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I think one of the consistent, persistent and pernicious problems in the Newsvine meta conflicts and and controversies is this: We think the threads here matter.
Newsflash for Newsviners: They don't.
Too many times too many of us operate under the illusion-delusion that when we talk about something that we're doing something about the thing we're talking about.
Newsflash to Newsviners: We're not.
No matter how important we think something is that we're talking about, no matter how important it really might be, all we're doing is talking. I've been a constant regular on the Vine for two years now and I can count on one hand, without including the thumb, when Newsvine user-generated content had a perceptible effect on the world beyond these pages. Killfile's Virgina Tech coverage. Steve Watts' Lost in the Vines. I don't know crap about the Apple vs. PC stuff, but apparently Brian Ford has contributed substantively to that continuing struggle. A couple of other instances that I might mention. So okay, count the thumb.
But that's it. And even those few exceptions were because of the article, not the thread beneath. The threads are worthless to the world at large. Nobody cares except us. This is not, of course, phenomena peculiar to Newsvine. Everywhere all over the internet commenters think that their comments matter even though 999,999 times out of 1,000,000 they don't--and the threads they are within are the very definition of "ephemeral," which makes any individual comment on a thread the ephemera of ephemera. That is, metaephemera.
Now I'm going to name some names. I'm not really calling people out for behavior. I'm making a judgement about what I think they are thinking based on what I see. As a matter of fact, it's a very distinct possibility that folks might agree with my judgement objectively but simply disagree with it normatively. I got traveling on this train of thought by way of one of the e-mails from Jim Trimble quoted by tyler in his "Gaming the System" article. I wasn't struck so much by the gaming-the-system angle (that's tyler's job and I don't have the technical tools or expertise to determine that kind of thing anyway). I was struck by the implications of this:
Have you gotten so busy with yourself that nothing else matters? It takes two friggin minutes to log on, go to the group and cast your vote, less time than it takes while you stand at a polling place voting for some useless politician. You tell me now and you tell it straight. Are you quitting? Have the liberals gotten your @!$%#ing goat? [silent corrections]
Trimble's premise seems to be that the actual public policy and philosophy conflict between "liberals" and "conservatives" was being fought and potentially won or lost on Newsvine threads. Whoa. Slow down. Did he just say that the actual exercise of suffrage in a democratic republic--a citizen's right to vote for President of the United States of America--is less significant than the vote (or report) button at the top of a Newsvine article? Yes he did.
But No. We aren't going to win or lose the liberal/conservative battle here on Newsvine. We're talking about the battle. We're kibitizing, like at famous battle picnics outside of Washington D.C. early in the Civil War that were supposedly the inspiration for Julia Ward Howe's "Battle Hymn of the Republic." Yeah, well, nothing any of us ever write in a Newsvine comment will ever achieve the either the literary merit or the effect in thew world that the Battle Hymn had, let alone have the consequences of the actual battles of blood and death and dirt fought at the First Battle of Bull Run.
And, of course, you don't see this illusion/delusion of action any more clearly than on the Israel/Palestine threads. aRTieA seems to think he's actually protecting Israel when all he's really doing is pissing off jdoyle. Dennis McCann seems to think he's protecting some cute little Turkish girl from bigotry when all he's really doing is taking some easy shots at some American provinicial. On an internet site.
Ultimately, then, what's most important is that what we what we say here on the comment threads isn't important. We aren't going to to settle the Middle East conflict here. We're not going to abolish the Federal Reserve, block or push through a Supreme Court nomination, make or break the presidency of Barack Obama.
So do me a favor, people.
