Asymmetrical Information

It wasn't when I asked you to do your Christian Slater impression on Bloggingheads, was it? Let me see if it's still there.....................................phew, you had me worried.

You really should post an #*#! version...This isn't exactly a nasty blog, but singled out for vomit has me curious...

Great, now I'm curious. I hate being curious. It's worse than getting Oops, I Did It Again stuck in my head.

That was cruel Alan.

This is like when someone is dying to tell you something, and then changes their mind and says, "Nevermind", leaving you hanging.

Wasn't me that did it. Even my vileness has a stopping point.

Just point the Three Mouseketeers in the right direction!

It was when I posted the first paragraph of the new Harry Potter book, wasn't it? I'm so ashamed...

Could this comment really have been any worse that a few which you received when your dog died?

Could this comment really have been any worse that a few which you received when your dog died?

Wasn't me. It was, um, Skippy. Yeah, thats it, my evil twin Skippy. No, wait, it was Cheney!

My sympathies, FWIW. No one seems to have figured out a really good way to moderate access to things like comment forums, where part of the perceived value is that they're open. And even if you closed public comment forums, you'd probably still probably still end up coping with toxic private communications from time to time.

Maybe someday better software and/or economics tricks will let us systematically design a relatively open conversation system so that the stable equilibrium involves only mentally stable people. Meanwhile, we don't have that, but you have been coping anyway. Thank you for doing so and running something I consistently enjoy reading: not only giving away your, um, 90th percentile writing, but also coping with various headaches like the vermin that are sometimes drawn to high-profile anything.

I didn't see it either. My guess is that it was something racist, sexual, or violent (or a combination), perhaps directed against Megan.

Some bloggers respond to such ugliness by posting the person's IP address, provider, and location.

Is it blog sweeps week? Are you going to string us along and post it after curiosity is at a fever pitch?

Your readers CAN be bought. Put a up tip jar that takes PayPal, and tell us what we have to contribute.

I trust your judgment. I have no desire to see it--edited or otherwise. If you thought that it should be removed, then I believe that you acted in the best interests of all of us. (yourself included)

I'm sorry he did that. It must have been very upsetting for you for you to have to take the action that you did.

Stay strong. You have a lot more people on your side than he does on his.

Next time you get Oops, I Did It Again stuck in your head, put on the Richard Thompson cover - it actually redeems the song.

Maybe someday better software and/or economics tricks will let us systematically design a relatively open conversation system so that the stable equilibrium involves only mentally stable people.

There's slashdot style comment moderation. Offensive posts can get moderated down to 'flamebait' and good posts get modded up to +1 informative. You can choose what point value of posts you want to read. Of course, a system like this is only as good as its moderators and the meta-moderators who check them. And it'd probably have to encompass numerous blogs to be functional. Blogger probably has enough content to do it, if they chose.

Next time you get Oops, I Did It Again stuck in your head, put on the Richard Thompson cover - it actually redeems the song.

Or, if you prefer to laugh your gut out in an entirely new and extraordinary way, there is Max Raabe's version, which successfully pulls off three levels of parody without changing the words. His crew attempts a similar feat, with modest success, on "Uptown Girl" and a couple others.

http://www.palastorchester.de/index2.php

(Just click on the UK flag logo, upper left, to get an English version of the site.)

I prefer the original by Louis Armstrong:

http://supermasterpiece.com/music/oops.html

"...made me actually want to vomit"

I'm curious, does anyone ever truly want to vomit? I don't think anyone really ever does. I know some people will say they want to, but I think what they really mean is that they want the feeling of relief that comes from vomiting, not the vomiting for it's own sake. In my opinion, you'd have to be a fairly sick sort of person to actually want to vomit, just for the vomiting itself.

OTOH, I didn't read this comment, so it's possible that Megan really truly did want to vomit, since after reading that post it would be the only thing that could cleanse herself of the unpleasantness. I guess we'll never know.

I'm curious, does anyone ever truly want to vomit? I don't think anyone really ever does.

What about people with bulimia?

I'm surprised you've only had one awful comment in six years. Your readers must be more civil than mine.

Is this related to the Department of huh? post?

Because comments there seem now disabled :
Comments are not allowed on this entry.

Kevembuangga,

I think the comments for a blog entry close after a week, here. You will note that all the entries just below that one are also closed.

Even though I am naturally curious about the comment itself, I would argue that you should not, now, provide any description of it's content for the simple reason that it would give the commenter what he/she was looking for in the first place- attention. I would even argue that you should have deleted it without any comment at all for the same reason.

OK, so how will I know when I've gone too far? Do I need to go back and see if my comments are still there?

/sarcasm

I don't think it was me, but who can tell how others will react? (I'll concede racism, death threats, cannibalism and necrophelia should be out of bounds, but I don't remember going there...)

Yancey Ward -

I think the comments for a blog entry close after a week, here. You will note that all the entries just below that one are also closed

Yeah, but usually, posts closed for comments don't have a comment form which allows comments. That one did at the time the post was made. You don't find that comments aren't allowed until you try and post one. That's what I think the poster found unusual.

I'm curious, does anyone ever truly want to vomit?

There have been times when I have intentionally ceased resisting the urge to vomit in the hopes that emptying my stomach would make me feel better.

I'm curious, does anyone ever truly want to vomit?

Depends on how long the food's been in the stomach. Once after eating some ribs I needed to vomit for some reason and as they were coming up I thought to myself "mmmmm, seconds".

Regarding the question of whether anyone would ever want to vomit, I would say yes if I learned that I just ingested poison or something harmful by mistake.

"I'm curious, does anyone ever truly want to vomit?"

At the risk of being the second post deleted by our hostess, you might check out the pie eating contest scene from "Stand by Me".

To the question: Is it possible to make someone "want" to vomit, where "want" is defined to include other than voluntary decisions, the answer is yes.

Years, nay, decades ago, in my misspent youth, I once grossed out my sister (with a joke involving a drunk and a spitoon) so much that she actually retched.

This thread makes me want to vomit...

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