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Mayor Daley is back from his Jordanian vacation today and he wasted no time battling back criticism over his plan to stick taxpayers with the bill if the city bungles the budget for the Olympics.
Mayor Daley is Back ... With a Vengeance
dailydaley.windycitizen.com - 21 weeks ago - 535 views
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Great questions.
I changed it today because I was away from the computer for much of yesterday. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to make the change as soon as I decided it should be done. Also, I did not think it was a big deal. We make lots of little edits to submissions each week to neaten them up a bit. As the guy who pays the bills and assumes all liability for what happens here, that's my prerogative.
In a perfect world, there'd be someone who'd stay on top of stuff like this on Saturdays and Sundays if I'm unable to. We're not there yet, so things like this (and many other things!) and handled as best I and our interns are able to.
Those three sites are community-powered news sites, just like the Citizen, making them ideal examples.
One takeaway from this is that submission guidelines could be better highlighted. Also, I should add more to them about situations like this and how they're handled.
As to supporting those who blog on the WC better, I'm always open to suggestions. The better you guys do, the better we all do. However I have always and will always retain the right to edit what's posted to the blogs or anywhere else on the site in the interest of the overall enterprise.
We can keep talking about this, but let's keep it constructive and steer clear of personal stuff.
Qstrian, I heart you for starting this debate. I really do. Just as I heart cursing like a godforsaken sailor.
Like I said, I gave the issue further thought yesterday and realized I'd OKed a submitted link that breaks our own submission guidelines, ones that I wrote and proposed and am repsonsible for supporting. My bad. I swapped it out.
There are all sorts of community-powered news sites on the web.
We could go the Fark.com route and a funny, punny, sketchy feel.
We could go the Reddit.com route and have an angry, blue, anything goes libertarian feel.
We could go the Digg.com route and be a 24-hour frat party.
Or we could choose the news.ycombinator.com route, which strives for an even tone, though it's sometimes criticized as boring.
The last one is the one that's most sustainable and the most interesting in my view.
The approach may morph and change with future iterations of the Citizen, but for now this is how I'd like to move forward.
You realized yesterday that the hed was in violation? Then why did you change it today only after someone complained? And why does the Massholes hed still stand? Is it because no one has complained about it yet?
Second, all three models you mentioned are news aggregators. Those sites don't produce content, they merely link to content. The Daily Daley is original content produced by people who take time out of their day to write for the Windy Citizen. It'd be nice to see some goddamned support for writers rather than
cow-towingkowtowing* to one single angry reader (who doesn't even sound that angry) about one effing headline (that isn't even that vulgar).*I've been corrected by a far better editor than I. The boss is the king.
Wow! I haven't read such spirited exchange since working with equity partners & income partners @ the world's 20th largest law firm in Chicago's Loop.
Let's continue to working together for the honest & open government & recall this exchange as one of our defining moments.
Gentlemen, I'm truly privileged to be a part of this impassioned debate.
Might you rephrase your headline to dispense with that which most editors would consider expletive deletives? Thought MF may be my formal mongram, I choose not to use this in polite conversation.
Polite conversation? About Chicago politics? You're not from around here, are you?
It's interesting that you choose to be more offended by the headline than by Daley’s attempt to ram through yet another pet project without the input of the public or elected officials.
You may have both family-friendly headlines & command of your political facts when you visit www.windycitizen.com & keep yourself well-informed. As we become better acquainted, you'll come to understand that many of us are well-informed as to what is going on with my my former client & his extended family.
ZOMG, I would never in a million years let a little child read about the exploits of the mayor. They are too young, too innocent, too pure to understand. And the awkward questions they'd ask! Like what's a TIF? and where do they come from? How would one even know where to begin explaining such embarrassing topics to the wee ones. No, sir, I recommend you keep young children far, far away from articles about the mayor in order to protect your family.
For those who have no idea what these comments are all about, this article's original headline was "Mayor Daley is Mother Effing Back ... With a Vengeance." Some cruel editor stripped this blog post of it "Mother Effing" because some lame-o thinks "mother effing" is a curse word. And you know what I say to that? That's bull shizzle. Fudge you, mother effer.
We'd talked about this the other night and I OKed the switch to Mother 'Effing from its previous incarnation, which was even more on the nose.
Then it occurred to me that our submission guidelines clearly state to "Keep it clean" on the submission page. So, in keeping with the guidelines put forward, I edited down the headline again.
If that's a big problem, fair enough. As I've said before, we're very much figuring out what we're doing here and how it works as we go along. Discussions like these are helpful opportunities to figure out the norms that should govern a crowd-powered news source like the Citizen.
Thoughts?
Ummmm how is "effing" unclean? Should we purge our language on the site of similar euphemisms? "Gosh," "darn," "heck" and even the dreaded "zounds!" Let's nix em all! What about Massholes? Are clever, yet "dirty "puns off limits, too?
More importantly, just 'cus you can delete something from the internet, doesn't mean it's gone. It lives on in the memories of those who have read it and in the comments section where people discuss it. Deleting it only makes you look like you're waffling and trying to purge the public record because ONE person kinda complained.
I wouldn't be leaving comments if I wanted to purge the public record.
It's not a matter of being clean. It's a matter of tone. I'd rather not have "zounds!" and "Heck" and "Gosh" in submitted stories either, not because they're euphemisms, but because they're unnecessary. When someone writes a headline in all-caps, we edit those down as well and drop the person a note to explain why.
It's case by case and a human process that's still evolving as we pick up new users here on the service. Like I said, that's why it's good to have these meta discussions, so folks can see this being worked out in the open.
If you edited the headline because some words were unnecessary, then why did you sign off on the hed on Friday night, but strike words from the headline only AFTER someone complained about it? Let's be honest about our motivations here.
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