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THE_AUTUMNAL_WEB
November 14-19, 2006
December 9, 2006
A quirk of internet
history is that the
bloggers have come up Personally, I think
with a new word for we need a name for
close-reading and this tendency of
point-by-point refutation: web nerds to invent
"fisking"; based on new -- and usually blogging
someone's treatment of irritating -- podcasting
a Fisk article. words for whatever wiki
they're into at the
moment. nonsensical,
unmelifuous...
Perhaps,
"Neologging" (Almost as bad
as "unmelifuous".)
No, makes too
much sense, anti-idiotarian
doesn't sound is another good
stupid enough. one.
"English 3.0"?
Closer.
It doesn't have
that *bang* *splat*
sound that they
seem to like.
Maybe:
"bangsplats"
One thing that's odd about the
term "fisking" is that they
thought it deserved a name at
all.
We've been doing this on usenet There are differences
for ages. with the usenet
practice, in that "Fisking"
And many an academic paper uses a the original author does have
quotation and commentary format.. is expected to be a shouting
hanging around, at the
defending their work. television
quality
But then, one of the Also, usenet has about it.
peculiarities of the quoted-reply features
bloggers is their deep that aren't broken,
conviction that it's so there are many
something new under examples of repeated
the sun... they're exchanges that go
pioneers of a new a dozen levels deep
technological era! or more.
They're beginners who It's not unheard of
don't know that there for "fiskers" to get
have been many others "fisked", but these But then in the
before them. exchanges aren't blog world:
a regular occurrence perhaps they're
as they are on usenet. more likely to
They're proud of the write something
"democratic" quality closer to a
that blogging finished essay?
software brings to
the web, but that, is They seem to be
of course, a mixed playing "op-ed"
blessing, and the columist more
usenet world has been often than
through that and come not... though
out the other side -- without editors
telling them to
Look up "the eternal tighten it up.
september" some time. Consider the case of
the "original fisk":
To my eye, this Sullivan
piece is terrible.
"Fisking" is supposed SMEAR_THE_MESSENGER
to be good for
deflating rhetoric,
but what about Sullivan's
own rhetoric?
In the usenet world,
he would've been
shouted down
immediately.
In fact, the original
author would probably
handle the reply...
Sullivan got in his
attack against someone
who doesn't bother
with the web.
Whatever you call it, there
are difficulties with this LIGHTING_WAR
style of commentary:
It's deeply reductionist: there
are indeed some things you can
highlight by breaking down an
essay into pieces, but those
pieces are not the whole essay,
and it's entirely possible for
the essay to have something
going for it that is not visible
in the pieces.
It can be a form of "out of context"
quotation, but only in a subtle way
because the original words may all
be there:
By choosing the right points to interrupt
the original, you can throw off the flow --
and the flow may be where the real meaning
resides.
Another issue that's sometimes raised:
"The is Fisking Bullying?"
This one seems misguided --
it's the old politeness I find the style of argument used
business again -- tis on wikpedia talk pages to be
better to be allowed to be somewhat unnerving. Almost
saracastic and insulting everyone goes through the motions
(even if it's not usually of being civil, consequently you
adviseable, exactly.) can't really tell what they're
thinking -- often the civility
seems to be a rote exercise,
they're reciting what they need to
say for legalistic reasons, so
that if it goes to arbitration
they won't seem grossly
unreasonable.
http://www.cloggie.org/books/pity-the-nation.html
Wholly undeservedly, Robert Fisk has
become something of a joke online, after
socalled "warbloggers" back in 2001
picked on a single incident in his long
reporter career to ridicule him as an
out of touch wet, even racist
liberal. And this by people whose
closest contact with the Middle East had
been their local kebab shop. From there
we got the nasty term fisking, which
refers to any sort of unfair argument in
which an article is not criticised on
the merits of the whole, but rather is
taken apart and attacked line by line,
usually by putdown rather than logical
argument.
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