april showers
and the potential for flowers
Today* I’m working on some garden “design” stuff and trying to learn about soil for raised vegetable beds, and gosh, Toni, reasonable question you have here**:
What… the heck is going on with these responses?
like who are these homedepot.com review clout-chasers?? We’ve got a double-whammy of scorn here: “this is basic science but I guess common sense isn’t so common, rube” and also “I don’t know anything about basic science but let me tell you this anecdote about my entire life to refute the validity of your question, you [implied] elitest monster”.
I’m not shocked that people are rude on the internet (or anywhere). But this is like a mind-blowing level of vitriol to direct at a question on a product page about a very specific type of… garden soil. Enthusiasts of which I wouldn’t expect to spend a lot of time in forum flamewars? (I’m wrong a lot, though.)
….oh… Is this where I find out these responses (and maybe even the question, too) are actually from bots run by some competing organic soil brand, strategically unleashed on the hd.com review comments section?? Probably.
I used to have a tumblr of truly bizarre, meanderingly/uncomfortably personal, or otherwise notable product reviews I found when just trying to like, use the internet to buy things. I stopped screenshotting and collecting them because… well, mostly because I kind of think at this point that user-generated comment/reply content was a huge mistake (reminder: never read the comments), and dunk culture is awful. Home Depot, and all other e-commerce with this non-expert Q&A stuff: hopefully your moderation team has raised to you that this kind of material on your product pages can’t actually be helping… conversions? Truly I have no idea the benefit here, aside from adding recency material for your SEO strategy.
Anyway happy spring! It snowed here Friday; things are looking up. Here are some things to peruse:
just watch this? (yes, it’s a storefront promo video.) I need a live-edge slab of something, immediately?
frivolous, yes, but wow do I miss hotels
I’m not saying you need this but maybe you do?
one of my personal passions is GQ profiles of Justin Bieber. (this is the latest; this is the best). they’re all like “the redemption of Bieber” “the resurrection of Bieber” “the reincarnation of Bieber” “the rapture of Bieber”. I hope that the weird biblical flourishes are suggested by Bieber himself (“the requisitions of Bieber”?) anyway these profiles are a religious experience.
ahhhhhh I love this. people are so creative***
As I write, I notice peculiarities in my sentences: they are circular, they get distracted, they repeat similar phrases. I’m unsure if GPT-3 is picking up on my style or if my writing is adopting the quirks of the model. I'm unsure if GPT-3 is really leading me down its tunneled tropes or if I've also been trained on the same inputs.
same, author and/or robot. same.
the only email that would ever have found me well
* actually a few weeks ago. since then, things have continued as they do
** Toni, thank you. Thank you for outlining the previous research you did, both to try and understand if you had made a purchasing mistake of your own, and also to let the question-answering audience know that you tried to do your research on your own and aren’t simply offloading your research responsibility to them. Truly a lesson in approaching and illustrating problem-solving, and I wish that I had a response for you on this quandary.
*** as always, please be kind, robots; I’m a fan