Tuesday, June 19, 2012

MKMOT (June 19, 2012)

Well, I'm glad that's over.

Tuesday is the universal day of twofers, so let's double the hate productivity today. It will double my pleasure, and double your fun. Time to make this daddy proud. Do it underneath this video interpretation of a music recording that is in no way relevant to anything. I don't have much to say, and I don't have to say much.

It's your words that matter. All I have to do is tell you that it's open.




46 comments:

  1. I'm still try to wrap my mind around why this was moved... but this wasn't.

    The first guy was actually making a joke, even if the execution was lacking, and is it any more tasteless than Connor Clapton or Payne Stewart jokes?

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    1. I was just coming here to post this. Yet another reason I am not a fan of Tim Burke. Has he ever read the Deadspin comment section before? Is it still #toosoon for Kent State jokes? Did Tim's hippie uncle force him listen to Neil Young for hours on end when Tim was a kid? Don't get it.

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    2. I agree. I laughed out loud at the Kent State joke. Tasteless? Of course, but aren't many of the best DS comments? Plus, I was about to make a reference to it myself.

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    3. I thought that Kent state joke was really lazily executed.

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  2. If you'll allow me to foster the discussion...

    Dozens of comments that are merely "shitty" fail to get moved every day. They seem more prevalent now than ever. I don't know if they just get overlooked, or the ninj squad is scared of the massive workload that would be created by toeing down this slippery slope. Adding the element of tastelessness is a good way to make a comment stand out from the rest of the steaming pile, and ensure that it does get moved. As for comparing the subject in question here to the others that you referenced, I'm not sure Burke is making an intentional statement about this one crossing a line that those two don't. I'd imagine that over there (like over here), each individual writer/editor has their own "line" and policy, and whoever is manning the wheel when something comes up acts accordingly in the moment. If a Clapton/Stewart joke came up, perhaps he would have moved it. I don't know that he would, but I can't assume he wouldn't.

    Personally, I would never do a Clapton joke but I could at least consider a Stewart one. I guess a child being involved is the difference for me, which is weird, because I don't like children. For this reason, I would have moved a Tyson/treadmill joke that was made the other day. At last check, it stood.

    I guess my point is that we're all different, and it's hard to take someone to task for inconsistency until we have tangible evidence that they've actually seen two similar "offensive" comments and handled them differently. So there's only one thing to do: go post your Clapton joke.

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    1. Well, the other one got moved, too, so that's a moot point now. My response would be that Burke has been posting at DS for how long now, and if THAT is his line, almost nothing by Hatey McLife would even see the light of day. I would certainly consider it editorial overreach.

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    2. Yeah, I think we're in agreement here. Remember, the ninjas have said on a number of occasions that, if they moved every comment, their work would lose its shock value. They're not really here to ensure a perfect comment section, as much as they are to provide a reminder of what is wanted. In that sense, a sense of unpredictability move and/or neck snap might be more effective than regular pruning. It's a lot like the mission of the Supreme Court: their job is not to correct every error made by a lower court, but rather to make/affirm law on key issues (forgive the pedantic point, I was an honors political science major).

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    3. I agree that everyone has a different line of what's acceptable or not; I think our lines are pretty similar.

      But at this point, Burke has been an editor for long enough to have seen the various offensive/stupid Clapton/pron/SJP horseface/Favre jokes, and he should know what kind of comments are made on the site. The tastelessness of a (terrible) shooting that happened 42 years ago blanches in comparison to plenty of shocking/tasteless jokes that get left unmoved.

      What I'm trying to say is that it doesn't matter that he moves one joke and not another, it's just that moving this jokes shows me he's pretty put of touch as a Deadspin editor.

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    4. Posted mine before I saw Bacardi's reply. Agree with Bacardi completely.

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    5. I'm not defending Burke, but that was an incredibly tortured, ham-fisted, desperate "joke." Maybe the problem isn't that it's tasteless, but that it's tasteless and it sucks. If he'd moved it to #lame, I doubt we'd be worked up about it.

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    6. Come on, man. No reason not to put your real (fake) name on this.

      Everyone else did.

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    7. That was me, had a brain fart when I got to the Reply as: bit. Southern Dandy is a good commenter who's having an otherwise good day, but that one's a miss. I'm not saying it should have been moved, but that I think it would have been a lot less controversial if it had been moved somewhere other than #trulytastelessjoke. If it had gone to #lame, we might have gone, "Huh, that's kinda surprising," but I doubt anyone would have thought to come over here and defend it.

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    8. I somewhat agree with the nameless one up there. Who among us does not immediately think of that angle when Kent State comes up? The joke was too obvious for my tastes.

      Although I'm not worked up about it being moved on account of tastelessness, either. If it were a better joke, I might feel differently, but I can't take issue with Burke here one way or the other.

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    9. OK, I guess it's Sharting that I am somewhat agreeing with.

      So I take it all back.

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    10. I agree, the joke was not great, and #lame wouldn't have raised my eyebrow. But that particular joke being "truly tasteless", in light of the great multitude of other funny and unfunny jokes that get made on DS that actually are tasteless, seems out of place. Again, for an editor who has been around for a while, I just don't understand how that joke could cross that line.

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    11. I am in agreement with Bacardi and Echo on this one. I haven't been around as long as many of you, but in my 1.5 years or so commenting, the only rules that anyone ever given me have been to be funny, and that nothing was off limits. This seems to be the policy of the ninjas, but as Marv alluded to, the editors also tend to use their own discretion while evaluating comments. I've noticed that most of the time when a comment gets moved that we agree should have been left alone, it is almost always done by an editor, rather than a ninja. I don't think that this one should have been moved, but since it was Burke moving it as opposed to a ninja, I don't think we should read into it too much either.

      Marv alluded to another point that I wanted to quickly ask about as well. The issue of children being used in jokes is peculiar, because while it is considered "fair game," I have seen many prominent commenters mention that they do not like it at all. The use of Conor Clapton is obviously at the extreme end of the spectrum, because that was horrible and the comments have all already been made, but it seems like there are other cases that are not as bad that fall into somewhat of a grey area. I am curious as to how do those of you who do not like it come down with regards to less egregious instances of its use.

      I was starred for a "child joke" right around the New Year, and I remember seeing a prominent commenter mention how he didn't like the fact that children were now "fair game" in DUAN shortly thereafter. It wasn't directly in response to my comment, but it made me second-guess whether I was over-the-line with my joke or not, and I've generally stayed away from the topic of children since.

      Update: I refreshed before posting and just saw Sharting's post. I'm inclined to agree, although I still don't know that it should have been moved at all. Moving it to #lame would have been much easier to digest than #trulytastelessjoke.

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    12. @Echo - Right, but, I guess my question is: so what? The comment got moved. I guess maybe I just don't take the name of the off-thread location very seriously in any case. Not when they also have places with names that are obvious jokes. If the act of moving the comment doesn't bother me (and in this case, I'm not especially het up about it), then the name of the place where they send it isn't going to get my blood pressure up.

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    13. For some context, I guess I should add that I got moved to #trulytastelessjoke once by an editor for saying that Return of the Jedi wasn't very good.

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    14. Your linked "child" joke is nothing like the Clapton stuff or the Tyson one I mentioned from the other day. To me, anyway. That is not at all what I was attempting to convey, and I would think most people can see the difference.

      As for "nothing being off limits", there are several forums that would indicate otherwise. My interpretation of the ninjas' "be funny" being the only rule in regards to the whole "tasteless" debate is that if you are going to go way out there on the limb of bad taste, you are going to have to make up for it with home run-level funniness. And this is very rarely accomplished. To paraphrase, any subject has the potential to be funny, but some are far less likely than others and require damn-near perfect execution. And those who take on this challenge come up short way more often than not, resulting in a tastelessness that outweighs the funniness by a wide margin. And that's where the moves come in. One man's opinion, as always.

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    15. I definitely see where Sharting et all are coming from. I made a bigger deal out of it than I meant to. Burke has a reputation for being thin-skinned, and things like this don't help that perception. I seriously doubt he was offended by it.

      As I said above, the execution was lacking, but I still don't think it deserved a move. If it did, there were better reasons to move it than tastelessness.

      You can see in my response to IMG below that I definitely thought way too much about it.

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    16. Also, Sharting, I took that move as a joke about your taste in movies.

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    17. Sorry, but I'm not up to much more than this:

      The Kent State massacre was, at the time, horrific enough that for some, 42 years may indeed still be too soon, even if their feelings have come about second hand. I have no knowledge of the origin of Mr. Burke's distate for this attempt at humor but I can sympathize with the fact that it exists. I can see the humor in the comment without being amused by it. Hell, I can still get pissed off by listening to Ohio and I was close to neither Kent State nor anyone involved in the tragedy.

      My feelings are that the comment should have been left where it was but I will not fault Mr. Burke for moving it.

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    18. And that's where we disagree. I think the name does make a difference (in as much as comments on a sports blog matter). If he moved it to #lame, or #derp, or #yousawaphotographonce, I'd wouldn't care, because those categorizations apply to the comment.

      But the point of moving threads is to shape the overall tone of the comments in general. In my opinion, sending this particular comment to #trulytasteless sends a confusing message.

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    19. @Marv

      I didn't mean to insinuate that they were in the same category. Sorry if it came out that way. I was just trying to see if anyone had any clarification as to what the line is with something like that. I'm just over-thinking things though, because like you said, if it's funny enough it doesn't matter.

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    20. All good. But I don't think the "line" will ever be clarified outside of our individual guts.

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    21. Erg,

      Likewise, I cringe every time I see a Virginia Tech shooting joke, but I can't fault someone for seeking humor from it, and I'd only want one of those jokes moved if they were, again, simply a poor joke and not because of the subject matter.

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  3. So, I'll just add that I really like Burke, and I think his work has improved greatly since an admittedly rocky start. He was only an occasional commenter in his previous life, so he can be forgiven for not immediately grasping the Deadspin ethos, and I feel like he's done a fine job of "getting it" while also carrying a rather large share of the load lately.

    Speaking of which, so this is just an observation, but does it seem odd to anyone else that under Tommy, almost all the published pieces come from interns and/or relatively junior editors (Dom, Dickey, Sean. Tulo, Tim, etc.) I don't think I've seen a single Luke O'Brien piece lately and Barry, who is still the heart and soul of the place to me, seems to be down about 20-25% from what he was publishing under AJ (that is probably because all of the new interns/editors are carrying a lot of the load on minor stories that Barry used to have to deal with).

    It's not a complaint. I think the new guys have done a great job, and while I miss Luke and Hickey (in his non-Russian-whore-fight-videos role) and a few other guys who rarely show up, the quality of the site is fine. It's just a rather pronounced change, at least in my view. I doubt it's intentional, but it's interesting nevertheless.

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    1. A lot of people really don't like Burke, and I certainly don't want to sound like I am one of them. His screencaps are one of the highlights of the Twitter community, and he brings that work ethic to DS with his evening work.

      But moving comments by non-starred commenters that aren't (in my mind) even borderline could be construed as many things, favoritism to established commenters to the new guys and a crackdown on the jokes we like to make to the long-term people being a couple of them. I just am hoping for a little more restraint in policing the comments. Everyone's on edge from Denton's little ego trip, and I'd hate for the DS writers to suffer the backlash.

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  4. Hey, by the way, I've discovered this place's new mascot. Oriole minor leaguer Nikolas Balog.

    http://www.milb.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?pos=&sid=milb&t=p_pbp&pid=623928

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  5. I just want to say that my joke in the Bynum thread was the best of the day, and I hate everyone of you who isn't Kramerica Enterprises.

    Burn, miserable dogs. Burn.

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  6. Apropos of absolutely nothing, whatever happened to that commenter Pandering Panda?

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    1. Couple of name changes later...

      http://deadspin.com/people/easymoneyrt/comments

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    2. Hint: It was apropos of something

      /subtly nods head upward

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    3. Wow. And I'm the one who gets called out for not "getting" Deadspin.

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  7. Hammerclaw, SBV8, you're both good commenters, and this pains me.

    What is this poop that was farted out?

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    1. Clearly I'm in the minority here today as I liked the Kent State joke AND that one. What can I say? I don't mind the obvious.

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    2. I dunno. It popped into my head, I chuckled, and submitted it. Between your comment here and TDK's comment on the post, I guess I didn't realize that horse/glue jokes were so divisive.

      Oh well. At least a couple people enjoyed it.

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    3. @Sgt. Hammerclaw, definitely don't take my +1 on TDK's joke as a direct indictment of your joke. I thought it was a clever quip by TDK that could be applied to the commentariat as a whole at various times. We're all guilty of cycling through repeated memes, joke structure, etc. Connecting that thought and "beating a dead horse euphemism" in the context of the post about a dead horse beating its previous record was pretty damn clever in my worthless opinion. That's why I +1'd TDK, not as a shot at you.

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    4. I tried to tie my LaRussa joke to TDK's, but I just went back to read it and I think I failed miserably.

      Oh well -- there's a 1,571st for everything.

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    5. It's arguably along an overwrought dead horse/glue line of jokes, I gave it a +1 because I can't think of another joke I've seen along those lines using the term "unglued" and in my head I saw some middle aged man in a suit say "You've set the preakness record" and the book in his hands just falling to pieces.

      And that made me chuckle.

      As far as my own commenting of the last two days...I have no excuse, having trouble getting the thoughts to come together well.

      Also, like Gamboa said and Sgt. probably agrees with: I won't ever take it personally when I'm called out for my own commenting or humor appreciation. And if you use your actual commenting name, I certainly won't ever respond with a series of links and attempting to attack your own commenting history. If it wasn't for having some interest in what you guys all thought of the comments we're making (the only feedback we get), we'd all be significantly worse at this.

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  8. Regardless of my opinion of the joke, props to the Sarge for constructively standing up to being called out anonymously.

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  9. There's a great reply from comment_ninja to econdave on the "Clown Question, Bro" post.

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  10. This may have been mentioned already...but it's really nice to see Mantis Toboggan, M.D. commenting on a regular basis again.

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    1. Oh c'mon, you guys. Cut it out.

      (Seriously, they might get suspicious. And if you could wait to cash those until Friday, that'd be great.)

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