It would open up a world of /other/ wank, to be sure
And that, right there, is why I doubt it'd ever happen (except on a very personal, every-now-and-then level). Link-collectors are just as wank-adverse as anyone else, I 'spect, and I can see it in the way nearly all of them profess objectivity. When they do have editorial comments (ie the original Linkspam), they're quick to emphasize that this is a "group decision" -- which is really the same as saying, "don't blame me [personally] because it's How Everyone Sees This". Trying to avoid being singled out for the editorializing results in giving the appearance that the editorializing is broadly supported, that is: that there's the force of a majority behind it, which in turn, I would think, also distorts how the linkspams etc are read, as though a qualified jury of our peers has passed an inarguable judgment.
As soon as the so-called objective opinion is revealed as subjective perspective on the part of one person, there's wank. That ties into something else I've noticed (and we see it again with BNFs and fandom): that if someone claims authority, there are going to be twenty other people who feel compelled to undermine, even outright destroy, that authority. A good half of the threads I've ever read on fanwank seem to boil down to: this person is getting too big for his/her britches, and we are here to take them DOWN a notch. Or eighteen. If someone were to round-up links regularly and become a singular 'voice' of collecting-authority, wank will soon ensue, because that collection and voice are taking on a mantle of authority. Linkspam itself is a victim of that, when the original/primary collector was forcefully shoved out, in the middle of the Lamda Awards fiasco -- and there you go, that single voice was replaced by a 'group' authority, editorializing to a much stricter and less flexible level that that single person ever did, leastaways from what I read.
Something about the internet does not like a single authority. Or more harshly, something about the internet believes that only group-opinions deserve respect.
no subject
Date: 24 Jan 2011 06:36 pm (UTC)And that, right there, is why I doubt it'd ever happen (except on a very personal, every-now-and-then level). Link-collectors are just as wank-adverse as anyone else, I 'spect, and I can see it in the way nearly all of them profess objectivity. When they do have editorial comments (ie the original Linkspam), they're quick to emphasize that this is a "group decision" -- which is really the same as saying, "don't blame me [personally] because it's How Everyone Sees This". Trying to avoid being singled out for the editorializing results in giving the appearance that the editorializing is broadly supported, that is: that there's the force of a majority behind it, which in turn, I would think, also distorts how the linkspams etc are read, as though a qualified jury of our peers has passed an inarguable judgment.
As soon as the so-called objective opinion is revealed as subjective perspective on the part of one person, there's wank. That ties into something else I've noticed (and we see it again with BNFs and fandom): that if someone claims authority, there are going to be twenty other people who feel compelled to undermine, even outright destroy, that authority. A good half of the threads I've ever read on fanwank seem to boil down to: this person is getting too big for his/her britches, and we are here to take them DOWN a notch. Or eighteen. If someone were to round-up links regularly and become a singular 'voice' of collecting-authority, wank will soon ensue, because that collection and voice are taking on a mantle of authority. Linkspam itself is a victim of that, when the original/primary collector was forcefully shoved out, in the middle of the Lamda Awards fiasco -- and there you go, that single voice was replaced by a 'group' authority, editorializing to a much stricter and less flexible level that that single person ever did, leastaways from what I read.
Something about the internet does not like a single authority. Or more harshly, something about the internet believes that only group-opinions deserve respect.