NEWS: The Reagan Diaries, Rumor Squelched

I'm still waiting for you to explain to me how Reagan saved the world from nuclear war, or was that just more sarcasm ?

btw. It seems you suck at sarcasm. You and your poodle.

I'm not going to answer anything when you speak to me that way. LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE!

I usually do and I usually try to be very kind and loving. I've had a killer stressful week outside of anything to do with SG and I'm in a bad mood and just for some reason feel like pointing out (beating a dead horse) to people that's it's just plain rude to attack someone's character who is just trying to make their article deadline.

You're right. I'm out. I'm not writing anything more than what I'm asked to do. I hate message boards.

xo
Jen

Then why would you take a job writing for one? I mean, sorry you're having a rough week but if you hate it so much why on Earth would you do it?

Why would she even bother writing for a community she clearly lacks respect for? Idk, idk, it's a mystery as deep as the Iran-Contra scandal.

Go write for Buzznet if you don't like the members of the SG community, but just hope Buzznet and/or other social communities doesn't find out you're notorious for calling your readers "dolt" and "dummy." That would suck.

P.S. "LEAVE ME THE FUCK ALONE!" is the new "fuck you nitwits time for dinner."

I don't know. I wouldn't call being an SG columnist "writing for a message board". The SG columns get put on the boards. Maybe that's the problem.

Anyway, she probably underestimated people's ability to be total InternetDicks for no good reason. Not including you in this, but honestly, I am stunned on a daily basis how a segment of the members manage to attack every single column. Personally. Ferociously. Pointlessly. Usually with 1/10th the wit or intelligence of the piece they are attacking.

C'mon, I know that you have been on the receiving end of a depressing number of "I have never heard of sarcasm and have no sense of humor so I am going to misinterpret every single thing you just wrote and then get 9 people even dumber than me to back me up before someone with half a brain steps in and attempts to inject a sense of reason and logic into the argument and then gets run over by the 400 lb stupidity train" comments yourself, right?

I don't know. Maybe I'm having a bad week too, but its frustrating that it seems like the internet-wide trend isn't about discussion. Ever.

And even if people think something is poorly written, or not funny (which I usually disagree with the majority voice about anyway), WHY VOICE THAT? I mean, why? Why comment on articles just to say "Fail." or "You're stupid". Why attack the writer? It just seems like such a waste of time. And mean-spirited in the process. Its just odd, no?

FUCK YOU, YOU PIECE OF SHIT! You're dumb and your writing is stupid!

More like "message BORED!"

I disagree with you and, tragically, never learned the right way to express that!!

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

Nah, it's a messageboard. The Newswire and these articles are here to incite discussion. It seems to me that's the whole point. It's why authors are judged (in part) on their comment count.

I think there's merit to that and it's absolutely fair to point out. I think a lot of it comes down to three things:
1) the author knowing his/her audience,
2) the audience knowing the author, and
3) the quality of the work.

If one or both of the first two aren't there, that author is going to have a hard time getting by on these types of message boards regardless of the quality of the piece. The first two points are especially important when (as here) the style is to lean heavily on sarcasm and snark. In order for those types of jokes to work, the author and their audience need to have a pre-understood point of view. Witness Stephen Colbert or FTR, etc.

And that, in a nutshell, is why I think people tend to be harder on writers who weren't around first as members when they first start writing here. Because there isn't that pre-understood point of view. I'm not saying that's right, wrong or indifferent, it just is. The audience could benefit from taking some time to get to know the author before criticizing, but the author could also absolutely benefit from getting to know his or her audience. Oftentimes when a person hired to be a writer starts here, neither of those things occur. And that's a shame.

That said, a well-written piece is a well-written piece.

Sure. And so does everyone who writes here. But insulting not only your audience but the medium you rely on to deliver your work seems counterproductive to me. I guess the reason I asked that question is that SleepyLady specifically doesn't seem to get any enjoyment whatsoever out of this particular medium on this particular site. And if that's the case, why is she here specifically? Because I know it's not for the money. Or at least I hope it isn't. I mean, CoolerKing got a lot of shit too but he at least seemed to be having fun with it in his own perverse sort of way. I don't get that with her. Quite the opposite, really. But I could be wrong, I don't know her at all.

Well, here's where I disagree to an extent. Not necessarily just saying "Fail" or something like that because that's obviously not constructive, but every time I've ever commented on the quality of the piece or the writing here it's been because (as corny as this sounds) I care about this community and I care about the newswire. And I know other people do too. When I see articles that I don't like now, usually I try and hold my tongue out of professional courtesy (I know, I know, it doesn't always work), but when I was just a non-writing member I thought it was important to challenge the writers to put out good work because I thought it was good for the community. Again corny, but again true.

I mean, I'm almost embarrassed to pull this sort of thing out, but I've been here for a long time and I've seen many, many iterations of the newswire. It used to be that all of these types of discussions (along with notifications on typos or grammatical errors) would happen in the news group. But when Christopher left the newswire and it started hiring outside writers en masse, that group stopped being moderated. People were left without an outlet to express frustration with the state of the articles or newswire as a whole. So now, I think that frustration is spilling over here, and not always in an entirely bad way. For example, not to pile on SleepyLady (but only because the example is fresh in my head), but when she first started writing here her articles tended to contain many run-on sentences. People started pointing that out (granted, they were usually dicks when they were doing it) and she's adjusted and corrected that issue. I see that as a positive. It sucks that they were jerks when they were doing it, but that's the interwebs. I think that's really what you're getting at, but my point is that oftentimes there are nuggets of wisdom in the snark shitstorm.

This discussion is, of course, outside the scope of the attacks that authors get for the actual ideas that they express. I think that's quite different than what we're talking about here. Because frankly, if you're upset at being attacked for your ideas then you have no business whatsoever doing writing of any kind, let alone on a porn site message board.

Hi Subrosa, (and all)

I do get pleasure out of writing and I said what makes me miserable is the argument about people's character on comments. Usually I let it roll and if someone is pointing out something constructive, I fix it. Otherwise, I get annoyed.

As I jumped into writing I did get to know the readers the best way I could - reading everyone's comments and columns.

I don't mind being attacked for my ideas. I love rousing debate. I just do not like being insulted or told to do something entirely differently like write a political article in the celeb section.

Again, we freelance writers are doing the best we can but if our voices are not in touch with the community or causing problems...I say take it to the top and let someone who pays me constructively tell me where I need to make change. It's easier coming from one voice and won't include lots of "You suck at being sarcastic" comments.

Getting to know readers is one thing but catering to people's requests for content and "how to be sarcastic" can make one insane and also reduce the quality of the newswire community.

I have never seen this many words in one place in my entire life!!!

someone send me the exec summary please, i got business to do.

I guess our public school system really does suck.