How to fix the "How is this news" nonsense.

People don't seem to be aware that not everything the Newswire publishes is "News."

There are four different icons atop every Newswire piece.

News, Commentary, Rumor and Feature. The three that don't apply are faded, the one that does is in a darker shade of pink.

About once (or thrice) a day someone sees one of the Commentaries in there and bitches because "This isn't news!" Ummm... yeah, no shit, Sherlock. A fair number of readers don't go at stories via the Newswire interface, they go directly to the Boards. This happens most often on the Current Events board.

I was thinking, could the script that turns Newswire postings into threads on the Boards be modified to also copy the icons used for the Newswire piece?

i think you could refine the "how is this news" critique a bit to "how is this relevant", there's a big difference between some sort of well written hollywood article (if you're actually interested in that sort of thing) and publishing some sort of personal remark on a snaggletoothed picture of kirsten dunst in the form of a tasteless joke.

Hah, I remember that news 'article'.

Oh man, I love those! Keeps me in the loop during a busy work week.

What about instead of "NEWS: Blah blah blah" on the boards it instead says "COMMENTARY:" or "RUMOR:" where appropriate?

Then it would be obvious before someone even clicked on the article.

i think people should just mellow out, and that would fix it.

How is this a "fix?!!!!"

I think punches in the face are the best answer.