A couple of days ago the following story was published:
Alan Myers, DEVO drummer, RIP (I can’t get a link to work)
By far the best comment on the short thread is this:
. . . for the following reasons:
- It corrects an implicit error in the story
- It contains interesting ‘expert’ information
Instead, for some time the only ‘Notable Reply’ was this:
Now, all due respect to stefanjones, but Stexe’s comment is, by any measure, more ‘notable’.
Further, it was presented in a gracious way (he kindly says that “[i]t’s a minor point”, when in fact it somewhat invalidates the whole post).
So why was Stexe’s comment not deemed ‘notable’?
Absent any explanation (which is always the case with NRs) one can only conclude that it is because it made the author “uncomfortable”, by drawing attention to his mistake. The ‘Notable Replies’ should have included Stexe’s comment and the reply to it:
To compound the error, stefanjones’ comment has now been re-designated “not notable” (and no others deemed ‘notable’), presumably to avoid perception of the conflict noted above.
On day one, I posited that the perverse incentives of the ‘Notable Replies’ system would lead to perverse outcomes, and it seems to me that this is an example.
Small mistakes like this happen all the time, and there’s no shame in it if you own up transparently. I’d have easily made the same mistake because, while I like DEVO, my obsessions lie elsewhere.
Embrace these sorts of contributions and we all win. As it currently stands, all this tells me that ‘Notable Replies’ is not to be trusted.
Note: This comment is an honest appraisal of the situation as I see it. If I’ve got something wrong, or if I’m somehow on the wrong track, I’ll be most happy to entertain relevant criticism (see how it works?).
Thank you for reading.
