The Misery Mailbag.

As most of you know, I'm Fab Sun, the non-moderator of College Misery.

I'm one of several former Rate Your Students readers who felt stranded when RYS closed the compound a few weeks ago. Anyway, I got College Misery going and have been helping folks get on the site so they could post their stuff. I'm not in charge, though!

I've gotten almost no mail at all from people, just the occasional request for an invite to get posting privileges. But in the last couple of days, four people have written in to offer feedback on the page. Here are their comments:

~ - ~

I imagine that the biggest (and most depressing) job the Moderators at RYS had was picking what went up on the site.  They had to slog through tens, if not hundreds, of emails to pick three or five per day.  They had to read long, incomprehensible rants, unabashed navel-gazing, self promotion and general condescension to pull out a small handful of worthwhile entries.  Those entries were (typically) well written, interesting, and worked together as a complementary unit.

Each day the Moderators crafted a palatable blend of posts for their hungry readers.  A little sarcasm here, a little depression over here, a little more laughter and incredulity back there, and maybe some thoughtful reflection to cap it all off.

It wasn't all-hatred-all-the-time.  It wasn't all shits and grins, either.  Balance was key, friends.  Balance.

And they didn't just balance tone.  Length (no matter what you may tell yourselves to get to sleep at night) is important, too.

Sweet Christ, with unfettered access to this site, people are just letting it all hang out, as it were.

The latest three posts are perfect examples.  Lex from Lakeland's rant about Notme McInnoccent and The Meanest Professor Ever's belated bitch-fest about the office manager are about twice as long as they need to be.   And the Arrogant Student?  S/He's right.  I stopped reading after the first paragraph where s/he at least had the decency to tell me it was going to be a long-winded, self indulgent post. So please, for the future of the site and the sake of your readers, keep it short.  Keep it sweet.  Don't assume that we want to read it just because you've written it. 

And really, if there's a glut of earnest, heartfelt dreck already on the front page, maybe wait a little while before adding another turd to the pile, hmm?

~ - ~

The new blog is like Rate Your Students with an extra dose of bitter nastiness and very little of the wit. RYS featured pithy and amusing rants from academics; CM features boring long-winded complaints about things like an inefficient departmental secretary. Yawn. But the worst part is the open comments. Anyone who responds, even to express a modicum of sympathy, is ripped apart with nasty, bitchy comments. Here is a typical exchange:

Post: "Waah, waah, teaching sux, poor me."

Comment: "Oh, that sounds terrible, I pity you."

Response: "You are so clueless. If only your head wasn't up your ass."

It's like all the nasty ineloquent bitter types from RYS gravitated to CM, leaving behind the witty and genuinely amusing writers, so that CM consists of angry people who can't write and don't want advice or even sympathy, just a platform for boring rants and hateful remarks.

You've had a handful of good posts and you are just getting started, so I'm willing to give you a little more time to iron things out, but it would help if you had more contributors, because Arrogant Student and Meanest Professor Alive seem to be the only regulars, and all they do is whine and bitch without the capacity to make their bitching the slightest bit interesting. Maybe your policy of "anyone who wants to can post" is not so prudent. Quality is better than quantity.

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Please make it stop. I was quite hopeful about the new blog, but after several consecutive days of reading, I can't believe how boring this all is. Does anyone know how to edit themselves? Seriously, could the people who post please try to imagine that readers want to read something interesting. Every piece feels as though the writer has thought, "I'll go with the 'more is more' notion, and just fill up a box with words. And because they're from ME, after all, the world will be waiting!"

I was convinced this blog would be a giant step forward from the iron fist of Rate Your Students, but I now understand the value of having moderators - even those tortured souls.

~-~

Nothing has made me appreciate Rate Your Students more than the first week or so of College Misery. And I will admit that I am surprised by that.

I posted something here already, and once it was up, I realized it was stupid and poorly wrought. It was up for 2 days, got a couple of yawny comments, and then I deleted it. I wish that 95% of the other posters here would have exercised that same control. 

My own posted suffered exactly from College Misery's main disease, the one another writer here has so clearly diagnosed: humorlessness. 

Why so dull? Why so boring? Well, my lousy post was carefully written, but not carefully edited. I just stewed all day about something, wrote it up, and posted it. Once it was up I thought, "Hmmm, that's exactly what I wrote. Won't a moderator help me edit out the stupid stuff, make it sing a little, get it in shape?" 

And no, no one did. That's what happens when you have an unmoderated blog. All of us well-intentioned boobs can occasionally go long on the wind and short on the wit. Unless of course we realize other readers might be bored by pedestrian and modest attempts.

So, that's my fault, and I aim to be better in the future. What about you?