I changed the way I presented that "Reddit is in deep decline" comment. The "deep decline" referred to commenters who thought the front-page poster — on a subreddit devoted to Bob Dylan — was asserting that "Blood on the Tracks" is underrated. The front-page poster had to come in and say "How did your comment get 20x more upvotes than my post😂 Did nobody read the full post? Hilarious but also frightening that the fanbase of a Nobel laureate for literature does not know how to read."
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Please try to avoid comments that are going to make me think the Althouse comments section are in deep decline.
Please try to avoid comments that are going to make me think the Althouse comments section are in deep decline.
Uh-oh.
[tap dancing madly, arms pinwheeling...]
I only use reddit for tv reviews
The joke's on the joker, that's the joker's joke.
I read it every day but it does get tiresome. Best stuff is in the professions and special interest subs.
"Please try to avoid comments that are going to make me think the Althouse comments section are in deep decline."
Please try to avoid comments that are going to make me think the Althouse comments are in deep decline.
The subreddits I follow aren't in decline, necessarily, but boy howdy are they predictable.
(Did you know I was going to write this?)
Crackhouse will never be in decline (hat tip to Rick T. on our discord).
How obvious does a joke need to be before you can get by without adding "Joking!!!" of some such clutter that makes the whole thing not worth doing?
People were not getting this post so I've reconfigured it to make it of value to at leas some of you.
"Please try to avoid comments that are going to make me think the Althouse comments section are in deep decline."
Please try to avoid comments that are going to make me think the Althouse comments are in deep decline.
.Bears repeating
I don't get it. And that's OK.
My thoughts are licensed by someone else and a nondisclosure agreement prevents me from writing about it.
Trump's fault.
My reddit comments get an occasional upvote or two.
Once said something nice about Bernie Sanders, and was upvoted over 2,000 times in less than a minute. Bots were in overdrive.
Made an obvious mildly critical observation on same sub a couple of days later and was banned.
... at least...
I know it's early, but I have no idea what this post is saying. Nor do I have any inclination to read it carefully to make it make sense.
He can’t sing.
see here
https://www.reddit.com/r/HouseofUsher/
All I could figure was that your typos and grammar errors were supposed to be the "joke"! So thanks for clarifying although I still am one of those here whom the elucidated "hilarity" has eluded. Maybe if you had posted a Babylon Bee joke or something...
I deleted my Reddit account yesterday. Because of the humorless moderators.
The first few times, the actual comment with album art and all didn't show up, so I didn't have the proper context.
I came back and there's more, but I still don't get it. And that's still OK.
Is this what deep decline looks like?
"The first few times, the actual comment with album art and all didn't show up, so I didn't have the proper context."
Yeah, as I say in the post now, I reconfigured it because no one was going through the process of understanding it. Ironically, what's at Reddit is *about* people there not going through the process of understanding it.
And here you are, still not understanding it. That is the deep decline.
Sometimes I feel that no one is on my wave length. Here's something I thought was interesting on many levels and funny and sad, and yet, I don't think anyone in the comments sees that. And I started out the comments begging you to try to understand.
There are days when I think I will end this blog altogether when the 20th anniversary comes around on January 14, 2024. Am I just talking to myself and moderating comments from people who are talking about something else?
...at most.
There are days when I think I will end this blog altogether when the 20th anniversary comes around on January 14, 2024.
That's not funny.
The UX/UI of Reddit is terrible to start with.
I have the same problem with YouTube comments.
I only use YouTube for old music that I like.
In the comments of a classic Dire Straits song, for example, someone will always write (and I don't think they're being facetious), "Mark Knopfler is such an underrated guitar player."
: )
"Sometimes I feel that no one is on my wave length."
If something is interesting to you, why not just say what it is and ask others their thoughts on it instead of hoping people can read your mind and get the right answer?
Granted, you did beg us morons to try to understand. Sorry, our bad.
Patronizing comments will surely speed decline along but for the time being the Althouse comments section is, in fact, exceptionally strong.
If you really want people who are not Bob Dylan fans to "get the joke", you needed to screenshot the comment that took the title of the post seriously and got more upvotes than the blog post itself (not the case any longer).
Is it a funny joke? Moderately so I thought, but then I am a Bob Dylan fan, and, even though I don't read that Reddit or any other any longer, I got that the post was likely a joke even just reading the title. Of course, this is just a repeat of a thing we have discussed before- you can't do satire any longer since the population is too humor-impaired to get it, and reality has gotten too damned stupid. A much better joke would have been to not give it away in the body of the post, but I suspect he just didn't have the courage to do that. If you are going to do satire, do it properly, and do it with courage and conviction. He should have written the entire post in tongue-and-cheek, giving all the reasons "Blood on the Tracks" is the most under-rated- the comments to that kind of post would have been far more hilarious, but would probably have annoyed many of his commenters.
Am I just talking to myself and moderating comments from people who are talking about something else?
Hmm? Sorry, did you say something?
I myself always read the posts before the comments, and sometimes comment just on the post before reading the comments thread - I'm interested. I often but not always find the posts edifying and entertaining. (This post would be an example of "not always"; I don't give a hoot about Bob Dylan, and until the Great Reconfiguration had no idea that this post had anything to do with him, because I didn't tap the Reddit box and discover that it was a link.) Whether I'm getting our host's point all the time, I couldn't say.
In this instance, the OG Configuration read like one of neo's "Spambot of the Day" posts, and I commented in kind, out of my woeful ignorance, lumpen insensitivity, and downmarket sense of humor. I denounce myself.
Quit if you like, and Godspeed. Twenty years is a long time for any project. I'll have to figure out what to do with the time I would otherwise spend here, and I'll miss my fellows in the commentariat, but like everyone here including you our host, I did have a life before Althouseblog and I'm sure I will again.
"Their minds are filled with big ideas, images and distorted facts"
It's your blog. Do with it what you wish. At some point, unlike some football and baseball "stars", there comes a time when it is in your best interest to quit or retire, while you are still "on top". Regardless of whether I agree with your POV or subject matters, it is an interesting blog and after I peruse Instapundit (and a cursory glance at Day by Day and Mark Evanier's News From Me), I turn to it. You have "made a difference" (sorry for the trite phrase) and for the reading enjoyment you give me, I offer you my gratitude and thanks, Professor Althouse.
In all sincerity,
MarcusB. THEOLDMAN
The problem, as I see it, is that the "joke" (posting a photo of one of Dylan's most acclaimed albums and declaring that it is his most underrated in a mockery (despite the denial) of an earlier post) was so weak, so lame, so unfunny, and so much a cry for attention feeding off of another person's work that many readers didn't see it as a "joke" at first blush.
And, asserting a general decline in the commentariat because readers were baffled by a piece of sarcasm so poor that it needed an explanation is just a further reflection on the poverty of the sense of humor in the poster and his fluffers who allow themselves to feel a momentary rush of masturbatory self-satisfaction by positing their undeservedly high opinion of their intellect online for the world to see and applaud.
Of course, a astute reader might say the same about this comment.
“Am I just talking to myself and moderating comments from people who are talking about something else?“
That is the curse of blogging… there will always be commenters who would like to use the blog as their own billboard.
Might be interesting to read what you intended with this blog and how it’s going/evolving.
"That is the curse of blogging… there will always be commenters who would like to use the blog as their own billboard."
Good one, Dude.
Actually, Blood on the Tracks is underrated. We can only rate things up to a standard we can comprehend and like all great works of art, BOTT's full brilliance is beyond our comprehension.
(Actually, I don't really believe that - it's just an idea that occurred to me)
The last couple of times Google directed me to Reddit, it sent me to dead threads where all the comments/answers had been removed. (I was asking about car repair.)
Have you ever considered you are the problem, if no one gets your jokes? Now, if you had put Slow Train Coming up as underrated, that might have been incisive. But then, you'd have been pushing out Christian Supremacist dogma, so there's that...
"It's your blog. Do with it what you wish. At some point, unlike some football and baseball "stars", there comes a time when it is in your best interest to quit or retire, while you are still "on top".
Ah, but it is the continuity of the thing. That is the rub. Never missed a day, sickness or health, darkness or light, hot or cold,peace or riot, slings and arrows. No guest bloggers. Just AA, every single day.And, not simple cut-n-paste like others Amazing
I, for one can appreciate and admire, the effort
In deep decline.
Irony all the way down.
Some people love it.
I like your blog, and I like the comments section (the only one I read with some regularity). As a conservative I like getting a moderate’s point of view (if I understand you at all), and wild that most of your commenters are conservative, and far more so than me. Occasional commenter, and sometimes I get the joke or the gist or your push for a specific angle for commenters, and sometimes I don’t. Hope you keep blogging, but as someone who recently retired I get that sometimes it is time to move on.
"Hilarious but also frightening that the fanbase of a Nobel laureate for literature does not know how to read."
Hey, the fanbase ain't the one who got the Nobel. Dylan got the award for writing his words, not for having a fanbase that could read them. Mostly he got listened to, not read.
If Nobels were based on the public's approval, Nora Roberts and Danielle Steele would be Nobel Literature Prize winners, too.
The problem with this blog is that so many commentators here rush to post their comments without ever bothering to even read our host's post, or the accompanying article, or even trying to understand what is being argued in the post. Some of them, like Space Mountain, even brag about putting our host's posts on speed dial so he can be the very first one to post a response, even though he never even bothered to read the post or the accompanying article. This is not just a problem on this blog. It is a problem on a lot of other "conservative" blogs. I hope Professor Althouse continues this blog despite all of this bullshit. I would gladly pay $10 a month to just read her posts and comments on another site, maybe Rumble, without all of the bullshit comments every day.
The problem with this blog is that so many commentators here rush to post their comments without ever bothering to even read our host's post, or the accompanying article, or even trying to understand what is being argued in the post. Some of them, like Space Mountain, even brag about putting our host's posts on speed dial so he can be the very first one to post a response, even though he never even bothered to read the post or the accompanying article. This is not just a problem on this blog. It is a problem on a lot of other "conservative" blogs. I hope Professor Althouse continues this blog despite all of this bullshit. I would gladly pay $10 a month to just read her posts and comments on another site, maybe Rumble, without all of the bullshit comments every day.
If you just glanced at the original post, your reaction was going to be, "Well, that's just a ridiculous assertion." If you went to Reddit and found the original post--which takes a few clicks--you get the joke. Still, it's a bit of work, and you have to endure all the emojis and other silliness. I just don't bother with Reddit. Too much work to get the info you want, or to get someone's opinion.
I was surprised at the number of folks over there who said the Basement Tapes was underrated. It's always been well-regarded, in part because for years it was just a bootleg, Great White Wonder. When it was officially released in 1975, praise was unanimous. And it is good. However, the 1975 release was doctored by Robbie Robinson. The Basement Tapes Raw, a two disc distillation of the complete set, which ran six discs, is the one to have. If you do some searching, you'll find downloads of all the basement tapes recordings.
The original post over there was probably right. New Morning is somewhat underrated, even if Dylan rushed it out after the negative reviews of Self Portrait, which I actually like.
As for Ms. Althouse's post, revised post, and reaction to our reactions: Reddit is too confusing, too moment to moment, too dopey. Folks here sometimes post without actually reading the original article that Ms. A links to, but more often they make comments worth reading. I come here for the smart posts by people with whom I disagree--makes me think through my position more carefully--and the often unintentionally funny and stupid comments by others. Including some people I, broadly speaking, agree with.
A day later and not one commenter has noticed that the guy is actually writing about "The Basement Tapes?"
(Using Brave Version 1.60.125 under mac OS Ventura 13.5)
I clicked on the link to the top post, then clicked on Discussion to see comments. The post-a-comment box was there, with me signed in as "Old-Statistician3510" - a handle I have never even seen before. I posted a comment explaining all that, which seems to be the only comment ever posted by that handle.
What on Earth is going on at Reddit?
(I copied the link to a fresh window and got the same result. I tried copying the link to Safari, and was not signed in.)
The Althouse link includes a lot of extra information; is it possible that this info causes Brave to follow to a page with that user logged in? Could that handle belong to Althouse? It seems unlikely. Or perhaps to someone who sent her the link? Maybe Meade?
Perhapos it would be best if only "clean" links were posted.
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