Nope.

now?

Huh?

You still call BBSes?

Ohhh, noooww. When bugbread said he didn't mean it as a dig at anybody, I don't think he meant he wasn't referencing a particular person. What you don't read MeTa or something? ;)

Well, it annoys me that people assume that consensus is what we're looking for, rather than merely self-expression. Or it's usually a method of steering the discussion to one's own ends.

The only MeTa threads I read anymore are {y: y=9622 + 101 ⋅ x, x ∈ ℕ}. ;)

oh, man. I've never done this - but "yawn".

wtf? Really?

Chill, taz, I was just curious if I was the only one. I am. Question answered, let's close this thread up and go on to more interesting pastures.

(And, yeah, by "not a dig", I didn't mean it wasn't due to any particular person (it is), but just that it wasn't an attack or snark, just a "am I the only one" question. No bile intended.)

taz, you don't find it interesting when a certain word becomes so associated with a certain context in your head that it becomes kinda 'polluted' in other contexts?

(I think) I know what bugbread means and experienced the very same feeling today. In a similar vein, I'll really never see the word 'bunny' in the same way again.

When people spell it "concensus", I make a sort of
woop-woop sound and flare my left nostril slightly.

But not at the same time, obviously.

Consensus makes me think of Quaker weddings, and pretty green hills in Pennsylvania.

We all agree that this thread should not exist.

taz, you don't find it interesting when a certain word becomes so associated with a certain context in your head that it becomes kinda 'polluted' in other contexts?

Do you feel that way? About the word "consensus"?

I truly believe that over-reacting to this word because of metafilter means you're freaking, and not in a "good way".

But, whatever. If it is significant to you (or to anybody), go ahead and talk it out.

Yes, when I see "consensus" I associate it with MetaFilter. It's a mild feeling, certainly not 'freaking' one, but it definately exists.

I certainly hope I'm not 'freaking'. I chuckle. It's a happy thing. Not a 'the turtles wearing the neon loafers want to paint colors into my rollercoaster' freaking/happy thing, but just a little lighthearted hopefullysane chuckle.

I feel the same way about "bucket of cocks"

What does a chuckle sound like, anyway? I never knowed this.

Yes, when I see "consensus" I associate it with MetaFilter. It's a mild feeling, certainly not 'freaking' one, but it definately exists.

okay.. but six months ago, that wouldn't have been the case, and six months from now I think it will be a very, very obscure reference... definitely not something that occurs to you at all (I hope).

My point is that this Mefi code-word stuff totallysucks. Okay, some of it doesn't totallysuck, when it just has to do with fun, lighthearted joshing. But how often does that happen?

Mostly, this has to do with identifying a target, and then getting everyone to attack. Are we so weak, so sheltered, so easily swayed that a word like "consensus," used in a way we don't like, can be corrupted? Because, if so, there are a whole lot of words that are going to be causing us trouble.

For me, a little chuckle sounds like the rapid exhalation of air through my nostrils. Not a snort, which is inhalation and much more...fleshy, but a short sharp exhalation accompanied by a smile.

A big chuckle actually has a conventional larynx sponsored sound, but I have no idea how to write it. Nothing unusual, I can assure you.

Okay, sorry.

Obviously it's not just you.

I like words that are unholy combinations. Blogebrity is one I use far too often that it risks losing it's ironic status. Synergy is another one. Such dirty, filthy words.

My colleague Steve Twomey asks the trenchant question:

"Why did it become desireable to have a corporate name in which it was impossible to know what the corporation did? I mean, General Electric, General Motors, U.S. Steel, Bell Telephone, International Business Machines, Ford Motor Co., Union Pacific: In every case, you could guess what they did. What the hell does PSINet do? Or Cisco Systems? Verizon? You can't tell!"

Steve makes an excellent point. Companies today often sound like monsters in Godzilla movies. When Dynegy and Enron had their recent troubles it brought to mind the various battles between Mothra and Rodan.

When I see the word "consensus," I think of a very specific thing. See, I've got this Quaker education, which really attuned me to what it really is.

I'm having another bad day at work, or I'd get into it. Just don't feel up to it now.

But yeah, bugbread, when I see folks misuse the word "consensus" to mean "agreement among most of us," I'm disappointed to see a valid idea tarnished by demagogues, who never truly seek consensus, but validation.

What a weak-ass thing to do, refusing to back myself up with full explanations. But I'm tired, really tired; I'm fed up, really fucking fed up; this is about as gently as I can think right now: FUCK!!

So you see, I'd love to get into a consensus conversation, and I daresay Divine_Wino, with his Quakeucation, and others might have much to say. But I'm about to lose my Quaker cool here at work, and I don't want to spray any of you.

I don't know how it's used on meffy, but if the rest of the (non-Quaker) world's usage is any indication, you're right, bugbread. They're full of shit. Someone should BRAIN 'EM WITH A ROCK.

(See what I mean? Back to work).

I love you guys. That of god within every one.

Hold on now, hold on now, I'm not laughing at consensus because it's used wrong (it is, but my laughter isn't a cynical laughter). It's more like laughing at "Todd Lokken", but (unlike Todd Lokken) it comes up naturally from time to time. It's a pretty subtext-free laughter.

Yeh, it is totally like laughing at "todd lokken". Another thing that I found not amusing at all. We just have quite different ideas of what is haha-funny.

(That may have been a bad example. I wasn't laughing at Todd himself, but at the meme that sprung from there. If it helps, an example which nobody here has a different impression of: in high school, some friends and I are at Denny's or something, talking about whathaveyou, and one friend gets stuck trying to remember a name. The topic of conversation flows and changes, and then 20 minutes later, while talking about whatever the topic was at that point, he just shouts out "CLAYTON!!" It took us all a second to realize that it was the name he had been trying to remember, but we were cracking up at the initial apparent randomness of it. From then on, for about 5 or so years, I had a tendency to chuckle when I heard the name "Clayton". None of the laughter was in any way derogatory or a slight against the initial Clayton or any other Claytons, it was just a word that got stuck in funnybone position.)