I don't know... what the article you link describes sounds to me like a poor job of fisking. Amanda of Pandagon fisks quite frequently, and (while there is a good amount of name-calling) she often does a decent job of offering counter arguments rather than saying the equivalent of "omg look at teh moran!!!111eleven also i am teh bestest evar."
Fisking IS boring, as a rule, even when done "right." The structure is what kills it: too many damn block quotes, too narrow a focus. A good blog post should read like a mini-article; a "fisking" reads like a particularly obsessive email reply.
I still think fisking sounds kind of dirty myself. I'll have to practice how to say it without blushing.
ReplyDeleteFrisking, Fisting, Fisking.
ReplyDeleteOne of these things is completely un-like the other! One of these thing just isn't the same.
I don't know... what the article you link describes sounds to me like a poor job of fisking. Amanda of Pandagon fisks quite frequently, and (while there is a good amount of name-calling) she often does a decent job of offering counter arguments rather than saying the equivalent of "omg look at teh moran!!!111eleven also i am teh bestest evar."
ReplyDeleteI also think in connection to comics, it should be "Wilson Fisking"... :>
ReplyDeleteFisking IS boring, as a rule, even when done "right." The structure is what kills it: too many damn block quotes, too narrow a focus. A good blog post should read like a mini-article; a "fisking" reads like a particularly obsessive email reply.
ReplyDeleteIt's kind of fun to be fisked but I can't see the appeal of doing the fisking.
ReplyDeleteIt seems like it'd be more fun to just open a dialogue in replies and actually talk to the person than fisk them. Just my take of course.
sounds nasty!
ReplyDelete