Real Goddamned Mail. November Edition.
I don't have a unifying theme for these today. They're just a collection of complaints from the past couple of weeks.
- What I don't understand is why you have this rule: "When the page has a surfeit of posts on a given day, the moderators reserve the right to delay a post to an upcoming day." if you're not going to use it. One day last week you had 5 posts up between midnight and 5 am. And then you let two more people post items. Guess where mine was? Right on the fucking bottom. Thank you. Nobody saw it and nobody responded. I love this page, but there's no point in writing posts when you're going to allow a flood to drown posters occasionally. Why have the rule? Use the fucking thing.
- This place feels like the Chronicle forums. And that's the worst insult I've got for you. Where is the fun?
- Every time I post something, which is not very often, it seems that a number of people post right on top of me. In fact Xxxxxxx has done it the last two times I've posted. Now her post has been at the top of the page from 9 am eastern time until 11 PM. Where's mine? It's in the group of posts that don't get read. I posted early in the morning and got screwed again.
- Just because Xxxxxxxx is a favorite here doesn't mean he's immune from the rules. I thought he was very rude to Xxxxxxxxx yesterday. I can't believe you have so little control of what happens on the blog. You're the one with the password, right? Why don't you maintain things better?
- I think it would be better if your background was more recognizable. Occasionally I can see that it's a building or a group of students, but the last couple are just blurry blobs. I think it makes the page look amateurish.
- I had two of my comments deleted the other day. Fuck you and your bullshit blog.
- I think you should get the blog promoted on the Chronicle or IHE. You'd get a lot more readers and it would give your posts a little more credibility. Right now it comes off as a bunch of cranks.
- I am so tired of your made up drama. I'm convinced that there really is only 4 of you and this is some kind of performance art. But the problem is, your insane nattering gets read by other people, academics and non-academics. You are feeding the impression that professors are bitter, humorless, and ineffectual. That is not the case in my experience. You are providing terrible role models to your "audience." I request that you shut the page down and maybe work a little hard to publish in the real world, not just on some website.
- Could you regulate the number of posts a day? Somedays there's nothing but a rerun from Rate My Students and other days you have 6-7. That doesn't make any sense. Don't you coordinate these postings at all. There's no rhyme or reason to it. I truly don't get it. I've been reading for more than a year and it always seems as if the blog is just ridiculously poorly run.
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Most academic blogs have 1 post a day. Why do you think you have to put up every idiotic whim that gets sent to you. I don't have a problem if Beaker Ben posts once a week or some of the other good writers. But a LOT of posts come from "College Misery," who I suppose is every idiot who has your email address. Can't you exercise a little discretion? You seem to bring to the public every fart heard in every wind. I'm bored with it.
- Hi. I was introduced to your page yesterday by a colleague. I read his post and about 20 others. I can tell from the number of hits, the advertising, and the number of comments that a lot of you take it all very seriously and want it to work. My evaluation after checking things out is: Yawn.
:-)
ReplyDeleteYes, that all seems perfectly reasonable.
ReplyDeleteNobody said anything about my mama.
ReplyDeleteI love when real goddamned mail comes along. But one day you really must print the names of the people. What are you all thinking???
I agree. Put a note up somewhere (where the rules are?) that you reserve the right to print e-mails with monikers attached without notice.
DeleteAnd then do it.
I'd guess between 30-50% of the complaints come in from email addresses we don't recognize. But most of those display some knowledge of the page and its "characters," so I assume it's someone hiding an identity. And based on some of the nuttiness in the email, I can see why.
DeleteThere was a completely unhinged email from about a month ago I wanted to share, but the writer included in his rant his plea I not share it in RGM. It had some of the most creative and filthy writing I've ever seen...(and that;s a high bar; I correspond with Cal all the time!)
Since when do you have to respect the wishes of someone who insults your hard work anonymously? But then again, that's just me.
DeleteAgreed.
DeleteMeta: someone ought to start a blog called "Rate Your Email" and it can be about the shitty email that gets sent to blog moderators. Seriously people? I think my favorite is the one who was so motivated by their own apathetic response that they had to send an email with the hard hitting analysis of "yawn."
ReplyDelete"This place feels like the Chronicle forums. And that's the worst insult I've got for you." Ouch. Now, that's just downright mean.
ReplyDelete"I can't believe you have so little control of what happens on the blog." Look, when people try to get cats to do what they want, they say, "This is like herding faculty."
"Occasionally I can see that it's a building or a group of students, but the last couple are just blurry blobs." Hey, some of our students need exercise but that's no reason to insult them.
"I think it makes the page look amateurish." and "Right now it comes off as a bunch of cranks." Mission accomplished.
"professors are bitter, humorless, and ineffectual." Humorless? HUMORLESS?! Are you kidding me? Did you read the mail we get? Especially the one about the made up drama around here. That was HI - LAR - I - OUS.
Standard stuff. People want the page to be exactly what they want it to be. If they post, they want nobody else to post. If they aren't posting, they want a bunch of posts to pick and choose from.
ReplyDeleteThey want it to LOOK like they want it to look like. Too bad Les couldn't code up some sort of theme chooser for each individual user. [INSERT BEAKER BEN BACKGROUND HERE.]
It's mostly white noise. I do remember getting some good ideas drawn from mean mail back in the goon old days at RYS, but most of it was just someone blowing off steam.
Why isn't this site all about ME?!
ReplyDeleteNo, ME.
DeleteNo! ME ME ME ME ME!
DeleteOk, Bella, it can be all about you, but only YOU. :)
DeleteCynic, you're FABULOUS!
Delete(do you have a barney pen in your purse?)
I have no purse... but in answer to your question... maybe.... And I so enjoy you, Untenured Ursula, and Proffie Galore on this forum. I think we'd be great friends in person as long as it could all be about YOU. :)
DeleteAbsolutely, CC! I totally want to go out for drinks one day! I wrote Les about it in fact, but she kind of convinced me I might seem like a psycho stalker if I pursued it....
DeleteAnd no, shucks! It needs to be all about YOU YOU YOU ! And I don't know if they'd let a Dalek into most bars anyway.
Humans are such wimps.
Yeah, notice how I'm not arguing with the person who has a Dalek avatar. :) Next time I'm at a fancy national conference, I'll put up a notice to see if anyone else is going to attend. We could SO RULE THE WORLD!
DeleteBella, back in May I said most people are skittish about exchanging real world info but that I was happy to send your address on to the Cynic. I'm still happy to.
DeleteI know I know, Les. I am a consummate exaggerator, but I meant you no offense. It IS probably weird and I don't want to be a psycho stalker. I was never all that great at introductions, which is why I ended up a Dalek in the first place.....
DeleteI have my non-identifying gmail account: burblesofacynic at which I'm happy to communicate if you're still feeling stalkerish. ;)
DeleteIt constantly amazes me that people take the trouble to send off this kind of stuff in the first place. Don't they have any self-awareness? If I was tapping away on the keyboard and produced one of those emails, I'd have the requisite shame to realize that I was acting like a complete and utter ass.
ReplyDeleteHell, at the very least, they ought to recognize the irony in sending such missives to a site that is essentially dedicated to denouncing the entitled and self-absorbed bullshit of contemporary college students.
I was typing the exact thing, Iskander. Well, it wasn't quite as succinct and direct as this (I do sometimes go on...).
DeleteWell said!!
I apologize in advance, but I made a new account so I could post anonymously. I won't do it again; one time deal.
ReplyDeleteBut I'm one of the writers in the post above, and I am sick of how the page works. Nearly every time I post, a bunch of other posts always cover it up. I never get enough comments, and I'm writing about ideas that really matter to most of us.
And one person in particular has posted right on top of me at least twice this month and often before.
When I log in, I can see that if my post was published at 8 am, hers is set to 8:02 am. I'm not kidding. It makes me crazy. One time I changed my time to 8:03, but I guess someone at the blog saw it and changed it back. Or, maybe this person who's screwing me actually is a moderator.
I don't want to get into all of that.
And I want to say I agree with some of the other emails here. Are we not allowed to complain without being mocked? Maybe you've never been screwed by the blog before and you're still living in a dream world. But if you put your ideas out there and see them "minimized" or shit on like I have, you'd see it a whole different way.
I'm a supporter of this page, so don't get me wrong. But if it's broken, then suggestions on fixing it should be taken seriously.
"...I'm writing about ideas that really matter to most of us." Well, there's your problem.
DeleteWe do talk about important ideas here - the recent discussion of abolishing tenure got a lot of comments. That's more of the exception. There are lots of topics that matter to proffies but this might not be the place we want to discuss them. I've always seen CM as a place to blow off steam and crack jokes. If lots of other people feel that way then you won't get a lot of comments for a post about The Important Idea.
Really, if you're worried about being screwed by this blog, then you need to go find some real problems in your life. It shouldn't worry you that much. And I say that as somebody who has argued (unsuccessfully) with the mods about some of my posts that crossed the line. This shit ain't going on your CV so it's not a big deal.
BTW, you can't publish a post then go back and change to publishing time to later. The post won't more. You'll need to copy all the text into a brand new post, publish it at the right time that you want, then delete your original post that you published too early. It's a Blogger thing.
Ben, are you sure of the changing the time of a post? I believe I've moved them in exactly that way. You change the time to a later day and time, REVERT TO DRAFT, and then hit Schedule or Publish. Then it's off the page and then republishes at the new time.
DeleteLes
I see things slightly differently from Ben. He's right in that we don't want this blog to be serious all the time, or even most of the time. I see it more as a place to share eye-rolling misery stories and have some fun. But that's not the main issue, I think. Composing a new post takes a certain amount of time and effort (if you want to get it right ), and I can understand the disappointment if doesn't stay on page one long enough for people to comment on it. I don't take stuff like that personally, but I could see others not being so relaxed about it.
DeleteI wonder if it would be too much work for the mods to address this by shortening the visible part of the posts as needed, so as to ensure any new post gets at least 48 h on page one.
Leslie, I didn't know about the Revert to Draft trick. That may work. I wish I had known about that.
DeleteBen, I know some people who would consider what they write here as what they put on their academic CV ... "academic discourse on a blog" and all of that sort of stuff...
DeleteBen, yes it does work. That's how I very occasionally move stuff to the next day. I've only done it a couple of times.
DeletePeter, yes, it's the reason why we're working to install jumps in any piece that takes up more than half a screen or so. We've also raised the number of posts available on the front page.
DeleteAnd, it's set currently to 2 days, so no matter how many posts go up on any one day, any post will be on the front page for 48 hours.
DeleteLeslie, I had no idea that the Revert to Draft would do that. I was alsways scared to try that button because I thought I'd end up in Vietnam.
DeleteBeaker Ben, you make opening up this blog and scrolling through comments worth it daily. :)
DeleteI know one time I posted near someone else. It was fairly recently, and no, I did not do it "on purpose" but I know I could have done better and waited a bit. I did not notice it until AFTER I posted. I don't know, sometimes I am just trying to get my post up and I forget to look. But anyway, that post (the one I posted on top of) then moved and got "on top" of my post. Which was fine with me. Whatever the mods feel they have to do.
DeleteHi. Someone sent me an email about monitor size. She says she rarely sees any background because of the width of our blog and the width of her screen. Our stats show that the largest perecentage of our readers have screen sizes of between 1200-1500 pixels. Our current page runs about 950 pixels across. But, 20% of our readers have screens set for as many as 2500 pixels, so they truly do see quite a bit of the image. We might play with the background a bit. Feel free to let us know what you think.
ReplyDeleteGet a better monitor.
DeleteIt's just like those students who sit in the back and then complain that they can't see the overhead.
I can't believe you just outed me by posting my monitor size! How do you know that anyways, did you put a trojan in the posts?
DeleteAlso we've been reviewing your search history, and we're not happy with it.
DeleteThis one made me snort out loud. Who the fuck needs to see the background? seriously?
DeleteYou know what, I think I'm guilty of something that Fab and Les have tried to suggest we could be better with.
ReplyDeleteYesterday I posted something after about 6 other pieces had already gone up - including a BIG THIRSTY!
When one posts on the page, one can see the times and schedule of all current and future posts. There was nothing set for Friday and I still posted mine right away. I didn't have to do that.
I should have just changed my publish time to Friday and that would have been better for everybody, including me.
But, maybe that's not well known to the posters. Just schedule your post using the schedule settings in the sidebar and then double check what's already posted that day and what's coming up.
I know Fab and Les often post date items that come in through the email, but if nobody else does, then the same problem will occur.
I fucked it up yesterday, and I know better.
Terry, it was one good thing about RYS; we could always completely control the number of posts. Before I came on board, it had been determined by previous moderators that between 3-5 posts was optimum. Fewer and more always generated complaints. I can't explain exactly why, but that's how it worked out. We had a lot more mail at RYS, so it was always a chore to limit it to that number of posts - and people were always pissed - but for a pure reader, 3-5 was about right. Of course, it's more complicated here because of how the comments sometimes take off. The comments often dwarf the original post, and are sometimes even better! That increases the amount of material for readers to take in daily.
DeleteI have been waiting for this for weeks. This is my favorite feature. Thanks Leslie for all you do!
ReplyDeleteI just can't believe that you never publish the emails I send you about how much I hate the way College Misery is run. I am counting on those emails being published so I can put them in my tenure file! My voice is being squashed!
ReplyDeleteIt's because we four want all the glory that is blog posting.
DeleteI'm really angry that my comment isn't pushed higher up today. How dare other people get the jump on me by commenting before I do.
ReplyDeleteI, too, love RGM, and I suspect most people who find the emails hilarious aren't the ones who are sending in emails.
Whenever I visit the site, I look through all of the posts that I haven't seen yet, not just the top one or two. Surely this is what many readers do...
ReplyDeleteWhat happened to the people complaining about how they wanted their posts to be in Verdana and not Tahoma or something? (I forget what the exact fonts were, but I remember them being similar enough that it was pretty funny).
Oh dear, I know Fab went to Arvo for a while, a wonderful font. People HATED it. He kept asking me, "Can you read it okay? Is it all right? Should I change it?"
DeleteThat damn, Fab. I told him to put it up on Comic Sans for a week and people would be BEGGING for Arvo back.
I see Les has settled on Verdana, and it seems to rile people up the least. Trebuchet is kind of nice, but, shit, why am I droning on about this here. I could write an anonymous complaint.
Helvetica.
DeleteI'll admit I can get fussy with font on things like CVs (i.e. important professional things). But even then my choices are based on readability and formatting, so I tend to pick the boring fonts anyways.
Delete(Oh and it was Trebuchet vs Arial. Real or not, I thought it was a funny complaint.)
Helvetica?!? No way man. It makes me feel like I'm reading another A4 size tome I've received in the mail from a Scandinavian university with a 300 year history, where even the 1st year PhD students are scary smart.
DeleteWait, does that mean that four of us write the page, and then we also complain about it? And then complain about the complainers?
ReplyDeleteJesus, Ogden is not that boring. We have to get out some.
"Nobody saw it and nobody responded." It was seen, it just wasn't worth responding to.
ReplyDelete"I think it would be better if your background was more recognizable. Occasionally I can see that it's a building or a group of students, but the last couple are just blurry blobs. I think it makes the page look amateurish."
Really? I'm usually too busy reading to even SEE the background. I don't even notice it unless someone mentions it. How snowflakey - "I didn't read the assignment because I didn't like the background."
Is Nina Hartley answering our mail? I ask merely for information.
ReplyDeleteCal did the graphic ages ago. You are the second person to ask. And now I know all I need to know about you.
Delete:-)
You know I took Women's Studies for my gen ed credits? :P
Delete"there really is only 4 of you and this is some kind of performance art"
ReplyDeleteWhat's wrong with a little performance art?
I never thought of complaining to the mods when no one commented on something I submitted ... I automatically assumed it wasn't interesting enough. Who knew it was the mods fault!?!?! (sarcasm intended)
ReplyDeleteAnd something else ... did someone suggest this isn't appropriate material to include in a tenure packet? It's peer reviewed (sometimes rather brutally, too) and certainly double blind. I am so disappointed. :`(
I'll tell everybody that I am Beaker Ben when I retire, not when I'm promoted. I've got a few years left and so does my mortgage.
DeleteThe "complaints to the moderator" thing I ain't ever seen before at any other blog. If the blog is boring, either contribute something scintillating or read something else you like better. If people aren't interested in what you wrote, write something else or find another audience that does like what you wrote.
ReplyDeleteI strongly suspect we see this because it's almost all academics--in my adult life I've never met anyone who "runs to teacher" with every little thing like we do.
Dear effin' god.
ReplyDeleteI am amazed at how the same people can apparently be so eloquent and then so petty and banal.
I don't post here much because I am/was a student, not a professor. Reading CM and RYS helped cure me of most of my own snowflakery. Thanks for what you do and all the hard work you and others put into the site. So, for what it's worth, run the site any way you darn well please. Thanks again.
ReplyDelete