MeTa post: Performance art?

As you said in Poster #2's thread, this all does feel pretty darned icky. But if there is performance art going on, it feels to me like it's crafted by each of them to be directed at the other, saying things they can't quite say directly, or else leveraging whatever "oomph" they can through stating their side publicly and getting sympathy in some public forum - "Of course I'd never say so to your face but, well, I am... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by zeph at 9:06 PM on May 1, 2008

MeTa post: Making questions clearer

Another vote for adding more paragraph breaks and 'chunking' your info into more manageable bits (and I say this as someone who has a HECK of a time not spewing forth huge blobs of words every time I try to ask or answer a question ... eh, as this answer probably demonstrates =P ). Make sure to put the most critical factors up near the very front of the question, too - don't let them get buried beneath details that are merely "nice to know," or else the folks who start formulating... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by zeph at 11:05 AM on April 23, 2008

MeTa post: "Harmful" Flag

We used to put that on cuts to watch 'em bubble. Are you not supposed to do that anymore either?

Don't worry, you're still free to use it to clean out your belly button (bonus points for achieving 'science fair baking soda volcano' effect) ...
posted to MetaTalk by zeph at 6:04 PM on April 22, 2008

MeTa post: But it was funny!

If you really think people's requests for help/advice/other perspectives ought to be an opportunity for you to showcase your "wit" (and come on, not to beat a dead horse here but is it really "wit" to parrot back the same lame joke that's been used HOW many times here already? Really? Do you honestly believe the rest of us incapable of noting a username irony if you don't shine a light on the situation with your blazing beacons of Hilarity and Insightfulness?), then perhaps... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by zeph at 2:46 AM on April 19, 2008

Certainly didn't mean to offend you, taz. And in reviewing my comment, I realize I should have found a better way of putting it if I was going to post at all - at the very least, I didn't necessarily mean "you" as in "this particular user who's asked this question" so much as the more generic you, but in retrospect it did come off rather attacky as it was. As languagehat suggested, it was definitely more a matter of (perhaps unwarranted) venting over particular issues than... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by zeph at 7:08 AM on April 19, 2008

No worries, taz, I appreciate the poke - I'd far rather be called on it when I'm being unnecessarily hostile, than to just leave the ugly comment to stand without me stopping to realize just how disproportionate it was.

Now, about that ringdance ...
posted to MetaTalk by zeph at 7:59 AM on April 19, 2008

If only we had some term to describe the tendency of MeFites to overthink stuff.

I thought that's what "MeFite" meant in the first place - "overthinking MeFite" has got to be a tautology, doesn't it?
posted to MetaTalk by zeph at 10:16 AM on April 19, 2008

MeTa post: I've got a bunch of good mixes just waiting to be made.

Hmm, what with last year's page being down, and nothing (that I could find, at least) out on the wiki to explain what this is, I'd say I'm tentatively in - I mean, in reading through this thread and the one from last year I gather that the idea is to make a mix CD and send out copies to (5?) people who will in turn send you CDs - which sounds like a really neat thing to do - but is there anything more I ought to know before I go tossing my hat in? I really like... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by zeph at 5:57 PM on April 14, 2008

MeTa post: AskMe homework help

Not sure what the answer to this is, but as a practice that really IS shitty and annoying: yeah, I agree with you. It would disappoint me deeply to find one of my students doing this (okay, I'm sure they ARE doing it but so long as I don't see it I can at least pretend otherwise and try to encourage them not to) ... again, I'm really not sure this is anything that an officially-enforced policy can DO anything about - the best policy WOULD be more universal acceptance of that "don't feed... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by zeph at 5:56 PM on March 15, 2008

MeTa post: Double bad.

I really resent that "fucking VULTURES" snipe, man-bird-love can be a beautiful thing and I'm sick of you aviphobic bigots implying otherwise ...
posted to MetaTalk by zeph at 4:04 AM on March 15, 2008

MeTa post: Response to a point about the best way to answer an AskMe.

For what it's worth, as a MetaTalk lurker and AskMe question-asker, I had noticed XMLicious' answer in that thread and had mentally placed it into that borderline realm of responses that exist between vaguely annoying and completely forgivable in that "probably pointless but if it has to be uninformed at least that's acknowledged" category ... had that been the end of the story I probably would have thought no more of it, there are plenty of AskMe answers like that... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by zeph at 10:19 PM on March 7, 2008

MeTa post: readMe

Wow, that's "weep helplessly at the overawing glory and my own comparative weeniness"-grade marvelous. There goes an entire folder worth of bookmarks I'd been keeping track of - quite brilliant, what a great idea!
posted to MetaTalk by zeph at 8:51 PM on December 8, 2007

now let us know when you have the links to each of our local public library collections for each book. kthx?

Wait, what? We have to go out to the library/bookstore to get these things? I thought all of the books were going to be scanned and uploaded to readMe - we don't get OUT, that was the whole reason this sucker was possible in the first place, why on earth would we want to start going out now?

Ripoff!... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by zeph at 11:36 PM on December 8, 2007