Independent of History
The Independent, being a clever newspaper for intelligent, liberal, thinking people – the kind who check things out before reacting – has a section on it’s website recommending the ‘most viewed’, ‘most shared’, and ‘most commented’ articles.
Just like sensible blogs, in fact – you increase readership by making it easier for your readers to find interesting articles.
Good thinking, Batman.
However, on Saturday night (I spotted it at about 10pm) the Independent website was recommending a selection of articles published from roughly 1995 to 2000.
Bad thinking, Robin.
Nearly a day later the Indy is still recommending must-read stories from 15 years ago, and it is self-reinforcing because everyone reads the recommended stories. And round it goes.
- Independent Most Viewed Articles
- Legs Eleven
Respectively, these stories are from Wednesday 20 September 1995, Thursday 23 February 1995, Wednesday 26 May 1999, Monday 07 November 2011 (and I thought Ozzy Osbourne was dead), and Friday 30 April 2010 (right).
The Indy readers are the best, though.
Between them those top 3 stories and a couple of others about education – “Education: Degrees that almost guarantee jobs” (from 1997) and “Why I wish I’d dropped out of university” (from October 2000) have received almost 2500 recommendations on Facebook and hundreds of Tweets.
That will surely help all those jobless Occupy LSX protesters looking for opportunities.
Those clever Independent readers are engaging in highly erudite and well-informed debate about such questions as whether the chappie who was refused entry to medical school in 1997 after conning his way through sixth form at the age of about 30, has been discriminated against under Equal Rights legislation brought in more than a decade level:
Depending on how the statement was made, Dundee University Medical School may have laid itself open to an action against it for age discrimination, unless Scottish law differs in this sphere. Any clarification from someone conversant with a the law in Scotland?
Facebook, Twitter Recommendations
Under the piece about sex discrimination at the London Club:
Oxford and Cambridge universities may resort to the courts in an attempt to strip an historic London club of its name and coat of arms if it continues to refuse full membership to women.
there’s an entire debate in the last day that hasn’t noticed it fully integrated in 1996:
Next we shall have an elderly Moslem imam suing the Young Womens’ Christian Association for discrimination on the basis of age, gender, and religion.
Oh, stop being so precious. Good grief, you should ignore the fatuous nonsense about your names being affected by the right the club implements in its relationship to the status of females within it. You are merely adding more power to the left wing mantras of “equality and diversity” and the obsessives that inhabit politically correct land.
Bunkum.!
Brilliant stuff!
There are also plenty of people pointing out how silly it all is, though:
WTF Indy — did someone get into the airplane glue and get a head full again? This article is 17 years old you failed breeding experiments!
What happened, and is still happening?
My theory is that it was Simon Kelner, the Indy Editor-in-Chief who has just been kicked upstairs, having made a dog’s breakfast of developing Johann Hari into a journalist with a shred of reliability or competence.
I wonder if they have discovered he is no good at running the company either, and have put him in charge of the website.
Perhaps somebody should get Andreas Whittam-Smith to do an investigation and write a secret report.
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1
November 13, 2011 at 16:15 -
What is slightly heartening is that none of the “most viewed” articles are Johann Hari columns. You’ve got to give Indie readers at least credit for that much.
Personally I quite like it when the link to the “Funniest Football Chants” reappears every couple of months.
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2
November 13, 2011 at 19:23 -
I just say something witty but I’m going to be a computer geek. I suspect it is not the Indy at fault. Weird things have been happening at a few places, at gather.com people have been complaining posts they put online two or three years ago are popping up on recent activity lists.
Gather use a WordPress blog engine and I suspect the Indy do too. -
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November 13, 2011 at 19:43 -
This happens at the Beeb occasionally too. Click on a link and you find yourself back in 2003.
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5
November 14, 2011 at 12:42 -
The Indy website regularly goes AWOL……… it adds a frisson of unpredictability to my bookmark list
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November 14, 2011 at 16:40 -
I don’t think it is an accident but rather as a result of google. People are looking at a subject and now that the Times is behind a paywall, the Independent often seems to be returned by the searches.
The London clubs story is relevant because several gay hotels – such as Key West in Torquay – are defining themselves as private clubs (like the Garrick) in order to continue to discriminate on grounds of gender, sexual orientation and marital/civil partnership status.
The result of the Christian guest house case was clear: they must treat married and couples in civil partnerships the same. Last week the Mr and Mrs Bull appealed against the ruling.
So far there is no judgment – presumably it will be handed down at a later date.
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