Talk:Everything2

might want to mention the rampant censorship.

check out the history of the 'harvey mudd college' article on everything2 if you dont belive me

writeups on e2 don't record history data

thats why censorship is so easy. douglas adams would make fun

of you people, your hypocrisy is utterly devastating. you are the vogons of the internet.

With such astute wit and sharply-observed prose it remains a mystery as to why your writeups were deleted. --Ascorbic 22:25, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

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This is a quite a good article! Many people browsing around might wonder what the differences are between the two projects. There's a bit of a bias against Everything2 here, so a balanced article is nice to see. ;-) -- Stephen Gilbert

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I would like to see some information about how the list of "soft links" at the bottom of every node is generated. --:AxelBoldt

A "soft link" is generated every time anyone clicks on a "hard link" in a writeup or when they visit another node using the search mechanism. What results is a list of related "nodes" that the reader can choose to follow. Sometimes there are irrelevant soft links, but for the most part you get an interesting way to link related writeups.

They currently allow up to 48 soft links per "node". The most visited links show up at the top of the list.

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Clarified. --Damian Yerrick

Is the grid of related topics at the bottom of every node different from what you call "soft links"? If yes, how is that grid created? From what you wrote about "soft links", it seems that a soft link does exactly the same as the browser's "back" button. Is that correct? --AxelBoldt

Yes, the grid below the writeups contains the soft links. It's like a back button with state; go from writeup A to B, and a link back to A is created at the bottom of B. Changing "and places it" to "adding it to a list"... --Damian Yerrick

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The truly annoying thing about E2 is the structure of the organizational hierarchy. Suffice it so say that any organization whose members of highest standing are called, not Editors, but Gods.

Think Greek gods.

I don't buy this, based on the other level names.

Gods is not a level.

Even I think calling yourself a 'god' is offensive, and I'm agnostic!

Most of the time, gods call themselves admins or editors anyway.

And this in turn creates a power complex in some users. If for some reason these "gods" are displeased with your writeups they can summarily delete them, which also decrements your "Experience Points".

The editors rarely exercise the -5 XP penalty, and even then only on patent nonsense.

Well, for some reason I posted a bunch of decent, readable articles and kept losing points and getting smart-ass remarks (like "you're not learning are you - go read some more writeups and figure out what you did wrong.")

I had good articles torpedoed because I used incorrect capitalization in my subject headings, for example, or followed the lead of other articles that the "gods" didn't happen to approve of.

You shouldn't be "following the lead" of anything. Each writeup should stand alone and should make sense even if all other writeups in that node are deleted.

What I mean by this is that I read a LOT of articles before posting any, and I wrote them in the spirit of everything2 as I saw it, and I got penalized for it. Specifically I remember filling in several empty nodeshells with a small bit of useful information then having those entries deleted because they weren't long enough

New noders tend to be judged more harshly on Everything2. Anyway, write intelligent, long and accurate writeups until you get to level 3 or so and then the editors won't mind if you excersise some creativity. And while "rescuing nodeshells" is encouraged, no writeup there is better than a substandard one.

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There are no longer 24 softlinks.

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Every time a user creates a writeup, she earns one experience point (XP).

Male is the default gender in english. Theoretical subjects should be described as "He", "Him" or "His" in english rather then "She", "Her" or "Hers". The modern exception to this rule is the politically correct "He/She", "Her/Him" and "His/Hers". Rlee0001 21:57 Jul 29, 2002 (PDT)

Actually, it's become quite common in the last 30 years to see the feminine rather than the masculine as the default. For one thing, it drives home how annoying it is to women to see that "he" all the time. On the other hand, what is happening in the living language is that both the "he" and the "she" are being supplanted by the soon-not-to-be-ungrammatical "they". Ortolan88

Writers are increasingly using "he/she" (a bit ugly on the eye, clumsy to read), "they" (offends purists, but in use since the 16th C), or trying to use "he" or "she" in equal proportions. Another option that is sometimes suitable is "one". -- Tarquin 07:51 Jul 30, 2002 (PDT)

I don't care what grammatical gender a writer uses, as long as I can understand them. I tend to use either he or they for the neuter (i.e., inclusive) pronoun, depending on my audience, and I'm usually capable of understanding sentence like:

• A writer deserves all the support she can get.

Just don't try homogenizing sayings like, "A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do!" --Ed Poor

Although an interesting linguistic discussion, I don't think this is really important for the article (or any other article). If somebody doesn't like the "he"/"she"/"they"/whatever in the text : just change it since there's no way we're going to make a Wikipedia standard or "style convention" for this. Jeronimo 07:57 Jul 30, 2002 (PDT)

Actually, I make a point of restraining myself from changing "incorrect" usage such as centre and civilised to center and civilized because I don't want to be America-centric. I guess I can tolerate it when a gender-conscious author exercises his or her preferences :-) --Ed Poor

Exactly, it's OK with me in any way, because nothing is incorrect in this aspect. And it's also OK if somebody goes and "corrects" text by changing my UK English to US English. But I won't stop "analysing" and "criticising" Wikipedia articles ;-) Jeronimo

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Some of the material in this article is more suited to a Wikipedia:Guide for Everything2 Noders. I'd start it myself, but since I'm not an Everything2 contributor, I'm not the best candidate. Any takers? -- Stephen Gilbert 15:37 Nov 14, 2002 (UTC)

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The softlink section needs a bit of expansion and clarification. Brief list of the relevant items:

• The number of softlinks is actually unlimited, but the number visible can change: "Guest User" (anyone viewing a page without having logged in) can see 24 softlinks; ordinary logged-in users can see up to 48; senior administrators ("Gods") can see up to 64. (These administrators can also delete inappropriate softlinks, though they do not often do so.)
• Nodes without writeups ("nodeshells", in E2's jargon) can be softlinked. Documents and superdocs (the "special pages") do not display softlinks, nor do the users' "homenodes".
• (I'm not entirely sure that this belongs in the article) Insulting softlinks: Everything2 noders can and do use softlinks to make anonymous comments on other users' writings; a writeup containing numerous misspellings will often be softlinked to the node titled "Learn how to spell", for example.

Also adding a bit on the Chatterbox and messaging system. The Chatterbox and message systems are not, strictly speaking, "real-time". Political Asylum and "borging" should be mentioned.

Also also: a bit more on what people write: encylopedia articles, fiction, poetry, and journals.

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"The editors can and do delete writeups that do not meet their editorial standards. Besides E2's complex and formalised social hierarchy, this is something that discourages many new users, particularly as their writeups tend to be judged more harshly than those of higher "levels"."

The latter sentence seems a subjective judgement. Some people have complained about the unfair treatment of newer users -- there's a famous debate about this on E2, to which I would link were the site not down -- but the claim that "many" are discouraged by this treatment is, while apparently plausible, unverified and unverifiable opinion. There are over 70,000 user accounts at E2 (I think; the servers are down, so I can't check), and there's no reliable or accurate information on how many people are discouraged by the behavior of the editors, none at all.

So I'm going to roll this page back to the previous version. Comments are welcome. (forgot to log in on previous edit)--Mirv 00:48, 14 Nov 2003

Perhaps "can discourage new users" would be better? --Ashley Y 01:15, Nov 14, 2003 (UTC)

Reinstating without "many" --Ashley Y 02:38, Nov 14, 2003 (UTC)

Or maybe "sometimes discourage new users" -- but I really think that in-depth discussion of E2 "society" is best left out. Here is why:

This "metacore" -- website politics -- stuff is extremely complex: everyone has an opinion, and every opinion is different. Documenting every POV would take up way too much space, and it wouldn't be very interesting or relevant: detailed discussions of one specific group's social interactions bore anyone not directly involved. Imagine a total stranger going on and on about everything that everyone in his social sphere has done over the past four years (E2 recently passed its four-year anniversary) in dry, encylopedic style. Not very interesting, is it? (General metacore discussion, on the other hand, is a fascinating topic for anyone who spends much time in online communities -- Clay Shirkey's 'A Group is Its Own Worst Enemy' is a good overview.)

I agree POVs should be left out. But my statements aren't actually POV, are they? I think of POV as something others would contend, but you haven't done that (except for "many", which I corrected). --Ashley Y

Last, E2's administration has effectively banned such discussion from the site's body of work -- partly for the reasons described above -- so the internal politics are almost entirely undocumented. I know of one good -- and it's very good -- piece on E2 society. (Even this article, though, is about a year and a half out of date, which is a long time for an online community. The site's society has changed considerably since the piece was written.)

So let's leave E2 internal politics out of this article, okay? Either that, or wait until the site comes back up, load the E2 User Survey article, and use its information to write an general overview of the site's social dynamics -- if it's decided that such discussion belongs here. I'm against it, but what do you think? --Mirv 03:08, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I'm not so much interested in the "internal politics" of E2 than reporting on the behaviour and complaints of new users, a number of which can be found on this site (there's one above, for instance, and not by me). Whether those complaints are justified is a POV/political/whatever matter the discussion of which might be saved for a separate "balanced" section (or not). The existence of complaints however is something that should be mentioned regardless, as an uncontested fact (unless you choose to contest it, of course). --Ashley Y

Point that I forgot: Discussion of politics either needs to be comprehensive, since that's the only way it can approach neutrality, or non-existent: even mentioning that new users are sometimes discouraged by the editors and the social hierarchy -- without mentioning the fact that many new users grow to love the site and contribute regularly, or the other reasons people have for leaving -- is not neutral; it implies that this is general knowledge, when in fact it's someone's subjective opinion.

(My own highly subjective, arrogant, and entirely wrong opinion on the matter, which some others share and is true in some, though not all, cases, is this: New users leave the site not because of editorial actions, but because they're thin-skinned, self-centered little shits who can't handle any kind of criticism and don't understand why their unformatted rants about "My shitty day at work" and their god-awful angsty teenage poetry and articles copied directly from plagiarism.com get deleted and expect everyone to shower them with praise and flowers and skateboards just for deigning to spend five minutes barfing the utterly worthless contents of their brain across the site -- but that opinion doesn't belong in the article, does it, except as part of a general report on users' opinions of the site, and I can't believe this is all one sentence.)

Obviously getting deleted (for whatever reason) is an editorial action, and it's precisely this action that drives away (some) new users. Now this may or may not be justified (depending on your POV), but the fact that it happens is clearly both NPOV and relevant to the article. It seems you don't actually disagree with any statement I've made (rather frustratingly), you merely find them uncomfortable. —Ashley Y 11:30, Nov 14, 2003 (UTC)

Context is important: E2 may be publicly-available and free, but it's still a publishing house. Every publisher has editorial standards; the only difference between E2 and others is that E2 approves articles not before they're published, but after. Writeup deletion is the exact same thing as a publisher's rejection letter. --Mirv 17:22, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Anyway, I'm going to revert the article until this question is settled. Your comments are urgently needed. --Mirv 03:25, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Overall I think you're confusing two things. POV refers to (more or less) text which a significant number of well-informed people would dispute. Such text shouldn't appear in Wikipedia articles at least without being appropriately marked or quoted.

The other is text which is not disputed but only tells one side of a story — for instance, a list of atrocities performed by one side of a conflict. Unlike perhaps other collaborative information systems you may be used to, Wikipedians generally prefer to add to and amend text rather than delete it if it has any useful value (see Wikipedia:Most common Wikipedia faux pas sec.5 "Deleting useful content"). It seems to me you are accusing me of adding this kind of text, and I don't necessarily contend that. But if so, the appropriate response would be to add more complete information, and if you cannot, leave it for someone else to. I ask you to reinstate my last edit, adding if you wish further information about E2 culture. —Ashley Y 14:51, Nov 14, 2003 (UTC)

Fair enough. People have complained that [http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:AnyHOY92sAcJ:www.everything2.com/index.pl%3Fnode%3DE2%2520is%2520unfriendly%2520to%2520new%2520noders+%22e2+is+unfriendly+to+new+noders%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8 E2 is unfriendly to new noders]; people have also pointed out that almost no club in the world fawns over newcomers, and no publisher treats new authors exactly as it treats well-established and famous writers.

Um, you're using one right now that does. The test here is whether a newcomer and an old hand would be treated the same given the same submissions. Wikipedia passes that test as a publisher, many online communities come fairly close if they're focused on something rather than being chatty, but people complain that E2 (which presents itself as both publisher and community) fails quite badly. Now you may defend that or disagree with that, but it should be mentioned. —Ashley Y 23:20, Nov 14, 2003 (UTC)

(Even then, I can think of several users who were made editors or "gods" within a few months of joining.) So how about this (I'll put it under "History" and change the header to "History and Society"):

"E2 has a complex social hierarchy and code of behavior, to which it is sometimes difficult for a newcomer to adjust. Because of this, some new users have complained that they are held to a different standard from established contributors. Others dismiss such complaints as unjustified, pointing out that few communities treat newcomers exactly like long-time members, and that those who learn and obey the rules, written and unwritten, are usually -- though not always -- treated fairly."

(I think that's a reasonably balanced perspective on the community's treatment of newbies; new users do complain, but most old-timers tell them to shut up and deal.)

It's not so balanced: you've used "pointed out" in a rather prejudicial way, and possibly the complaint needs expanding. I'll fix it (and you can fix my fix, etc., in the Wiki process). —Ashley Y

The current statement seems fair. --Mirv 20:31, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I addressed deletions above, but again: Should an article on (say) the New Yorker mention that it rejects lots of submissions, and that this rejection discourages people from contributing? True though the information may be, it's not really relevant. All publishers edit; E2 is no different. --Mirv 17:22, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Well here's a question for you: does E2 more closely resemble Wikipedia or the New Yorker? More importantly, if you asked a random new user of E2 that question, what would they say? Whether or not you may feel it's unjustified, many people are very surprised when E2 articles are deleted. This is somewhat less common with the New Yorker. People need to know this.

E2 does look like any other open forum at first glance, and a user's first deletion often comes as a nasty shock: most online communities are not so heavily edited. This difference between appearance and actuality should be made clear, yes, but the editorial process has already been explained: In the "Rewards" section, the article states that "The site's editors delete writeups that do not meet editorial standards. . .", and E2's onsite documentation makes it abundantly clear that stuff will get deleted. A section comparing E2's editorial controls to the fairly wide-open nature of other, similar sites would be in order, but it should be an explanation, not a warning. --Mirv 20:31, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)

(Different topic entirely: The project itself is politically neutral -- Perl code doesn't have a political bias, does it? The userbase does lean to the left (by mainstream American and British standards, at least), but there are a number of conservative authors as well.)--Mirv 17:22, 14 Nov 2003 (UTC)

The site went down in mid-November 2003. Last update on the site's status was November 30. After how much downtime should I change the verbs to past tense? --Damian Yerrick

You shouldn't. The site just went back up at a new address (http://umich-web0.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=124), which I've noted in the article. --MIRV 21:27, 10 Dec 2003 (UTC)

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I'm curious if it's worth noting that Everything2 is very frequently swamped and near-inaccessible. Is this popularlity outstripping capacity? Or is this just me? User:140.180.137.120

Everything2 appears to be down currently. This is probably remaining instability after the move (which appeared to include updating to a new version of Perl, which introduced some problems). Messages, chatbox and homenode pictures locked up mid-afternoon Pacific time yesterday, and later on the site itself went offline. No explanation posted apart from a sarcastic message. —Morven 12:11, 6 Jan 2004 (UTC)

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I have removed the paragraph "Everything2's leaders, or Gods, are also known to give reward points (votes, "XP") to members of the site in return for sexual favors." added by Samrolken

While is it possible, even probable, that nepotism and favouritism has occurred and will occur again given E2's setup, I think that is a overly bold and inflammatory assertion that is unsubstantiated. Either he's a troll or he has a beef that he wants to air. This is not the place for that. I see he's added this change in twice. I have asked him to quit it. AnthonySteele 18 April 2004

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Have restored deleted text "Everything2 accepts donations, but has so far refused to divulge any details of how these donations are spent. Some find this policy less than ideal."

As far as I know, this is factually accurate. Can anyone say otherwise?

Have restored this text a second time. What is wrong with it?

It caught my eye, too. "Rrefused to divulge any details" invites the reader to conclude that there is something nefarious about E2's silence on its expenditures. I don't have any beef with pointing out their donation policy, but casting this basically innocent fact as though it held some dark significance could get some people's dander up.

Also, the last sentence seems to be a sneaky way of introducing POV by attributing the sentiment to "some." Who are these "some"? Have they publicly complained about this? If so, where? Seems unnecessarily weasel-ish. Drseudo 05:40, 26 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Have altered the phrasing to note that E2 does declare how the money is intended to be spent, while keeping the caveat that the details have not been divulged. Rephrased the note about criticism of the policy to avoid weasel terms.

Nice edit. On the question of Who are these "some"? Have they publicly complained about this? If so, where? These complaints are all over Community2, which does not quite count as "public", but is nevertheless telling. If I may quote a particularly blunt and well-rated comment from karmaflux: That site is mismanaged horribly. Evidence of this is its inability to support itself. Evidence of this is many, many longtime users leaving the site. A symptom of this is the removal of unpopular viewpoints.

The controversy over funding came from an ex-user who believed that the E2 community was being hoodwinked into giving money that didn't go back to running the site; i.e. that all donations went straight into the owners' pockets. Explanations about the expenses of running a popular website did not take effect. Karmaflux was involved in a very nasty soap opera and he most certainly does NOT have a neutral POV. Take his comments with a grain of salt!

Why was Wikipedia is generally a more complete reference work. removed? I'm sure it's a true statement. Wikipedia has more nodes, and a higher percentage of them are factual. It's not uncommon for E2 nodes to reference Wikipedia as a research source. I've never seen the reverse.

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For what it is worth, I am unable to connect to community2.org

 % telnet www.community2.org 80
 Trying 209.120.206.37...
 telnet: connect to address 209.120.206.37: Connection refused
 telnet: Unable to connect to remote host: Connection refused

This, combined with the fact that it was not previously open to the public means it should not be listed in Related projects (it is silly to list every 'under construction' page that fails to even resolve anymore). If it comes back later, feel free to enter the discussion of "should it be listed even if it is not open to the public".

"Good" material

The adjective "good" in the sentence "Although Everything2 does not seek to become an encyclopedia [...], a substantial amount of factual content has been submitted to Everything2, which is therefore accumulating a substantial body of good material." seems vague (and POV) to me. I am reluctant to change it, however, because I am not sure what the write is trying to convey. I guess that it means "objective and factual" but it could be a judgement of the general quality of the material. --Theo (Talk) 17:23, 17 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I agree. It sounds like it's making a judgement for the reader. I've read some of the factual content and some of them are filled with some outdated or incorrect data. Most of the time it's hard to update or fix them because the original writer hadn't visited the site for months, so messaging them is useless. It's arguable that having factual content like that is considered "good". I'll take it out. CHALK 07:10, 1 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Point of View

"The userbase, like the Internet in general, tends to lean left politically and culturally"

This is perhaps true for E2, but needs to be backed up or motivated. I don't know if it is possible to say the same about the internet in general (or even the www). And even if it is, presently, the situation will probably change as more and more people are coming online. Also, we tend to notice things we agree with/approve of, and so it might appear that a group is more left than right only because we only travel those places that appeal to us.

You must be kidding. The majority of Internet users are young, and the majority of youths are liberal. —Casey J. Morris

Controversy section

I'm moving this here:

In recent years, some noders have seen Everything2's content policies getting needlessly draconian. Some have perceived the content guidelines getting increasingly similar to those of Wikipedia, although the number of available personal writeups and slanted points somewhat invalidate this point. Despite this, some believe that Everything2 has strayed from its roots as a tightly knit community of writers.

I don't dispute the veracity of the claims, but as it is, it reads like one noder's personal complaint made to sound NPOV. What specific new policies have been made and when? Who complained about those changes and where? References and details, please.--Eloquence* 17:30, Jun 12, 2005 (UTC)

I've noticed a number of profiles of parted users with long essays complaining about new E2 policies. —Casey J. Morris

This is due, largely (in my experience as an E2 content editor) to the practice of weeding out old, dated, scant of info, or overly personal/opinionated writeups that, in E2's beginning, were the bread and butter of the site. Many noders posted mostly or solely those types of writeups, and when the editorial policies began to toughen up, most of them left the site in protest. A small number have returned but aren't nearly as prolific as they were years ago, either because they lack the will to write if they know what they have to say won't be appreciated, or because they may be (inwardly or publicly) intimidated by the site's new direction. See the homenodes of ansate (http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=478673) (fled), Pseudo_Intellectual (http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=4586) (active, but non-noding), Billy (http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=896176) (active, but non-noding) and BelDion (http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=554798) (fled) for examples of such. —Avalyn 09:44, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)