Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Change is Scary

Full Disclosure: I have no idea what I'm going to write.

I am under the weather, on weapons grade doses of Nyquil, and still a little jet lagged, so you can safely assume that I am about as coherent as I usually am, and this is probably as good a time as any for me to share my entirely subjective response to the news that we're getting some sort of new commenting system that we all have known would be coming for like 8 months now.

On the one hand, it sounds like it has exciting potential.  More focused discussions, more interactions with the editors, a chance to do something other than just make tired predictable Holocaust jokes (yes, Bobby Big Wheel, I'm a huge fan, but that joke was about as fresh as Kirstie Alley's sports bra).  This can be a real chance for us to break out of the always-innacurate frat boy mold we've been cast in and show that we can be funny, insightful and intelligent, just like we've always done anyway.  Plus, the chance to interact directly with Dr. Timothy Burke, Ph. D., M.F.A., L.S.D., P.D.Q is going to do wonders for my screencappin' ability around this place.

On the other hand, fuck.

Still, there are a lot of pros here.

On the other hand, fuck.

Yeah, but we always complain whenever there is any change, and it always ends up being okay.  Remember how we were never going to comment after the redesign, and then MBA came along, and then things were better than ever.

Sure, but in fairness, fuck.

I guess where I'm coming out here is fuck.  I got a star on my first approved comment and it made me into a better commenter.  I immediately felt like I had a stake in the place, and I had something to lose if I slipped up even once.  I think that was good.  I don't think that would have happened if I hadn't gotten that star.  Maybe I wouldn't have even stuck around.

Is that it?  Is that what you want, Tommy?  Why could't you just tell me?  Why did you have to bring down Raysism, too?  Beautiful, beautiful Raysism!

Anyway... fuck, amirite?

15 comments:

  1. I dunno. Maybe we could all have sex with someone, or spend time with our families or listen to Levon Helm's powerful, healing art.

    /the fight in the previous post among the various "Guys" is why the terrorists hate us

    XOXO
    MKM

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    1. Easy for you to say.

      I only get laid by starfuckers.

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    2. HI MKM!

      You think the terrorists read this blog? I better step it up. I want them to like my stuff.

      Delete
  2. I am substantially more depressed about this than I probably should be, but bear with me for a second while I raise one more fruitless point.

    One component that I don't understand is why it is necessary for all of the different Gawker sites to conform to the same commenting criteria and structure. The comments section over at Gawker was clearly broken, and the new commenting structure that is being implemented there may very well be the perfect solution to fix that. However, I don't think many people felt that the commenting section at Deadspin was broken in the first place, and it seems like we are being punished for something that we, as a whole, had very little to do with. Gamboa said it better than I could, and Robot Jerry Rice raised the issue again in the previous post here, but I really felt like the Deadspin commenting system worked.

    I started to type up a lengthy analogy about Gawker Media as a series of bars owned by Denton with different themes and customers for each, and how it would be foolish to treat each bar the same way, but I ran out of steam halfway through, so I'm just leaving you with this run-on sentence instead. Use your imagination and I'm sure you can see where I was going with it.

    I can't wait for all of the insight that people are going to bring to the table during the Daily Screencaps and Bristolmetrics posts. Fuck.

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    1. Well, I don't think the analogy really holds. Bars are autonomous business units. The Gawker sites share a common software infrastructure and it would probably be logistically impossible to change the commenting sites on some and not on others. You'd have two separate IP programs.

      Anyway, whatever you think of Denton, you can't knock his business sense, and you can't begrudge him making a business decision. I'm originally from Oakland, and I grew up loving the A's. I've lost a lot of that passion - maybe all of it - in the last few years since it has become obvious they'll be leaving Oakland (even though I had left Oakland far earlier). Does that mean I expect the ownership to take a bath fielding a competitive team when the local community can't/won't support it? No. I get why they're moving, and I don't blame them. I just can't help that I don't feel the same way about them.

      Ditto, Spin.

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    2. Damn, nice sports analogy there IMG.

      The sad truth is, with 76,000+ views for each and every "unintentional dong shot" post, the current batch of commenters and wanna-be commenters is at minimum irrelevant and at most detrimental to the bottom line.

      Seriously, it never ceases to amaze me how many views the unintentional dongs get.

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    3. You're probably right about the platform thing, and I don't know nearly enough about how any of the technological stuff works to speak intelligently toward it.

      I just hope they still let us bring the funny, and commend each other when that happens. I'm afraid that may not be the case.

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    4. For what it's worth, I think each individual picture in the Unintentional Dongs posts counts as its own pageview, based on the huge pageview counts for slideshow posts.

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    5. @BBAM

      I've always wondered why those posts get so many views, makes sense.

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  3. I thought Bobby Big Wheel made that joke intentionally tired. He's been around for all of the overreactions to destarrings/commenting overhauls in the past.

    It's possible I was overthinking it though.

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    1. I agree, I thought it was ironic, which is why I thought it was funny.

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    2. Don't know about that analysis of BBW. He is the archetype of the "was good by the standards of 2009, not so good now" guy that was argued about a while back. The world got more creative, subtle and original while he was off doing his thing elsewhere.

      Plus, there's no one on twitter better at taking someone else's joke, rewording it slightly and passing it off as "new."

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  4. Am I in the minority then when I say that I'm greeting this with a sense of "whatever?" I'm not trying to troll here. Maybe it's because I've been approved, banned, approved, starred, unstarred, starred, etc... enough that I can't get worked up over this. I like reading the DS comments of everyone here. They're funny and even insightful at time. I don't see how that would change with the new system.

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    1. You're probably going to be mostly in the minority here, since most everyone who reads MKM spends an inordinate amount of time thinking of, making, and discussing jokes on Deadspin. I'd be embarrassed if anyone ever told me how much time I waste on it.

      Most folks probably don't care about the stars. I happen to, because I'm shallow and felt a sense of accomplishment when I re-earned it recently. But I think most people are wondering if we're going to be able to make jokes again. Certainly nothing that AJ or Denton or Craggs has said makes you confident that we will. And they really don't seem to give a shit.

      I think it will probably be a total failure at first, and then even out over time. And I think we'll probably get to make jokes and +1 because that's what Deadspin does. But nobody actually knows, and I wonder how many awesome commenters we're going to lose as a result.

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  5. IMG, you have a Nyquil problem you need to address. Or there's something seriously wrong with you. Nobody should get sick as much as you do. I don't, and I have three germ balls living in my house. That's what the pediatrician calls kids.

    Secondly, at least I don't have a star to lose. HA HA!

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