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Please come in. You're invited to make yourself at home! Join us beneath the doodle...
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Wherein I make my own personal quest of Top Comments into a diary, because
1. It's useful information and
2. I'm all about the transparency. :)
Get the hence below the Arabesque!
It’s human nature to trust your gut, your feelings, your sense of justice and right and, like that moment when you know it’s art, recognize a Top Comment for what it is.
Yet human beings stink at ethical thought processes. That’s why we have rules and laws. Now, we stick to rules and laws haphazardly but we are better wired to attempt that exercise than to adjudicate abstract tasks like, oh, mining for Top Comments with our savanna-specific pattern recognition filters. Searching for grubs and bugs that don't bite too badly when you chomp on them... mining for TC....pretty much interchangeable skills, right?
Not saying that just perusing the diaries isn’t righteous. I do it all the time.
HOWEVER, like tonight, I’m in a bit of a hurry and long ago I gave myself several different recipes (rules, alternative speaking “Roolz”, because LOLCAT) for finding comments quickly and, one hopes, with some of that desired randomness and impartiality that makes statistical approaches so much fun…. said no one, ever.
Anyhoo, it works. I’ll prove it:
Tonight’s DIARY is about comment mining!
STEP ONE: Run a comment search on the word ‘the’
You’re kidding, right? You say. No, srsly!
1. Make sure you search comments not diaries.
2. Set for the current date (so you don’t overrun the prior TC diary’s selection window).
3. Search for ‘the’, because if you have to search for something, it might as well be the definite article.
4. Wait 10-ish seconds, and sort by recommends; this will unfortunately default to a bottom-to-top sorting
5. Wait another 10-ish seconds, and re-sort to get a top-to-bottom rank order.
6. In similarly paused intervals, page down past most of the tip jars; my traditional rule of thumb these days is to page down past the ‘20somethings’ – 19 recs and under comments that a lot of folks already thought rocked, so you know they’re promising ore for TC mining.
7. The diary titles will flag the mojo-boosting community diaries for you; don’t pick those, though you might want to read ‘em and wave hello
8.That leaves the news topic and rants du jour diaries; enjoy.
So now we start reading.
Given that two of least controversial social issues of 2014 AD America – open carry and violence against women – are hot topics lately, many of these comments address these issues (though not simultaneously). My preference is to pick some toughies, because that’s what we’re supposed to do – think about the issues – but find easier segues, either mildly humorous anecdotes or examples of the most beloved snark.
Pirogue offers up this advice on educating men to the women’s sense of vulnerability in parking lots and other open public spaces: Imagine you have a $5000 bill pinned to your shirt.
Elsewhere, G2Geek (he’s back!) advise the author of a mea culpa diary on a trap that’s caught me plenty of times in my time. Paraphrasing an oldie movie quote favorite of mine (from Poltergeist: Don’t go into the meta!
Joe Bob counsels us on how to handle people who wear camouflage in urban consumer settings.
I then paged up that particular thread; it was at once a hoot and a creep-out but people were sharing their ‘open carry Elvis’ sighting stories.
From the same Open Carry Elvis thread: This one by middleagedhousewife marvels at one fellow Michael’s customer’s decision that she had a clear and pressing need to to shop for art supplies with a semiautomatic rifle.
glescagal shares history and wisdom on large weddings. Next time, City Hall? : ) Personally I concur with the commenter – big weddings are beat. Besides, people remember the reception party. Spend all your money on that. : )
Oh, I have missed the OTHER IMPORTANT SOCIAL ISSUE du jour: Jumbo butt bows on bridesmaid dresses. Not to worry: cactusgal has Got this. The thread’s a hoot.
Gooserock rocks some cogent analysis of what Republicans’ wildfire rhetoric is really about: the bling. I mean, he doesn’t say ‘bling’ but read his comment already. He wrote it for all of us.
Anyhow, that’s how I do it.
Heh, I suppose in hindsight it isn’t THAT quick a process; I just spent an hour mining and documenting the process but on the other hand I also just wrote a diary about it. So there.
On to the TC submissions from others!
TOP COMMENTS
June 2, 2014
Thanks to tonight's Top Comments contributors! Let us hear from YOU
when you find that proficient comment.
From Elizaveta
In Laura Clawson's diary Sixth-graders bill education officials for time spent as standardized test guinea pigs,
Yoshimi sums up nicely how the education system is using kids with no reward for all of their hard work.
I always thought it was odd that school administrations were taking kids away from learning to evaluate their teachers. They should be paid.
The kids should unionize.
From LilithGardener
From rexymeteorite'sbeautiful apology diary, this comment from SilverWillow sums up why this sincere apology melts our hearts.
I think we can all learn and grow from what we have heard and seen over the last week or so. Some of that growth/learning will come from unexpected place (like what you learned here).
This is one of the most thoughtful apologies I have read/heard. Not only did you explain what you did, and why you are apologizing for it, but what you learned, and what you intend to do in the future.
Not many people have the guts to admit when they are wrong, even less have the personal fortitude to examine their actions in an open minded way and assess the impact of their choice, not just the intent of their action.
Well done sir, I admire your courage and integrity.
SW
From Jon Sitzman
Just me again, with another TC nom, for this gem by TDDVandy
I'm really at a loss to figure out how what Harry Reid is doing to the Koch Brothers is any different from what the Koch Brothers are doing to anybody with a "D" next to their name.
Oh, right, Harry Reid isn't throwing millions of dollars behind his attacks. Also, Harry Reid is telling the truth. My bad.
Seriously... can anyone improve on that? Is it possible? I'm going with "no," but by all means let more see it so others can riff on it and/or disagree.
Thanks for your work folks!
…
CSK Reply: Actually, no. I don’t think I could find a better comment ever. It’s that excellent a post. : )
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TOP PHOTOS
June 1, 2014
Enjoy jotter's wonderful PictureQuilt™ below. Just click on the picture and it will magically take you to the comment that features that photo. Have fun, Kossacks!
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BONUS MUSIC