The Week in Review, Now With Whatnot!

Awards first, then some bullshit.

Last Week's Swinging Dicks

In third place, winner of a hundred pounds of dried fallen leaves I spent 90 minutes moving across my lawn with a shiny new Ryobi 4-Cycle 155 mph 400 CFM gas-powered leaf-blower three weeks ago: The Amazing Sneijderman, with 4 Favorites in the past five days.

This a-here is my favorite The Amazing Sneijderman joke from last week. Good stuff.

In second place, winner of two hundred pounds of dried fallen leaves I spent 120 minutes moving across my lawn with a somewhat less shiny Ryobi 4-Cycle 155 mph 400 CFM gas-powered leaf-blower two weeks ago: Same Sad Echo, with 6 Favorites in the past five days.

And here's my favorite Same Sad Echo joke from last week. COTY!1!

And in first place, winner of 10,000 pounds of dried fallen leaves I spent my entire life moving across my lawn with a fucking pile of shit Ryobi 4-Cycle 155 mph 400 CFM gas-powered leaf-blower last week: Raysism, with 7 Favorites in the past five days. You will now drive immediately to my home and pick up your prize or so help me I will cram this leaf-blower up your ass.

This is my favorite Raysism joke from last week. DEADSPIN HALL OF FAME!!1ELEVEN

Congratulations, folks. Some people work their whole lives for a pile of dried leaves.

Bonus Jokes!

The Monday Comment of the Day, from Madoffs Mets.

The Tuesday Comment of the Day, from Steve U.

The Wednesday Comment of the Day, from Poignant Theater.

The Thursday Comment of the Day, from Same Sad Echo.

The Friday Comment of the Day, from Mantis Toboggan, M.D.

The Unwelcome Lesson of the Week

It's important to dismiss.

I'm going to be honest here: when I look at Deadspin comments, I generally only look at the top ten or so. Why? Because, with few exceptions, the best jokes are being made by a bunch of recognizable handles, and those handles always show up at the top of the page. When I do get down to the lower half or two-thirds, it's with soft eyes. There's very little of value down there.

It's true!

By whatever magic or manipulation, the good commenters are at the top, and there are three ways a burner or stranger can get in: they can make a kick-ass joke and hope to get noticed (as if); they can start an earnest, excruciatingly boring conversation with other bonehead burners and strangers and overwhelm the algorithm; they can reply to the good stuff.

With all of Kinja's stupidity, we actually have almost total control over those efforts. Okay, well, hold on, so there's really not much we can do about the boring discussions and arguments. Those were around before Kinja and they're still around and they aren't going anywhere ever. We have some control over the jokes, which is nice. We can go down there and lift their jokes from the muck if we're so inclined. It's a long way from perfect, but we can exert influence.

And that brings us to replies. By far the easiest way for new commenters and trolls and idiots and burners and ringers to get into the top half, to step into the light, to climb, Evil Marion Cotillard-like, from the abyss, is to reply to your jokes. When they do so by joining in a thread or giving a +1 or offering some sort of thoughtful, articulate contribution, hey! Great! Pull up a chair and hang out for a while! When strangers do what we do, they deserve to be in the light.

When they reply to your jokes with a -1 or I don't understand or too soon or dude your gay ROFL, fucking dismiss it. Why? Because you have control over the content. You're in charge of the door, and you decide who gets in.

We all hate Kinja. The lack of an approval system is maddening. None of us want to let Denton off the hook for screwing up our fun little playground. It's easy to think that leaving the trash out in plain view forces the powers that be to acknowledge their screw-up. The sad news, though, is that nobody up there thinks it's a screw up, and none of the burner idiot strangers do either. The only people who hate Kinja and miss the former system are the regulars, and we're the only people who are hurt by the bad behavior of the burner idiot strangers and are offended by the site of their execrable commentary.

You have control over the door. It's seems obvious enough that you wouldn't want to let a troll in. You feel bad for the little pig who built his house out of straw because the wolf blows the fucking thing down, not because the pig opened the door and let the goddamn carnivore waltz right in. Know what I mean?

Have a tip-top weekend, and seriously, come get these fucking leaves off my lawn.