News Arts Argument

August 14, 2010 10:59 PM

frontsection.net is a tasteful, politically right-on and truly curatorial take on aggregating web content. Careful, combined with an MF habit, this is going to eat up a lot of hours. Although the site is MetaFilter-inspired, all links are the fruit of one intrepid reader whose work, it must be admitted, sometimes grinds to a halt for up to a week at a time.
posted by Roachbeard (36 comments total)

Incessant bolding is hard to read...
posted by lumensimus at 11:10 PM on August 14, 2010 [1 favorite]

That is a slick fucking design. I even like the bolding, despite not usually digging that much formatting (I take them to be like topical tags more than emphasis).
posted by codacorolla at 12:03 AM on August 15, 2010

Format reminds me a little of Arts & Letters Daily, but less fluff (on first glance). Interesting, thanks.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 12:22 AM on August 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

That right-hand column has some good stuff in it, I gotta say.
posted by cthuljew at 12:50 AM on August 15, 2010

Interesting and varied content. Good Stuff. It will be interesting to see how he keeps this up, as it sure is a lot of work and reading.
posted by adamvasco at 12:54 AM on August 15, 2010

What Wordpres template is that?
posted by Yakuman at 1:09 AM on August 15, 2010

I was prepared to hate it for the use of the word curatorial, but it's actually quite good.
posted by atrazine at 2:10 AM on August 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

People may also like The Browser, which has popped up oo MeFi a few times I believe.
posted by djgh at 2:34 AM on August 15, 2010 [2 favorites]

"politically right-on"?
posted by prefpara at 3:11 AM on August 15, 2010 [4 favorites]

Well, you don't get much more right-on than Tiger Beatdown - thanks to this site, I've just read an excellent essay on Colette.
posted by mippy at 3:30 AM on August 15, 2010

This is great, thanks.
posted by mdonley at 3:30 AM on August 15, 2010

"politically right-on"?

i.e., droning paleo-leftist jeremiads

mmm, jeremiads
posted by jammy at 4:11 AM on August 15, 2010

And, like MF, that site also prefers to open links in the same tab...so it must be good! ;)
posted by DavidandConquer at 4:18 AM on August 15, 2010 [2 favorites]

Some of these items are in French, and are noted as such. If you don't read French, we encourage you to learn how.

Heh.
posted by fourcheesemac at 5:49 AM on August 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

Nice. And some paleo-leftism will be a nice counterpoint to the oddly strident right-wing emphasis of Arts & Letters Daily, which I've never really understood.
posted by game warden to the events rhino at 6:00 AM on August 15, 2010 [4 favorites]

Some of these items are in French, and are noted as such. If you don't read French, we encourage you to learn how.

Comment?
posted by hal9k at 6:06 AM on August 15, 2010 [7 favorites]

And some paleo-leftism will be a nice counterpoint to the oddly strident right-wing emphasis of Arts & Letters Daily, which I've never really understood.

I find that the headline summaries are quite often more right-wing than the pieces that they introduce. It's almost like Dutton is trying to lure conservative readers into some sort of intellectual debate (or at least statement of one's thinking) while at the same time trying to be a useful roundup of the neocon press for those further to the left. Assiduous coverage of evolutionary biology; high culture (particularly music); and semi-popular intellectuals like Zizek and Berlin rounds it out.

This site looks interesting - thanks!
posted by GeorgeBickham at 6:41 AM on August 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

(The above refers to Arts and Letters Daily, of course..)
posted by GeorgeBickham at 6:53 AM on August 15, 2010

That's a good point, GeorgeBickham. It's something about the inconsistency of it that bothers me about A&L Daily — I've got no problem with a website that rounds up right-wing thought plus right-friendly evolutionary biology, but it's probably something I'd check with a different frequency to a more broadly based site, and A&L Daily keeps tempting me into believing it's the latter. I've lost count of the times I've clicked an intriguingly phrased link only to find it's yet another poorly thought-through essay by Theodore Dalrymple in City Journal...!
posted by game warden to the events rhino at 7:02 AM on August 15, 2010

The format is directly taken from Arts & Letters Daily, not Metafilter.
posted by Jaltcoh at 7:04 AM on August 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

I'm having trouble parsing this sentence: Careful, combined with an MF habit, this is going to eat up a lot of hours.

Does that mean that the site is careful or should I be careful in reading the site? Whatever, the site is a good one, well worth bookmarking.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 7:23 AM on August 15, 2010

"Your request to URL "http://frontsection.net/" has been blocked by the Webwasher URL FilterDatabase. The URL is listed under categories (Pornography), "

You all have dirty dirty minds.
posted by QuarterlyProphet at 8:16 AM on August 15, 2010

I think the OP means you should be careful while reading the site because it's addictive in a MetaFilter kind of way.
posted by Jaltcoh at 8:19 AM on August 15, 2010 [1 favorite]

Great site, but why do you say it's MetaFilter-inspired?
posted by languagehat at 9:24 AM on August 15, 2010

the page now has a topline that reads:
"WOW. HI, METAFILTARIANS. IT'S AS IF THE CUTEST GIRL IN THE SUPERMARKET JUST WALKED UP TO US AND CLUTCHED OUR HAND AND GRINNED AND KISSED US.
(CONFIDENTIAL TO GIRL IN SUPERMARKET: DEFINITELY WALK UP TO US AND CLUTCH OUR HAND AND GRIN AND KISS US, IN THAT ORDER, JUST AS WE HAVE DREAMED.)
posted by warbaby at 9:56 AM on August 15, 2010 [3 favorites]

Apparently we are the cutest girl in the supermarket. I'll take that as a compliment!

Great find btw, food for my feedreader.
posted by ts;dr at 9:57 AM on August 15, 2010

I think the OP means you should be careful while reading the site because it's addictive in a MetaFilter kind of way.

Yup that's it. I have a horrible habit of writing descriptor-laden introductory phrases that tend to dangle quite a bit; sometimes they even squint.

Great site, but why do you say it's MetaFilter-inspired?

I said that because of the highlighted, (sometimes multiple) mid-sentence links. I know that's probably not unique to MF, but it seemed as though the site's creator might have picked up a little something something from the blue. And his new topline indicates that he is on here.
posted by Roachbeard at 11:07 AM on August 15, 2010

> I said that because of the highlighted, (sometimes multiple) mid-sentence links. I know that's probably not unique to MF

It sure isn't. Check out omnivore or, well, pretty much any hip link aggregator.

> And his new topline indicates that he is on here.

No, it indicates he got a huge bump in hits, figured out where it came from, and is happy about it. If he's a MeFite, why isn't he in this thread?
posted by languagehat at 11:19 AM on August 15, 2010

Not trying to bust your chops or anything, just explaining why I doubt "MetaFilter-inspired" is accurate.
posted by languagehat at 11:19 AM on August 15, 2010

Great, now omnivore is going to dominate my life as well. Maybe I need a moratorium on internet reading in favour of printed pages - just for a bit.
posted by Roachbeard at 11:58 AM on August 15, 2010

"metafiltarian" vs. "mefite"

discuss
posted by jammy at 12:36 PM on August 15, 2010

Actually, he's probably not on here, considering that he didn't comment in the thread and that he thinks we're called "Metafiltarians."
posted by Jaltcoh at 1:28 PM on August 15, 2010

Actually, he's probably not on here, considering that he didn't comment in the thread and that he thinks we're called "Metafiltarians."

And because he'd be saying that he is in fact the cute girl, grinning at some supermarket display store window reflection and kissing the pane.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 1:33 PM on August 15, 2010

The cutest girl in the supermarket was after that last can of beans you just grabbed off the shelf.

Is this great design? It seems more like old, newspaper design, which isn't suitable for screen reading. The random bolding is also not helpful.
posted by chairface at 10:59 PM on August 15, 2010

I said that because of the highlighted, (sometimes multiple) mid-sentence links. I know that's probably not unique to MF

It's a blog posting style that some of us worked hard, back in the day, to deliberately supersede

text text text http://www.example.com
or
text text text from click here

If you must know, however, it was particularly pioneered by suck.com.
posted by dhartung at 11:03 PM on August 15, 2010

Metafiltarians, join us at our jungle compound, where Metafiltar will guide our spirits to True Link Heaven. Kool-aid drinking optional.
posted by cthuljew at 12:40 AM on August 16, 2010