The masterposts aren't immediately useful, but six months later, they were a godsend. When the subject of racefail came up and someone said, "so, um, what was that about?" I was able to post them at rydra_wong's masterposts (multiples, because it slammed into LJ's character limit) and say, "start here!"
If a year from now, someone wants to know what happened with Bloomsbury and the cover of Liar, they'll be pointed at maybe the delicious link going to 44 posts (if more aren't added; if there's no new "cover_fail" themed posts about a different book/set of books), or they'll be aimed at a tag, rather than a single post, at the Linkspam comm. Odds of them understanding what happened are a lot lower than if they were pointed at a single post with links to the earliest reactions at the top, and later conversations listed underneath that.
I think some of the "archive the stupid as it happens" is likely to backfire--the way it's done, highlighting the most eye-catching phrase in the post so that people head over to rebut *that* claim, is likely to cause a lot more defensive lockdowns than plain linking. And it's causing a lot of people to reconsider what they post publicly at all--which, on the one hand, less fail in public; on the other, they're self-censoring a lot more than "opinions someone might find offensive about the recent hot topic."
I know it's skewing what I say in public; posts I'd prefer not linked, but want public feeback on, are heavily slanted towards topics oblique to Linkspam's interests. And, of course, there's the derail/tangent issue, which has boiled down to, "if you don't want to be considered part of the conversation, don't tell your readers what inspired you to write this post," which directly clashes with years of online conversational habits.
Oh, and Moar Funn: posts like this one are often linked on metafandom but not linkspam, because they are part of "how fans communicate with each other," but not part of any specific oppression theme or anti-oppression activism. However, most of LS's conversations (if not individual posts) wind up on metafandom, so there's a weird distorted-mirror effect going on between the two comms.
(And thanks. It's my "miscellaneous online activity" icon.)
no subject
Date: 10 Mar 2010 07:30 pm (UTC)If a year from now, someone wants to know what happened with Bloomsbury and the cover of Liar, they'll be pointed at maybe the delicious link going to 44 posts (if more aren't added; if there's no new "cover_fail" themed posts about a different book/set of books), or they'll be aimed at a tag, rather than a single post, at the Linkspam comm. Odds of them understanding what happened are a lot lower than if they were pointed at a single post with links to the earliest reactions at the top, and later conversations listed underneath that.
I think some of the "archive the stupid as it happens" is likely to backfire--the way it's done, highlighting the most eye-catching phrase in the post so that people head over to rebut *that* claim, is likely to cause a lot more defensive lockdowns than plain linking. And it's causing a lot of people to reconsider what they post publicly at all--which, on the one hand, less fail in public; on the other, they're self-censoring a lot more than "opinions someone might find offensive about the recent hot topic."
I know it's skewing what I say in public; posts I'd prefer not linked, but want public feeback on, are heavily slanted towards topics oblique to Linkspam's interests. And, of course, there's the derail/tangent issue, which has boiled down to, "if you don't want to be considered part of the conversation, don't tell your readers what inspired you to write this post," which directly clashes with years of online conversational habits.
Oh, and Moar Funn: posts like this one are often linked on metafandom but not linkspam, because they are part of "how fans communicate with each other," but not part of any specific oppression theme or anti-oppression activism. However, most of LS's conversations (if not individual posts) wind up on metafandom, so there's a weird distorted-mirror effect going on between the two comms.
(And thanks. It's my "miscellaneous online activity" icon.)