buttheaded posting tactics are self-defeating

April 26, 2003 5:58 AM

prime example of how buttheaded posting tactics are self-defeating.
posted by crunchland to Etiquette/Policy at 5:58 AM (42 comments total)

That should be in the Guidelines: A post should not be buttheaded. Formatting should not be buttheaded. Users should not be buttheaded.
posted by Slithy_Tove at 6:36 AM on April 26, 2003

Users should not be buttheaded.

That's me outta here.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 7:17 AM on April 26, 2003

There's just no reason for it and it deserves to be called out. Not to mention the fact that I've never been more let down by an over-emphasized headline.
posted by Witty at 7:45 AM on April 26, 2003

No butthead news stories, no buttheaded politics, no buttheaded op-ed pieces, no butthead bands releasing their butthead records or butthead movies made from butthead comics or video games, no buttheaded running jokes, and no calling the other butthead a butthead just because his buttheaded opinion differs from your buttheaded opinion.

There! That otta improve things around here.
posted by timeistight at 7:46 AM on April 26, 2003

...and no calling the other butthead a butthead just because his buttheaded opinion differs from your buttheaded opinion.

Because MeFi is beyond the childish insults of 'butthead'. Please use the more erudite and acceptable 'asshat', 'asshattery' or 'asshatted'. (See also 'fuckwit', 'fuckwittery' 'fuckwitted'). I tease because I love.
posted by romakimmy at 8:13 AM on April 26, 2003

"(from the New York Post, I had to over-emphasize the headline)"

Uhm. No. No ya didn't.

There. I wanted to say that in the corresponding MeFi thread but I posted it here instead, out of the way, where no one will see it, because I'm a good little butthead.
posted by ZachsMind at 8:17 AM on April 26, 2003

I thought we were working the butthead zone here, romakimmy, but my rant is Open Source and Creative Commons licensed. Feel free to adapt it to of epithets and languages.
posted by timeistight at 8:28 AM on April 26, 2003

…other epithets and languages, that is.
posted by timeistight at 8:58 AM on April 26, 2003

I think a really huge font looks good on the front page once or twice a year. It's exciting. Breaks up the monotony. Well, I got excited, anyway.
posted by Shane at 9:27 AM on April 26, 2003

I think it's funny...because it's the NY Post. But, as Shane says, that sort of thing is only funny when used with great restraint....once a year is about right IMHO.
posted by Vidiot at 9:37 AM on April 26, 2003

Buttheaded? Maybe. But(t) let's call it out for what it really is: a ploy for attention. And it worked.
posted by varmint at 9:37 AM on April 26, 2003

Easily fixed by autofiltering the <BIG> tags from form inputs.
posted by PrinceValium at 9:48 AM on April 26, 2003

But(t) let's call it out for what it really is: a ploy for attention. And it worked.

Not really. I may have come over here, but I ignored that post, and another one with far, far too many links, because I figure if you can't compose a decent post, you aren't worth reading. I do this all the time, as do many folks.
posted by frykitty at 9:57 AM on April 26, 2003

And because big bombastic screaming headlines are so integral to the NY Post's style, it fits the FPP rather well. A more clumsy use of emphasis in a FPP would probably send me to MeTa.
posted by Vidiot at 10:00 AM on April 26, 2003

but I ignored that post, and another one with far, far too many links

I would be thrilled to see ten posts a day like the one y2karl made.
posted by bargle at 10:45 AM on April 26, 2003

Let's not forget that the formatting also relates to Big Bird... the Big yellow bird.
posted by Blue Stone at 10:45 AM on April 26, 2003

yeah, fuck y2karl, he's actually trying to put interesting stuff with informative links on the Front Page, how fucking uncool is that
he should concentrate on producing linkless, pointless, condescending PollFilter "I'll bore the shit out of you" FPP's instead
posted by matteo at 11:20 AM on April 26, 2003

I think everybody who waylaid the thread because they didn't agree with the FORMATTING, for fuck's sake, ought to go sit in the corner. You bitch at wendell for not following proper posting etiquette, then you act like jackasses yourselves for about 10 comments, until somebody finally follows procedure and makes it a metatalk thread. If you guys were so concerned with the community you would have brought it to metatalk first, then either not said anything in the metafilter thread, or, you know, did what you're supposed to do and discuss the content.
posted by Hildago at 11:36 AM on April 26, 2003

Blue Stone is right. It's a BIG bird. Worthy of a BIG headline. Pity some poeple didn't make that connection directly. This isn't about guidelines or how to make a front page post. Using huge fonts are not done.
Except for big bird, you twits.
posted by ginz at 12:23 PM on April 26, 2003

until somebody finally follows procedure

new tagline:

MetaTalk -- Follow the Procedure
posted by matteo at 1:10 PM on April 26, 2003

Heh heh heh. They said 'butthead'. Heh heh heh.

I'm kinda disappointed my format faux pas was only considered "buttheaded", and not rising to the high MeFi standards of "asshat" and "fuckwit" (as in wendellfuckwit.com?). Thanks for trying, romakitty.

And kudos to vidiot and bluestone and ginz for really getting the joke, and, alright, to ZachsHead for getting it without liking it...

I'd have liked to see le grande derailemente but His Mattness saw fit to delete those 11 posts along with my headline shouting. My one true regret for that post was that, thanks to my deficiencies in spelling (Carol or Caroll or Carroll?), I didn't find Mr. Spinney's site. Thanks to jdaura (and for the toughpigs link; I almost used it myself, but it didn't quite fit my silly approach to the FP).

I'll go slink away now.NOT!
posted by wendell at 2:15 PM on April 26, 2003

For what it's worth, y2karl's voluminous titles are just as self-defeating as Wendell's little trick.

While it's obvious he spends an impressive amount of time and care in crafting them, I always get the impression that he thinks his links to a site are more important than the site he links to. And while I can only speak for myself, when a title tag pops up that takes up a third of my screen, I'm paralyzed. Maybe it's the suddenness of the large box popping up. Maybe it's that the boxes are visually arresting and noisy, and make the screen cluttered. Maybe it's the tiny type or the effort involved in having to read it all. Maybe it has something to do with the buggy dhtml popup code that sometimes makes his title boxes pop up and not want to go away, and the fact that now that I've turned them on in my profile, I can't seem to turn them off again. Maybe it's all of it. or something else.

I can't fault him for finding inadequate things to link to. In his most recent front page post, he has 20 links all to the same website. Surely one to the main part of the site would have worked just as well. I sincerely doubt the majority of mefi readers have the intestinal fortitude (or adequate screen size) to wallow through all those popup title tags.

Y2karl is the Stephen King of Metafilter. He's prolific, but could use the assistance of an editor, because more isn't always better. In the end, I submit that his convoluted front page posts are as self-defeating as Wendell's stunt.
posted by crunchland at 2:52 PM on April 26, 2003

In the end, I submit that his convoluted front page posts are as self-defeating as Wendell's stunt.

I have nothing to offer on the Wendell issue. Is there a finite amount of font in the world?

In any case, and I don't mean to rude, I think that if you find y2karl's FPP's to be cumbersome, maybe they aren't for you. For instance, I am not into movies so much, so his post today didn't do it for me, and I hardly felt like all that reading. But when he posts on a topic that interests me, I appreciate his voluminousness tremendously.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 5:25 PM on April 26, 2003

hey lets stick pins in crunchland while he's all frozen up.
posted by andrew cooke at 6:13 PM on April 26, 2003

Typically, y2karl's post bore the shit out of me. Obviously they aren't for me. Others seem to love them. Big deal.

Frankly I'd rather see clever formating than a filtered Google search any day.
posted by y6y6y6 at 6:49 PM on April 26, 2003

rock and roll!
i wish i had strong opinions about stuff. i really do!
this stuff fascinates me.
i'm not being sarcastic or trying to make a point. other than that i am reading this stuff. and enjoying it.
posted by mokey at 7:26 PM on April 26, 2003

That's what makes it all worthwhile – the love of the little people.
posted by timeistight at 7:50 PM on April 26, 2003

Quiet, mokey, you'll only encourage them!
posted by Shane at 7:50 PM on April 26, 2003

That's what makes it all worthwhile – the love of the little people.

Bill for a hundredweight of Screenwipes sent directly to timeistight.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 7:54 PM on April 26, 2003

Sarcastic comment about encouraging mokey to encourage them, which leads to further thread derailment and impersonal double post notifications, then an accidental statement meant for another thread.
posted by ZachsMind at 8:01 PM on April 26, 2003

Y2karl is the Stephen King of Metafilter. He's prolific, but could use the assistance of an editor, because more isn't always better.

Yeah. Because butt-loads of money from millions upon millions of people who foam at the mouth over your work is a bad thing. Because, you know, like, King, he's so totally stupid, you know? He can't like, write for crap.

Yeah, okay. So are my fries ready yet?


I think everybody who waylaid the thread because they didn't agree with the FORMATTING, for fuck's sake, ought to go sit in the corner. You bitch at wendell for not following proper posting etiquette, then you act like jackasses yourselves for about 10 comments

Well....... Fuck Shit Damn Piss Hell.
posted by bradth27 at 3:01 AM on April 27, 2003

*pours bradth27 a nicely chilled pale dry sherry*

Is the sun shining where you live? Enjoy.
posted by ginz at 7:17 AM on April 27, 2003

Fuck Shit Damn Piss Hell.

in 4th grade i was caught scrawling those words on the wall in the restroom. my parents, desperately needing to beleive that the ears of their 10 year old golden boy in 1963 had never been sullied by such utterances, much less that he may already have gleaned some inkling of the actions implicit in the definition of the first, stood me in the corner and bellowed at me until i became hysterical and, unable to reveal the depths of my knowledge of this kind of seamy adult arcana, 'confessed' my complete ignorance and named the source of the perfidy: i claimed i had seen the words written in a used textbook i was issued. memorandums were issued, staff meetings held, bulk packs of erasers ordered, and used textbooks scrubbed clean each summer. i doubt they ever obliterated much more than random pencil marks in the ensuing years, but the youth of the future were to be spared possible defilation by that route, at least. we now return you to our regularly scheduled programming.
posted by quonsar at 9:18 AM on April 27, 2003

That was pretty entertaining, Q. Feel free to share anytime. Gives us a little insight into the genesis of Meta-Man-Monstuh-Quonsar, too.
posted by Shane at 9:47 AM on April 27, 2003

quonsar = oliver beene
posted by crunchland at 10:11 AM on April 27, 2003

Everyone needs an editor from time to time. I haven't read much King, but it's not limited to multi-millionaire authors. (Simon Winchester desperately needs better editing, f'r instance.)
posted by Vidiot at 10:21 AM on April 27, 2003

Metafilter/Talk: Even Fonts Piss Us Off.
posted by Cyrano at 8:17 PM on April 27, 2003

Not to belabor the point, but this is absolutely pathological. And it's telling that most of the comments to the post are about the posting style itself, and not the content of the links.
posted by crunchland at 7:27 AM on April 28, 2003

You mean that each of those little letters contains a link to a whole other page? How clever!

Took me a lot of hovering before I worked out what the hell the post was about though, and that I wasn't interested in the subject matter (just not my thing).

I like a quicker cue for my pickiness.
posted by walrus at 7:55 AM on April 28, 2003

this is absolutely pathological

Everywhere I look I find people calling eachother pathological or sociopathological. Is this normal?

A Doctor writes: Shut up, you freakin' little psychopath.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 8:23 AM on April 28, 2003

Everywhere I look I find people calling each other pathological or sociopathological. Is this normal?

No. It's pathological.
posted by Shane at 8:45 AM on April 28, 2003

Pathological is the new ascertain.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 8:50 AM on April 28, 2003