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by naomii
Gosh you're a boring pain in the proverbial, Markham Shaw Pyle!
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Dec 12 '01
3:33 am PST
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As usual, well said, Markham.....! (Reply to this comment)
by Bonies7
Markham,
Am making the "rounds" one more time this week to thank all of my "favorites" here at Epinions for their contributions over these many, many months.
I'm fading off into the rapidly diminishing Epinions sunset myself this week, but wanted to say THANK YOU for all the great postings you've contributed here during this two year span. As a reader of historical text, I've found some real gems here because of the spotlight you shown on them, and I always was entertained (and informed) by your postings.
It's been a distinct pleasure - and privilege - to read your reviews here, and I'm grateful for all the time and effort you put into each review from the first to the last post. You've been a true beacon of light in a darkening ocean for a long, long time.
Godspeed, my friend - and I wish you well in whatever the future holds for you.
Jeff Clow (Bonies7)
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Nov 15 '01
1:38 pm PST
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I agree 100% with your "trained chimp" theory!! (Reply to this comment)
by skygirl
Some of the best have most certainly been thrown overboard!! Great work!!
Tina
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Nov 07 '01
3:53 pm PST
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It all started on a... (Reply to this comment)
by JMB623
dark and stormy night late in 1999 when the bigots and hoodlums began to take over. Some were contributors (I guess that's what you call wastes of skin who deposit excrement on your web site), and some held court in Brisbane lavishly endowed with OPM (Other People's Money) and VD (oops VC). The hard-working, often devoted first round of hires (i.e. Vinay Bhargava, the first computer category manager) were about as responsive to us early contributors as anyone could ever hope for. When we asked for new categories or to add new hardware or software, it was done in a day or two at most.
People like Elegiac_13 stayed up into the wee hours policing the site for plagiarism, bigotry, and a host of other kinds of offensive material. It was a community, a Hilary Clinton village as it were, in which we all really did try to improve the site, get it exposure, and help out the managers, who at that time willingly admitted they had no idea of how to find their sphincters with two hands AND a flashlight. In truth, I had no idea that there was any money in this game until Elegiac told me around Xmas '99 that our first eroyalty checks were ready to be claimed. By then I had been contributing reviews, new categories, new software/hardware for 6 months.
Management sent us business cards, t-shirts, logo'd jackets, and even trusted us with expensive video cameras to see if we could make movin' pitcher reviews. As the VC money began to dry up, the men in gray flannel suits began to see the need for toughening up the management team. Thereafter we began to see what I described in my review of 3/00 (What Became of the Epinion Mission Statement?), and, eventually, the farging iceholes you mention.
I keep waiting for Bush to create the Secretary of Euthanasia. I already have a resume suitable for mailing. If I get the job I'll start right here at Epinions, which will, undoubtedly, take a lot of time while I learn to wield the powers of my new office on the large number of site-resident candidates for elimination from the collective gene pool. Whatever you end up doing, I still think you have the most lawyerly name that I've ever seen or heard. You've made you case Mr. Pyle, please take your seat, this court is ready to make a ruling. Joel (jmb623).
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Nov 03 '01
3:01 pm PST
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sumo_regards (Reply to this comment)
by sumo_rhino
Let me address important matters first: I never miss a Sweet Potato Festival in Golden. I've got ancestral roots (just beyond The Intersection -- Farm Roads 779 and 1799 -- that constitutes the closest thing to a downtown in Golden) dating back to the turn of the century.
* * * * *
Also Worth Mentioning
I neither received an invitation to participate nor participated in the EBD W/O. But, I was certainly onboard with the functionality of it.
Though I couldn't bring myself to spawn such acerbic rhetoric, I certainly could (and did) post a protest of my own devices.
You, sir, have put me to shame with your thoughtful, expository admonishment. Why couldn't I have woven a careful, exacting essay on the state of the disunity? Why couldn't I have enfolded the virtues and goings-on of autumnal East Texas to color my rant?
Mainly because there's only one you.
And, in a move long-delayed by apoplectic spasms, I join you to my WOT (and expect to have the requisite addition to my profile page).
- sumo_rhino
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Oct 30 '01
10:18 am PST
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From An EBD Participant W-O An EBD Submission... (Reply to this comment)
by 29th_Candidate
Hello, Mr. Pyle, errr, Markham, (If I may be so presumptuous; for better or worse, it seems to be my way.)
A read of this review, (or any one your reviews actually,) reinforces my long-held belief that you are, unquestionably, this site's pre-eminent elocutionist, and, along with the recently (site-)departed eric_james, its best writer. It is not my intention to embarrass you (or myself) by such blatant fawning, but I believe credit should be given where it's due, and lavishly, where such acknowledgment is appropriate.
Correct me if I'm reading too much into what you've written here, but I detect in the penumbra of your text, if not in its multiple iteration of "October 29th 2001, a very ominous ultimatum. More specifically, it appears you've given our esteemed Nirav an opportunity to take reponsiblity for what you appear to have interpreted as his loosely cast accusation that you had levied a "personal attack" at either him, the epinions mangement or both (I don't mean to seem noncommital or obtuse in my characterization of the reference, but you did not incorporate enough of the "chat's" quote for me to adequately render a judgment one way or the other.) If my assessment is incorrect, I will apologize for my presumptuousness (for me, alas, almost a part-time hobby,) but if I have not inadvertently over-weighted your words, I would like to take this opportunity to throw my inconsequential, verbal-representation across the prematurely-worn threshold of the epinions exit door.
Aside from leaving the Republican Party sadly under-represented, (no I'm not leaving the site; case in point,) you are, as far as I'm concerned along with a handful of people I neither have the breath or inclination to name-drop, the symbolic leaders of the site; the REAL site, i.e., the site's community. There have been few writers here; the ones worthy of that designation anyway, who pay a scintilla of attention to those ignominious "hats" our worshipful epinions management throws out with the precision and care of a drunken reveler throwing confetti at a ticker-tape parade.
When I noted you had been snubbed by the management this past "confetti-tossing" cycle, I had secretly hoped that it was because you had spurned that dowdy-looking, Burger King fry-flinger's cap, for more fashionable head-gear of your own choosing; perhaps a bowler selected from one of the more cutting-edge 5th Avenue haberdasheries. How dismayed I was to find out that your current non-hat status was actually an inexcusable oversite of epinions. What little humorous element my previous denigration of the epinions advisor "selection process" contained, simultaneously evaporated with that revelation. I had been raised to believe one shouldn't knock someone's advisorial status until one had walked a mile wearing his irreverence-generating hat, but at that point, I felt it was safe to dispense with the normally defaulted-to, upbringing-indoctrinated rules.
You may recall a time, last Christmas season, when, as I was watching my body parts being unceremoniously ripped from my anatomy's frame, then tossed into random areas of my "Suicide Review's" comment section, you "commentarily stepped in" with, what I had first believed was just another of the searing (if perhaps deserved, I'm still debating the issue with myself,) attacks I was attempting to weather. Despite a defensively-worded response from me, you emailed me a very warm, compassionate, humorous, and if I may be so bold, "fatherly," email, which went a long way towards my regathering myself to "take my medicine like a man." You also corrected my faulty Latin declension.
I can't imagine that I might not have acknowledged you for your infinite-seeming magnanimity and personal warmth, (I believe I may have in a responsive email,) but I attempted to acknowledge you by giving you credit (in the infamous essay itself) for your correction of my Latin. Previous to that incident, I had assumed from certain miscues (or misinterpretations of cues) that you did not hold me in very high esteem (I substantially understate this,) and my deep regret of this, was particularly acute because of the previously-noted high esteem in which I hold you.
Now, I find myself, perhaps unnecessarily, putting my proverbial "2 cents" or less in your comment section, in an attempt to influence or persuade you to reconsider any dare I say, "pride-motivated" or (well-considered) impulsive gestures prefaced on hollow and not particularly weighty words carelessly and thoughtlessly uttered by Nirav. I urge you to consider the comment's unremarkable source and re-evaluate your ultimatum (if in fact it is one at all) based on the proportionately-negligible weight represented by that source. It (i.e., your departure from epinions) would be, not only a personally-devastating blow, but a very hard (if possible at all) to sustain wound to an already anemic-from-unchecked-bloodletting epinions community.
Perhaps you might note (or maybe you already have,) that, what foolish utterings issue from the epinions admin., rarely if ever represent the sentiments of the epinions community; a community which, again if I may be so bold, should not, because of it name-generated association with that dubious management, be held so painfully accountable, as it most certainly would be, should it be forced to sustain your crippling loss.
With Immeasurable Appreciation & Respect,
Jim Scileppi (29th)
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Oct 29 '01
11:00 pm PST
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Re: Merkle (Was: Re: Re: Well, folks....) (Reply to this comment)
by CurtisEdmonds
In researching Smead Jolley (who had over three thousand hits in the minors!?!); ran across this gem; sounds very Nirav-esque, except for the part about the guy changing his mind:
http://www.tdl.com/~thawley/peaball.html
My point is; why pick on poor Fred Merkle when we can pick on, say, Jerry Jones?
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Oct 29 '01
2:35 pm PST
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Merkle (Was: Re: Re: Well, folks....) (Reply to this comment)
by mshawpyle
23 September, 1908.
Perhaps I should use Smead Jolley as an exemplar?
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Oct 29 '01
7:44 am PST
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Re: Well, folks.... (Reply to this comment)
by CurtisEdmonds
I am reminded, as I usually am, of something that Willie Stark told Jack Burden once: "That ad hominem argumentum may be a fallacy, but it is sure goddamn effective."
The fun thing about the whole EBD thing is that everyone, so far, seems to be acting in character. Nirav, of course, was the best example, acting smarmy and mendacious as usual, not to mention utterly paranoiac. (Why couldn't that have been a video-chat? Would have bet anything you care to name that he was sporting a Nixonian five-o-clock shadow.)
However, good character was predominant in the best of what I read. Ken, profane but brilliant, showing leadership and initiative. Amy's piece was typically detailed, mannerly, comprehensive, and utterly unarguable. Even P. Tiemann had a technocratic piece that detailed the fall of Eps.
On the other hand, of course, bad character showed its face as well. The peckerwood mudsills did what peckerwood mudsills do, the apologists, flacks, and lickspittles acted all shocked and horrified like good little Puritans, and I wrote something snarky, mean-spirited and rude (that I wouldn't have dared to write if S. Kubrick was alive, even if S. Spielberg hadn't already robbed that particular grave).
One would, then, expect something magisterial, baroque, coldly logical, fiercely passionate, and utterly erudite from MSP, and that is just what this is. Kudos, and I hope it will not go unread and unheeded.
(Although I must ask: What is the statute of limitation for bonehead plays? Merkle's play was what, in 1908? Surely after 92 years, we can let poor Fred Merkle off the hook -- or should that wait until 2008? It is not as though there is a shortage of such goats; Mickey Owen, Ralph Branca, Bill Buckner, Jackie Smith, et. al.)
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Oct 28 '01
11:26 pm PST
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Most excellent work. (Reply to this comment)
by jgibson2
I'm glad I'm not the only one who chose to protest without the use of expletives. I've enjoyed reading many of the more colorful pieces, but I simply cannot put anything into print that would embarrass my husband. I've said a number of things that embarrassed him, but I can deny those.
Judy
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Oct 28 '01
8:53 pm PST
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Well.... (Reply to this comment)
by MrsNormanMaine
I'm certainly glad I've never been in the witness box for your withering cross examination.
My major emotion on the whole debacle is sadness - this was all so unnecessary. If epinions wished to force itself away from the literary (and for what reason would anyone spend time here if it weren't for the literary content?), it could have been done in a much more open manner. The brash ingenuousness of Nirav et al. in the chat was really beyond the pale.
It's going to be interesting to see what the chimps do come Monday morning, especially if those with more computer skills and connections than I start to get the word out to the venture capitalists, advertisers, and other support types.
MNM
P.S. I am not a paranoid conspiracy theorist! :)
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Oct 28 '01
3:05 pm PST
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Re: Well, folks.... (Reply to this comment)
by anderclayton
No problem. I really hadn't meant to imply that you were. My statement was more in the spectrum of standing by my own words (whether I regret them somewhat or not).
Ander
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Oct 28 '01
2:33 pm PST
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.. (Reply to this comment)
by mnehr
The good people of Deep East Texas are not deterred from their lives by any threat.
Damn strait
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Oct 28 '01
9:33 am PST
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Well, folks.... (Reply to this comment)
by mshawpyle
1. Thanks, all. When even the magisterial Tom comments ... woof.
2. I too was surprised that 'Merkle's boner' made it past the NannyFilTerNet (TM). We'll see if Merkle's nickname, 'Bonehead,' makes it through.
3. Classic example of what's wrong with the site. It permits kiddie porn but won't let you type 'crapshooting.'
4. Ken, you fezzed Arkansawyer, they ain't ary need for to 'Mister' me.
5. I never said the EBD was beneath me or anyone else, and I am on your side. What I said was I wouldn't want to publish anything I wouldn't want my two carefully brought-up dogs to read. (Grin, damn you, grin.) It's all a matter of style - and of my being able to reach the heathen whilst you preach to the faithful.
6. And Ander, I wasn't fishing for info on who said what at chat. What matters here is whether Mr Tolia and site staff rise to the occasion and stand up and apologize for casting me in a false light. It's a final acid test of their last claims to credibility and common decency. Should be interesting to watch.
7. Isn't it evocative of this whole stinking (not to say sordid) mess that 'chat' these days is presumed to be like trying to nail jelly to the wall? On 25 OCT, while one of my questions - the most innocuous - slipped past the Praetorians, other more specific ones didn't. And I didn't expect them to. They were civil, but they did amount to cross-examination of a hostile witness. And ain't that a commentary?
In late '99 and early 2K, by contrast, we had weekly writers's chats, well-attended and workshoppy. We started inviting staff: Category Managers, then eventually Mr Tolia's predecessor, Mr Ravikant. While Mr Ravikant may not have 'shone' in some ways, he certainly had the spine to stick his neck out - sometimes too far.
Soon enough, that all changed, attitudes hardened, a palace guard was enlisted, Mr Ravikant 'transferred to another sphere,' and the swift degeneration of the site quickened.
I'll let Tom draw such Nixonian parallels as he may.
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Oct 28 '01
6:44 am PST
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Thanks, Markham (Reply to this comment)
by tomgray
I appreciate your lucid explanation of what has been going on behind the scenes. Sorry, but I never had time for it, and don't have time for it now--which is primarily why I took a year off from Epinions and never really got into the backstage discussion groups. I have the time, and the interest, to try to write excellent reviews for the creative pleasure (or for decent compensation), and if Epinions can manage to sort itself out, I'd like to continue.
For what it's worth, I believe that Epinions' business model has always been misguided because of its blind devotion to democracy. From the earliest days, the company should have exercised its own judgment about who the best reviewers were (not hard to do), and either provided them with an extra stipend or allowed them to develop proposals for compensation. From the earliest days, the goal should have been to strongly incentivize contributors to write exceptional reviews, instead of creating a pool of "members" who are incentivized to read as many of each others' reviews as possible.
I said that then, and I still think it's true. I hope Epinions eventually figures out that the only reason for the general public to be attracted to the site is quality reviews, and that therefore, the company's entire focus should be on how to encourage quality reviews. I get the impression it is slogging toward that goal (since no one who is in business could fail to come to that realization eventually), but far too slowly and clumsily. (Good thing for them that there was a dot-com crash--if there had not been, someone else would have come along and stolen their lunch.)
So, thanks for the efforts you describe on behalf of contributors. I'm sorry they were not successful. It seems as though Epinions' management has always been overly committed to an original bright idea (and it was a pretty bright idea), and unwilling to admit that it might have been seriously flawed in some respects.
Tom
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Oct 28 '01
5:48 am PST
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You deserve the highest of praise. (Reply to this comment)
by grimjack2
I give you great Kudos for doing exactly what Sordid has complemented you for "and can only applaud you for taking an approach which exhibits class, restraint, and true elegance."
This is exactly how I felt after reading your lengthy article. I am bothered by how many people have been writing their off topic dog blowing articles, and have been revenge rated by people claiming this is a community. In other words join their revolution or suffer the consequences.
I too am unhappy with what is happening but think that dog blowing articles aren't going to help anything, and hurt epinions in general. If it did work, I too agree that the ends will not justify the means.
Again, I'm impressed with your restraint, as much as I am your elequence! Well done!
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Oct 28 '01
2:39 am PST
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Heh:) (Reply to this comment)
by anderclayton
Well, I will admit again (having admitted a few times in other venues) that unfortunately I fall under the category of people that lost their temper and resorted to ad hominem during the chat. I realized at the time that while the squeaky wheel gets the oil, people are less likely to oil the cart cleaning up after the gold-gilded chariots than the chariots themselves and did it anyhow. Sigh... Would that I had a bit more self control...
Anyhow, I remember the first wine taste-off and miss that sorta stuff. I am not sure that I agree that the site was entirely in the doghouse (erk... no theme matching originally intended) at that point and actually didn't think Naval performed his job too terribly.
Not really sure how they might fix things at this point and am really thinking it might be beyond repair. I have no idea how they could seriously fritter away such a wonderful pool of talent.
You forgot the (raging) in your quotes:) I got a kick out of that and was more than a bit frustrated that they brushed you off with less than a passing glance. I didn't take their comments as being directed at you though and would be happy (well, not happy necessarily but I would be glad to do it) to step up and take credit for the less than helpful comments. Not really sure that they were actually ad hominem (I believe they were more directed at actions) but they definitely weren't as reasoned as possible.
take it easy,
Ander
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Oct 28 '01
1:31 am PST
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analysis, thanks, and a public admission (Reply to this comment)
by Sordid-1
Obviously, Mr. Pyle, unlike you, I found myself unable to “resist the temptation of canine scatological references” in my course of action while trying to achieve certain objectives (primary among them the return of property stolen from myself and thousands of others in one fell swoop.) I know that you understand the motivation here, and can only applaud you for taking an approach which exhibits class, restraint, and true elegance. Do the ends justify the means? In my case, I believe they do. And that is not to say that I am pleased about being placed into this situation in the first place. Nor is it to infer that I can not fully respect those who do not share my view of the “means” being utilized as the most pragmatic (if not unorthodox) approach, ESPECIALLY when there exists a shared desire regarding the “ends.”
When explaining your decision not to engage in a course of action that you felt was beneath you, you stated that, while capable of rollin’ in the dirt with the best of ‘em, you “can do the same thing here in (your) own way.” Your dissection of the site’s fall from glory, coupled with vivid descriptions of your contempt, was, obviously, more cutting than a thousand accusations of canine molestation. Your way is a good way, MSP. Obviously not effective in PROMPTING ACTION from a management team whose very actions have proved them out as abysmal fools; but that is their failing, not yours. Your communication is effective, persuasive, and, as always, a pleasure to read. I, for one (among many), very much appreciate you sharing your views, especially when you do so in such a vivid and compelling way.
Also, let me state publicly, I DID steal “the trained chimps of Brisbane” directly from mshawpyle. It has become such a mainstay in my online vernacular, though, that attribution never occurred to me. It is quite possible that I will also absorb “appalling peckerwood mudsills” into my vocabulary as well, because that is so wonderfully descriptive that it pleases me to even read it.
With respect,
Sordid-1
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Oct 28 '01
12:40 am PDT
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Yep. First Erratum. Sigh. (Reply to this comment)
by mshawpyle
The HTML bold tag should have closed at the end of the paragraph that begins, 'So what do we know so far about Epinions?' and that ends, 'Do you still want to use it – or belong to it?'
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Oct 27 '01
11:24 pm PDT
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