Metafilter has an evil doppelganger!

August 18, 2005 12:40 PM

Evil Metafilter doppelgangerhas been birthed unto the internet.
posted by jackofsaxons (127 comments total)

Hm, I can't connect to it.

Pretty much an exact replica.
posted by wakko at 12:43 PM on August 18, 2005

a Haughey vs Gates celebrity deathmatch?
posted by matteo at 12:43 PM on August 18, 2005

When I couldn't connect, there wasn't even a JRun error explaining why.

Amateurs.
posted by sdrawkcab at 12:44 PM on August 18, 2005

Wow, it's quite similar, except all of the content is either schlock or newsfilter, oh, wait, I think I just refreshed the MeFi home page.

I kid, Matt, got a good lawyer? A REEEEEALLY good lawyer?
posted by Pollomacho at 12:45 PM on August 18, 2005

They sure do love the flavor of the 'filter over at MSN...
posted by Emperor Yamamoto's Eggs at 12:45 PM on August 18, 2005

This is Mordor's doing!
posted by nofundy at 12:46 PM on August 18, 2005

If it's evil, and this is good, does that mean Gates pays me $5 to use it?
posted by Rothko at 12:46 PM on August 18, 2005

I just ripped those assholes a new one in MSNTalk.
posted by COBRA! at 12:47 PM on August 18, 2005

Hmm ...

Stay Informed - There's no better place to find the real deal and interesting links on the Web, often before they hit the mainstream.
Share Knowledge - Found something cool? Send it to Filter to share with the community.
Ask Questions - Got a question? Then just ask! We'll post the questions and the community will answer.

I notice there's no:

Call People Out - Want to bitch about something? Post it here, and start a flame war!

... so we have that going for us. Which is nice.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 12:47 PM on August 18, 2005

As much as we'd like to believe that, by our 40th birthday, we'll be living in some mountainside retreat, teaching yoga and baking all kinds of organic cakes, we're pretty sure we'll be just as superficial and anxious as we've always been. Therefore, there is nothing we enjoy more than hot women over 40, especially hot women over 40 who aren't Teri Hatcher (she's a little skinny).

wow, this is exactly the kind of content I cannot miss to "stay informed"! bah... I'd rather read the Sun, thanks
posted by funambulist at 12:48 PM on August 18, 2005

Just think about the sort of people who would willingly join and post to a Microsoft-run MeFi knock-off. Are they people whom we would really want hanging around here anyway?
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:48 PM on August 18, 2005

No way - our Metafilter is much more.... blue. Does anyone know if any of Microsoft's other ventures in this area have taken off? I'm thinking MSN Spaces...

Are they stealing users from existing 'blogs?
posted by iso_bars at 12:49 PM on August 18, 2005

Hey! There's a parallel Sourwookie--'cept he's got a goatee!
posted by sourwookie at 12:49 PM on August 18, 2005

All of the articles I glanced through didn't have any comments. You can make a site to repost the stories, but you can't just copy all of the active members! But what really sets MeFi apart from rip-off sites like this is the stringent social contract that gets inforced through metatalk.

I wonder how they are going to try and build up the user base. I have a feeling that doing some lowbrow advertising may attract a lowbrow crowd...
posted by gus at 12:50 PM on August 18, 2005

I'm outta here, suckers!!
posted by Plutor at 12:50 PM on August 18, 2005

Oh boy! Thank god! Now I can have my news and links filtered by opinionated, oriented corporate shills... and have wanna-be journalists comment in non-sassy ways! OMG yay! *starts to whoop and holler while riding an air-bull*
posted by cleverusername at 12:51 PM on August 18, 2005

You can meet the reset of the evil Microsoft doppelganger family here.
posted by jackofsaxons at 12:51 PM on August 18, 2005

So now Matt can threaten to send people down to the minors.
posted by klangklangston at 12:53 PM on August 18, 2005

Metafilter: Find and share the best of the web as it happens
posted by tpl1212 at 12:53 PM on August 18, 2005

ICK, HIT IT WITH A ROCK!
posted by BeerGrin at 1:00 PM on August 18, 2005

I just threw up a little.

This just makes us that much more elite. Why didn't they just buy The Well?
posted by mecran01 at 1:02 PM on August 18, 2005

I'm surprised about how surprised I am about this happening. Now I'm just surprised that they didn't do it earlier. Consider it a law of nature: If it is digital and has any merit, Microsoft will copy it (shoddily).
posted by Herr Fahrstuhl at 1:02 PM on August 18, 2005

I'm glad. MSN will attract and keep all the idiots. In fact, I'm headed there right now...
posted by Moral Animal at 1:03 PM on August 18, 2005

Plastic.com: The MSN Filter it's okay to like.
posted by Herr Fahrstuhl at 1:03 PM on August 18, 2005

I was going to write something witty and biting about what a parody of innovation Microsoft has become, but Microsoft does a pretty good job of mocking themselves...so I won't.
posted by Pecinpah at 1:06 PM on August 18, 2005

Ick!

Step 1: Sue the pants off of them.
Step 2: Buy a even newer server, a full time programmer, and an even bigger TV.
Step 3: Buy us all recumbent bikes and shiny new laptops.
Step 4: Buy small island in the Pacific. Start nerd country. Feed nerds lego, caffiene and beer and prod them into building you a giant robot army.
Step 5: Retire. Watch ginormous TV.
posted by loquacious at 1:06 PM on August 18, 2005

Could be worse, could actually call themselves metafilter, like their sportsfilter.
posted by louie at 1:06 PM on August 18, 2005

bizzare.

I have no idea what to say.
posted by delmoi at 1:10 PM on August 18, 2005

The big value isn't in the links, but the comments... and their filter has crappy comments, if it has comments at all.

What we should do is keep checking in on this and see whether people start responding to it regularly. When they do, we should all get accounts there and post the worst possible crap imaginable.

MSN Filter... now with extra Bill Gates yaoi!
posted by insomnia_lj at 1:12 PM on August 18, 2005

Well, its really slow for me and the MSN brand might as well be a big flashing "Bite Me" sign.

I hate their products though I am forced to use them at work. I'm not forced to go and use their sites.
posted by fenriq at 1:13 PM on August 18, 2005

filterfilter
posted by wakko at 1:14 PM on August 18, 2005

loquacious, all good plans involve a small island and a robot army. I'm in.
posted by fenriq at 1:16 PM on August 18, 2005

Recumbent bikes! Recumbent bikes!
posted by Pecinpah at 1:16 PM on August 18, 2005

I don't get it. It doesn't look anything like Metafilter. There have been jillions (ok, maybe not jillions) of knockoffs, right?
posted by mrgrimm at 1:17 PM on August 18, 2005

What we should do is keep checking in on this ... we should all get accounts there and post the worst possible crap imaginable.

That sounds suspiciously like work.
posted by Pigpen at 1:19 PM on August 18, 2005

| Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0) | - repeat.

MSN's...self...parody...is..too...thick....can't...type...properly...

I suspect most comments to be rife with spllng errs: bad punchewashon! and ALL CAPPS WHEN MAKING A POINT!!!

Although hopefully they'll attract the trolls.
posted by Smedleyman at 1:20 PM on August 18, 2005

Oh well it's time to give in to the goliath of all things ripped off and made shitty. Arreverdeci and Sayonar Metafuckers!! You'll find me over on MSN Filter blowing smoke up the Gatesian tookus. Cos what the hell could possibly be better then a rip-off pseudo-metafilter run by friggin Microsoft fer christsake??!!

Oh D'uh.
posted by Skygazer at 1:20 PM on August 18, 2005

Ultimately, Microsoft is not going to be able to resist the urge to sell links. It's not going to be a clone of Metafilter, it will be more like a G-rated version of Fark.

And nobody wants that.
posted by Jatayu das at 1:27 PM on August 18, 2005

...sorry?...
posted by Pecinpah at 1:28 PM on August 18, 2005

loquacious, all good plans involve a small island and a robot army. I'm in. - fenriq

I'm in if I can have the laser sharks. Or zombies. Whichever hasn't been dibbed yet.
posted by dejah420 at 1:30 PM on August 18, 2005

I'm in if I can have the laser sharks. Or zombies. Whichever hasn't been dibbed yet.

Dibs on the ninjas!
posted by unreason at 1:34 PM on August 18, 2005

I think Stompy's comment, sums it up in the most intelligent, well thought out way possible.
posted by jackofsaxons at 1:35 PM on August 18, 2005

I think mathowie should sue them. The (blank)filter was bad enough, but stealing "the best of the web" is the last straw! Perhaps the settlement could include forcing MSN to buy textads forever.
posted by MrZero at 1:37 PM on August 18, 2005

Fahrstuhl wins.
posted by oddman at 1:38 PM on August 18, 2005

Awesome, now I can post this awesome link I found about a vibrating broom!
posted by stet at 1:38 PM on August 18, 2005

I'm confused. Seeing as all posts here are (copyright) their original authors, when someone double-posts an item from here over there, do I get to?....sue?
posted by lilboo at 1:41 PM on August 18, 2005

Microsoft has publicly stated that it aims to "embrace and extend" popular standards and existing work. "Embrace, extend and extinguish" (EEE) is a scornful takeoff on this by Microsoft's critics, used to suggest that the stages of embracing and extending are only prefaces to extinguishing or supplanting existing work with Microsoft alternatives.
posted by The Jesse Helms at 1:42 PM on August 18, 2005

Hilarious. I don't know whether to laugh or cry. I think the fact that Matt has never made money off this suggests that Gates & Co will likely do some tweaking, profit-driven as they are. And this tweaking will likely take what is already a shitty site and make it even worse. Adds in threads, tons of PepsiBlue type stuff. . . it could get very ugly.
posted by mai at 1:42 PM on August 18, 2005

I think wendell's playing an evil prank us.
posted by Smart Dalek at 1:42 PM on August 18, 2005

MSNFilter ate quonsar.
posted by I EAT TAPES at 1:43 PM on August 18, 2005

I say we start posting stuff from Day 1 here, over there and keep moving forward. Anyone got that Cat Scan link?
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 1:45 PM on August 18, 2005

Is it me, or are most Doppelgangers usually evil?

Betwixt the binary and the vague, therein lies the Haughey.
posted by The Jesse Helms at 1:45 PM on August 18, 2005

Doppelgangers don't have to be evil..

I don't think.

I mean... what if Haughey made a doppelganger of filter.msn.com? It would be like the junior, semi brain damaged version of MeFi.

Not necessarily evil. Just dumb.
posted by jackofsaxons at 1:48 PM on August 18, 2005

You guys are just jealous because Metafilter has never had the FPP "Forty and Flirty."
posted by kozad at 1:52 PM on August 18, 2005

On the topic of Metafilter clones, there's always MonkeyFilter.
posted by Jatayu das at 1:53 PM on August 18, 2005

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, as my momma used to say.
posted by tizzie at 1:55 PM on August 18, 2005

I think Stompy's comment, sums it up in the most intelligent, well thought out way possible.

Nah, better execution would have involved "your a fag"
posted by Mach3avelli at 1:55 PM on August 18, 2005

The culprit... revealed!
posted by mkultra at 1:57 PM on August 18, 2005

This stringent social contract... it vibrates?
posted by fet at 2:00 PM on August 18, 2005

fucking microsoft!!!
posted by krash2fast at 2:01 PM on August 18, 2005

Perhaps, since they allow trackbacks, someone might post Rod Stewart there.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 2:02 PM on August 18, 2005

"Donnie is fag"
posted by BobFrapples at 2:03 PM on August 18, 2005

If they start serving pancakes, then . . . well, I don't know what I'll do.
posted by papercake at 2:03 PM on August 18, 2005

I am most confident in Microsoft's meddling and timing to make this just another meaning space withing MS' empire.
posted by Busithoth at 2:05 PM on August 18, 2005

Fuck all you hyper critical over educated assholes, I'm off to greener pastures. Wait up Bill!
posted by Keith Talent at 2:05 PM on August 18, 2005

This Microsoft site is incomplete without a shot of Tony Danza's cock.
posted by Rothko at 2:10 PM on August 18, 2005

You must sign in using a Microsoft .NET Passport to publish a comment to this website.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 2:16 PM on August 18, 2005

I was so outraged that someone at work noticed, and asked why. I tried to explain. I continued to try to explain until his eyes glazed over. I gave up.

What would I do without my l'il slice of nerd heaven? MSN could never compete.
posted by Uccellina at 2:22 PM on August 18, 2005

now we have somewhere to dump the double posts.
posted by three blind mice at 2:25 PM on August 18, 2005

You must sign in using a Microsoft .NET Passport to publish a comment to this website.

Now my desire to troll has been decimated. I'm NEVAR getting one of those things.
posted by tweak at 2:30 PM on August 18, 2005

Recumbent bikes! Recumbent bikes!

Heh.
posted by fixedgear at 2:34 PM on August 18, 2005

You must sign in using a Microsoft .NET Passport to publish a comment to this website.

Now my desire to troll has been decimated. I'm NEVAR getting one of those things.

I think I already have one. Look out, world!
posted by puke & cry at 2:37 PM on August 18, 2005 [1 favorite]

Do you think they've enabled the blink tag?

Perhaps we should swarm...
posted by sourwookie at 2:48 PM on August 18, 2005

I already wish I hadn't done that.
posted by sourwookie at 2:49 PM on August 18, 2005

Oh, I so want to make an FPP. How do I make an FPP over there?
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 2:49 PM on August 18, 2005

Are you going to show them Metafilter?
posted by sourwookie at 2:56 PM on August 18, 2005

C_D, I think you have to give your credit card info to Bill and he charges you what he thinks is appropriate after you've posted it. Have fun now!
posted by fenriq at 2:59 PM on August 18, 2005

Actually, I think you have to:

1. Start your own "blog"
2. Make it public
3. Post some stuff
4. Have people visit it
5. Get it noticed by some M$ employee who's paid to go through popular blogs, who picks a post of yours to put on the frontpage.

Which means I'm SOL. I suppose I could just troll the comments section...
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 3:04 PM on August 18, 2005

Why worry about the clone? It is a Microsoft product so the code will be buggy and the site will be offline so often that filterfites will tire of getting Jrun notices... oh wait
posted by Cranberry at 3:12 PM on August 18, 2005

It's interesting to see how the categories (lifestyle, music, tv, sports, technology) revolve around a shallow, mainstream consumer culture worldview, encouraging discussion of entertainment, celebrity gossip, and commercial products, with some room for Fark-style links. No room for politics or any truly controversial ideas; little room for things that aren't connected to a corporate product. (Where would the recent post about full-scans of renaissance festival books fit into their scheme?)

Of course, we have plenty of productFilter, etc. posts here, but this msnFilter seems to be a good example of framing discussions to control what ideas can be expressed, which, by extension, reduces the number and variety of new ideas that the readership is exposed to. Filtering indeed.

Consume and enjoy.
posted by D.C. at 3:15 PM on August 18, 2005

Let's go toilet paper their front yard!
posted by craniac at 3:15 PM on August 18, 2005

What could Haughey possibly sue over? Is Metafilter a trademark? Is Metafilter a business? No. It's run on "donations" so good luck convincing a judge to care.
posted by angry modem at 3:37 PM on August 18, 2005

Why bother with the Internet when you can trust Microsoft to filter it for you?

Oh, wait...

Somehow I don't see it catching on.
posted by cleardawn at 3:45 PM on August 18, 2005

burn them... BURN THEM ALL, oh wait. *coff coff*, that shouldn't have slipped out (insert joke here).


.
posted by edgeways at 3:48 PM on August 18, 2005

Microsoft seems to be such an unimaginative corporation. They are never on the cutting edge of anything. I understand that it could be interesting and profitable to see where the trends are and then produce a better version of whatever it is, but they don't even do that. They only churn out crap versions of good things.

I mean, if they had come up with the Blogger plugin for Word, that would have been cool. Or how about a subethaedit for PCs? But no. Just derivative crap. Sad, really.
posted by Hildegarde at 3:54 PM on August 18, 2005

Microsoft seems to be such an unimaginative corporation

Agreed. So much 'power' and opportunity, it is sad that the kind of groundbreaking innovation they could provide, is beyond their reach. Yes, sad. Very sad.
posted by johnj at 4:12 PM on August 18, 2005

I bet all of you jerks who paid $5 to access this site are feeling pretty miffed right now, aren't you? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
posted by crunchland at 4:14 PM on August 18, 2005

"Server Error in '/' Application."
Not half as spiffy as the JRun error.
posted by signal at 4:40 PM on August 18, 2005

Also, their background is #A3BBD3, which obviously can't compete with #006699.
posted by signal at 4:45 PM on August 18, 2005

Microsoft isn't innovative because innovation is actively discouraged within the halls of the company. People who "think different", who want to try something new, something exciting, to try something revolutionary, are actively discouraged from experimenting or in any way making something new and cool. The innate desire in some people to be spontaneous, creative, and playful is heavily stifled throughout the Redmond area, because for all the silly recruiting lipservice Microsoft is a company that is stunningly risk averse in every single aspect of their existence (recall how they couldn't even take a public stance on the gay rights legislation that reflected their OWN long-standing and progressive benefits and HR policies!). Even the slightest hint that you think there might be a better way of doing things is met by puzzled stares and questions as to why anyone would want to do something different?!?

Anyone who works there in virtually any capacity is subservient not to inspiration, or to creativity, or to simply making products that are "insanely great", but to ship dates, and "Q3 deliverables". The happy reality is that business goals and creativity aren't diametrically opposed, but if you only understand the former and think there's no use for the latter, you turn out the kinds of boring, derivative products for which Microsoft is reknowned. Working there can be a soul-killing experience: being told that your best ideas are "really cool, but not achievable by our ship date so let's not even try", and having your work-life balance or ability to make something even halfway decent battered about by the ever changing, moving target goals of some product manager or general manager- people who seem to serve no purpose but to alter the product feature set and goals periodically out of apparent boredom.

The nature of promotion and managerial training is such that the most innovative thinkers will not progress, will be seeing as difficult or flighty, and thus get no positions of authority. It's like a 50,000 employee Peter Principle; mediocrity enforces, promotes, and rewards mediocrity- and these mediocre people in their middle- to- upper- management positions are secretly terrified of those who actually make things happen: the hackers, the techies, the geeks, those people who populate active internal discussion lists about the heights of arcane geekery, or who build truly neat little tools and apps and projects on their free time- because they know how expendable and extraneous their own jobs are, how little Microsoft needs that particular GM or PM or xM.

---

Take a look at Longhorn: they once spoke of the 3 pillars of Longhorn, of the great innovations they would make, how much better it would be (things like the graphics and GUI engine, WinFS, etc). Every demo we saw sounded actually cool, actually "neat" in some areas, finally a worthy competitor to the sleek-if-proprietary goodness of OSX.

Now? Nearly every single pillar has been shitcanned. Microsoft can't fucking see the forest for the trees; they can't see that cutting out the good features to make a ship date that is meaningless, since they're now shipping a product that has nothing worth using anymore, no "soul".

---

Really, I'd love to see companies like Apple open up branches in Puget Sound, and go recruiting all the Microsoft employees who aren't merely glorified blue-collar button pushers with nice cars and decent benefits, the few employees who dream of "how cool it would be if..." all the time. Microsoft has many of those employees, but they are lost in the noise of sameness.

With the possible exception of two pieces of hardware coming out of the consumer electronics division, one of which is terribly awesomely cool but will probably be fucked up beyond belief, Microsoft is physiologically incapable of an innovative product.
posted by hincandenza at 4:46 PM on August 18, 2005

Fuckin' Carpetbagger wannabee Imperialism, just what I would expect....
Granola, Meet Roll o' Quarters~MSN, meet my Apathy.
posted by Mack Twain at 5:00 PM on August 18, 2005

Wow, their technology section is going to be so depressing. Are they just going to blank out any references to Linux?
posted by JHarris at 5:01 PM on August 18, 2005

Oh, and it's got gatekeepers too, so ultimately these are sites where you submit and they publish what they like, instead of where anyone posts and what doesn't fit gets mocked or deleted. That is so lame....
posted by JHarris at 5:04 PM on August 18, 2005

If only there was somewhere else on the internet to get the best of the web.
posted by Remy at 5:17 PM on August 18, 2005

Sounds like their "shared source" nonsense -- the illusion of openness desperately attempting to mask the reality of unflinching Redmond control.
posted by clevershark at 5:19 PM on August 18, 2005

To MSN:
Thanks for the offer, but I already get to see the "news" in MSN Messenger.
Love,
h

August 18
Making Money Post Singularity
You could go out and buy Ray Kurzweil's The Singularity Is Near surf the internet, but why bother when a smart guy like James Miller MSN will digest it for you online. (and possibly spit it up)
posted by hoborg at 5:43 PM on August 18, 2005

Grrr.. my line-through worked in the preview box, but not the post... Could everyone *pretend* that was clever?
posted by hoborg at 5:44 PM on August 18, 2005

I'd love to see companies like Apple open up branches in Puget Sound, and go recruiting all the Microsoft employees

Actually, someone else, someone better has already thought of that, much to their chagrin.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 5:52 PM on August 18, 2005

FilterFilterFilter
So MonkeyFilter asks if MSN is a clone of their clone of MeFi.

May a thousand filters bloom. Perhaps soon there will be no content left, only comments on comments on content.
posted by realcountrymusic at 6:21 PM on August 18, 2005

Mefi/mofi will probably have a better community in the long run, but their content seems nice. Pictures and non-blueness makes things seem more modernish.
posted by parallax7d at 6:47 PM on August 18, 2005

Smart Dalek: you think
posted by wendell at 7:07 PM on August 18, 2005

I am the one behind this?
that new instant post button is dangerous!
posted by wendell at 7:07 PM on August 18, 2005

Actually, while MS has ripped off the name from here, most of their intellectual theivery is from the already-too-mainstream weblogs inc.

Just compare their TVfilter to WI's TV Squad... Of course, MS has a more narow range of topics...
posted by wendell at 7:12 PM on August 18, 2005

you guys should stop offering constructive criticism. you're just helping them.
posted by Tryptophan-5ht at 7:40 PM on August 18, 2005

Asking Metafilter to stop providing helpful, constructive criticism is like asking an elephant to stop pedaling his unicycle.
posted by crunchland at 7:57 PM on August 18, 2005

If MSN is going to bite our OG flava, we might as well school the jiveass muthafuckas.
posted by loquacious at 7:59 PM on August 18, 2005

you guys should stop offering constructive criticism. you're just helping them.

Yeah right... by the time they get around to incorporating any of it we'll browsing the internet(s) with toothbrushes.
posted by Skygazer at 8:10 PM on August 18, 2005

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons ShareAlike License.
posted by rxreed at 9:01 PM on August 18, 2005

Good one, crunchland!
posted by JHarris at 9:03 PM on August 18, 2005

Is there any such thing as a good doppelganger?
posted by nyxxxx at 9:27 PM on August 18, 2005

DO NOT SUE MICROSOFT.
Has anyone of you bad-advice-givers ever get yourself into a lawsuit with a Big Firm?
Didn't think so.

Their little site will die a natural death pretty soon while this one will continue.
They can nab your tagline, but they sure as hell can't nab your community vibe. Their little meta is nothing compared to this giant.
Just read any sample thread.There's no mathowie on there, no jessamyn - it doesn't have the same intangible feel as this site.

DO NOT SUE: it's not worth it, not worth your time, not worth your money, not worth the hassle.
Take this in stride.
As a CEO once again when questioned about copycat products: "If a group says no one is coppying them, that means they're either ignorant or have a bad product."
posted by ruelle at 10:37 PM on August 18, 2005

Pictures and non-blueness makes things seem more modernish.

Indeed. I love the front page of LoFi, simply because there's god-blessed white on the page. Actually, the deleted posts are the true prize.

Is there any way to get a white background on comments pages?
posted by mrgrimm at 10:52 PM on August 18, 2005

Civil_Disobedient: Actually, someone else, someone better has already thought of [opening up branches in puget sound], much to their chagrin.

For me the bloom is off the rose regarding Google- I think they're heading at a very high velocity right into their own brand of privacy-shitting-on, lack-of-integrity-search-results, and abuse-of-power scariness. As for their innovation, it also is becoming as much about acquiring other companies as at MS (keyhole, picasa, blogger, wikipedia sort of, etc). However, what I'd really like to see is for many of these Silicon Valley companies to start opening branches here in Puget Sound- I think if a bunch came up, the talent flood away from MS would be staggering. Just because the company is the pits, doesn't mean there aren't some very, very, very smart and talented people slogging their way through there. Of course, it wouldn't happen until WA law was changed to allow the less restrictive job-changing environment that SV has, and thus the inter-workplace mobility.

Virtually every person I've ever talked to at MS saw the company as on a steady slide, where pay and benefits were slipping away steadily and helplessly, while the work environment was no longer intellectually challenging, but merely time-challenging. Plenty of managers, including those who didn't strike it rich by joining at the right time and should know better, seem to think it's still 1995 and they can browbeat their employees into 60-80 hour work weeks, as if we were still young, single, swayed by free soda and bedazzled by the promise of retirement riches. It's more like a demoralizing blue collar job where you punch in your 40 hours for 65th percentile pay and decent medical benefits, and are embarassed to admit where you work... and that's about it. People seem to see their career goals at Microsoft as basically "stick around until I've found a better job outside of Microsoft", or even spend so much time at MS that they grow bitter and want to leave the tech industry altogether, and quit.

The fact that leadership at the company doesn't realize, apparently, how endemic this morale problem is shows their sublime foolishness: if Brian Valentine thinks he can build the post-Longhorn version of Windows strictly using coding factories in India, then the desktop userbase for OSXII will be at 90% by 2010.
posted by hincandenza at 11:22 PM on August 18, 2005

I dunno, I like it. Those times when someone posts a crappy link or a crappy post, but it doesn't quite fit the "GYOB" pattern? Or when people say "If I post it on my own blog, no-one will see it, that's why I'm posting it here"? Now we can say "Take it to MSNFilter"
posted by Bugbread at 11:22 PM on August 18, 2005

mrgrimm: Is there any way to get a white background on comments pages?

Hm- I suspect, but have never tried, that you could download the .css the comments page uses, edit the color values as you want, then make a custom greasemonkey script to use that .css instead of the existing one. Tinkering with that might solve your problem.
posted by hincandenza at 11:30 PM on August 18, 2005

Still scarily accurate, by all accounts. Appreciate the posts, hincandenza.

From what I've seen so far: whilst MSN can attempt to appropriate the form and function of Metafilter, it cannot recreate the community and certainly cannot escape how the degree of sanitisation it imposes makes it entirely uniform, dull, bland, uninspiring, etc. Worried? Not in the slightest.
posted by Kiell at 3:51 AM on August 19, 2005

I'm staying here, because I'm sick of the liberal bias of MSN Filter.
posted by klangklangston at 5:16 AM on August 19, 2005

Is there any way to get a white background on comments pages?

1. Click on Customize in the top navigation or Customize MetaFilter in the footer navigation.
2. Choose "plain text" under Select Theme.
3. Click "Change your Preferences"

Voila.
posted by kirkaracha at 6:40 AM on August 19, 2005

Interesting posts, hincandeeza... I've thought for a while now that morale must be slipping, just because of the clusterfuck that Longhorn has become, the embarassment of Firefox, and their increasingly obvious inability to add anything interesting to Office. I've been waiting for the larger tech media to pickup this meme, but it hasn't quite gained traction yet. Who do you hear this stuff from?
posted by gsteff at 7:17 AM on August 19, 2005

the embarassment of Firefox

Huh? IE saturation is still at 92%, and Firefox's user share for the month fell.
posted by angry modem at 7:49 AM on August 19, 2005

MetaFilter: an elephant pedaling his unicycle.
posted by OmieWise at 7:53 AM on August 19, 2005

i shit in the milk of their whore mother
posted by punkbitch at 7:57 AM on August 19, 2005

Huh? IE saturation is still at 92%, and Firefox's user share for the month fell.

I just meant that to any tech-savvy individual, including MS programmers, its painfully obvious that Firefox is the better product. And moreover, every MS employee must be aware that 4 years ago there was some kind of top-level decision to slam the brakes on improvements to IE, and in the process hold back technical progress on the entire internet, because execs were (rationally) afraid of web apps reducing the relevence of the operating system.
posted by gsteff at 8:12 AM on August 19, 2005

Imagine the poor cunt whose job is to select choice morsels like "Forty and Flirty" for the viewers of "lifestylefilter".

And he/she will be doing more of the same tomorrow, and the next day, indefinitely into the future.

Cleaning toilets would surely be less degrading.
posted by cleardawn at 10:00 AM on August 19, 2005

I couldn't find the snarky mefi post about this, was it deleted?
posted by klik99 at 1:07 PM on August 19, 2005

there was some kind of top-level decision to slam the brakes on improvements to IE, and in the process hold back technical progress on the entire internet,

Thank goodness. Can you imagine the disaster the internet would become if Microsoft had decided to embrace and extend? Faaaargh, it would be horrendous.

Compared to Apple/MacOS, there is so very, very little that Microsoft does right. I made the switch this week to OSX Tiger, from years of Win2K use, and the one outstanding thing is that this OS feels designed, while Win2K feels accumulated by accident.

I am eversopleased by this switch. It is embarassing that I put up with MS's idiocy and crap for so very long.
posted by five fresh fish at 1:43 PM on August 19, 2005

"mediocrity enforces, promotes, and rewards mediocrity"
Really? Say, that's a job I could really feel ok about.
posted by Smedleyman at 1:55 PM on August 19, 2005