If you don't like it, don't read it!

Nicely posted Delia, where has this been the past 20 days? Oh yah, in the basement, sitting on top of all the other posts that got dumped. Including a few of my own.

I just figured Current wasn't into Giai theory, Jupiter is an Electron, or other philosophical/scientific anomalies that pull you out of your geocentric universe and actually make you think about your reality. (my cup o' tea) I guess that's not really news though, for most folk. But for some it is;
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from my post about Ancient Petroglyphs
a recent comment:

"Where speculation is as harmless as intelligently argued, it lifts Current way past the daily idiocies of ideology."

i think i should do my senior project on getting delia to marry me....*sigh* I hope she accepts

I'm going to go ahead and disagree with you all on this one.
Do we really need headline after headline of "Legalize it?" come on, we get the fucking point already. How about a little variety? The reason I don't frequent current (aside from the horrifyingly clunky new layout) is that it's become "coverage" for the same old shit day after day. There are exciting things going on out there that don't necessarily have to concern that large percentage of current users which have a neckbeard and eat organic only.
There's cyberwars in The Eastern Bloc, civil unrest in Bolivia, and amazing new technology like electrode brainwave controllers for computers! And all I see posted on current day after day is the same thing.
Something about weed, something about organic/veg/chemicals-in-the-water, something about how large corporations are the root of all evil, and some random tinfoil conspiracy article.
Sorry to go on a rant here, but hey, current is all about voicing your opinion.

Also, if you don't like the article, DO NOT SPAM IT!!!! Lately, my articles have been spamed with a bunch of crap.

BTW, good job Delia.

To me, this post and the responses to it are what makes Current worthy of repeated visits.
It's a virtual playground of multi-media and discussion.

Nothing like a lively discussion to get the juices flowing! Would you be able to do this in the "regular" news arena?? I think not! Bravo current for not just bitch slapping folks and taking your toys and going home! As long as everyone plays nice in the sandbox we can make current an even better place for all "news nuts"!

BTW I really enjoyed your post Delia! Excellent discussion starter! You go girl!

Ironically, I posted something recently bitching about the excessive appearance of a topic on the front page. This post got me to thinking about it.

For reasons unknown, I frequently forget one of the key aspects of current... voting the articles up and down. Too frequently I hit the site looking at the latest and greatest and skip over the immediate interaction.

Well written reminder of what makes current what it is.

Thanx.

Delia you are my hero!

I have had stuff yanked from the top 20 because it was not "news worthy" as well. Anymore I am careful to use the "not news" tag on stuff that is not news.

As to your original point, I always find it amusing when people go through the trouble of reading the post and comments only to leave a comment complaining that the post and comments are dumb, waste of space, etc.

The take away message is that if you are here it is because you are having a good time. And if you aren't having a good time then that is no one's fault but your own. By the same token, I think for some people the good time is just following other people around and saying "yes" every time they say "no" or vice versa.

c'est la vie

Damn it I always miss the town halls because I have to work :(

Thanks Mario-I was wondering when a Current Staffer would jump in here and let us know what the deal is!

"but while this might be news to the community of people participating on Current.com, it isn't really newsworthy in the context of our TV station -- reporting the news, etc." Word. That is very understandable, and I can see why it is hard for Current to be in the forefront of the "what is news" debate, especially when it comes to the transition from internet to the TV station.

I like how you guys are constantly adapting things as these kind of issues come up. I love Current and am glad to be part of it. Thanks for putting this up in the blog, and I hope that the changes you are making will address these issues and satisfy the community. If it doesn't, I think it's pretty clear that you will know about it ;)

FYI -- i just posted this to the blog as a guest post by DeliaTheArtist.

hey guys, just thought i'd jump in and clear up a few things, but to do so it might require a little storytelling first. when we launched Current:News back in March of 2008, the intent was to offer a homepage of popular news stories as voted on by the Current community.

what we've learned over the course of the past year is that "news" is subjective -- what is news to me may not be news to you...or better yet, what is important news to me may not be important news to you.

work with whichever makes more sense to you, but the short of it is that we wound up with a mix of stuff on the homepage: celebrity stories rubbing elbows with global conflicts, etc. the thing is, we also found that we had growing communities in each one of these "types" of news. some people came to Current because they loved the humor, comedy, and entertainment posts on the site, while others came to Current to partake in more traditional news-reporting efforts: global strife, awareness, climate change initiatives, etc.

we want Current to be a home for all of these growing communities, but we have a homepage that doesn't really suit that as well as it could.

so...we've been building out channels and working steadily on a big new plan for Current in 2009. our last few releases have been taking steps in this direction, and this Thursday we will make another big change -- releasing a new homepage that gives better exposure to the types of stories on Current.

// censorship //

to make things perfectly clear -- we aren't censoring content on Current. remember, until Friday the homepage is still largely intended for news content. so when something bubbles up that is "non-news" we tag it as such and make sure it's being surfaced in the right place.

for example: take this post -- an extremely important one, and my thanks goes out to DeliaTheArtist for writing this up. but while this might be news to the community of people participating on Current.com, it isn't really newsworthy in the context of our TV station -- reporting the news, etc.

so where should it live? well, topics like Current.com, or Internet, or even Online Communities and Social Media for starters.

this post is so good, and relates to so much of what is going on in our community, that we'd like to feature it on Current.com Blog as well.

i hope this makes sense, and i hope you guys will join us this Thursday evening for our Town Hall discussion of the new Current homepage (link above).

let me know if you have questions!
mario

I understand what you are saying. I asked them about it on Twitter as well, I'm waiting for a response. If it is true then I agree, it's crappy. The definition of "news" is pretty rocky and relative, that's one of my points here; they should definitely let the stories get voted up by themselves, and in the least they don't need to boot it to the very last ass page!!!

Its happened to me 3 times and a friend once. We've reached out every time and heard "we'll look into it". Today I got really angry about it and was saying some things on twitter about it and then current started following me. I told them i was upset and they said that the home page is for news-centric stories. I replied that the homepage is for top voted stories as chosen by users and the news channel was for news-centric stories. They said that thursday they will be implementing changes to the home page and to stay tuned.

It was cool that they responded but it is not cool that they are selectively yanking stories they don't deem news worthy. That technically is censoring their own system.

Yeah what you are saying is true. I've never noticed that before or understood what people meant when they claimed current was "censoring" them. Have you ever tried talking to a current staff member to find out what the deal is?

Go to the main page and click the last possible page on the bottom, like page 353 or something, and your post will be there. It was on the front page and then got bumped. Maybe it's not a big deal, but the lack of censorship was why I joined current in the first place. You know, that for the people by the people type of feel.

Where does it tell you the story #? How did you know it was7,058? I'm not trying to argue I'm really asking...

Ok, I found it....but how do you know that it's someone from Current doing that?

This post went from being in the top 20, as voted by people like me, to 7,058. It was sent there by someone at current. They didn't change your writing, it's not that type of censorship, more so they silenced the people who voted your topic up... They say that it isn't news. My argument is that I vote, and I thought people should have read it.

What's this about censorship? How did I get censored? I hear people complain about Current censoring them as well but what do you mean?

Good points Delia, thanks for this post.

SNAP!!! You just got censored too Delia... welcome to the club! WTF.

"We have free speech. We have a free press. Have they all failed us?" ~ Al Gore

very well said!!

I agree with you 100%, but that's not why I'm upset. I've had several submissions that randomly get sent from the front page to the last page, as in 7,114, out of nowhere.

I thought this site was supposed to be user submitted and user prioritized. My post are usually funny takes on relevant topics, and people must like them enough to vote them up to the front page. Then why are people at current sending them to the back?

This concept was created by Al Gore et al as an experiment in freedom of press and speech... How does censorship fit into that equation? It doesn't! Tell current to stop selectively censoring, this isn't youtube or fox news. This is BULLSHIT.

booya, good post D, one of your better ones.

Preach It, Sister!!!

I heart Delia!!!