No One Is Making You Read This or Even Asking You To

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Tom Scocca

07/02/14 01:56PM

Filed to: it's a big internet

Just in Time: We need to know more about what Gawker thinks about what Gawker thinks about. http://t.co/PhZjshI3Sj via @NiemanLab
— david carr (@carr2n) July 2, 2014

juansmith Tom Scocca 07/02/14 04:52PM

Right, but it does raise a rather important problem that's only being selectively addressed at this point - each new Kinja blog raises a giant, WTF question mark as to its point and purpose for everyone except those who happened to come across it on the first day.

If you want people to stop asking (here and elsewhere), is there any reason why Kinja can't incorporate an "About this Kinja" page somewhere? A question mark? A FAQ page? An auto-blurb at the bottom of each post that says "Disputations is an internal blog for Gawker employees that we're making externally visible for some reason, and if you don't like it you can fuck right off."?

Anything?

I understand Denton's ethos appears to be to seek out and destroy all context on the internet, but I fail to see how this is doing anything except confusing and pissing off your users.

Tom Scocca juansmith 07/02/14 05:34PM

This is a good question (and that blurb is a pretty good blurb for Disputations). Part of the problem is that some of these sub-blogs (like this one) are built for experimentation, and their point and purpose haven't been settled yet—and a problem on top of that problem is that experimental/offhand posts from them are currently being pulled up into the sidebars with the regular front-page content, which implies a certain amount of context that may be inaccurate. These are, I hope, aspects of the experiment that will be addressed.

juansmith Tom Scocca 07/02/14 05:48PM

Thanks! Feel free to use it.

Andy Cush Tom Scocca 07/02/14 01:58PM

But we need to know more about what David Carr thinks about what Gawker thinks about what Gawker thinks about

J.K. Trotter Tom Scocca 07/02/14 02:12PM

David Carr literally wrote an article for The New York Times about how a Gawker post “barely reverberated.”

Of course, by writing about the Gawker coverage, I’m implicated even as I cluck my tongue, obsessing over someone obsessing over someone else’s sexuality; it feels icky and very meta at the same time. I made quite a few phone calls mulling it over and talking with people, trying to understand if I was pointing at a problem or just becoming part of it.

David Carr is a respected media critic whose opinions people take seriously.

harryh J.K. Trotter 07/02/14 04:33PM

How come the GOP never had a rentboy scandal era like the Tories is the real question.