The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by David Bilek:

will: But I must note that Martin Luther King and Gandhi and a few other folks managed to be pacifists and stand up against hatred at the same time.

Yes, because they were backed by the credible threat of force from others. King and Gandhi presented those in power with an acceptable alternative. It wasn't "deal with pacifists or keep the status quo" it was "deal with the pacifists or deal with the violent alternative". Malcolm X and militant black groups in the USA or organized and armed nationalist groups in India, groups which had already engaged in a violent military campagin against the British Raj during World War II.

You need the carrot and the stick.

Yeah, somebody didn't learn the lesson of John Romero. No, a print ad stating that John Romero was about to "make you his bitch", and ordering you to "suck it down" didn't prove to be a good marketing strategy. What are these people thinking?

My taste in horror movies runs more toward Don't Look Now than Saw--in fact, much as I love horror movies, these days I'm hesitant to give new ones a try because there are so many I just can't watch--but I suspect the difference was merely that it was real

This is exactly right. I can watch HOSTEL or SAW 'til the cows come home and sleep like a baby. (Whether I'd want to watch them is another story... but I can). I mean, it's not real. Why would something that isn't real bother me?

It's not even a fictional depiction of something real. I can't easily watch fictional depictions of the Holocaust because it actually happened, even though the actual footage is not real. But some fake person getting their fake arm fake cut off in a fake movie? Whatever. It's barely different than watching someone in a movie fake cross the fake street.

I'm actually having trouble coming to grips with the idea that some people find it surprising that many folks are not bothered by fake things but are bothered by real things.

I am quite tempted to posit a facile theory that people under a certain age, who grew up with these sorts of special effects and with huge amounts of violence on film and television, are much less likely than their elders to be bothered. I rather suspect that is the case but I don't have any evidence for it, so it doesn't reach the level of "theory".

But it's fake. It's not real! Why would it bother me?

Horror movies that rely on tension, atmosphere, and suspense rather than shock are much more problematic.

The Business Insider is making me laugh, and not in a good way. The headline of one of their articles is "WATCHMEN FLOPS". Because it didn't equal 300's take of 70million, which was the single largest March opening in history.

I see Jim echoes this a little in the post, calling the $55million take "far below" what WB was expecting. That doesn't match my understanding, which is that tracking was calling for 50-55 million, and Watchmen came in right at the top end of that range.

It's true that after the huge midnight showing numbers some people on friday morning were wondering if it would hit 70, but that was a fanciful wish at best, and lasted all of 12 hours. And Watchmen is almost 3 hours long, while 300 was under 2 hours, which means there were 50% more showings of 300 over the weekend.

Any actual evidence that 55million was far below Warner's expectations?

To, unfortunately, take some of the funny out of this story and turn it into a more typical Bush era carnival of horrors, there is this quote from a NYT article:

"Mr. Zaidi was subdued by a fellow journalist and then beaten by members of the prime minister’s security detail, who hauled him out of the room in his white socks. Mr. Zaidi’s cries could be heard from a nearby room as the news conference continued."

Yeah, according to a BBC story, they dragged him out and beat him until he had a broken hand, broken ribs, internal bleeding, and an eye injury. And according to the linked NYT article his cries from being severely beaten could be heard while Bush was giving his press conference from a nearby room.

Yeah.

The scariest absorbed toxin I know is dimethylmercury. I didn't like even being in the same room as the stuff. A single drop can kill you... through latex gloves. Doubleplus ungood.

My recommendation for the handling of dimethylmercury is as follows: don't.

Avedaggio: I'm sure it's probably in one of those 4 previous threads somewhere, but the key point to keep in mind is that a strong two party system is an emergent property of a first-past-the-post voting setup. Which two parties are the two major parties can change over time, but the fact that we have essentially a two party system will never change unless the first past the post system is itself scrapped.

More to the point, I think, is there someone Obama could have chosen who would have swung your vote Democratic... without also guaranteeing that Obama loses the election?

For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain his soul, and lose the whole world?

abi #57:

Thanks for looking back. Yes, recently I've been posting a lot in the threads here that reference moderation policies. But that's mainly because there have been several of them recently and they're kind of interesting and something I've been involved with in the past. Mentioning specific names in the referenced thread was probably ill-advised as you say.

Bruce Arthurs #68:

I actually rather like the idea of moderators "signing" their work in some way. I suspect it's a non-starter. It would be seen as risking individual moderators being singled out as too heavy handed or bearing personal grudges. But I like it for that very reason. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Also, I just saw the WATCHMEN trailer again. Yay.

I begin to wonder, in general, if you could restrain the ebullient delight at the BoingBoing moderation that you have been expressing in an almost unbroken gush since you first started commenting here

Your characterization is inaccurate as anyone who reads the previous thread can see.

Secondly, the topic of this thread is about a boing boing thread. If commenting about a boing boing thread is a problem, why the hell have it in the first place?

Thirdly, yes "with this email address" would be accurate given that it's a new email address. I've been commenting here off an on for, oh, as long as it's been around. But thanks for asking.

Without commenting specifically on the particulars of the disemvowelling in question, I found it hilarious to see Takuan and Antinious lecturing other people about manners and axe grinding. I'm not sure they saw the irony, though.

Jules: Thanks! Beth Meacham did edit SPIDER STAR by Mike Brotherton. That's the first one I've been able to find.

The SF EDITORS site lists the books edited in 2007 by PNH, Lou Anders, and David Hartwell but not Beth Meacham or Ginjer Buchanan so it's 60% of the way there.

I humbly submit that as the driving force behind splitting the Best Editor Hugo, Patrick may wish to make sure the tor.com site lists what books were edited by what nominee since 3 of the 5 nominees are Tor editors.

At the. I am now officially annoyed at the Hugo Awards. Oh well.

And now for something completely different:

I am now officially annoyed that Hugo Awards. The Best Professional Editor (Long Form) category should be set up like the Artist category and require the nominees to have a couple books they edited listed by their names. Because I suspect that the vast majority of voters have no clue who edited most books in a given year.

For example; I'm fairly knowledgable about SF. And I can't figure out what books Beth Meachem edited last year. I *deliberately went looking* online and I can't find out.

I know PNH edited the Scalzi and Hartwell edited ROLLBACK, but that's only because those two novels were nominated for BEST NOVEL so I went to Amazon and looked at the copyright page.

But if a voter wants to make an informed decision how is he or she supposed to do so? So far I know exactly one book edited by two of the people nominated. I had hoped that Patrick edited AXIS as that would have made things easy, but it looks as though Teresa edited that one. (I'd vote for you if I could, Teresa!).

[/rant]

goddammit Josh, I'm going to cm vr thr nd pnch y n th fc ovr nd ovr for constantly pre-empting me.

I got that. It's no small part of why it feels as if it's telling the poster to bugger off. If anyone can post, but some unspoken set of rules exists

It's not an unspoken set of rules; it's a very clear set of rules. Multiple links to the rules appear on the posting page. One is highlighted and says "You read the guidelines right?" and warns your account can be banned if you link to your own site or a project you worked on.

The guidelines state, among other things:

"Make sure you're linking to something on the web. If you're posting a generalized question to the audience, or posting a comment as a main thread, either find an appropriate mailing list, or use MetaTalk."

So posting about moderation policies on Metafilter is explicitly and clearly addressed in the guidelines, and the guidelines are thrown in your face when you attempt to post.

So I really think you're greatly misunderstanding the clarity of the guidelines on this issue with regard to making a front page post.

That feels as a slap in the face; a "we don't want your kind coming round here."

It's important to remember that anybody at all on Metafilter can make posts to the front page and not just post comments to existing threads. It would be if a random person made a blog entry here on Making Light just like Patrick or Teresa or Jim or Abi can. There would be no difference from their posts. Right at the top of the front page, with a by-line and everything.

If someone posted about the moderation policy in a comment rather than as a front page post on Metafilter almost the same thing would happen there as here; the person would be told to take it to Metatalk. Here they would be told to take it to the open thread.

So I think you're basing your reaction on a false equivalency; making a comment in a thread there is the same as making a comment in a thread here and would be treated the same. But there is no equivalent action here for making a front page post there. If I hacked MAKING LIGHT and made a front page post bitching about Teresa or Abi would it be left to stand? Somehow I don't think so; nor should it.

But a lot of that involves hypotheticals, so I should probably not sweat the detail. But the short answer is: gamely, if you didn't pick the completely wrong place to start said conversation.

Curse you, Josh Millard. I should have figured you'd beat me to it.

Out of curiosity, by the way, how would I be received at MeFi if I came in and ran up a comment thread about how badly deletion comes across?

On the MetaFilter front page? The thread would be deleted almost before you hit "SEND" because it is so not what Metafilter is for.

On Metatalk? Depending on how you phrased the post I can see it being left to stand and the resulting thread would contain both a great deal of insightful commentary and a great deal of nasty snark heaped upon you. Metatalk is the least-moderated place and can get pretty rough. But it needs to be that way; that's where things like the appropriate level of moderation are hashed out.

On Ask Metafilter? Again, depending on how you phrased the question, I can see it being left to stand and resulting in mostly insightful commentary because on AskMe the snark and/or abuse would be deleted right quick.

So it would depend on where you posted it and how you phrased it and the results would range from a disasterous train wreck to a 2000 comment super-thread with lots of interesting discussion.

the second "If it's completely on topic, tell them to quit it. " should obviously have been OFF topic. That's what happens when I write too much.

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