Now that I've been here over a year...
Dec 04 '00
I have now been an epinions person for over a year, though it feels a lot longer. That said, I thought I’d share a few of the lessons I have learned about this place and its inhabitants.
In my opinion, it's okay to be off topic. Say what you need to say. Many will disagree with me on this, particularly those people who constitute the ranks of what I call the “OffTopiCops. What are “OffTopiCops? Read on…
The OffTopiCops
A play in one act
By Chris King
Dramatis Personae
OffTopiCop 1 (played by your favorite OffTopiCop)
OffTopiCop 2 (played by your second favorite OffTopiCop)
(The setting is a lovely urban park with lots of trees and wildlife. The OTCs enter stage left.)
OTC1. ...and so I counted the words in the epinion and found that the number of words directly related to the topic were outnumbered by the number of words about other things only tangentially related to the topic by SEVEN WORDS!
OTC2. No! The nerve! So what did you do?
OTC1. I did the only rational, reasonable thing...I NRed the little so-and-so.
OTC2. Good work!
OTC1. Of course I wrote an excellent comment on it detailing the guy's sins.
OTC2. Did you generously offer to re-rate if they completely rewrote their epinion to please you?
OTC1. Of course I did! I'm not a savage! I'm not unreasonable!
(Both laugh. They sit down on a bench.)
OTC2. I just don't get it.
OTC1. What?
OTC2. Why don't people just email us their epinions first so we can vet them for appropriateness, context, content and topicality. Then we wouldn't have to ding them when they displease us.
OTC1. It's a mystery to me, too. I mean, why should people...wow look! A pheasant!
OTC2. HEY!! You're OFF TOPIC!!
Curtain.
Why do they do it? They can't help it. These are sad, lonely people, my friend. The only flicker of pleasure in their tedious, joyless days comes from putting folks like us in our places. When the OffTopiCop walks down the street, the neighbors flee inside because they are sick to death of being told how to properly mow the lawn and really don't care that the car could use a good scrub. Refuse their demand that you rewrite your epinion just to please them. The imperious "email me when you rewrite and I'll consider re-rating" must be ignored. But don't go on a revenge rating expedition. We must have compassion for the tedious, even when they devil us.
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On the other hand, there are some things that you should think at least twice about before reviewing.
Anything with "Harry" and "Potter" in the title. Don't get me wrong. I like these books. I have read all four. I even wrote epinions on them at one point. Even though I was on the bandwagon relatively early, I have deleted most of them because others have done a much better job reviewing them. After at least 424 reviews of the first one, I think it's time for us to stop, or at least reconsider. Maybe you could review the next one, if you are one of the first hundred or so.
Think twice before reviewing Left Behind, the popular novel about the Rapture and End of Times. You were beaten to the punch by over 300 people. If you must review Left Behind, there are a few things you might want to avoid. First, don't use the title as an opportunity to ask people if they will be left behind. For one thing, it's trite. For another, it's tacky. If you really believe that you will be swept up by Jesus, and the rest of us schlubs are going to have to suffer terribly, don't rub it in. Secondly, don't write that this book will be of interest to believers and non-believers alike. The only thing that is interesting to anyone is the message behind it, and if you don't believe the message, you will hate it because it is a badly written book. Trust me on this one. HYPOCRICY ALERT: I just wrote a review of this one.
Fast food restaurants such as McDonalds, Burger King, etc. Service is fast/service is slow. Food is good/food is bad. It is what it used to be/it isn't. I like the fries/I wouldn't feed the fries to pigeons. What more can we say?
The Bible. Actually, don't even think twice about this one. Don't review the Bible. If you believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God, then your review of His word is just a tad presumptuous, isn't it? If you don't believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God, then you're probably writing your review just to cheese off the Christians and that's just not nice.
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If you are interested in Maxim magazine, then you have nothing interesting to say, so please don't review Maxim magazine. Or anything else for that matter. Also, it would be a good idea if you neither voted nor reproduced. (For those of you who have never heard of Maxim, your lives are infinitely richer as a result. It is a Men’s Magazine full of cheesecake photography and insipid articles about beer and chicks and stuff. The quality of writing makes Playboy look like the Paris Review.)
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If it looks like a joke category, then treat it like a joke category. Most of the categories that begin with “How to Buy” are just for fun, so please don’t take them seriously. How to buy a wheelbarrow? How to buy a sprinkler? A slicer? A steamer? A toaster? An iron? Pool alarm, tea kettle, waffle iron, coffee maker swim spa, stick blender, garden hose storage, garden hose nozzle, electric knife, electric can opener, WATERING WAND???? I’m pretty sure they just put most of those in there to see if anybody would write anything. And then laugh at those who did.
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My last piece of advice is to consider taking a break. I didn't even look at epinions for over three months this past spring. It was nice to take a break. I also waited to post some book reviews and really took the time to do what I think is a decent job on them. I can't recommend it enough. Especially after I began filtering my experience of the world through the epinions lens. I decided to stop for a while when I was hiking along the Salmon River near Mount Hood in Oregon and enjoy the view, but instead found myself writing an epinion of it in my mind. I wasn't really appreciating the view or the smell or anything. Instead, I was trying to come up with adjectives to describe a particularly lovely bend in the river. Sad. If you can’t look at your dog or your kid without thinking about how many stars they deserve, it could be vacation time.
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Epinions.com ID:
cking
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Member: Chris King
Location: Portable, OR
Reviews written: 44
Trusted by: 54 members
About Me:
I am a rock. I am an island.
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