An article on Tacitus has an
interesting take on the problem of commenting
. Often though, once you have a history with someone, those type of value judgements can be accurate.
From the article;
Let's call these sorts of comments "collectivity posts" and they generally go something like this:
"X will never give you an intelligent answer"
"X always does Y"
"Ignore X he's a Y who Z's"
In other words they are value judgments about another poster's collective worth, contribution, or style. They are also what I consider to be a "3 fer" rules violation. They aren't civil, they interrupt the conversation, and they are vilification for it's own sake. Toss in a profanity and you'd be batting a thousand on the Posting Rules.
These types of collectivity posts are also almost always glaringly hypocritical judgments as well. The posting style, habits, or whatever that rub people wrong are often ignored when practiced by your partisan fellows... oh wait, did I merely say ignored? Sometimes they are cheered and revered. Not to mention that often the people who say, 'so and so adds nothing to the community' aren't always exactly the pillars they fancy themselves.
The author offers this
example
of what to do instead of replying with a witticism, ad-hominem or rude comment. The author is arguing to take each post on its merit, which is a good principle. Unfortunately we all know people that it is meaningless to debate with online. Responding with silence is probably the best action there, but often I get involved in arguments, flames etc that I know better than to join. I am human, so sue me.
It is also interesting to note, that tacitus, like redstate has chosen to drop comment rating. Community moderation is going through an unpopular period. Kuro5hin, slashdot and dailykos still do it. But the second generation scoop sites are dominated by strong editorship - even if comment rating is active.
cam
Most Popular on South Sea Republic
The articles that have been viewed the most:
Most Popular Restaurants in Phoenix
Phoenix Eats Out is the restaurant review site for
Phoenix,
Scottsdale and
Old Town Scottsdale which lists the modernist and contemporary restaurants, taverns and bars in the greater Phoenix area.
This is the list of the most popular restaurants pages from phoenixeatsout.com that have been viewed the most;
My personal favourite restaurants in Phoenix are
AZ88,
Postinos,
Bomberos with
Grazie,
Humble Pie,
Orange Table,
The Vig,
Fez and others coming close behind. View the complete list with the photo-journalistic style images on
phoenixeatsout.com
Most Popular Hikes in Arizona
Arizona is an outdoor state and has lots of hiking in the city and around the state. Phoenix is unusual for most cities in having several large mountains in the center of the city with great hiking. Anyone who comes to Phoenix has to do the
Echo Canyon trail on Camelback and the
Summit Hike on Squaw Peak or Piesta Peak. The views of the city, suburbs and surrounding mountains are wonderful from Camelback and Piesta Peak.
For more experienced hikers there is the McDowell Mountains in North Scottsdale that has several difficult and strenuous hikes in
Tom's Thumb and
Bell Pass. Alternatively, you can hike the highest mountain in Arizona. At 12,600 feet
Humphrey's Peak is a long and difficult hike.
Alternate Australian Constitutions
Between 2004 and 2009 this site,
southsearepublic.org, was a constitutional blog based on scoop which focused on Australian and global constitutional issues.
One of the strongest aspects of it was the development of constitutions by those involved in the blog. These constitutions are the outcome:
The constitutions were built using principles from Montesquieu's separation of powers, the enlightnment's universal political rights and the ancient Athenian technology of sortition and choice by lot.
Archives For South Sea Republic
South Sea Republic started in 2004 as an Australian constitutional blog in 2004 based on scoop software. It was an immigrative outgrowth of Kuro5hin. The archives for each year since then;
The articles are ordered by views.
Who Is Cam Riley
I am an Australian living in the United States as a permanent resident.
I am a software developer by trade and mostly work in Java and jump between middleware and front end.
I originally worked in the New York area of the United States in telecommunications before moving to Washington DC and
working in a mix of telecommunications, energy and ITS. I started my own software company before heading out to
Arizona and working with Shutterfly. Since then I have joined a startup in the Phoenix area and am thoroughly enjoying myself.
I do a lot of photography which I post on this website, but also on flickr. I have a photo-journalistic website which lists
the modernist and contemporary restaurants in phoenix. I have a site on the
Australian Flying Corps [AFC] which has been around since the 1990s and which I unfortunately
lost the .org URL to during a life event; however, it is under the
www.australianflyingcorps.com URL now.
The AFC website has gone through several iterations since the 90s and the two most recent are
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2004-2002) and
Australian Flying Corps Archives(2002-1999) which are good places to start.
Websites Worth Reading
Websites of friends, colleagues and of interest;
