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Jim's Lab Notes— Site News, Baseball Talk, and a Bunch of Other Stuff
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Off-Topics, Politics, and the Redesign
FYI, in the redesign I will restrict off-topic political discussions to a new politics off-topic blog that I am setting up for the purpose. By default, members will not see these discussions in their Hot Topics until they opt-in to see them. In the interim I will restrict off-topic political discussions to a dedicated monthly thread (similar to the football, basketball, and soccer threads), which will be tagged as “politics”, marked as “OT:Politics” in the title, and which will include a disclaimer about the nature and tone of the discussion. I will also begin closing the off-topic political discussions in other threads.
In the redesign I also will be moving the sports-related off-topic threads to their own dedicated area. Like the off-topic political threads these threads will only appear in Hot Topics when members opt-in to see them. When this change takes place members will be able to submit news links to basketball, football, soccer, and golf (whichever sports that generate interest) articles, which will appear in their appropriate off-topic micro.
So, in the redesign people who wish to discuss these topics will be able to do so easily while people who wish to ignore such topics will be able to do so easily as well.
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Jim Furtado
Posted: May 30, 2012 at 12:44 PM | 1369 comment(s)
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Statements posted here are those of our readers and do not represent the BaseballThinkFactory. Names are provided by the poster and are not verified. We ask that posters follow our submission policy. Please report any inappropriate comments.
This is not the case at all. It's not even true that a plurality of people over there want to "trample" this vibrant freewheeling conversation. I think all that has happened in the Lounge and "politics" cases is that people have congregated towards those they have much in common with. DMN, Andy, and Ray (and a few others) have been here a long time and must enjoy engaging each other, despite their differences. The same is true for people in the Lounge. In the Lounge, there will often be two or three simultaneous conversations. There's no "single conversation." There's no insularity, DMN is wrong about that. If I go to Japan, I haven't walked into an "insular" conversation if I can't understand what people are saying. It would be presumptuous of me to say so. Instead, I've walked into a place with memory and language I'm not (yet) accustomed to. Stay long enough and I'll learn it. The same is true for the conversation in the Lounge. You couldn't possibly think it's different for your conversations about politics, could you?
If you see a post you want to respond to, respond to it.
One good source of new Lounginistas is divorce.
Well, start here.
I'll second this.
Unless Foghorn is around.
And that Posnanski nastiness was pretty well confined to Gaelan flying off the handle and most everyone else trying (unsuccessfully) to calm him down. Plenty of others were slamming Poz for what he wrote (and didn't write) about Paterno, but I don't recall anyone else doing it in such a deranged manner.
You disservice the sheer physical force that is Chris' liver by comparing him to mere frat boys.
I did no such thing. I compared him to an entire frat house.
Acknowledged and stipulated.
a) 2 positive references, lowest price and recommended by a friend.
b) 10 positive references, well known and well regarded in the area, but by far the highest price.
c) 1 positive reference, seems like maybe a fake reference, but it turns out it is Art Garfunkel, and he wants to be your contractor
Would you choose Garfunkel? How close to the lowest price would Garfunkel have to be to pick him?
I'd still want to have him bite a pencil and then have a reliable dentist like Tim Whatley sign a COA before I'd believe it was Garfunkel.
And then I'd be sure not to hire him, because his voice drives me up a wall. So precious, so precious.
Well, literally, of course, you have :)
Figuratively, not at all, and as I said, people have always been super-happy to talk with me in the Lounge, even though my avatar says Rookie or Virgin or Fresh Meat or whatever.
I just like a specific hook for a conversation. Though I did miss most of a 300-post thread on the cost of higher education because I assumed it was about Curt F. Schilling. Sometimes I lose out on a good conversation here because I assume it must be about what it says it's about. To the extent that the new tags will better direct us to content, I'm all for it.
And soon you will be able to flag that comment as offensive.
Let me play you some Belle & Sebastian.
Well, I also don't think that it was offensive.
No one wants to shag Art Garfunkel or shag to his music.
Sir Andrew Huxley has died. This excerpt from the Telegraph's obituary doesn't really do enough justice to the 'letter of protest'. The first mrs fra paolo was working there at the time, and according to her colleagues the only time they'd seen more outrage was when the Emperor Hirohito of Japan had been made a Fellow. This brought out a full-blown rent-a-mob style protest from a number of fellows who'd spent time in Japanese POW camps.
Of course, I used to see Huxley when I lunched at the Royal Society. (I was working just the other side of Trafalgar Square in the middle 1980s.) He'd often bring Lord Hailsham, who looked like he hadn't bought any new clothes since 1938, as a guest.
I also disagree with the idea of "funny" rankings. I notice that the number of one-liners in this thread has gone way up since that topic was broached. If the site wants to recognize humor and insight in some way, maybe there should be some sort of yearly award, named for John Brattain. It could be called, and I think he would like this, the "Bratty."
Do not post a link to 2G1C. Ask me how I know.
Obviously we will need funniest member by rate stats and by counting stats.
Humor Above Replacement (HAR).
This has been answered conclusively. Sext your junk to Jimmy's cell.
Which seems appropriate, actually.
Do I have to do everything around here?
And if Keefe doesn't win it every year, the fix is in. The only real competition is for second place.
So the Lounge is just a stream-of-consciousness style of random, unfunny one or two liners such as "Furtudo be gettin' lounge, yo," accompanied by frequent links to obscure photos that are supposed to serve as some punch line?
Only if it involves hats, watches or albrights.
No.
As in you apologize for Klosterman's questions?
Well, that seems to be what we're seeing here.
No.
I would appreciate lots of votes of "insightful" for this remark.
The Lounge has everything good, and it also has Bernal Diaz.
And Fly wants to kill me.
And Fly wants to kill me.
I already said it had everything good.
I'm not sure where the distinction lies. He's no less real than any other Primate who uses a handle, and just because his humor takes a different form than the late John's puns or Sam's spot-on insults is no reason to exclude him.
Also, I think a lot of people don't think Keefe is particularly funny.
The humor-challenged and the literalminded will always be among us, but what can you do? Some of my best friends are like that. But maybe you have to be familiar with the original Lardner riffs to know just how ####### perfect Keefe's parodies are.
I actually kind of like Simon & Garfunkel but I can't tell whether my like is genuine or ironic. What do hipsters think of them?
I am, and I still don't think Keefe is all that funny. What he does is a riff on a tradition that you find particularly funny, in part because of your age, background, sensibilities etc. I do chuckle at him from time to time; my fave Keefeism was "Barack Obrella." And Keefe is IMO far "less real" than other posters, your preoccupation with handles notwithstanding.
I went in and looked at a couple of Lounge exchanges.
Same as me. In real life I'm Tim Geithner.
I'm Batman.
You're a horrible excuse for a human being.
I'm honestly not sure you guys realize what has just happened here.
See above. Also, Fly is a mutant.
I've heard.
Davo is the most hated Lounger, and yet we accept him still.
We are a kind and rational people.
Yes. You'd hate it, sport.
If nothing memorable is ever said there, sure.
The problem isn't politics, but tone-deafness.
You're a young man yet, Perros.
The big lie of Mainland political debate threads is that there are many of them. There's not. There's one conversation, with about 20 or so regular contributors, that has to constantly reconstitute itself in various new threads from time to time because someone randomly decided that the last one was getting too "acrimonious." The political "threads" are just like the NBA or Soccer threads, only instead of being rationally managed forward into a new post every month, they go until they get killed and have to be reborn like a damned phoenix in some random thread to be determined.
The Lounge seems to remember everything. Some Loungers actually read what other people have to say, which in an online context is rather extraordinary.
This is true. Harvey terrifies the Loungers into submission to the point of hilarity.
The point is no one from your next job interview will ever Google up some random, offensive joke you made in the Lounge.
Naked yoga makes up about 80 percent.
Sorry, we're washing our hair Saturday night.
Well, yeah -- death presupposes life.
Great, now I only trail you by fifty thousand to one. Progress.
Cropdusting is the preferred term.
This is perfectly acceptable behavior, by the way.
Dialing the lounge is an art form, in fact.
When in doubt, make a joke at Dial's expense. Or Bernal.
That combover's not fooling anybody.
You wouldn't laugh if you knew what happened to Jeff K.
All this talk of the lounge makes me want to visit, I loved the super snarky Primer days - heck I am even getting a divorce! Of course it is the most amicable divorce ever, but still.
Yeah. Just find something you want to respond to and respond. Or don't. It's not "difficult" at all.
And yes, Gonfalon is miles ahead of Keefe, whose posts I tend to gloss over now.
And no, Ray, I can't imagine you would like the Lounge. But then, I can't really imagine you enjoying anything. So there is that.
I'm quoting this all because it's the damn truth.
He likes Fat Elvis. That adds a human sort of touch to him that makes me believe that he is something else instead of an Ichiro hating robot.
I ask because ... well, because the whole thing just screamed that ... but also because I took a short jaunt over there and noticed how someone there asked about me when I've never paid a lick of attention to the thing.(*) I don't know whether to laugh, or try to get a stalking injunction.
(*) 6:26 PM, out of the pre-universe ether: "Is Sugar Bear Blanks saying anything I should know about?
6:44 PM: "He doesn't like the lounge. Neither does Ray or David N. Somehow we'll just have to find the strength to survive."
6:49 PM: "That’s what’s perfect about the lounge. People like that self-select out, because they would be ignored here. And if you are ignored in the lounge, it likely proves the problem is you…"
594:
Even if so, how is that any different than recurring discussions about any number of baseball topics, such as the HOF, steroids, video games, movies, or recapitulations in detail of games?
Indeed, you can say the discussions outside of the BBTF world as to politics is the same as here, too, as are the outside world's literary/cinematic/scientific/philosphical discussions. People have been discussing the same stuff in philosophy for almost 3000 years without much getting anywhere. That doesn't stop the discussions.
Breaking it up now and then isn't necessarily bad. It's like throwing scalding water on fighting dogs/cats. You don't expect them not resume at a later date. And you shouldn't be trigger happy with the hot water--it takes someone who recognizes a situation that has become truly chaotic. There doesn't seem to be anybody here capable of that.
What whole thing? I mean, the answer is "no" in any case, but there have been a bunch 0f topics covered in this thread and I'm curious which one you're referring to.
I took a short jaunt over there and noticed how someone there asked about me when I've never paid a lick of attention to the thing.(*) I don't know whether to laugh, or try to get a stalking injunction.
(*) 6:26 PM, out of the pre-universe ether: "Is Sugar Bear Blanks saying anything I should know about?
6:44 PM: "He doesn't like the lounge. Neither does Ray or David N. Somehow we'll just have to find the strength to survive."
6:49 PM: "That’s what’s perfect about the lounge. People like that self-select out, because they would be ignored here. And if you are ignored in the lounge, it likely proves the problem is you…"
Most people in the Lounge read the main site too. When the main site discusses the Lounge, word of it usually gets back to the Lounge one way or another. That's pretty much it. In all other cases the Lounge has no more interest in you than you have interest in or knowledge of it.
So what's the problem? Some people are happy here, some people are happy there, a few people snark about the other place when they get bored, and Sam's got a shiv in both of his pockets. Sounds to me like everyone's happy.
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