Monday, March 12, 2007

Behave yourselves....

Remember that our aim is to be Thurber like.















Not Ann Coulter like.

Eli doesn't even want to go read this thing.

Posted by EliRabett at 4:43 PM

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

There are much worse things than being attacked by Anne Coulter.

Married to her, for example.

12/3/07 5:52 PM
Anonymous said...

For having sullied his reputation, we will now refer to Mr. Fleck as "Genius Journalist."

That should help his google rating.

13/3/07 4:25 PM
Anonymous said...

Ironically (or perhaps not), Fleck's repeat posting of the "idiot" comment from this blog virtually assured that the comment would get boosted to the top of the list in the google ranking.

That's because of the way google ranks -- based on the number of links to the site where the comment appears (which is probably pretty large for Fleck's site, given the other blogs that link to it, etc) and the "value" of those links. Eli's site is "very high value" as all the anonymice know (3 of us?) so that also helps boost the ranking.

Finally, the fact that the comment is self-referential (now appearing as it does on Fleck's own site) may make a difference in the ranking as well.

The upshot is that if Fleck was trying to publicize the comment far and wide, he succeeded. Otherwise, he made a boo-boo.

13/3/07 7:39 PM
John Fleck said...

It was, indeed, my intent to publicize the comment far and wide. It frankly did annoy me. In the midst of a thoughtful discussion, where Eli and I and others were trying to seriously discuss our disagreements, it rather stood out as emblematic of a rather pernicious form of Internet discourse - branding one's opponent as venal or stupid, rather than engaging the substance of their argument. It's a cheap solution that saves the commenter the trouble of actually formulating an intelligent argument. I have a long history of calling that sort of behavior out.

Plus, as I said over on Inkstain, I really want to be the number one Google ranking for the whole Fleck-idiot meme. :-) I've also got a long history of trying to own the top Google ranking for phrases that amuse me. See, for example, "cricket brawl".

14/3/07 11:41 AM
Anonymous said...

But what if the person being discussed is....stupid? It's not like the word was invented to describe things that don't exist.

15/3/07 5:07 PM
Anonymous said...

"But what if the person being discussed is....stupid?"

Then the thing to do is demonstrate it -- with facts (eg, stpid things they have said in the past) -- not just say it.

Calling someone an "idiot" is what one does in junior high when an argument is not going one's way.

15/3/07 6:44 PM

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