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Fight Club

by ek hornbeck

Community

(This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday, Feb. 06, 2006 Monday, Feb. 06, 2006 at 6:20:47pm PST

Let's just not talk about it.

You guessed it-

another Late Night Whiny Meta Thread

This is so not 'Marian the Librarian'. I had a marching band with 76 trombones. I had my still memorized lines from high school about talking and bickering.

And as soon as I understand, I swear, Marian will rise and haunt you from the grave.

Still, let's talk about tags.

At one time the tags tag included these diaries.

Since I collected this list in dmsilev's diary we have added the following-

All 4 of them are relevant to our present situation. I'll draw your attention to 1 particular comment referenced in this comment here.

Sigh. I was born to be an editor, not a critic. I have my ruthless side, in meatspace I am covered in blood. But I have promised to use my powers only for good, and when I putter about in the garden I try to grow things.

Here I try to teach. I help individual students when I can and publish my definitive monographs when they are ready dammit.

I must admit I shamelessly abused my privileges to Add/Edit.

Closed down 'Bush' twice. George W.. Community norm.

al-Jeezera? 4 different spellings, chose the one that kos used most (which also conveniently moved it up in the alphabetical list). Did Bill O'Reilly too, twice; along with lots of commas, misspellings, and misplaced spaces.

I didn't do this-

==============

My proposed comment.

==============

Tags

I'm glad everyone had a good time.

While I disagree with some of the policies on this site, I do try to follow them. Markos is far too good to me, he permits me express myself and I can look in the mirror any time I want.

Here's what he says-

6. Stop with the "cutesy" tags. This is a tool to help organize content, not show how clever you are with keywords like "HUNTERRIFIC" to express how great Hunter's diary was.

I like hanging out with you clever people. It is one of few joys in a grim existence. And you are clever, here are the cute things you had to say before I got here (well today, when I read it the last time there were only 70 comments).

Here are your tags-

Do Not Recommend, troll, troll diary, Howard Dean, therightlies is a SUCKAFOOL, FOR THE SAKE OF BABY JESUS DO NOT RECOMMEND, diary rules abuser, STOP CONTINENTAL DRIFT!, snark, coward, tecleo, daily kos, freeper, chupacabra, what about Poland?, cultural decay, misapplied ingenuity, snark diary, Howard Dean stole my Mojo, evil will always triumph because good is dumb, Just fucking shoot me, universal darkness covers all, cultural singularity, left behind for some very good reasons, this one time at band camp, black helicopters, Agent Mulder is after me, purple monkey dishwasher, whyonearthamipostingthisridiculousdiary, BURP!, crack kills, unintentional hilarity, I'm recommending this diary just because of the friggin tags man!, existing tags, Stepford Wives, pie, ALL CAPS, Gin Blossoms rule, USC wasthebetterteam, No, Itwasn't andyousuckanyway, MattLeinart, nothingsucceedslikesuccess, sharks with frickin' laser beams on their heads, omfgwtf, this tag fights fascism, detective earl is on the case

Bravo. No snark at all. I think it's frickin' funny man.

Mostly when I do this I don't talk about it at all. It makes no difference to me that you spelled 'Schwarzenegger' with 2 Ns and 1 G.

Except when I try to find stuff.

"This is a tool to help organize content...".

I am exposing myself this way, not just because I like getting naked; but because it is funny, so funny that I think it belongs in the permanent record here at Hogwarts.

Just not in the tag cloud.

My new tags-

Troll, Troll Diary, Howard Dean, Tags.

If you feel strongly enough about it you will-
a) Replace your tag
b) Replace all the tags (such typing)
c) Hide this comment (wait, then the funny stuff disappears too).

The sad fact is most of you will never know or care.

I'm sorry you can't quite place my name but it has unpleasant connotations. Remember I didn't come here just to comfort the afflicted, but to afflict the comfortable.

I was talking about this diary http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/1/5/14744/33076. It no longer exists. Trust is about more than being able to see hidden things.

I did nothing except kick it up the chain. Sometimes my emotions overwhelm me. I emailed a front pager who wisely said nothing, and I too have since remained silent.

I can talk about it now because there is nothing you can do about it either. We are shut out.

I expect the author put the final nail in the coffin, but that is not the phenomena I wish to draw attention to. Now, no one can abuse your tags except you.

Not that you couldn't fix them. I don't write so many diaries that I lose track of what happens to them. Now the only way to change them is by editing your diary.

I initially debated (internally) the ethics of notification, and I did so on several occasions. On further examination I decided that notification was ruder to the diarist than a wordless touch up. This is one of the problems with the 'Categories' project. In this case I was going to make an exception, which is what is noteworthy to me.

We nag people about duplicates. We nag people about spelling. We nag people about formatting. We nag people about links.

Why nag about tags?

So this was my new 'tude. Leave nothing behind but footprints.

I must admit I have a very large list of topics I ignore and authors that bore me, like meta and ek. It is difficult to tell now exactly which diaries offended, I ignored them the first time. They have been justly castrated, using magical powers (and ain't nothing more magical than kicking the plug).

Still, if you examine the reading material, there was a small core of the community that was willing to maintain the library. Of all the things I've been trusted with it was the one I craved most.

But you're always writing inside a box, look around. The argument is about the borders. Is this a game? Isn't it always?

You never talk about fight club.

[Update 11 pm EST] more stuff from Open Threads about tags here