CUE BLOGWIDE STRIKE ACTION

(Many people want to know: "Are you kidding?  No new posts until five hundred comments?"  The answer: I am not kidding.  There will be no new posts until there are five hundred comments on this thread.)

There will be no new posts on Acephalous until there are 500 (five hundred) comments on this one.  The person who posts the five hundredth comment wins the honor of suggesting the topic of the subsequent post.  Any comments containing the number four, a dollar sign or the open bracket/fancy-open bracket will not count toward the total, as those keys are missing from my keyboard.  Suggested discussion topics can be found below the fold.

• Possible reasons for this BLOGWIDE STRIKE ACTION.
• Potential topics for my next post.
• Whether there should be a mandatory word minimum and/or maximum for it.
• Which suggested topic could do the most damage to my academic career and why.
• How much easier it would be to reach 500 comments if LCC commented here.
• The weather and how nice/terrible it has been lately.
• Whether this is a strike-action or a hostage-taking.
• The possibility that 500 comments will not be written, and I'll be forced to either 1) write them myself or 2) close shop.
• Whether comments violating the spirit of the strike/contest should be counted.
• The fact that I am the author of a study.
• The fact that in the '90s when Kurt Vonnegut lived next door to Keith Hernandez, Vonnegut would greet him with a hearty "You're Keith Hernandez!"  They would often discuss Hernandez's favorite writer, Victor Hugo, and his favorite Hugo novel, The Toilers of the Sea.
• Rich's pre-suggestion: "Look at this horror. Do clients of sex workers really base their reviews on, in part, whether the sex worker has a Ph.D.? That seems exceptionally perverse. When I was a grad student, the local free paper had a long-running sex chat ad with some line about "We will talk about any subject", and so of course someone joked that he should call and ask about a problem with his dissertation. But in this case, maybe it really would work."

Comments

[Rich Puchalsky]

I've seen comment threads reach 300+ comments on more than one occasion. (One LCC-and-coterie-less one, also, the one (on John & Belle Have A Blog?) about who could be a continental philosopher.) But the only one I've seen reach 500 was the highly annoying "Blog" comment thread on Unqualified Offerings. That joke has been done -- into the ground -- so I don't know whether your chances of reaching 500 are that good. Of course, if I start to post each paragraph as a seperate comment, that should add up to quite a few.

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

That's the kind of behavior I'm talking about when I speak of violating the spirit of the contest. And I've seen plenty of posts reach 500 comments; granted, they're all on Atrios or Unfogged, but still, 500 is 500 is 500.

[Rich Puchalsky]

One large problem with the idea is that it's going to scroll all the previous comments off the sidebar that shows the most recent comments. Perhaps that's a feature, though. My guess for the reason for the strike action is: 1) dissertation pressure, 2) in order to finally get everyone to stop commenting on the "police the discourse" thread, and erasing its existence from the recent comments sidebar is part of that.

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

Plus, this puts the responsibility for my silence squarely where it belongs: on my commenters.

[Rich Puchalsky]

Egad, I could take up 110 comments just by posting each note I've made on half of Bloom's The Anxiety of Influence. That would be cruel and unusual punishment, however.

[Rich Puchalsky]

All right, here's what I'll do: I'll take up my parenthetical self-suggestion in that other thread to write a comment about why comment threads on other people's blogs are better than having your own blog. Except each paragraph will be its own comment. I don't think that's cheating; it's not like I'm posting just a couple of words with each one, and I could in theory be adding them with a duration of hours between each as I think of them rather than just typing at high speed.

[dejan]

I personally like this one best:

Which suggested topic could do the most damage to my academic career and why.

[Rich Puchalsky]

1. What is a blog? An online, indexed series of posts, each with an indication of the author and a timestamp. Therefore, comment threads are blogs in every essential sense.

[Rich Puchalsky]

2. (damn, typing at high speed is slowed down a lot by comment verification) With comments rather than blog posts, one is spared the annoyance of blog administration. You will never have to choose a format or set up Typepad or some other not-fun waste of time.

[Rich Puchalsky]

3. One also, of course, doesn't have to pay for a blog. This is an uncertain benefit, since there seem to be many free blogging platforms out there in any case.

[Rich Puchalsky]

4. And one is spared the many of the social-administrative costs of blogging. No one will ever Email you to ask you to add them to your blogroll. If you don't link to an article that you're talking about -- well, it's only a comment. No one ever bothers you asking why you haven't commented about X.

[Rich Puchalsky]

5. But by far one of the largest advantages is that you need feel no need to continually produce content. With a blog, people evidently feel guilty for writing too little. With a comment box, the converse is true: people try to make you feel guilty for writing too much. (I'm shameless in this matter, so that doesn't work on me.) It's always easier to write less than write more.

[Rich Puchalsky]

6. (0h drat, Scott said that anything with a numeral, er, two less than this one would be disqualified. There's one gone.) The comment box helps to discourage vanity, a venal sin. (Is it, one, actually? I don't remember.) One doesn't have one's own space that one has to keep maintaining the reputation of.

[Sisyphus]

Wait, wait, if this is a strike action, shouldn't it be collective? Shouldn't that mean we _all_ have to withhold our bloggy labor at our own blogs until Kaufman gets his comments? I didn't get no memo! If I post something at my own blog, would that make me a scab? What if it was a post sending everyone over here to place their bets, er, comments --- would that be scabbing? And can you call a strike and not know what you're striking over until _after_ it's underway? Or is this because time and causality are different over here on the Internets? And, most important, can a cog ever ask too many questions?

[Rich Puchalsky]

7. And this vanity costs the blogger more than just some possible sort of shame. I think that some people spend significant amounts of time checking there Web hits, their Technorati standing, their Truth Laid Bare ecosystem rank, and so on. With comments, you let all that go.

[Rich Puchalsky]

8. Of course, you do have the problem that sometimes you get caught up in looking at a feed (or refreshing the page or something) to see if anyone has replied to your comment. But bloggers must suffer from the same syndrome, so that seems like neither a comparative advantage nor disadvantage.

[Rich Puchalsky]

9. (Wow, comment verification really does take a lot of time.) Comments are also seen as a social boon. (Usually.) No one wants their blog to go without comments, or they would turn off comments. You could selfishly start your own blog, or you could just write everything on someone else's.

[Rich Puchalsky]

10. Of course, you can get banned from someone else's blog -- the space is not under your control. This can be an advantage, however; it indicates a space that is for whatever reason not amenable to the kind of writing that you want to do. You can always just start commenting on another blog.

[Rich Puchalsky]

11. Also, to pull in one of Scott's concerns above, by commenting on someone else's blog, you are far less likely to be tempted to write about your work. Writing about one's work is probably the topic that is most likely to get people in trouble, either because they break anonymity, or because they reveal something about their work that they were supposed to keep secret.

[Rich Puchalsky]

12. And commenting solves the problem of not having anything to write about. You simply write about whatever other people are writing about. If you want to write about your own topics, you can always seize on some kind of minor or imagined linkage to go off on a long digression about essentially any subject.

[Rich Puchalsky]

13. Luckily, most blogging platforms are becoming more supportive of the comment-as-blog. It is now becoming standard for each one to have its own link. It is less common, though useful, for each to have its own number. They are less often dumped wholesale and lost than they used to be.

[Rich Puchalsky]

15 (-1). And now, since I have to work, that concludes this run of the advantages of comment-as-blog. I think that I hit most of the high points -- perhaps there was a bit less about the pitfalls of "trying to build up a rep" that commenting largely avoids. Still, I think those are the basics.

[Scott K]

Well, I'd be lax in my duties if I weren't to post at least one comment to bring about the Return of Acephalous. :)

[Vance Maverick]

"Scott K", you sound suspiciously like a claque.

[Rich Puchalsky]

OK, I've run out of the type of energy needed to work, and the rest of my family is asleep. And I come back to see one additional comment? Sure, Scott, Atrios and Unfogged get 500 comment threads, but that may be a local rather than global capability.

Well, if you're going on strike, I might as well fully set up shop in this thread. Two of the disadvantages of the comment thread as blog are that one's writings do not have titles, and they are not all in one place. I might as well ensure that this thread will eventually get to 500 by commenting with a link to each comment that I make elsewhere, with a title, a sort of trackback for comments.

If anyone else wants something more interesting, they can comment on the sex worker Ph.D. article. I would have thought that would have been a sure comment-getter. Didn't Bitch Ph.D. once think about being a prostitute? In a not-forced-to-by-economic-necessity kind of way.

[Karl Steel]

Whether comments violating the spirit of the strike/contest should be counted.

What's the spirit of the strike/contest? Have to determine that first, yes? Which means, I suppose, determining your motivation. Others have suggested motivations, but I wouldn't dare to suggest for fear of violating your secret, lurking rules.

[Rich Puchalsky]

Scull-Bashing: the final fragments?

[Rich Puchalsky]

Denialists at the deathbed: pitiful crossed-out one-to-three

[CR]

I have this sense that I might have really troubled a few people with that comment that I wrote in the interminable thread about grad student blogging. I still think I'm right. I'm thinking about hanging it up too. It feels very stale to me, all of this. Just saying...

[Rich Puchalsky]

15. If you ever get tired of it, you never have to announce that commenting is getting stale. You just stop.

[Rich Puchalsky]

Cockburn's weird contrarianism: (bad Chris, no comment links)

[Nate]

Scott is the winner's suggestion _binding_ or will you merely take their proposal into consideration?

[Rich Puchalsky]

Footnoted in the future: hey, it's the first cross-Acephalous link

(I don't think that's against the spirit of the strike/contest.)

[Rich Puchalsky]

Some people ruin everything: performance artists outdone

[Joseph Kugelmass]

Rich, I think what you're doing is very brave. Scott, I think what you're doing is very understandable, since I did something very similar, though in my case it was more Werther than Germinal.

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

Sisyphus: Yes, a sympathy strike is required, lest you be branded a scab.

Rich: You're doing the Lord's work here, but you can't do it alone. We need everyone to pitch in and help.

CR: You're pitching in to say you don't want to pitch in. I'll file that under "V" for "Victory."

Nate: It's binding.

Also, Rich has stated many times that he can't be a blogger himself; this thread's proving the existence of another sort of blogging, though ... a pseudo-blogging, which exists only in comments and for comments. I think we're witnessing the birth of a new paradigm.

[CR]

(clarification: I didn't mean this in particular or SEK is stale. I meant the bsphere, our part of it, in general, or so it feels to me...)

[Gary]

I'm exhausted at the moment and have to save my remaining energy to watch an NBA playoff game (and curse that damned Steve Nash repeatedly), so I can't offer anything more than the fact that this comment does its own small part on the road to 500, meaning I have accomplished one thing today that doesn't involve bankruptcy appeals or insurance policies. Way to go, me.

[geek history]

Why do I have so many papers due at the same time? Do professors have meetings with much maniacal laughter and phrases like "and they will cry" and "let's act like we think they have nothing else due but our paper"?

And is it a bad sign when one Professor suggests 'administration change' before the final because the final was scheduled at 830 in the morning for a 930 class?

And we could have a blogstrike until someone buys us all wrists braces for the carpal tunnel we all have.

[geek history]

Rise word count rise! I command thee!

Dammit where the hell is that demon to sell my soul to when I need him?

[ponyboy]

well, i have no idea what your reasons are for this strike-slash-contest. but if this catches on, i'll have to actually work on my dissertation instead of reading blogs...

so here's a comment for the cause. good luck with whatever it is.

[Jake]

YOU CAN'T WIN SCOTT -- YOU CAN'T WIN!

[sharon]

The weather here in the UK has been smashing lately, as it happens. Warmest April since records began back in the days of Ollie Cromwell, or something along those lines.

As for 500+ comment threads, don't you folks read Making Light?

[sharon]

Oh yeah, the 'police the discourse' thread. More of that will do one of two things for Scott's career: scupper it or be the making of it. Did anyone else have the sense that they might be in at the birth of one of those Great Academic Feuds? I could imagine Scott and CcCraig in 50 years time, wizened and decrepit in their wheelchairs, kept alive only by the fire of their undying hatred for each other.

Also, why did that thread bring out in me a despicable impulse to get out a pointy stick and start stirring? Surely the second worst sin in the blogosphere after feeding the trolls is fanning the flames? (Also, mixing metaphors. Shameful. And where did all that alliteration come from?)

[I. Eaton]

I'll take over at the wheel for just a minute here, believing full well that a project such as this one is probably doomed to disappear into solipsistic whimsy (unless I'm underestimating the attention-span of the intelligensia that frequent this blog).

I'm not going to speculate on why SEK is doing this, except to say that I hope it's some obscure extension of his blog-meme project, i.e. The Very Important & Relevant Things That Happen When You Blog With Bloggers---here's hoping that this is some very-important consideration of the blogger and their audience. I must admit that I don't trust it, though. I do think SEK acts in good faith almost all of the time (and isn't it wonderfully human that "good faith" becomes perhaps the final standard in The Dialogue(s) for assessing the worth of arguments?---there's another font of discussion, I think), but, yes, so,....

...........I guess what I wanted to comment on in this comment was something about comments, making this a meta-comment of sorts:

In a very long previous thread (which I can very rightly assume that everyone reading this comment in sequence is very familiar with (entitled "How to Police the Discourse" which can be found here,)), I think that it was Rich Puchalsky who made reference to the "hundreds" of "lurkers" who chose to remain silent in the midst of a contentious (narratively mundane while viscerally vitriolic, fraught with high-academia/young-love implications) exchange. Ah, well, it struck me to the core when I read it: I knew I was being singled out, as if by the voice of god manifested through a charismatic preacher, in his grey suit, his cheap shoes, his ponytail, perhaps: I was that silent lurker, that muted voice, that tired old sinner sadly wringing out his cap in the pew.

I went to The Valve. I read through a few posts. I wanted to say something. I wanted to participate, say something. I'm no specialist, I'm barely literate at all, there's a moth-and-spotlight effect that these blogs exert on me; it's not as if I can really add much to anyone's conversation about anything serious. And I couldn't simply add a comment that might read, "I'm reading this and I wanted to let you know that I read it with some pleasure."

I saw a comment from an arrogant kid who quickly assessed the Valve as an "institutionalist e-rag". I've never cared much for the epistemology or the quality of the faith of undergrad Theorists, so, I quickly typed out a comment about how gratified he felt about this assessment. No one responded and I guess I didn't mind. I realized that any serious participatant on the Valve has learned to not engage with the numerous hypergraphic commenters. The community is still a community: patronage is rewarded, you have to pay your dues, you have to get in where you fit in, all the gangbanger cliches are relevant.

Anyways, I'm just wanted to let you know. I read this sometimes. It's a good blog. It's all right. $4.

[N. Pepperell]

Scott - If I post the 500th comment, you'll have to take my place answering Sinthome's question about determinate negation...

[Adam Roberts]

Well, I'm happy to chip in to this admirable collective effort.

[Adam Roberts]

What I mean is: I'm happy ...

[Adam Roberts]

...to chip in ...

[Adam Roberts]

..to this admirable...