For those of you that enjoyed the site, you might enjoy this one as well. It was the first thing I thought of when reading the description of the McMansion Hell website:
http://blog.buildllc.com/2010/04/couch-cushion-architecture-...
Zillow forces McMansion Hell to delete posts
231–240 of 388 posts
Re: Zillow forces McMansion Hell to delete posts
#232I don't know the full context of what is going on legally, but I do know that being threatened is not the same thing as getting sued. And getting sued is not the same thing as them having a case. And them having a case is not the same thing as you not having a defense.
Lawyers exist for a reason. Don't let other lawyers bully you with threats. Get your own lawyer to look into things. Back down if it makes sense. Sometimes it does. But don't back down just because you get threatened.
Re: Zillow forces McMansion Hell to delete posts
#233I totally understand the whole "McMansions are bad architecture" thing... However, something about it really bothers me. There was an episode of 99% Invisible where the guest was talking about their McMansions blog and how it makes fun of these Horrid dwellings. The whole thing stank of classist elitism. The Wrong Type of people were getting the chance to design and build large houses, and of course they're applying…
I grew up in Northern Virginia among these McMansions, and frankly I don't buy the elitism angle. These folks have a lot of money (top 5% at least, if not even top 1%) and are among the best educated in the country. And these aren't dwellings driven by the need for functionality. It's not like people here have big families they need to house (empty nesters can afford them more readily than people with families!). The…
this right on point, IMO
Re: Zillow forces McMansion Hell to delete posts
#234I don't know the full context of what is going on legally, but I do know that being threatened is not the same thing as getting sued. And getting sued is not the same thing as them having a case. And them having a case is not the same thing as you not having a defense. Lawyers exist for a reason. Don't let other lawyers bully you with threats. Get your own lawyer to look into things. Back down if it makes sense. Some…
Do you also know that even talking to a lawyer when threatened costs money? And that Zillow is likely to have way more money to spend on lawyers than a blog?
Re: Zillow forces McMansion Hell to delete posts
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
Never heard of this before, thanks for sharing!
More importantly, Redfin's data is actually current. I'm trying to buy property. Back when I was using Zillow, I missed out on a couple because literally the day I found out about them was the closing day of offers. WTF? Redfin updates much faster. I still get emails from Zillow, often with listing changes that Redfin emailed me several weeks prior. Oh, and don't get me started on Zillow's incredibly shitty data. The…
This will vary by state, but in MN a realtor can setup an email notification that will send you a message as soon as a property matching your criteria is listed. So I get the Redfin notifications, but I've typically already known about the property for 6-12 hours.
Re: Zillow forces McMansion Hell to delete posts
#236I would expect nothing short of this from Zillow. I'm also not really certain that Zillow has the copyright: those are usually property of the RETS/MLS of that specific area, if not the agent taking the pictures.
I came here to ask this question. I've never seen a Zillow ad that wasn't just a copy of the MLS listing (usually a month out-of-date, at that). The same pictures show up on realtor.com, redfin.com, and about 50 other sites. If you can get the byte-for-byte identical image from a different website, how does Zillow exercise any control here? If she just stops using Zillow, isn't she protected?
Zillow and other Real Estate sites have the same problem: Syncing Real Estate data is hard due to fragmentation (each area has its own MLS with its own rules), clashing data standards, and legal requirements (For example, I believe that Louisiana has a law that requires Realtors use the phrase, "A Licensed Louisiana Realtor" under their name in all marketing materials.) If you're displaying that data, the onus is on you to ensure that you are showing the correct data.
You'd have some MLS'es that required their logo to be on the bottom right, some that required them to be on the bottom left, and 95% of the time, your data feed didn't even contain the logos: you'd have to double check and make sure that you were in compliance (and they did check and would cut you off if you were not in check).
But, to answer your question: There's nothing that prevents her from going straight to the MLS or the listing agent's website to grab her source photos: zillow would have no claim at this point in time.
Re: Zillow forces McMansion Hell to delete posts
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't see any pretence, I really don't.
You don't see any pretentiousness in driving around judging a bunch of people on their houses and just ragging on how terrible they are? Really? You might want to look harder.
It'd be pretentious to just arbitrarily say "Those houses are ugly". But she says "Those houses are ugly, and this is why". While I don't agree with her opinion on all the houses she features, but the vast majority -- yeah, they're pretty bad, and for the reasons she states.
* Odd proportions and asymmetry. * Strange roof lines (the "nub" - it's like a Mansard that didn't know when to stop). * Bizarre bump-outs, because the exterior was wrapped around an interior designed to have crazily large rooms. * Columns that hold up nothing. * And my personal favorite - shutters that don't have a prayer of covering the window when closed. Except they can't close, because they're glued and/or screwed to the wall and have no hinges.
Re: Zillow forces McMansion Hell to delete posts
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe it will just take time for some of these design choices to be appreciated? Is a fake column on a house any different than fins on a 1959 Cadillac?
It's a good question. I'm not well-versed enough in design theory to answer, but I'll offer my opinion anyway. :-) The fins on a 1959 Cadillac are well-integrated (design-wise) on the car. It's a theme of the era and the car was designed from the ground up to look like a jet or a rocket. The design elements in a McMansion are not well integrated (see the posts on the site) - they are added on as an afterthought becau…
It doesn't appear that Antoni Gaudí had anything to do with the etymology of the term "gaudy" as it was in use hundreds of years before he was born.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gaudy https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gaudy
I couldn't help looking it up because the idea that a single artist could stand out so much to be singularly associated with that term was tempting. I expect that is why such a false association persists.
Re: Zillow forces McMansion Hell to delete posts
#239I totally understand the whole "McMansions are bad architecture" thing... However, something about it really bothers me. There was an episode of 99% Invisible where the guest was talking about their McMansions blog and how it makes fun of these Horrid dwellings. The whole thing stank of classist elitism. The Wrong Type of people were getting the chance to design and build large houses, and of course they're applying…
The only relevant question is: do the people living in these houses enjoy them? Because if they do, then who cares?
I look at some of the houses on the blog and think they're really pretty. Sorry I don't have the correct sort of taste in windows or whatever. Maybe it's because I'm one of those dumb idiots that grew up in a flyover state (Iowa).
This house: http://99percentinvisible.org/app/uploads/2016/10/12-hate-pe...
Looks really pretty to me. What seriously is the problem here?
Re: Zillow forces McMansion Hell to delete posts
#240Earlier quoted context omitted.
All the more reason the blog is so useful. I'd hate to think with all the modern technology around us that the house I live in 'just doesn't feel right' because it was not built employing the past dozen millennia-worth of architectural knowledge at our social disposal. Just because I am not an architect doesn't mean I want to be swindled into an unknowingly unpleasant home. Just because I'm not an architect of CPUs d…
> Why is this so different Benchmarks are at least attempting to be objective. Also, there's a difference between mocking a company's product and mocking a house that is 1) an individual's home 2) their largest investment and 3) is likely, these days, to represent a significant financial liability. I don't like McMansions much myself, but I can absolutely sympathize with people that want an affordable way to get more…
> an affordable way to get more space for their family
Did you see the asking prices before the content was taken down? I don't remember any of the houses being affordable in any regard
> vortex of debt
It takes a special person to sympathize with someone living so far beyond their means that they take a $1 million (my average price estimate from the website) mortgage that they can't actually afford