Does this mean Unfogged is now out of warranty?
"was posted" s/b "was posted on the Innocence thread".
Says the man who's responsible for how many thousands of those comments?
Think of all the productive hours you've stolen from your employers. Shame!
Top commenters:
ogged 10488
ben w-lfs-n 7215
apostropher 5423
Matt Weiner 4828
LizardBreath 3941
Standpipe Bridgeplate 3240
SomeCallMeTim 3046
Michael 3044
bitchphd 2787
eb 2190
John Emerson 2032
Joe Drymala 2020
text 1977
Tia 1877
Chopper 1815
washerdreyer 1735
Jeremy Osner 1685
FL 1676
cala 1533
Tripp 1499
ac 1404
slolernr 1336
BAA 1207
Gary Farber 1201
Armsmasher 1151
Becks 1115
Anaka 989
tweedledopey 915
Good lord. Think of how many hours I have stolen from my employers.
Funny, I'm not that ashamed.
And I'm within 12 comments of overtaking Emerson!
6 -- color me skeptical that my previous incarnation could be that high up the list -- he was only commenting for what, 4 or 5 months total? Compared to many of the posters on that list who have commenting histories stretching back (I imagine) to the dawn of Unfogged and continuing into the present!
Y'know, SB and LB have clawed their way into the top ranks really quickly. Not saying they're noobs, just that the others in the top 10 have been around a lot longer. (Although B did have that 6-month hiatus.)
11 -- But remember the hundred-comment threads are only a little more than a year old. If you look back in the archives, 20 comments is a reasonably healthy thread for 2004.
Or did all the heavy commenting start in the Fall of '05, around when my previous incarnation climbed on board?
Of course, if you subtract the 100 or so comments I made on this thread, I drop a fair amount.
An interesting thing to muse about: the size of the Unfogged community. There are 28 names on Becks' list above, not all of whom are currently active commenters; and I would think (that's what they call pulling a number out of your ass these days) that there are at least 10 or 15 people not on that list who comment regularly enough to meet my standards for being in the community. So maybe 40 people in all? That would jibe with gut estimate. Is there a metrick that could help here?
And tangientially related, how frequently are long threads (or long portions of threads) exchanges between just a couple of commenters or between one commenter and several people asking him/her questions?
Wow, it's hard to believe I'm within spitting distance of baa. Also, that I'm still employed.
(My hunch is that the answer to my last question is: fairly frequently.)
What we really need to know is comments/time period. How hard is it to find out when each of the above listed first commented and last commented? And I'm really surprised to see FL so low - he's had some classic comments, so his slugging average must be huge. Like his hand-stretched cock.
Eh, what's the point? We're all just swimming in w-lfs-n's waste.
19 -- knowledge of first and last comment dates is not really sufficient. My previous incarnation for example made his first comment on one of the earliest Unfogged posts; but he made his second comment in about October or November '05. What you really need is for each commenter, a list of comment timestamps and word counts (so as to minimize the impact of "X s/b Y" comments), then you can run that through your algorithm and come up with an Unfogged Quotient for each denizen of our lovely metropolis.
How hard is it to find out when each of the above listed first commented
I can tell you, it's been just about a year for me.
Also: if we had such a list, perhaps we could set up an engine to predict when each commenter would next weigh in, and how tasty their next contribution would be. Eventually perhaps we could create a fully-funcional real-time emulation of the Unfogged comments threads, and we would all be able to get on with our real lives.
Comment schmomment, I'm looking for most bannings.
there'd also have to be a minimum threshold, otherwise the formula in #22 will rank some troll who wrote six 1000-word diatribes against nordic swimmers in the space of five minutes as the hero, when we know it's apostropher, who has been penning anti-Swedish broadsides since 2001.
[does this comment put me over 50?]
I'm glad to be in the middle of the pack, since some people who are apparently way talkier than I am have accused me of always needing to have the last word.
and word counts
But the best comments are often very brief. (Brevity is the soul of wit, and all that.) Emphasizing word counts would disproportionately favor Farber.
27 -- yes, this is a good idea; also we should probably award some bonus points for being the last comment on a particular thread, and for being comment spam clever enough to elude the listmoms. These and other refinements will come with time.
The most banned commenters are Joe Drymala, Standpipe Bridgeplate, LizardBreath, and Ogged.
Emphasizing word counts would disproportionately favor Farber.
[Rubs hands together, looks up with a hysterical glint in his eye] So you begin to see my plan...
Eventually perhaps we could create a fully-funcional real-time emulation of the Unfogged comments threads, and we would all be able to get on with our real lives.
We did this months ago. You mean you're still actually here? Didn't you get the memo?
38 -- but would the prizes be awarded to us or to our simulacra?
My Indian manservant makes all my comments for me.
Who says 24 wasn't posted by the emulator? (Really: The first thing that would happen post-emulation is all the bots would start talking about the new emulatory regime.)
Huh, philosophical question: If I was an Unfogged comment-emulator instead of a person, how would I tell?
accused me of always needing to have the last word
Please don't start that again.
so as to minimize the impact of "X s/b Y" comments
This is what I really want to count. If the "s/b" is obvious, I don't really understand the point of the correction; reading it is a bit like listenting to a story told by one who is obsessed by irrelevant details ("I think it was May 3rd. No wait, it was May 4th, because it was a Tuesday. No, no...it was May 3rd.") It is also very clearly a result of w-lfs-n's grammar tyrrany.
BTW -- does anyone else find it odd that there is only one Matt among the 28 names listed in 6?
If the "s/b" is obvious
More often than not, it's a joke.
38: I didn't start that the first time.
also we should probably award some bonus points for being the last comment on a particular thread
Can I just mention how pleased I am that this concept of "winning" a thread caught on? That and the acronymization of "Why must you be such a little bitch" seem to be my two lasting contributions to unfogged.
40: The rest of us must have split the Matt vote, as will happen.
I can't believe I'm not on that list when I spend half my life here. From now on I'm going to argue about everything.
37: you wouldn't be able to tell ... but we would.
But you're not helping. Why is that, soubziquet?
("I think it was May 3rd. No wait, it was May 4th, because it was a Tuesday. No, no...it was May 3rd.") It is also very clearly a result of w-lfs-n's grammar tyrrany.
"Tyranny". It's also somewhat reminiscent of talking to me, in some moods and if you're some people.
I like to think that w-lfs-n is most tyrannical toward himself.
I don't think that spelling counts as grammar.
Mo, if you're complaining about the response to your banning inquiry, the bannination study was here.
In other news, I really need to get a life.
Freak out in a pwnage daydream, oh yeah.
FL posted as Fontana Labs for a while, and Armsmasher had another name. Is that included in the comment counts?
Labs has used many names. He is legion.
Is that included in the comment counts?
No, I just used simple grouping.
what would also be interesting would be to see who made the most impression with the least number of comments. I'm suprised how far down on that list there Farber is, considering the w-lfs-nian grip he has on this institution.
TMK should come up with his "top 40" that he considers the community, and whoever's made it into that list with the fewest number of comments is one charming mo-fo.
I'm suprised how far down on that list there Farber is, considering the w-lfs-nian grip he has on this institution.
Farber's working off general old-school blogospheric street cred, rather than a particularly strong presence at Unfogged. Rather like Saisegly, who's been memorable much more because everyone reads his fifteen other blogs that because he comments here all that much.
rather than a particularly strong presence at Unfogged
Yeah -- I was surprised to see him on that list at all, I thought he commented pretty rarely here. Did he comment a lot more before fall '05?
Farber commented in 03-04, but I don't remember seeing him much for months after I started reading right around December '04.
On words/comment: any algorithm that doesn't put Tim Burke at the top needs work.
You know who I miss? DominEditrix. That was one funny broad.
True fact. Did she announce a reason for leaving, or just wander off into the mists of the internet?
I believe she can be read over at testycopyeditors.com.
I think she got a new job--at any rate she was pleading for invocation of the "Chopper effect"--and curtailed her commenting.
MK--I'm sure she can be found, it's just that chasing her around would seem a little silly--it's the same reason I never followed B over to her place after The Banning. What I treasured was the interaction with DE *here.*
Let me repeat the question in 7, and add that a site search has no results for that character string, which makes me think it's an abbreviation, but I can't imagine what is being abbreviated.
Also, Michael has really dialed down his presence.
Anaka could be a spammer and, therefore, not actually displayed on the site. I forgot to filter by not-flagged-as-spam.
w/d -- Perhaps this is what Becks has in mind.
Yeah, Anaka is definitely a spammer. My bad.
Congratulations are due Tweedledopey, who moves up from the bottom rung of the Big 28. Who will occupy the new opening? Be sure to tune in next week.
Annika, on the other hand, may have been the Swedish grad student.
One might just as well ask whether FL captures Fontana Labs -- two separate posting identities, two entries in the Big 28 competition.
Oh, I think I misunderstood the sense of "capture".
it's the same reason I never followed B over to her place after The Banning
For which, by the way, I never forgave you. Fair-weather pretend friend. Hmph.
I give and give and you just want more. Hrumph.
Name # First Comment Last Comment
ogged 10487 2003-02-25 2006-03-10
ben w-lfs-n 7221 2003-08-21 2006-03-15
apostropher 5446 2003-07-15 2006-03-15
Matt Weiner 4831 2003-12-31 2006-03-15
LizardBreath 3958 2004-07-12 2006-03-15
Standpipe Bridgeplate 3237 2005-03-22 2006-03-15
SomeCallMeTim 3051 2004-06-01 2006-03-15
Michael 3033 2003-08-02 2006-02-24
Bitchphd 2799 2004-09-20 2006-03-15
eb 2203 2005-03-01 2006-03-15
Joe Drymala 2036 2005-01-10 2006-03-15
John Emerson 2034 2005-03-06 2006-03-15
text 1987 2005-04-21 2006-03-15
Tia 1895 2005-07-30 2006-03-15
Chopper 1826 2005-02-18 2006-03-15
washerdreyer 1738 2005-02-09 2006-03-15
Jeremy Osner 1684 2003-09-30 2006-03-03
FL 1676 2004-02-24 2006-03-15
cala 1534 2004-11-10 2006-03-15
Tripp 1499 2003-09-10 2006-01-20
ac 1412 2005-02-08 2006-03-15
slolernr 1348 2005-03-25 2006-03-15
BAA 1207 2003-05-06 2006-03-14
Gary Farber 1190 2003-03-15 2006-03-10
Armsmasher 1159 2005-07-28 2006-03-15
Becks 1129 2005-08-01 2006-03-15
tweedledopey 915 2005-01-03 2006-03-07
Bostoniangirl 897 2005-07-10 2006-03-14
silvana 884 2005-04-14 2006-03-10
Adam Kotsko 873 2004-04-17 2006-03-12
Jackmormon 768 2005-09-27 2006-03-15
Mitch Mills 767 2003-11-13 2005-11-23
Austro 743 2005-03-08 2006-03-14
Matt F 653 2005-09-07 2006-03-15
profgrrrrl 600 2004-11-19 2006-01-17
Joe O 548 2004-09-03 2006-03-15
My Alter Ego 518 2005-08-24 2006-03-15
Tom 509 2003-07-29 2006-03-10
Frederick 505 2004-08-22 2006-02-03
Michael H Schneider 433 2006-01-01 2006-03-10
cw 425 2004-09-17 2006-03-15
Kriston 403 2005-01-10 2005-11-08
teofilo 397 2005-08-29 2006-03-13
ash 368 2004-11-17 2006-03-13
mike d 298 2004-12-10 2006-03-15
Peter Snees 272 2005-01-12 2006-02-23
David Weman 265 2004-10-24 2006-03-14
bob 262 2003-04-25 2005-07-23
Walter Sobchak 256 2004-11-05 2005-07-08
DominEditrix 238 2005-04-22 2005-07-09
NickS 237 2004-12-20 2006-03-15
pdf23ds 236 2005-09-08 2006-03-15
mcmc 235 2005-08-04 2006-03-15
Matt McGrattan 234 2004-09-29 2006-03-15
Urple 232 2005-09-17 2006-03-14
Sam K 211 2005-08-12 2006-03-03
PJS 207 2004-10-14 2006-03-13
Isle of Toads 205 2005-07-19 2006-03-14
Becks rules! Or "rulz" or "rulez" or "rul3z" or something.
Query: does this include posts which FL is currently engaged with his project on?
Query, the 2nd: where's "textualist"?
Y'know, I've consciously stepped up the pace of my commenting today to see if I could move back ahead of Tia. What happens? I post 11 times, she posts 18.
Dammit.
Jeebus, look at the numbers SB has put up. You can always tell early with the great ones.
We need to get SB a cake or something for his/her (dammit, SB!) one-year commentaversary.
In the month between 2005-02-08 and 2005-03-08 the following pseudonyms left their first commen (in order of priority): ac, washerdreyer, chopper, eb, John Emerson, austro. Slolernr and Standpipe Bridgeplate are later in March of '05.
85 - Yes, this includes all comments, whether currently published on the site or not.
The first time I commented here, I commented under a pseud that's not too hard to decipher.
First one to find it gets a hundred thousand dollars, paid by Tia.
I seem to remember a number of us admitting that we once posted under different pseudonyms before becoming regulars.
SB always gets better presents. It's not fair my birthday is three days after SBself.
(Also, I'd like to note that yesterday's abortion-o-rama of a front page resulted in 20% fewer page loads than average. Today's self-referential naval gazing is on track for 10-15% more views than average. Shows the level of the crowd is, I think.)
97: I was teaching all day yesterday! Today, not.
Also, I agree with 98.
I've done more posting than I would have thought. I don't know whether to be proud or ashamed.
I know, I'll just be a blonde lobster.
How do you keep a blonde lobster busy?
I suppose it's inevitable that Joe D will push me out of the top 10. But that doesn't mean I'm not watching
Tom Stoppard and Pale Fire? Drymala, I'm crushed, heartbroken, saddened, and clearly not borrowing any books from you anytime soon.
Tom Stoppard is great. But LB, you don't like DFW, so I don't see where you have room to talk.
Fitzgerald sucks, and I think that defending him is the mark of puerile self-regard.
That thread linked in 96 is hilarious to me because I can identify the exact moment in it when I decided--"Bah, I won't leave my silly comment defending Thackeray."
Sorry, LB.
Would it help if you knew that Tom Stoppard was a Thatcherite Tory?
Maybe it would soften the blow if you knew that he supported her because he loved how she crushed the unions.
I must say, Thackery's makes some good pizza.
defending him is the mark of puerile self-regard
Not when a woman does it.
don't like DFW,
Not so. I love his essays, and his fiction makes me angry. It's not 'don't like', it's 'you, particularly, are almost ideally fitted for writing something that I would very much want to read, but choose not to. Damn you, DFW!'
And, although the Thatcherite propensities shouldn't make any difference, they do. I'm feeling better now.
And there is a lawyer actually playing the bagpipes parading through the office. He seems not to realize that (a) he's two days early and (b) he's fucking annoying.
I'm trying to find the thread in which I debated with Ben about Stoppard, but I can't find it. I explain my views much more fully there.
He's some idiot attorney parading around an office building on the wrong day -- you think he cares where the pipes are from? But, actually, I've always seen pipers at Irish stuff -- I think they're associated with both countries.
When I was little, I was totally scared of bagpipes. I saw something on TV about a mold that grew in bagpipes that bagpipe players would inhale when they played and killed them. I was afraid that someone I knew would play a bagpipe and drop dead right before my eyes as they were playing.
I've just realized that if anyone from my firm reads this, I've just outed myself. Or at least where I work.
Be merciful?
122: hush now. i'm sure there are hundereds of random clowns wandering around corporate america today with bagpipes.....
When I was little, I was scared of the Pale Green Pants With Nobody Inside Them, especially on a record album I had with that story, the Sneetches, the Zaxes, and the Daves.
Now that I am grown, I am scared of Harrison Ford. I idly watched What Lies Beneath the other night and thought I was bored, until I got really frightened by the last 20 minutes, and later, I woke up in the middle of the night trying to put Harrison Ford out of my mind, but failing to, for the better portion of two hours.
119 - The inclusion of bagpipes in Irish festivities in New York may be due to the transitive relationship: Irish -> NYPD -> bagpipe brigade.
Everyone's flattering everyone else, aren't we all a bunch of clever, self-congratulatory folks all in a room together.
That sure is a withering critique of, uh, Tom Stoppard.
Well, which is why I like him. I don't get the self-flattery sense off Stoppard: he comes off to me as purely playful.
When I was in third grade, I spent a couple of months insomniac with terror about earthquakes. But then, every important building in my life was located on or near the Hayward fault. When I went up North, I was scared to death of grizzly bears and mine cave-ins. Again, very rational.
Now I'm started to wonder why I didn't have some entertaining and adorably irrational fears as a child. Wait, maybe I should delete th--
In unrelated news, contra matty, Coke Zero is neither delightful, nor an enigma. Just tasting it for the first time now, I'm getting prominent notes of citrus, vanilla, cinnamon, and Dimetapp.
Everyone's flattering everyone else, aren't we all a bunch of clever, self-congratulatory folks all in a room together.
I believe I leveled the same criticism at Dave Eggers. Ah, Here we go. "Something about the whole "group of clever fellows who know they're clever and like being clever together" vibe the McSweeney's crowd sometimes gives off irks me, but at least part of that is because I wish I were part of a group of clever fellows and fellettes who do clever stuff.".
Also it seems Apostropher made that connection too.
But are Stoppard's plays like usenet, or an IRC channel?
As Carlos Santana once said, those who read just enough of a thread to snark on it, are doomed to repeat the same snark as someone on further down the thread further down snark snark. Then he played a wicked guitar solo.
Actualyl this Coke Zero thing is not so bad.
What's the numerator in your commenting average, number of comments which you still think, in retrospect, were a good idea to write?
Since coming to Chicago years ago, I've only seen bagpipers in an Irish context. When I was growing up in Canada, it was always Scottish--my church had one, although he only always ever played "Highland Laddie."
Saw Loudon Wainright at the Old Town School on Saturday night: he had a great opening joke about "St. Patrick's Day Weekend" and when did that happen? I think that's what accounts for the clown/counselor. He knows what day it is, he's just trying to extend the celebration.
As a newbie who has still not gotten a fruit basket, only commenting for a month or so, let me say that there is a political and social subtext to the writing here that makes over-serious exchanges of views unnecessary. That's what's drawn me in. The discussion here is like real conversation, it communicates a lot more than it seems to.
A drum and bagpipes corps plays at the beginning of the academic year at the University of Chicago, and after every graduation ceremony.
I like bagpipes.
You're new? Am I mixing you up with someone else? I thought you'd been here for a while.
I'd link to the fruit basket, but it's kinda gross.
As long as it's not the tossed salad.
Why the numerator and denominator are so named. This is information that needs propagated, people.
136: I wasn't asking for a quantity, but rather what's being counted. And I meant numerator, I was taking for granted that the denominator was total comments, and the numerator some subset which would count sucessful comments. This would follow the model of the Mendoza line which is a particular level (.200) on a ratio composed of hits (successful outcomes)/at bats (a subset of attempts, but no need to add in that complication here).
John Tingley, as far as subtext goes, do you mean something what B said here?
The discussion here … communicates a lot more than it seems to
Don't comment! But if you do, use protection.
I will not use protection! I don't care if it burns in the morning.
That's a more sophisticated way of saying something like what I mean; like-mindedness doesn't prevent the exploration of views, it can facilitate it.
Uillean bagpipes are an Irish instrument but they neither look nor sound much like Scottish pipes. They are driven by bellows, not lungs
I don't care if it burns in the morning
Sez the guy named "Tingley".
See, I'd argue that Stoppard's self-regard is like ours: acceptable and fun. Whereas Eggers needs a punch in the gut.
And yes, that *is* an argument. So there.
Y'know, it may be unfashionable to say so, but I really like AHBWOSG. The last scene where he's playing frisbee with his brother--it just kills me. I know a lot of people don't like all the digressions and ceaseless affect, but I felt like it was a brave attempt to fight out of the gen-x irony trap.
I love Stoppard too, Eggars I've never read. The self-regard on this blog is justified and tempered by imagination and humility. Just yesterday half of us were going to what I thought were extreme lengths to articulate objections to abortion-on-demand that the posters didn't themselves feel but wanted to understand sympathetically, while the other half were explaining patiently as if dealing with believers. Not my idea of smug self-regard.
I liked it as well, Chopper. Didn't think it was great lit or anything, but plenty enjoyable for what it was. Bashing Eggers is the mark of puellile self-regard.
Did you hear that, B? You're puellile.
Chopper, I said not unkind things about it.
Credit where it's due for "puellile", friends.
Credit where it's due for "puellile", friends.
Cracker, please. We had that joke in seventh-grade Latin.
155: You wish you could see my puella.
Your puella de pays, or your puella de ville?
Puella de ville, puella de ville,
If it don't attract you then nothin' else will
To see it is to earn a lifetime's thrill
Puella, puella de ville
That's it, from here on out I am using the term "puella de ville" in all my offical correspondence.
As in oranges/bitter grapefruit? Sure, why the hell not?
wow--743 Comments and it feels like I mostly only lurk.
Was it Joe Drymala who compared this place with crack cocaine?
Now there's a concept: Unfogged-pushers.
What is the price of raw-base unfogged?
You don't pay in money, Austro. You have to work it off.
