianism, reads as arrogant and obnoxious.
My constructive suggestion: look through the comments on your posts and include at least a few “Commenter [x] raises an interesting point” bits. Even to rebut or mock them. Even if the commentariat still thinks you’re totally wrong and still calls you names, that’s the way you earn credit, and, more than that, that’s how _dialogue_ actually happens.
WyldPirate
@Martin:
You’re a really decent guy, Martin. The whole post was spot on.
Blackfrancis
@scarshapedstar: dude, what are the powerball numbers for tomorrow?
freelancer
@Martin:
I agree, he got a short deal in when he started. See my follow up for my more empathetic and heartfelt appeal.
WyldPirate
@Comrade Kevin:
Too stupid to understand that “Black Jesus” is meant to mock dumbfucks like you who think Obama is infallible, I see.
Should have known that given the lack of imagination you display.
FlipYrWhig
@Comrade Kevin: Is that a lost alternative second line to “All Along the Watchtower”?
LikeableInMyOwnWay
Come on. How long does it take a savvy blog addict to figure out when somebody is just full of it and has no idea on earth what he is talking about?
It’s one thing to disagree with somebody. It’s entirely another to see immediately that the person has no clue on earth.
JenJen
@scarshapedstar: Hmmm! Who do you like in the Patriots-Jets game?
Comrade Kevin
@WyldPirate:
Oh, I have seen your excuse for it before. It’s not the only racist language you have used, though I must admit I can’t think of the rest of it. I’m just surprised you haven’t used “Barack the Magic Negro”.
Then there’s your anal rape obsession, which you bring up repeatedly.
WyldPirate
@Martin:
No, I’m here because it’s like watching a bunch of little snooty junior high girls–that would be the assholes that make up the “BJ Kewl Kidz” clique—pick on the ugly, homely girl (E.D.) like a bunch of animals.
I’m rooting for the ugly girl and think he should give all the “Kewl Kidz” the finger. It’s funny watching you twits go all emo and take yourselves so fucking seriously.
Calming Influence
@Martin:
Oh yeah, everybody here was mean to ED only because he was new here, like some sort of hazing ritual that he failed, and Mistermix and Tom and ABL didn’t get those kinds of receptions when they first arrived because they somehow passed the hazing.
Let me guess: Phillips Exeter?
WyldPirate
@Comrade Kevin:
You’re full of shit. I’ve used that and “Black Jimmy Carter”. Neither are racist. The latter is even a “tag” on this blog that has been used by the FP’ers.
get over yourself.
freelancer
@WyldPirate:
You are an immature fuckwit. I can’t believe you’re the last one to stumble onto this fact.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
@WyldPirate:
That’s just a lie dude. Nobody thinks Ed is ugly, they think he has no clue. That’s an objective judgment. I don’t judge people by how they look, but if they write something that is just logically preposterous, I am going to say so. As I expect to have in return if I write something idiotic, which I am sad to say, has happened.
In Ed’s case, I saw his material as preposterous from the get go, and nothing I have seen since has really changed my mind. Again, that’s a judgment, and you can disagree with it, but don’t call it ugly-girl cruelty. That’s bullshit.
Comrade Kevin
@WyldPirate: Whine more, you racist twit. I notice you didn’t deny your anal rape obsession.
JenJen
@WyldPirate: You know, if that’s your bag, maybe a little less Balloon-Juice, maybe a little more “Pretty In Pink.”
freelancer
@Comrade Kevin:
Fucking asshole. Amirite?
Blackfrancis
E.D. Kain:
I will admit that I find all of this kerfuffle amusing and all, but despise?
You give yourself far too much credit, I am just not that into you.
Blackfrancis
@JenJen: from my vantage point, the Patriots.
I can see the future tonight. I knew there was going to be a pie fight so I went out and got a pumpkin pie!
Martin
@LikeableInMyOwnWay: Well, nobody has no clue on earth. Even if ED is wrong in his argument, he’s usually not that far wrong overall. He’s right to challenge whether we should have TSA running the screening, and we shouldn’t refuse to have that argument. He’s right to ask if maybe there isn’t a better approach here. He’s right to challenge these things. He might be wrong in his movement from A to B to C, but fuck, the overflowing dumpster of ignorance about healthcare that I’ve waded through here for months, which routinely turn into some idiotic argument between parties based of a completely, totally, utterly wrong premise and proceeding for 200 comments is no different. If you think ED is clueless, then he’s in pretty good company here and I count myself among the company.
Now, the benefit of this place is that even though all of us are wrong most of the time, jewels regularly surface and meaningful and not-baseless discussions do routinely break out. People here listen. People learn. Opinions change. You can see it happen every day. And none of us are any more capable or deserving of being steered as ED is. He’s not more wrong than we are, he’s just wrong in different ways. So long as he’s willing to listen and learn and evolve his views (as we all do) I don’t see why he’s any less deserving of being here as any of us – and Cole’s made it clear that we’re all deserving of being here so long as we don’t go completely around the bend.
And to restate a point – I like having a conservative/libertarian angle here. I’d prefer two people, each more firmly in each camp, but ED works fine. I think Cole is somewhat insistent that different voices appear here. But if not ED, then who? Have you seen how thoroughly most of the other conservative bloggers toe the ideological line? ED is at least starting from a sound starting point. Question the TSA? Sure, that’s an interesting idea, let’s talk about that. Beats the fuck out of the 18,000th challenge against Obama’s citizenship or how tax cuts will obviously make 6 million jobs appear.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
Who’s up for a nice game of CornHole?
Calming Influence
@freelancer: I think it’s safe to say: nailed it.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
I’m afraid we will have to agree to disagree on that point, old bean.
WyldPirate
@LikeableInMyOwnWay:
It was meant as an analogy to wolfpack mentality of this place.
Martin was right in his post above. E.D. was pounced on like a piece of red meat right out of the gate. Some of the other, newer posters–most specifically ABL, whose posts are damn near unreadable and incoherently stupid–get the red carpet treatment.
Now are E.D.’s particularly well-thought out and documented and do they have errors in them? Sometimes yes and sometimes no. I don’t think he is under any obligation to answer to the people in the threads unless that is some agreement he has made with JC.
Cole gave E.D. the keys and he seems to want him here. But some of the regular Kewl Kidz here seem to think that they dictate what goes on–or that they should. And if they don’t, they think they can gang up on people and make their life miserable enough that they will leave.
Comrade Kevin
@Martin: I have absolutely no problem having a “conservative/libertarian” angle here, if the poster will actually engage the commenters. All of the other front-pagers have done it. Kain has done it in this post, which, his actual comments aside, is an improvement, I suppose.
roshan
I think it’s because of ED that the blog is now running w/o donations. It would be good if the proprietor recognized this fact and kept ED on, if not for the substance, then, for the money.
EDIT: Even WaPo realizes this fact.
WyldPirate
@Comrade Kevin:
I’m not whining. I don’t give two shits what you think Comrade.
Ija
Ding ding. We have a winner. The overall impression I got from Kain’s posts is that he thinks he is some higher form of intelligence trying to school us idiots here. The exasperation, the barely-able-to-tolerate-you-people tone, the setting himself apart from the proles at BJ in front of other people (hey, don’t blame me for those crazies there, I’m just there to play ombudsman and teach them the error of their ways), it’s all so condescending.
Blackfrancis
@WyldPirate: please name these kewl kidz so I know who to pay attention to.
I would also suggest to refrain from intentional misspelling to appear “cool” and “happening” as it has the opposite effect.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
@WyldPirate:
Okay, I will give you forebearance. That is to say, I don’t care if Ed stays, in fact I voted as such the other day when there was a thread about whether to vote him off the island.
But as to the objective merits of his material …. I cannot be kind. I’m afraid that it is severely lacking.
Even if all we had were sojourns into lazy libertarian ideas, it would be enough. Does anyone seriously think that libertarian models of government can work in THIS country at THIS time in history with THESE circumstances and THESE challenges? Honestly, that is just bumfuck stupid. Can anyone point to nations in the world or in history that have successfully employed libertarian models of government in a robust liberal democracy on a scale bigger than a high school student government? Get fucking serious. So why waste time with long nose-picking posts of drivel about the supposed merits of such loony goddammed fucking ideas?
If Cole wants to bring that kind of nonsense to his front page, that’s his business, I just ride on this bus, I don’t own the bus. But I am going to call it as I see it ….
WyldPirate
@Calming Influence:
Deep down, you’re a 13-yo kewl kid patrolling the lunch room with your buddy freelancer, huh CI?
You must be so proud. You and your little buddy “rule” and you won the intertoobz tonight.
Comrade Kevin
@Blackfrancis: He is a self-styled non-“kewl kid”. Just watch the huge number of people who think he’s a moron, plus anyone who doesn’t think that Barack Obama isn’t a monster.
trizzlor
Christ this thread is getting pretty sad. I recall quite a few people tearing into EDK after he introduced himself just because of his fucking initials and the fact that he wasn’t waving his Team Blue! foam finger as hard as was wanted. Yeah, maybe that’s not representative of carefully crafted empiricism, but imagine wading through that kind of shit to find them. If anything, his posting here revealed how quickly good-natured snark turns into a petty kick-circle given the cover of anonymity.
Comrade Kevin
Is it just me, or does WyldPIrate come across as someone who treats blog comments like something out of the movie Heathers?
Comrade Kevin
@trizzlor:
Isn’t it interesting how people only object to pseudonyms when they disagree with the people using them?
Martin
@Calming Influence:
No, Cole announced he was going to invite a sane conservative on board, we all made the usual oxymoron jokes, speculated a bit on who was coming over, and when he arrived he was summarily dismissed based on who he’s previously written for, a lengthy investigation of his pro-life what-the-fuck-does-that-mean? credentials broke out, and then it rolled into something of an ‘Oh yeah he’s a Catholic like Douthat, so what should you expect’ examination.
The guy had only pretty much said ‘Hi, I’m new here’ and we were already setting up roadblocks for his arguments based solely on his faith. I don’t recall anything like that taking place for any other FPer.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
@Comrade Kevin:
Interesting exchange there.
I am not really anonymous. I’ve participated in a BJ addict mailing list where pretty much everyone including me used his real name. John and Dougj know my real name. At least two dozen commenters here have known it over the years. One butthead even used it in a post here once.
And that brings up the punchline. I use a nom de plume to avoid the hassles of crazy people on the internet, and believe me, they are out there and they will fuck with you if they can get away with it. Many years on Usenet taught me that. School of hard knocks and all that. But if anyone here wants to talk to me offline I am always up for it and generally do it under my real name.
So let’s don’t play the Kick the Anonymous Poster card. That’s just a crock of shit.
WyldPirate
@LikeableInMyOwnWay:
That’s fine. I agree with this point of view and I think you should call it like you see it particularly with regard to the the political ideas put forth by E.D. That’s what this place is about.
I personally think the libertarian ideas–outside of being able to do things that personally cause no harm to others–are BS and certainly can’t work as a model of governance. What I don’t think is fair are all the demands that E.D. has to come in and wade through all of the buffoons and backbiting little girls here who think of themselves as the board thought police that want to purge any POV that they don’t approve of.
E.D. doesn’t have to reply to people and people that don’t like it have the option of not reading him or, piling on. What they don’t have the right to do, IMO is demand that he reply or demand that he be kicked off the FP (and there hasn’t actually been a whole lot of the latter, either)
JenJen
@Comrade Kevin: Different film, but no, not just you.
Also, technically, I did not kill Heather Chandler. But hey, who am I trying to kid, right? I just want my high school to be a nice place. ;-)
Martin
@LikeableInMyOwnWay: I think you are too quick to overlook how wrong the commentariat here can often be, mostly out of a sense that either they are well meaning (something you probably aren’t willing to extend to ED) or that at least they are generally on your side (something else you probably aren’t willing to extend to ED).
Wrong, but I like you, is still wrong. Wrong, but I don’t like you, doesn’t make you more wrong.
WyldPirate
@trizzlor:
Yep. Happens on a daily basis here and happened to E.D. just like you said.
Comrade Kevin
@LikeableInMyOwnWay: Yes. I don’t care what pseudonyms people use here, hell, I’m using a (partial) one. I first started using one because in the past, on Usenet, I had trouble with an obsessed lunatic who invited people to come visit me at home and let me know personally what they though of my comments, in a physical fashion.
trizzlor
@Comrade Kevin: I’m not objecting to pseudonyms but I find it really hard to believe that people would still be acting like this face to face. There’s an awful lot of comments here that are just self-satisfied put-downs and nothing more, and I don’t see any explanation other than it feels victimless when done through a form.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
@WyldPirate:
I disagree to this extent: BJ has always been a food fight. Everybody who hangs here knows it, including the lurkers. The food fight is what brings people here.
So a new FP guy comes here and gets into a food fight and we are all supposed to rush over with warm washcloths and hold his hand? Nuh uh. There is no whining here. I have taken many a sharp stick up the poop chute, sometimes deserved, sometimes not, and I will fight like a cornered rat. But no whining. And if you catch me whining you should kick me in the junk. Of course then I will have to set you on fire, so ….
LikeableInMyOwnWay
@Martin:
Martin … I have gotten into flame wars here that lasted for two weeks. I am pretty familiar with the deficiencies of some blog posters, and more than a few are familiar with my own shortcomings.
I will concede that Ed is probably well meaning.
But you know who else was well meaning?
Heh.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
@Comrade Kevin:
Usually when somebody wants to go face to face I just tell them to let me know what flight they will be on and I will meet them at the airport.
Of course, I don’t tell them which airport.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
I guess for the record I should point out that I am TZ, the artist formerly known as ppgaz.
Just in case it matters.
trizzlor
@Martin: I think this is actually a neat question, which conservative leaning blogger would be a good fit here? Larison, maybe, until he reveals his religious views…
BTW, the in-line comment threads idea is a terrific one and still has me thinking about path algorithms that would solve the issue of loops.
Comrade Kevin
@LikeableInMyOwnWay: Well, it was a bit different. He sent my address to people who already lived in the Bay Area and encouraged them to come visit me. None of them did, but it was alarming.
Another suggestion. If you have an Amateur Radio license, don’t post it on the Internet.
I already knew you were TZ, BTW. Your handles seem to be easy to follow :-).
JenJen
@trizzlor: I think it’s a neat question, too. I read him all the time, and maybe it’s just because we happen to adhere to the same obscure-in-America religion, but I would absolutely love having a religious conversation with Larison right here in this comment section, mostly because I’m a liberal and he’s a conservative but we have this other really, really big thing in common and I’d love to see how, or if, we could square it.
But I’m pretty sure that’s just me.
FlipYrWhig
@Martin: I can’t quite figure out the intensity of the initial reaction, but IMHO there really is something combustible about the combination of a libertarian perspective _and_ an irregular posting rhythm. Then there was (I guess, I didn’t follow it) the stuff about how he goes back to his home base and participates there in the manner he doesn’t do here. That all interacts: negative stereotypes of libertarians triggering a feedback loop about a libertarian living up to all the stereotypes and not being able to engage… then, when he does, validating the same stereotypes.
If you’ve been around teh Internetz for more than 24 seconds since 1994, or around a college campus for more than 25 minutes since about 1983, you’ve met plenty of libertarians. We’ve heard this stuff before. I’m still waiting for something new and different. Privatization, check. Deregulation, seen it.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
@Comrade Kevin:
I change them for fun, and try to make no secret of my identity.
It is all Doug’s fault. I always say he is the only guy here who has used more handles than I have. But I saw how much fun he was having with them and his spoofs and I decided I was jealous and would steal the idea.
Anything I do that annoys or inconveniences anyone, I always try to blame Doug. He’s the best sport on the blog.
trizzlor
@JenJen: Funny, I had a similar yet opposite experience. I really admired his foreign policy analysis and then was totally thrown for a loop by his strong religious views. Which made me totally re-evaluate my own anti-theist biases.
WyldPirate
@LikeableInMyOwnWay:
Hey, I feel you. That’s the biggest reason why I come here is for the comments and the food fight. It’s my stress relief–this blog, lifting weights and hitting the elliptical. I can yell, shout and scream here and be as obnoxious as I want. It has helped me maintain my sanity in these crazy difficult times I’ve experienced and that the country is going through and has been going through.
I suppose this is where my Libertarian streak comes through. I feel free to rant and rave at people here. You can’t do that out in the world. But the thing is, people are free to not participate here. They are free not to read your comments. While I may get pissed off in the moment and get the adrenaline rush of getting angry–and I know damn well I illicit the same thing out of others— at the end of the day, I see it as no harm, no foul. I can have a decent exchange with someone like yourself, or, I can throw down with someone that wants to take a shot at me. At the end of the day, I don’t harbor any ill will towards people. The next day, though, those same MF’ers can get my goat and get me rolling in a heartbeat.
My objection, as I’ve said before, is a lot of folks here that don’t have the power give the impression that they can impose some sort of purity test here. If there is one thing that truly irks me it’s that. At the same time, I give folks like E.D. the benefit of choosing not to participate. this can be a pretty nasty place and you have to have pretty thick skin to take it.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
@WyldPirate:
A lot of what you see here is theatrical, and performance art. I used to do a lot of it, a persona with the personality of a rabid wolverine. All for a good cause of course.
Anyway, around here it pays not to take things too literally, never to take things personally, and always with large grains of sea salt.
Ed seems earnest, and combined with the naive nature of some of his material, I think this attracts bashing. I tend to bash him pretty mercilessly myself. I’m afraid it’s an old Usenet habit.
WyldPirate
@LikeableInMyOwnWay:
haha. Precisely. The “good cause” of our own amusement, enlightenment or whatever we need it to be at the time.
that’s the best part about BJ. It’s rare to find a place with so many truly bright people that will cut up like this and that the host will tolerate the “cutting up” at the same time. JC gives us a pretty long leash.
I’m going to call it a night. No hard feelings if I call you a fuckwit or some other name in the future if you happen to catch me in a po’d state. ;)
freelancer
@WyldPirate:
Add moar weights. The yelling, screaming, shouting thing isn’t helping with your sanity or assisting you in thinking your arguments that you present here through logically. Don’t get me wrong, as a regular here, I share an equal amount of blame for “Obot”-ism. Reading Matt Taibbi’s book Griftopia about the financial class, coupled with the news from the last month is depressing enough, but I still can’t come to find myself in solidarity with the so-called “left” or “progressive” that wants to see this president gutted like a fish. That wants to see his policies fail for all the liberal puss capitulations that they are. All of them, across the board, except for foreign policy, where he’s exactly like Bush and falls asleep at night dreaming of smoldering skulls of Afghan infants.
There’s a point where I want my president to man up and speak his piece. And then there’s your unhinged bullshit. The gulf between the two is enough to create new a new party on the political landscape. You have gone around the bend, and you pretend like trolling this place 24/7 is some kind of Mental Health Break. Well, here’s hoping.
JenJen
@trizzlor: Yeah, and he makes me re-evaluate the way I feel about the Orthodox Church, which, seen through his eyes, as a convert, is refreshing to me. You don’t run into a lot of converts to Orthodoxy and as much as I recognize the ancestral pull I will always feel toward it, as the Church will always be the strongest tie that binds me to my family and my ancestors and the struggles they endured, I have issues, and I’m conflicted. It kind of runs full-circle with how I feel about politics.
Larison’s writing challenges me, and I think that’s why I keep going back. I always come away from his pieces thinking, you know? And I really appreciate that.
Having Orthodoxy in common makes me somehow more open to giving his views a clear read and a real chance at attempting to be more open-minded, though. Maybe that’s silly, maybe it’s a good thing, or maybe it’s just that it feels more like a family fight when I read his stuff?
ETA: I’m sincerely interested in his thoughts on the recent flock of former Evangelicals toward Orthodoxy, which is a source of much hand-wringing in our religious community. It’s really brought politics, a formerly taboo subject, to the forefront, for example.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
@Comrade Kevin:
If all you ever call me is a fuckwit, then I am probably getting too mellow.
Martin
@trizzlor: Yeah, Larison is a pretty obvious choice, but he’d never come here and suffer the arrows. Bacevich (not a blogger) would be even more interesting, and even less likely to show up. Frum would be fun, but what a fucking bloodbath that would turn into.
On the libertarian side, Balko has at least swung through the place (I recall being moderately dickish toward him), but he’d be interesting.
The loops issue is easy – just keep track of the nodes you’ve already hit and skip them if you run into them a 2nd time. If you have all reference ids in their own space, you start with all comments in the thread in an array. Start with the node that the button is pushed from and put that id on the stack along with all reference ids from that node. Remove that node from the array as well as all nodes that lack references to other nodes. Then, walk your stack, check if those nodes still exist and if they do, add their references to the stack and drop their nodes from the array and eliminate dupes from your stack. Repeat until all nodes on the stack are removed from the array. You’re done. Now just hide all comments using CSS and unhide the ones on your stack. Done.
Martin
@FlipYrWhig: Well, I don’t disagree about how ED has failed to interact with the commenters. That’s the sole issue, IMO. It’s one ED can fix if he chooses. It’s also something we didn’t exactly encourage he do either, but ultimately he needs to either do it (hard as it may be) or not do it at which point his situation will be intractable.
Of course, it appears that Cole is uninterested in backing down (as is his right) so pushing ED down the ‘fuck off and die’ path seems fairly counterproductive. Not only will ED not respond to it, but Cole won’t either, so dismissing ED in his threads only serves to prolong a stalemate. The only reasonable path is to try and get ED to engage, something that Cole will hopefully provide an assist on.
Crusty Dem
@E.D. Kain:
I’m pretty sure you won’t even be able to hear me from way up there on that cross you’ve nailed yourself to, but to attempt to clear things up:
We’re arrogant enough to expect that when an FPer posts something incredibly stupid about (just one example) wanting to go back to a system where “the Airlines choosing who provides security for their passengers”, inciting many comments about how this completely absurd and imaginary scenario has never and could never exist, that these comments will be read and posts will be amended/errors will not be repeated. Obviously, this is entirely our fault, we regret the error. In the future, I would recommend that you completely avoid comments to eliminate the possibility of hurt feelings and upsetting your aura of superiority.
JenJen
@Martin: The failure to interact with the community is absolutely the issue. And this particular post to which we’re all responding with such fury exacerbates the disconnect even further.
I can understand the attractiveness of just blogging on a one-way street; I was a blogger for a relatively (in blog-world) long time myself (albeit in a completely different and non-political realm; F&B blogging isn’t very emotionally charged, obvs) and it would have been a lot easier that way, I suppose. Plenty of bloggers do it. I mean, hell, I read Digby every damned day and she doesn’t interact much with her audience at all. But, you know, that’s her blog, it isn’t this place.
And it really isn’t a matter of responding to “hundreds of commenters” which is about as strawman as it gets. Pick a few loudmouths and have at it, but for all means, man, defend yourself! I think the tipping point for me was the mistermix post which frustratingly pointed out a major and repeated flaw in Kain’s posts (airlines vs airports running security) that could have been avoided with a mere cursory glance at the comments.
I’m certain every single word of this post has been repeated ad nauseum during this episode across posts, also. But it somehow bears repeating because I still don’t get the new, defensive, haughty posture; if anything, it unintentionally makes the point that so many have been trying to make for several days now.
Midnight Marauder
@Martin:
Whoa. This smacks of readership capture.
Ailuridae
@E.D. Kain:
Not even close. The left blogosphere, at least this portion of it, tends to be reality-based. As such, most people here just want you to occasionally address the underlying facts when you get caught making shit up. And yeah that’s pretty often and no they are not peripheral points.
Try starting here.
kay
I have to confess, I thought the entire TSA discussion sucked, here and everywhere else.
I don’t even know where to start. I thought the smearing of TSA agents was unfair and ludicrous (pedophiles? perverts? really?).
There’s two cases on point, that I saw, one by Alito and one by O’Conner, no one cited or even looked at them. I saw lots of tossed-off references to the 4th Amendment but not a single post or comment that looked at the law, which, you know, matters.
I thought the whole “damsel in distress” quasi-feminist argument was demeaning and not representative of me-I go into secured facilities almost daily, and I have never once felt as if a screen or pat-down was ‘sexual assault’ or even remotely sexual in anyway, nor do I know a single woman in my position who feels that way-it’s routine and it’s part of the job. I can’t imagine telling my daughter the TSA agent wants to “grope” her, talk about setting her up as a victim, I have no earthly idea what that has to do with feminism. Intent matters, when you’re accusing people of crimes. “Pedophile’ is just about the worst thing you can call someone in this country, yet that was thrown around based on fucking nothing.
What bothered me most, however, was how it was framed initially as “libertarian” yet 90% of the ‘solutions’ suggested a more intrusive police presence and more police power (including yours ED), which makes me wonder, actually, what it was really ABOUT. I don’t think it was about “liberty”, not when people are blithely talking about dogs and an “Israeli-style” system that ignores the equal protection clause, or tosses off concerns about profiling as “political correctness”.
How supposed liberals missed that the whole reason we have a consistent, transparent process that treats every passenger the same is because we’re trying to protect individual rights is amazing to me. You can object to the process we chose, but don’t dismiss that process protects in this country, because it does. It protects minority rights. That’s why we apply the same process to everyone, not because TSA agents are stupid or have (gasp!) a GED. That’s why I get the same treatment as the guy behind me when I go into a secured facility. Exactly the same, and it doesn’t matter that I’m a lawyer and he’s the parent of a detainee, same process.
The privatization nonsense was the least offensive part of the whole thing.
gibsojj
Just stop engaging him. No clickthroughs and no comments means no ED.
Keith G
Jeeze Kain, maybe you just signed up for duty at the wrong blog. The culture that attracted me here several years ago was a free wheeling give and take where arguments were hashed out in real time and where a lot of smart things were said by quite a few with-it folks. Of course there were haters and idiots, but this is the internet.
John and Doug would throw out a topic (sometimes starting some shit just for the hell of it) and off we would go. No one would blink if a commenter pointed out that what a front pager had wrote was fucking stupid and we all got a chuckle when John would call all of us feckless assholes.
I gave you a chance and wrote as much early on. I want you to succeed here since having diverse opinions in the mix is a good thing.
I have worked at places where corporate culture was an important guide to how to interact. The culture here is not going to change for you – even John can not make that happen without some significant blow-back.
Can you fit into the culture here or would you be mature enough to walk away from a fit that could never be as optimal as it should be to help this community continue to grow?
kay
I would also add that Alito’s opinion presents the doctrinaire conservative case for airport security, and the whole discussion was (in my opinion) framed on Alito’s terms, which makes me think that liberals did, indeed, get played.
I suspect a couple of higher-profile conservatives read Alito’s (lower court, he wasn’t on the Supremes) opinion and framed the whole debate on his terms, and the rest picked it up, perhaps unknowingly, but this was in no way a liberal (or even libertarian) debate.
debit
@gibsojj: This.
I don’t know why people even bother addressing ED’s points, such as they are. He doesn’t engage, except to pout. I don’t know why he posts here at all, or what enjoyment he gets from it, unless what he enjoys is going to other blogs to complain about how we don’t understand or appreciate him. Threads like this just fuel that.
@ ED (pointless, I know, but what the hell): You seem rather young. Perhaps your introduction to the internet was AOL, where you were assured that every word you put out was a precious snowflake. Perhaps you never learned that every blog (or in my day, mailing list) had its own culture and way of doing things and that if you wanted to have a good experience there, you should learn the culture and adapt to it. Otherwise you’ll be viewed as a jerk.
Jane2
@E.D. Kain:
Well then, you’ve chosen the wrong place to blog, as this place revels in long comment threads with, shall we say, vigorous disagreement.
Apparently you blog to pontificate without regard to correcting errors of fact, and to whine about commenters on a blog known for its commenters. And then you sniffle behind JC’s skirts as he sends us all to the naughty chair for expecting you to be intellectually honest and engage….both features of this blog.
snarkypsice
@E.D. Kain:
Then honestly, you shouldn’t be writing here.
I say this with great respect and sympathy because I like your writing – have for a long time before you came here – and because I think you’re being treated really badly by some of the commenters and front-pagers.
But if you don’t want to participate in the conversation that your blogs spark, you just shouldn’t be here. That’s not blogging, it’s writing an Op-Ed.
The only way you will win people over is by engaging them. If all you’re doing is lecturing and leaving, you will just gain more and more enemies here. It’s just a fact.
All the commenters have asked you to get involved in the comments. All the front-pagers have. John has on more than one occasion. By ignoring the reality of what’s expected of a blogger, you are just making it worse for yourself.
PS: You get a lot of positive comments too.
El Tiburon
I am confused about something. If ED is much too busy or whatever to read and respond to comments, then how is it he is so obsessed and knows what the commenters are saying?
Also, ED, why did you not respond to Alluraide’s epic tear-down of you earlier in this thread? You must have seen it?
I’m beginning to think you are anwuss, like most libertarian/conservatives. You know Rush Limbaugh can’t take criticism either. Maybe you arenon hillbilly heroin.
Alex S.
Maybe John’s idea was not to provide this blog with another point of view, but to convert E.D. to the Balloon Juice hive mind.
chopper
@Midnight Marauder:
dumber than ‘peak wingnut’? wow.
lol
E.D. Kain:
People call you stupid because you’re utterly incapable of acknowledging error and this post is yet another example of that. You just whine, dress it up in some glibertarian nonsense (“this smacks of readership capture”), and reiterate your tired talking points that were debunked ages before.
Annelid Gustator
So it seems E.D. occasionally wishes that we’d respond to the posts he wishes he’d written, rather than the ones he’s been giving us.
If you want a better response, write a better post. Ailuridae keeps asking you to climb on down and correct when there are major flaws in your premise…
Is that too much to ask?
If you feel like the errors aren’t crucial, re-make your argument without them. If you feel like they’re not errors at all, go ahead and provide a counterexample!
By not doing those things (and by just repeating your original arguments in a slightly different way) you are doing the Balloon Juice Forummunityblog a disservice.
Alex S.
The commenters of this blog are almost as powerful as the front-pagers. It’s almost communist.
Nutella
ED objects to “readership capture” — pretty funny since the sole and only job of an ombudsman is to respond to reader’s questions.
debit
Also, too, what strikes me as really funny: in his very first post, ED closed with “see you in the combox.” First, combox? How utterly precious. Second, I think we now know that he meant was he wants the comments. He just doesn’t want to read or respond to them.
And so this is my last time posting in an ED thread. Seriously, I think he gets a tremendous amount of ego boosting from the number of comments he generates. Probably also gets a kick out of the mentions on the front page.
eemom
if the polls are still open, I vote we keep this fellow around for now — I need a day or two of ignore-worthy posts so I can get some work done for a change.
However, one further thing needs to be said: there is, in my fervent opinion, exactly ONE blogger in bloggerdom the quality of whose posts make up for the lack of an interactive comment section, and that one is Rude Pundit.
E.D., I’ve read Rude Pundit. I’ve linked to Rude Pundit. You, sir, are no Rude Pundit.
Maude
@kay:
#260
The problem is that everyone gets screened.
The ones who think profiling is good are the ones who think that they would Never be profiled.
The airport screening levels the field.
The people who believe that they are indeed better than Those People are greatly offended that they are treated just like everyone else.
It is kinda like the super rich playing victim about the tax cuts.
Women who have been screaming about equality and then are treated like everyone else, scream about being victims. These women don’t want equality, they want special treatment.
taylormattd
@E.D. Kain:
Fuck you. Many, many people kissed your ass for at least a week in your posts, trying to politely point out the insanely large number of factual errors in them, and you ignore them. Give me a fucking break with your whiny, emo-bullshit.
taylormattd
@WyldPirate: GO HILLARY!
kay
@Maude:
It isn’t that so much, Maude. It’s this:
We have just come through two years that had two absolute fucking low points.
One was when Arizona conservatives decided to draft a blatantly discriminatory law that had the potential to affect 30% of the state’s citizens. The rationale for the law was almost 100% lies.
The second was when national conservatives decided to launch a full-out assault on a minority religion. Muslims. Remember that? It was what. 2 months ago? Again, based on lies. Do you know what saved the mosque in NYC? Not the Constitution, or our inherent tolerance and decency. You know what saved it? ZONING. An impartial process that everyone hates, but everyone endures. ZONING.
That liberals would not even give a passing glance to the clear intent of conservatives to deny equal protection to minority interests and take a hard look at profiling in airport security, given that recent history is fucking amazing to me.
Besides the fact that an “Israeli-style” system involves 1. detain, 2. interrogate, and 3. seize.
“Civil libertarians” are advocating this? In what alternate world?
sparky
@kay: this is one of those “yes, but” rebuttals–
once you actually back up and stop looking at everything through a legal lens, the larger picture, at least IME, becomes much much clearer. thus,
AZ–i don’t think this is an equal protection issue (i am not sure that many people in the US understand what the legal concept means). it is IMO much easier to see this as as an unsurprisingly cynical political ploy: if the law affects 30% that means, presumably, that it doesn’t affect 70%, and, probably a much higher percentage of the actual or likely voters. electorally speaking, it’s hard to see the downside for the Rs. and as far as lies go, well the US is waging wars based on lies, so it’s kinda hard to get excited about yet another law based on falsehoods.
NYC–IIRC you are a lawyer. you of all people should know that process, especially something local like zoning, can be manipulated any which way. in other words, it wasn’t the zoning, much less the process that stopped this. what stopped it was the mayor saying no to the anti-mosque people. if Bloomberg had come out against the mosque, if nothing else it would be tied up in litigation for at least a half-dozen years or the end of his term.
as for screening, i think it is rather self-evident that the white, propertied (read “believe they are above average”) FMCs (formerly “middle class”) people in the US had no problem with profiling and aggressive screening until it was directed at them. there simply were no protests other than some complaints and whines from people like moi (who, incidentally or not, has been told by professional security (NOT TSA) that i fit the profile).
edit: if nothing else, the last ten years, and especially the last two, should demonstrate that no one in the Establishment and precious few in the general public actually care a whit about civil liberties, when the question is civil liberties versus “safety”. when the question is something else that is actually intrusive (ala screening) well, perhaps, then someone may yell. until they are told to shut up by the authorities.
shorter me: there is no connection between these items, other than political expediency for the Rs works until it doesn’t (see, e.g. Schaivo, T.).
Crusty Dem
@kay:
Yes.
@kay:
Fuck yes. The massive suck of the TSA argument was that it was witlessly irrelevant. Getting bogged down in “privatize or nationalize or unionize” is completely pointless given that the main factors are 1) What are the rules and 2) Who makes the rules 3) What happens when the rules are broken.
Only a completely glib libertarian (or someone with serious Asperger’s) can post this video and try to turn it into a privatization argument. Really? Some asshole TSA manager goes on a powertrip, ignoring and flouting established TSA rules and the problem is (wait for it, wait for it, wait for it) government? WTF? WTF, indeed.
fasteddie9318
I say, the problem is YOU DON’T PARTICIPATE IN THE ARGUMENT. You don’t want to argue in comments. OK. Your version of “arguing” in follow-up posts consists of badly summarizing/strawmanizing (which should be a goddamn word even if it isn’t) a whole host of criticisms of your position and then not really responding except to reassert the correctness of whatever it was you said in the first place. Fast forward another follow-up or two and we climax in the “everybody here hates me so fuck you and I’ll leave if you don’t stop being mean to me” whine, rinse, repeat.
Send up smoke signals, for all anyone cares. Just do it in substantive response to something.
IM
You seem perfectly able to comment a lot, including on your own posts, over at the League of Ordinary Gentleman. So it should be possible here too. More comments here, a harsher climate, but is really not doable?
Readership capture seems to be something like that:
running the asylum.
But so that? I see no problem about influential commenters at a blog and isn’t that the case at LOG too?
IM
By the way,there is one blogger who argues in long comment threads very often: Glenn Greenwald.
If you think arguing mean shouting at. :-)
kay
@sparky:
I love this argument. Bloomberg relied on a process, the process worked, and then liberals tell me the process can be captured so it’s useless. What would have been tied up in litigation for years would have been reliance on the federal statute conservatives wrote to protect Christians, not ZONING.
Bloomberg isn’t a freaking KING. He needed a law. His speech was great, but what the bigots couldn’t counter was an ordinary, run of the mill process. He needed a way IN. He used zoning.
Arizona was defeated with process, too, incidentally. The DOJ intervened.
I think the TSA debate was conducted on conservative terms within conservative parameters. I’m not surprised we ended up at privatization, demonizing federal workers, and profiling. I am a little surprised liberals swallowed all of it.
Where did you think we were going with this?
schrodinger's cat
@IM: He doesn’t engage with us because we are not worshipful enough of his great wisdom and intellect.
IM
@schrodinger’s cat:
Yes, one gets that impression.
Catsy
curious:
@Midnight Marauder:
I think the two of you have really hit on something here. And while I agree that the debate has yet to be settled, I’d say that’s mainly because it probably hasn’t been widely articulated in those terms.
By most measures, this is a blog. But one thing it shares in common with forums is that the comments are the lifeblood of the place–take them away, or diminish their role, and it wouldn’t have a fraction of the life and interest it does. The front-page posts are frequently great, but they’re only a starting point for the conversation that follows.
I also have to agree with the sentiment that this is probably one of the stupidest things I’ve ever seen on the BJ front-page since John’s antediluvian wingnut days. It practically drips with condescension. I’m sure EDK won’t read this, but for the record:
It’s notable that you refer specifically to the main complaint in DougJ’s post–not in the comments. As usual, this entire sentence would need not have been written if you’d bothered to read the comments of DougJ’s post. If you had, you’d know that the person who emailed DougJ in the first place posted in those comments and clarified what they meant by “Atlantic-style circle jerk”–a clarification which bears no resemblance to the way you just described it. Heck, you might even know their name!
If you’d read the fucking comments, you’d know.
Hell, if you read the fucking comments to your own post, you’d know.
While this is an interesting question that I addressed above, it has fuckall to do with your refusal to engage with your readers and learn from your mistakes.
Yes. They are what’s referred to as a “community”.
Yes. They are what’s referred to as “lurkers”.
Because without them, you’d be nothing more than a D-list hack posting messages in a bottle with no idea whether or not they’re reaching anyone but your fellow bloggers.
Are you truly this ignorant of how a blog community thrives? Hell, scrap that–are you truly this ignorant about how the community here thrives?
I’ll be the one to say it: what the fuck does this even mean in this context?
I had never heard this term before, so–assuming it was some kind of industry term of art–I looked it up.
Urban dict: nothing.
Wikipedia: nothing.
Google: a bunch of links to Balloon Juice.
Oh, and one single link to a blog where some conservative talked about it in the context of getting a lot of links from lefty blogs because he posted anti-Bush stuff.
Would you care to explain what you mean by “readership capture”, and what it has to do with this? Because it sounds a hell of a lot like you took the words “readership” and “capture” and assumed it meant that the blog’s readership had taken control of the content. And the phrase “smacks of readership capture” implies that it’s some kind of recognizable phenomenon that you’ve seen before and can identify by comparing it to what’s happening here.
That would be great if you didn’t persistently post drivel that is egregiously wrong on the facts, filled with errors that are pointed out in the comments that you completely ignore–and if the subsequent front-page follow-up posts weren’t therefore filled with the same errors of which you evidently remain completely ignorant.
How to put this…
You’re a condescending douchebag who doesn’t know the first fucking thing about the community that is the heart of the blog at which you’re posting. Your ignorance and arrogance are constantly on display here, but nowhere moreso than in this very post. Whether or not it’s a complaint unique to Balloon Juice is completely beside the point–you are posting on Balloon Juice!
What you’ve made abundantly clear is that the opinions of the community here have no value to you. You don’t read them, you don’t respond to information in them, and you don’t accept corrections in them even when they’re from other front-page posters. I don’t even know why you bothered posting this thread as a question.
In other words, you’re writing to see yourself talk, not because you give a shit what anyone else thinks about it. As someone else put it: if you don’t care what we have to say, why the fuck should we care what you have to say?
Go away.
sparky
@kay:
Q: “where do i think we are going?”
A: beats me, as i am not sure i even understand the question. as far as this thread goes, i have this response, and that’s it for moi. thus you get the last word. ;)
um, no.
excerpts from Bloomberg’s speech on the subject:
if you want to argue freedom of religion is a process, that’s certainly your right. given what the SCt has put out on the topic over the years, i think it would be a hard slog.
as for AZ, i’m sorry but intervention by a superior authority from outside the jurisdiction is hardly “process” with respect to the original jurisdiction. by that logic the invasion of Iraq was process. additionally, the intervention was political, just as the initial law’s passage was political. (see, for example, DoJ injunction behaviour with respect to DADT.)
please note i am not saying the AZ law was constitutional; rather, that the whole thing was political theatre, and as such the players knew the “legal outcome” was foredained. thus, the process was part of the charade rather than a saviour.
as for the TSA, what did you expect? most people here seem more intent on badmouthing Greenwald than considering his points, so it’s rather unlikely that “liberals” (whatever that term may mean) would consider it in terms other than “conservative”.
so what am i saying? just this:
(a) that process is law, and to that extent it is likewise dependent upon application and, yes, politics. if i misinterpret i apologize, but it seems from your post(s) that you believe that the correct outcome is a necessary consequence of the correct application of the correct process. i suspect neither one of use wants to get into a jurisprudence argument here, so all i will say is in my opinion such a belief is, as was said in a different context, the triumph of hope over experience.
on the other hand, if i misunderstood you, i am sorry. but i am still going to disagree with you on the interpretation of these events. ;)
oh, and (b) is that nobody in the US gives a rat’s ass about civil liberties when the boogieman of “safety” is on the other side of the balance
edit: the bold/not bold in the quotes was not my idea, as they should all be the same. thanks WP!
Keith G
@Catsy:
I hadn’t got to that point, but you sure make a brilliant case for feeling that way. It’s really weird. Years ago, I used to write for a little political site. The give and take after I clicked “publish” was the fun part. it’s what made time time spent worth it.
sneezy
I think the comment about an “Atlantic-style circle jerk” was off-base. There is definitely a circle jerk going on over there, in what looks like a pretty transparent effort to drive page views and thereby benefit themselves.
I don’t see that happening here and even if it were, it would be less objectionable, since my understanding is that whatever small amount of revenue this place generates is all donated to a pet shelter anyway.
The Other Chuck
Not that you’ll descend to our level and read this, Kain, but a free clue for the bystanders: when you say “X ”smacks of” Y”, it would really be helpful if Y was a phrase anyone had ever heard of before. Idioms are useless when you’re the only one who understands them.
This smacks of rotational fluxions. See how that doesn’t make any fucking sense?
SectarianSofa
These days whenever I see an EDKain post, I actually just go straight to the comments. Saves time.