Editor Log: January 16, 2001

• Poor way to organize data: GTKYs tend to group together information that could otherwise be filed elsewhere in the database. This is a throwback to picking your titles well; if you have a list of your favorite quotations from The Simpsons rolling about your head, don't node them under "The Simpsons Quotation Metanode," node them under "The Simpsons." Many more people are likely to find your post under The Simpsons than they would be to find it under "Bob's Favorite Lines from The Simpsons." If your favorite bumper sticker is "Elevator Repairmen Do It Up and Down," node it under "Elevator Repairmen Do It Up and Down," don't node it under "My Favorite Bumper Stickers." And remember, just because you're noding it under its title doesn't mean you can get away with "my favorite sticker" as the whole writeup. Put the story behind it, give it purpose.



• Size: GTKYs inevitably grow to astronomical sizes. No one wants to load a page that's 45 writeups long, and no one's going to read writeup numbers 5-44. They waste space, they waste bandwidth, and chances are in a GTKY, we've heard it before. Remember folks, node for the ages, don't submit "My favorite graffiti is 'moJoe wuz here'" and expect it to fly. A good rule of thumb: if your writeup can't stand on its own outside the GTKY node, it probably shouldn't stand in the GTKY node.



• The titles: GTKY nodes usually, with some deviation, have very poorly worded titles. "Bob's Favorite Lines from The Simpsons" is an example I gave above. A real world example is "node some bumper stickers you've seen that have had an impact on you." These are less likely to be found than their smaller counterparts, as noted above.


In addition to this, GTKY nodes have titles that beg people to add to them. "Where were you when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded?" and "The Single Sickest Joke Ever" come to mind. "When's Your Birthday?" ended up being one of the largest nodes on E2 and was summarily executed, "What's Your Favorite Color?" met a similar fate. Their titles encourage more posts, and the typical poster at one is a new noder. This is not the way to begin a life at E2, because it adds little to no redeemable content and encourages the same.


• NFN: In addition to encouraging new people to post in GTKYs, it encourages noding for numbers. "Geez!" says the initiate, "I only need six more posts to level two! Wait, what's this? Jimbo's Favorite Public Toilet Scribblings, When's Your Birthday? and What's your cat's name? I'm halfway there!" Again, a cycle is created.



• Annoying: These are just plain annoying. As a venerable unknown godusergroup member put it at The Single Sickest Joke Ever:

  If you honestly feel you've a fresh, new, creative story about killing and raping babies, having sex with corpses or re-inventing the holocaust as a "funny little story" please find a fresh, new, creative way of adding them to the database. This node's sheer size alone should tell you to just read 'em and let it be...
  
  NO MORE JOKES HERE

NO MORE GTKYs HERE