I’m a fan of Newsvine and I have been for around 4 years now and probably will be for a while to come. It’s an interesting site built upon an interesting premise and judging by the number of people still showing up and the number of seeds and articles still filling up the site it seems that its going to be around for quite a while longer–Unless congress puts through that dumbassed law that taxes news repeaters and gives it to the various news services. That’s the last thing we need, socialized news or news agencies that become dependent on mana from government to survive.
I agree that it has problems, but it’s more fun seeing what others think those problems might be. Many think it’s because there’s only one moderator. Interesting, but bullshit quite frankly. Others think the problem is that the moderator favors one side over the other, but that’s an even deeper pile of bullshit. Judging by the fact that all sides of several issues think he favors those that disagree with them, it means he’s playing things right down the middle.
Newsvine’s biggest problem is its greatest strength, the membership. Not to put too fine of a point on this, but there are some serious fuckwits and mouth-breathers on that site. Don’t get me wrong, the moderator has done a great job at purging some of the more egregious tools but in an effort to be fair they put up with people that thrive on being pissants until it becomes a sick joke. Then again, when they have purged some of the worst offenders there are people that’ll actually petition to bring the little twerps back.
Fuck that.
For those that say that the moderator is too harsh I offer this bit of consolation, if I were there I’d open the membership rolls and start with A and work my way through the alphabet, odds are when I was done I’d have banned about 30% off the top. Sadly this would probably drop the traffic on the site a fair amount, because that 30% drives a lot of traffic by seeding and writing “fuck you” articles to try and nurse the pennies out of the payment scheme. Actually, that wouldn’t bother me because I don’t worry too much about the number of articles when a huge percentage are complete fertilizer to begin with. The site lived through losing some pretty blatant piss-off artists and pseudo-intellectual babblers in the past, and it’ll live without the rest, and their groupies, who routinely threaten to quit but are lying through their rabid little teeth when they make that vow.
To recap, Newsvine is a pretty good site with a large anchor comprised of trolls, epicurean pretensia, bullshit artists, infiltrating spammers, rabid righties, loony lefties, partisans, racists, sexists, homophobes and people that accuse others of being those things to try and end an argument that they don’t have the debating skills to end through brain-power alone. But, there are a few things you can do to avoid throwing up your arms in frustration after having pissed away many hours of your life that you’ll never get back.
Avoid politics.
Avoid people that think they’re experts about anything.
Find and follow people that like to discuss things like a normal and rational human being. And for the record, if you agree with somebody that screams about politics, religion, or any of the other trigger topics then consider this. You’re about to be part of the damned problem, just say no!
See Tom speaking intelligently and rationally about things that interest him? See Dick ranting, raving and making an ass out of himself?
Don’t be a dick.
Actually, that’ll get most people through life with a lot less drama.
© 2010 – 2012, Tim Boothby. All rights reserved.
Good rant
I appreciate that Scott, as far as my rants go its better to read mine and hear them. Well, that’s only true if I’m irritated, when I’m mad I speak like the old retired NCO I am. I still tend to write more formally and with more propriety than I converse
Good rant and good advice.