Slightly misleading quiz in FPP

June 23, 2006 5:53 AM

the way this quiz is presented is somewhat misleading, as noted in the comments.
posted by sergeant sandwich to MetaFilter-Related at 5:53 AM (21 comments total)

Did you really need to read that disclaimer to know that the words had been switched? I think most readers caught on right away, with or without the disclaimer.
posted by caddis at 5:58 AM on June 23, 2006

but the disclaimer's not on the page the post links to. you'd have to read down through the comments, which most have apparently not done, to find that out.
posted by sergeant sandwich at 6:01 AM on June 23, 2006

and no, i don't think it's entirely obvious from the context. i've never read hitler, but i have read mussolini, and it was full of raging against communists, liberals and labor unions. fascism is a decidedly anti-liberal viewpoint, and i'd be little surprised if hitler wrote about how nasty liberals are.
posted by sergeant sandwich at 6:06 AM on June 23, 2006

What the hell? Are you asking for a spoiler? Would you like the answers to the final, too?
posted by loquacious at 6:08 AM on June 23, 2006

What's the point of the call out? It's already in the comments of the thread, what else do you want?
posted by empath at 6:10 AM on June 23, 2006

maybe the link could be changed to the version of the quiz with the disclaimer? i loathe coulter's brand of jingoism as much as the next guy, but as it stands this is disinformation.
posted by sergeant sandwich at 6:17 AM on June 23, 2006

but i have read mussolini, and it was full of raging against communists, liberals and labor unions.

And Masons. Don't forget the Masons.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 6:23 AM on June 23, 2006

I swear I can't imagine a good reason for another Coulter post unless she was dead or became some sort of revolutionary anarchist.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:34 AM on June 23, 2006 [1 favorite]

Hee hee[high pitched laughing], lol. I have a large cock for my 2.5 meter frame, I can lend it to you, my price? Just keep it up.
posted by econous at 6:47 AM on June 23, 2006

I swear I can't imagine a good reason for another Coulter post unless she was dead or became some sort of revolutionary anarchist.

Well, can't argue with that.

Sorry if I was harsh, sargeant sandwich. But it kind of defeats the marginal point of the quiz. It's not meant to be straightforward.
posted by loquacious at 7:06 AM on June 23, 2006

Getting anal about Coulter?
/shudders
posted by mischief at 7:31 AM on June 23, 2006

This is obviously serious business.

In other news, Coulter has awesome PR people.
posted by Eideteker at 7:41 AM on June 23, 2006

Getting anal about Ann Coulter? (nsfw, but just words.)
posted by drpynchon at 8:00 AM on June 23, 2006

BURN THE WITCH!!!!!
posted by mkultra at 8:11 AM on June 23, 2006

the other thing is, this dumbass quiz is just lazy. it wouldn't have been -that- hard to cherry-pick a few passages of hitler railing against liberals without resorting to just altering the text. a whole 45 seconds of searching found, f'rinstance, this passage in chapter 2 of mein kampf:

I now saw the liberal attitude of this press in a different light; the lofty tone in which it answered attacks and its method of killing them with silence now revealed itself to me as a trick as clever as it was treacherous...

the other thing is, as much as mefites revile coulter, o'reilly & company for their distortions of truth and "fair and balanced" reporting, we ought to at least do better and present the truth behind this up-front.

i don't know how many people visit mefi daily, but i seem to remember matt claiming something on the order of several million hits a day. not all of them dig all the way down and read every comment to every post. i know many people, without accounts, who come just to click on links. the fact that the truth about this is buried in a few of 60-odd comments means that a lot of people are going to come away from metafilter totally misinformed.
posted by sergeant sandwich at 8:55 AM on June 23, 2006

the other thing is, apparently i like the expression the other thing is.
posted by sergeant sandwich at 8:56 AM on June 23, 2006

This is all that needed to be said about the quiz.
posted by Pacheco at 9:02 AM on June 23, 2006

the way this quiz is presented is somewhat misleading, as noted in the comments.

Problem solved.
posted by LarryC at 9:04 AM on June 23, 2006

Perhaps this energy would be better spent looking for the shift key?
posted by LarryC at 9:05 AM on June 23, 2006

I've got to agree with sarge -- the quiz is lazy. Too much trouble to find actual Hitler quotes? What the hell, just fudge 'em so you can get your "quiz" slapped together and posted on the internet where everyone will love you for it.
posted by languagehat at 9:42 AM on June 23, 2006

Metafilter: slapped together and posted on the internet where everyone will love you for it.
posted by cortex at 11:03 AM on June 23, 2006