69 Replies to “Reader Tips”

  2. The musical or video selection is, as had been pointed out, not embedded in this blog but merely a link. We can choose to follow that link or not. A good number do; a good number do not. We pick and choose by ourselves. I prefer the comic videos and have very much appreciated these links, sending them on to others.
    Therefore, I don’t understand why some commenters here object to this feature of this blog!
    After all, I’m sure that most of us do not follow all the threads posted on this blog. I certainly don’t. Either I may not be interested or may feel completely incompetent in the field or may not have the time…but, each of us chooses which threads to read and comment on.
    As for Reader’s Tips, as pointed out, they are tips. This obviously doesn’t mean a tip from oneself but a tip from the news, from an article, from a journal. Therefore, we are expected to provide the link to that fuller examination of our short tip. This has been explained many times and, in my view, makes sense.
    So, what’s all the fuss about?

  3. There wasn’t a problem then, Soccermom. As I’ve explained before, the problem started last autumn when a handful of commenters started abusing Reader Tips. Since the value proposition for Reader Tips has now been reaffirmed, said abusive commenters have now decamped from Reader Tips, to the advantage of us all. And I agree with you: all this discussion about me is a problem. Perhaps, if people can’t control themselves, I should absquatulate.
    For more information, please see this new Note from Kate.
    As Kate has requested, please use email if you wish to discuss this further.

  6. We used to be able to have fun here. ‘Not so much anymore.
    I was about to make a, I suppose, gratuitous, comment about another comment and then stopped: Whoops. That would probably be considered O/T and certainly not a Reader’s Tip, so I’d better not say anything.
    Then, I thought, “I need to voice my opinion that ‘we used to be able to have fun here,'” granted, on Kate’s bandwidth, but at least there was a sense of community. ‘Not so much anymore.
    Reader tip? I guess I don’t actually have one, just a question: Why is SDA not as communal a site as it used to be?

  9. BATB! You know better than that. People make gratuitous comments about other comments in reader tips all the time. Look above! That’s not the problem, BATB. You’re not the problem, BATB. The problem is people who don’t play along and then, even and especially when informed thereto, they get their shorts in a knot. You don’t do that, BATB. See how that works?
    So please do carry on, folks. I’m not actually trying to be difficult. Just do two things for me, please: (1) in new-topic tips, provide a link to your source URL and/or other information about your tip, and a short description of or quote from the matter at hand and/or why you think we should visit that link, and (2) in comments on extant tips and comments thereto, don’t get carried away.
    Pursue signal ~ eschew noise.

  10. Keep talking Hugo, keep talking…
    Democracy is for everyone, so long as it’s MY version of democracy,
    “Let me make this clear to the people of Colombia,” Chavez said on national television. “I hope that Colombia will have a decent government and when I mean decent I think that means whichever candidate, except for mister Santos, mister war, the number one yankee lapdog of Colombia”.
    “The socialist president, who denies trying to influence the Colombian elections in any way, continued saying that “if the people of Colombia … would disgracefully vote mister Santos (…) I will not receive him.”
    I personally think he meant to say “descent” not “decent”.. we seem to not see eye to eye on that one. (yes I know it’s a translation.. uff.)
    on the side bar of this article, there’s a good/brief summation of past histories for the current candidates for President of Colombia.
    http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/2010-elections/9615-chavez-ready-to-turn-page-but-not-with-santos.html

  11. Opps sorry! I hadn’t relaized that the Supreme Court of Canada was still loaded with Liberal judges! In any event, as long as the Supreme Court (or any court) has control over the media, “we the people” are as helpless as goldfish in a bowl!

  12. I’ve tried every once in a while to submit a Reader’s Tip but the discussion seldom went anywhere. I suspect my tips are boring (the way I sometimes find other tips.) I agree with other commentors that they don’t seem to be much fun anymore and if you’re always looking over your shoulder (metaphorically) expecting to be scolded because your tip didn’t meet the criteria or that your response was somehow not appropriate and you should go elsewhere, etc. etc. I find that I prefer not to bother at all.
    It isn’t my blog and not up to me to make the rules but I agree with other posters that this feature has become stifled with overly picky and sometimes rude responses from–I was going to say hosts (plural)– but actually, the only host who has been too quick with putdowns is Vitrivius. I avoid most of the Reader’s Tips hosted by this individual because of the several occasions when sincere, though perhaps less “wordsmithy” types get shot down. Other hosts appear to be able to ask inappropriate posters to desist without trying to humiliate them.
    If I offend, ban me. I don’t particularly care whether my comments are received or not. I do enjoy the blog and for the most part, the treatment and choice of topics are top notch.

  13. Reader Tips “discussions” aren’t supposed to “go anywhere”, Rita. Reader Tips has to deliberately avoid discussion. Reader Tips is like a bulletin board, where you post notices of interest to you. If everyone posting their notices got into a seminar, debate, and armed skirmish over every notice, the value of the bulletin board would be zero. We don’t want that. And there’s not much value either in notices that don’t provide a source of follow-up material: if you’re interested don’t call doesn’t sell.

  14. Time for a quote. If you have not suffered enough it is your god given right to suffer more. I think it was William Aberhart who said it.I wish they still made Cdn. Politicians with a backbone.

  15. Vitruvius, growing pains, old son, growing pains. What you’re asking isn’t unreasonable, as ET points out.
    I’m well aware of how difficult it is to have to be the one where the buck stops — and someone’s usually got to do it. You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t.
    Like Soccermom said, and glasnost, Kate’s blog is the best. We’re all in it together, for better or worse — where’ve I heard that before, as #32 looms? — and it’s not always going to be for better.
    ‘Only thing to do is damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!
    (Apropos of nothing, here’s a musical interlude to calm the racing heart and soothe the troubled soul:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1J0O8wTzvIc and one that more or less sums up Kate’s kick-ass-SDA: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUTXb-ga1fo&feature=related)

  16. Anyone for having a “dump Vίt” boycott of “Reader’s Tips? I’m in.

  18. I think Vitruvius does an admirable job here in his Reader Tips gig, there are plenty of news and opinion sites that cater to what is available as “fresh news” simply by checking in the known offenders in the msm: the CBC, CTV, BBC, the Globe & Mail, the National Post, the well known American news stations… and in the past few years some conservative type news aggregators have come to the rescue of us. Normally there are times after I’ve read through the usual culprits, hunting for interesting quick reads in the msm, that I’ll visit SDA and see the same sites and links posted here in Readers Tips as being newsworthy or up and coming stories, when in fact it seems to be a case of certain individuals that enjoy seeing their moniker “up in lights” as though it’s some sort of breakthrough or earth shattering development. These same individuals time and again post “news tips” that are normally published “below the fold” in newspapers and the like, thinking they’re adding to the discourse of the nation, when a quick 15 minutes perusal of our daily informative read’s would set the tone for our day. Instead of a real Tip, including what makes this noteworthy out of the msm, including a short description of what it is in regards to, and perhaps what makes this newsworthy, we have time and again seen people post how they’re upset that their non newsworthy item sans link has been deleted, and you have no idea why? Really?
    Seriously? How many times does Vitruvius and Kate need to explain it? I was thinking that most right wing types are more intelligent for quite some time, now I’m starting to have my doubts…
    It’s not that difficult to get your own blog, simply visit http://www.blogger.com and you’re half way there. You can publish all you want, of information typically seen on the front page of your favorite news organization, and invite all your friends to visit you there… I’d suggest you start with something like, “Greece to fail, check here tomorrow for more details” and wonder WTF when you have 10 visitors to your pathetic blog. But just like a vacuum salesman, what do you do after you’ve sold to all your extended family? That’s exactly what is seen in the msm. SDA is/was different, that’s why I visit often, that it did link to interesting and perhaps obviously slanted (if the slant is what MAKES the story!) news stories, and thusly having the SLANT being the major part of the story. A sort of “sheesh factor”?
    I imagine the constant heel snapping at Vitruvius and occasional sniping at EBD take their toll, and for what purpose? To bitch and complain regarding someone that obviously takes time out of their day to help provide a service, and then see that service hijacked by people that can’t link to an overlooked newsworthy item and then to top it all off, to be unable to enable spell check in their computer? how lame! and I’m NOT referring to maz2’s spelling, obviously his/hers is done with intent, it’s part of that persona, and he links consistently to sites not linked to by others and ignored by the msm, almost always with a unique perspective. Count me as “a fan”.
    Kate and Vitruvius have pointed out numerous times of the obvious problem(s) with some comments, examples being; no real newsworthy item, no short sample of what is at the link, and most often… no link. Simply a “google this” kind of search this out and see how interesting it is, uff, how basic is this? Kate has posted regarding this on the left side of her blog under… “COMMENTS POLICY, Read this” and it links back to April 24 of 2006. So this isn’t new.
    Hey! speaking of “new” I know I was as guilty as any, or more guilty than most? of poking a stick at the commenter formerly known here as “new” so it isn’t like I’m saying I’m pure wool or anything like that… I’d really hate to see Vit/EBD throw in the cards, or Kate to pull the plug on this deal. It’s usually pretty good.
    Vitruvius, have you considered changing the lead into the Read Tips to include the obvious? “Your Reader Tips are, as always, welcome in the comments, simply include a sample, and a link” ? or another link to the reader commentary link that Kate has already provided? uff 2x.
    a link? ok, here.
    http://www.cracked.com/article_16605_8-most-obnoxious-internet-commenters.html

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