MetaFilter

First of all, why do people raise this concern with respect to AskMe users (and I have seen the concern expressed before), but no one ever complains about people who use MeFi more than AskMe? Is there some sort of hierarchy I'm not aware of, in which MeFi is supposed to be above AskMe?

It's overly simplistic to say "Mefi was here first!", but to a degree that's on target. The social culture of metafilter—what mefi... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 10:43 AM on July 6, 2010

People who have asked questions but never answered: 640
People who have answered questions but never asked: 6442
posted to MetaTalk by Meta Filter at 10:38 AM on July 6, 2010

I'd also like to hear about how the mods feel about AskMe-only users. Are we somehow betraying or abusing the site by not using the blue? Do you guys even care at all? Is there a certain type of AskMe-only user that you really don't care for (besides people who create trouble)?

Speaking only for myself, I'm fine with AskMe-only MeFites and in fact I rarely notice if someone is only using part of the site unless someone draws attention to it. The... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 10:02 AM on July 6, 2010

I'd also like to hear about how the mods feel about AskMe-only users. Are we somehow betraying or abusing the site by not using the blue?

Nope. If you want to use the green and that's all, more power to you.

Do you guys even care at all?

I care personally in the very narrow sense that I think folks who use all parts of the site are likely to develop a more holistic sense of how the... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 9:59 AM on July 6, 2010

Here's the interesting kind of adventure you have when you're programming: this morning I was making a slide show in Flash. When a new image displays, it slides in from the right, while the previous image slides off to the left. Or that's what is supposed to happen.

Inexplicably, the sliding would halt halfway through. It would halt so that the old slide was halfway off the screen rather than all-the-way gone. And the new slide was only halfway on the screen. To make... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by grumblebee at 2:00 PM on June 30, 2010 marked best answer

My close physical-world friends know about Metafilter in the sort of excruciating detail that you tend to know, whether you want to or not, about the bumpy relationships your friends go through—the noteworthy weirdnesses and the bad days and so on—and so I don't really need to explain it to them. And some of them are mefites at this point, too, so it's more like we both dated the same person (or I guess are simultaneously dating the same person in parallel universes?) This metaphor is getting... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 1:58 PM on June 30, 2010

I don't mean to sound all negative, because, y'know, cute kittens, but if internet use is only at 2% in Laos, I gently suggest that the likelihood of anyone seeing the Ask who would be in any position to help would be pretty slim.

And I would guess that they'd be not super concerned about looking after the poor kitteh.

I do apologise, but this is a very Westerner thing to be doing in the Third World. "Ooh, let's save... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Meatbomb at 2:01 AM on July 1, 2010

My sister used to hang out in the Craigslist forums a lot. I sort of stayed out of them and she sort of stays out of here. She would talk about the weird crazy fights people would get into. I assumed they were all happening in the politics forums and she was like "No, it's all Pet Forum (petfo) people." I did not believe her then. I believe her now.
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 7:37 PM on June 30, 2010

I think this was a great deletion. Using AskMe as a classified ad section is a bad bad idea.
posted to MetaTalk by OmieWise at 6:18 PM on June 30, 2010

I'm sad we don't allow this for some "classified ad" reason.

As usual I have a hard time telling how much people are kidding, but I have to say that running a free classified ad space has to be one of the most thankless jobs on the internet. Because as soon as you get one vivisectionist or snake dealer who realizes that people give away fluffy bunnies and kitties to just anyone, the place blows up.

That said, I do... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 6:16 PM on June 30, 2010

Would that be okay, if it's posted without further context?

Well here's my thinking. That's nice of you. But, the "Help me rehome the cat, do you know anyone?" question isn't okay. "What resources exist for rehoming a cat in Laos?" is fine but it really looks like the OP has tried that and come up with nothing. And at some level what we don't want is someone posting "What resources exist for rehoming a cat" and then... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 6:14 PM on June 30, 2010

Yeah lalex's approach is usually what we tell people who need to do something that is sort of not what AskMe is for. We see this a lot with "Help me find my dad, his name is Branford Winston and he lived in Coconut Creek Florida" with "Help me find resources to figure out how to track down a person who was last seen in Florida sixty years ago"

Basically AskMe isn't for any classified ads. We're not saying "no pet ads" we're saying "no... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 5:51 PM on June 30, 2010

For what it's worth, I agree with the deletion. AskMe, and Metafilter for that matter, isn't supposed to fill every need or be all things to all people.

You might be interested in this discussion, which your post kinda reminds me of.

On preview: that sounds like a good idea, lalex.
posted to MetaTalk by box at 5:46 PM on June 30, 2010

I've seen more than one travel question asking something like "What are some destinations I can fly to cheaply?"

It's not just that the asker fails to mention they're in the US. It's worse than that. The US is huge and by not even mentioning where in the US they are, they are guaranteed not to get good advice. (Heck, I recall seeing one instance of this question with the OP following up and telling people they are in the UK.)

I've also... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by vacapinta at 8:27 AM on June 29, 2010

> As for jessamyn's spectacularly stupid suggestion

Don't be an asshole.
posted to MetaTalk by languagehat at 5:48 AM on June 29, 2010

it can be a good for a community to reward good behaviour

I like that MetaFilter depends on the inherent rewards of good behavior rather than on a "gold star" approach. Sure, I feel sort of rewarded when people give a 'best answer' or a favorite to my comments, which is pleasant, but it's also inconsistent enough that I don't ascribe a lot of power or meaning to it, which keeps us all sane. These are very casual and somewhat arbitrary... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Miko at 9:32 AM on June 28, 2010

Not only is this a terrible idea, but the whole "best answer" thing is (as I have repeatedly pointed out) so random as to be useless as a metric. I recently provided a hard-to-find answer to a difficult question; the asker thanked me... and awarded himself the "best answer." Askers very frequently don't bother to choose a best answer, and they pretty often choose them in a way that makes little sense to the outside observer. All of which is fine as... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by languagehat at 8:45 AM on June 28, 2010

I idly wondered about this too.

My conclusion: it would reduce some signal to noise ratio among people who cared religiously about favorites, but it would also reduce the experience of contributing to Metafilter to a popularity contest at the expense of just.. contributing.

Or to put it another way: if every conversation had to have a killer punchline or an awesome fact or an amazing insight it wouldn't necessarily be any better than just talking.
posted to MetaTalk by MuffinMan at 7:52 AM on June 28, 2010

But good on ye!
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 7:51 AM on June 28, 2010

Yeah, no.
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 7:51 AM on June 28, 2010

I'm sure someone could write you a Greasemonkey script or something to add this to your own personal view of the site, but there is absolutely no-how no-way zero chance that we will implement this on Metafilter itself.
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 7:51 AM on June 28, 2010

Oh yeah and just to be crystal clear: we are 100% okay with people closing up and old account and opening a new one. We just won't change the name on an account from something to something else unless you've basically never used it or are on the run from the mob.
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 7:28 PM on June 27, 2010

I think cortex was saying the gaslighting would be happening if we just changed the username so that all posts by cmoj were now attributed to mofofojohnsonbone esq. or something. Our basic feeling is we'll let you use whatever crazy account name you want, but we expect that except for the occasional joke, you'll have one primary account here and that will link to one person [though we occasionally see husband/wife teams who will share an account]

We've seen some people... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 7:25 PM on June 27, 2010

Like real life, you're stuck with your name on Metafilter and you have to learn to live with it, be that or good or ill.

If you buy a new account and leave a very clear "hey, this is who I used to be / this is who I am now" pair of messages on the old and new profile pages, you're no worse off for recognizability, and you don't gaslight several tens of thousands of other people in the process.

This gets into an... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Brandon Blatcher at 7:09 PM on June 27, 2010

I'd want my posting history, etc. to be associated with my new account and some new guy with no posting history is not cmoj, even if I make a note of it in new guy's profile.

There's the rub, though: some new name isn't "cmoj", and everybody who recognizes you right now would suddenly have no idea who this new person is. It's of its own right a big disruption of continuity of identity.

If you buy a new account and... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 6:52 PM on June 27, 2010

bloody_bonnie, I'll follow up with you via mefimail. I think the important general points have been covered here, and some of the reaction this has gotten gives a pretty clear picture of how averse the community in general is to stuff that crosses, however innocently-intentioned, the general self-promotional (or friend- or associate- or mom-promotional) line; Metatalk in particular is a bumpy place where folks tend to be kind of strident (sometimes maybe overly so) when they see someone... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 12:45 PM on June 27, 2010

but I can't believe you seriously think that telling someone to stop reading the site for a huge portion of the day is more reasonable than people voluntarily (not as official moderator policy) putting the details about their ejaculation after, rather than in, the front-page intro paragraph.

Depends on what you mean by "more reasonable", though.

Is the request reasonable? On a "it's not asking much" sense,... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 9:22 AM on June 27, 2010

Alvy Ampersand: Stop reading MeFi at work.

Jaltcoh: Seems a bit drastic.

Not really. In the previous thread you linked, Jaltcoh, cortex linked this:

- Metafilter is not "safe for work", in the broad sense of the term. Much of the content is, but not all of it.
- Some of the content broadly understood to be not safe for work gets labeled with NSFW as a courtesy. Usually by... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by mediareport at 8:49 AM on June 27, 2010

So you're not being unreasonable, you feel what you feel, but this is not something we're likely to change.

Yeah, what she said. I hear where you're coming from I guess, but where you're coming from is a little at odds with our expectations of what folks will post on the site. Explicit discussion of sexual stuff (among other things) will happens sometimes, and it's not against the rules.
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 8:26 AM on June 27, 2010

We saw it and it's okay as far as I'm concerned.

Generally speaking NSFW is used on MetaFilter to indicate porn, nakedness or sound that may be startling/loud/inappropriate. It's not used for text-based stuff though many people use it themselves in AskMe for that for whatever reason. All those words are normal words used to talk about sex and sexual function there's no reason to hide them inside the post as they're all pretty central to the OPs problem.... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 7:52 AM on June 27, 2010

I can't believe you seriously think that telling someone to stop reading the site for a huge portion of the day is more reasonable than people voluntarily (not as official moderator policy) putting the details about their ejaculation after, rather than in, the front-page intro paragraph.

I don't mean to be a pain here, but I see this as an odd American problem where we've somehow gotten used to the idea in our country that people talking about sex,... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 9:45 AM on June 27, 2010

That aside, is there some reason individual users just couldn't put a statement in their bios?

There is no reason they couldn't, and this in my opinion is the way to go.

I don't think your customizable-license idea is a bad one in abstract, stbalbach—like you say, there are sites that do this—but I don't think it's worth doing on Metafilter for a few reasons:

- Folks' content is not clearly... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 9:15 AM on June 26, 2010

It would be great to see MeFi supporting Creative Commons and the free culture movement.

I'm a free culture dork. That said, I think it makes more sense for this to be something that people individually choose to do if they want to, not the default setting on the site. I like CC stuff generally and didn't mathowie work there when it was just starting up, back in the Lessig days? Pretty sure he did. That said, it's tough to explain CC licensing to... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 7:30 AM on June 26, 2010

You've got a few things that need dealing with, i think. Your own bad feelings, the feelings of the community generally, and your concern and/or prearation for what might be coming.

First of all, I'm sorry, that sort of thing is never easy. It's harder if someone's making a huge fuss about it, and harder still if it's a weird borderline problem [i.e. not an obvious "you got us in trouble wth the police" sort of thing]. I often talk this sort of stuff out with my... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by jessamyn at 4:32 PM on June 25, 2010 marked best answer

Why are the guidelines different from MetaFilter (where you have to comment a certain number of times before you post)?

With askme, the most important thing to us is to avoid noisy comments. Compelling someone to provide several answers before they can ask their first question would likely just prompt extra noise because folks would skim for questions they know some superficial stuff about and toss in chaff to fulfill the requirement.... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 11:07 AM on June 25, 2010

We thought about this a lot and felt that requiring some sort of participation level would lead to more throwaway comments which would add to the overall noise of the place. I also find it frustrating when there are people who seem to use AskMe as a question-asking service and don't pitch in to answer questions but I find them to be in a small minority. Also there are some people, again a small minority, who have a sock puppet account for asking questions they don't want associated with their... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 11:04 AM on June 25, 2010

I guess I felt that the thread could have been scrubbed of the offending comments

Agreed. This was a conscious decision we made to close the thread instead of babysit it all evening. And we made that decision, together, because we feel that these types of threads are not central to what we see as MetaFilter's purpose, they're predictable and tiresome, and that there are many other places on the web to go if all you want to do is holler at each other... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 3:44 PM on June 25, 2010

I mean, Matt pretty clearly stated what his policy is, which I guess is what I was asking for. Still, I hope you (the mods) see where having y'all define what is a "small thing" versus "major news" can at least be a little problematic.

It's fuzzy, there are grey areas. We do our best to navigate those as we can based on the context (has there been a lot of posts in this territory lately, is this topic extra contentious, are the... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 3:31 PM on June 25, 2010

I do think unless we very clearly set the definitions for these posts

We have a pretty clear oft-stated definition: there is a very high bar for I/P posts, if you are making one, it needs to be on something that will interest the entire community and crafted carefully.

I very specifically ran this thread past mathowie before I did anything about it. This was a post by someone who has been dragged into MeTa for being fighty on... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 2:36 PM on June 25, 2010

I don't have to do nearly the amount of I/P thread clean-up that cortex and jessamyn do but I'll be bold and say that yes, I get tired of moderating I/P threads. Also, MetaFilter is about sharing interesting links to amazing stories and/or websites and so much of the I/P subject matter that gets posted here is basically trying to turn MetaFilter into the DailyKos. This isn't a daily-news-about-Israel-and-Palenstine site, it's MetaFilter.

There won't be an outright ban... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by mathowie at 2:31 PM on June 25, 2010

And cortex says it Meh-Furl.
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 3:23 PM on June 24, 2010

Mee Feye Ar Ell.
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 3:23 PM on June 24, 2010

In Real Life. An old abbreviation from the world of chat, like a/s/l and LOL
posted to MetaTalk by mathowie at 3:13 PM on June 24, 2010

First there was the era when you couldn't sign up because everything was broken after the slashdotting (which was when I heard about it). I couldn't be bothered to keep checking back to see if it was working yet.

Then there was this crazy madcap crush at noon every second Tuesday (or something) when the first 20 people to click the link could sign up. I worked nights at the time, and I couldn't be bothered to wake up in the middle of my sleep cycle just for a stupid... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by ErikaB at 10:07 PM on June 21, 2010

2002/01/08: Matt calls out double callouts and includes a taut little howto "for fuckwits". Heh.

And here's a handful of Metatalk threads about doubles, from early 2001:

2001/01/27: Disagreements about reactions to doubles and followups

2001/03/05: On double post rubbernecking

2001/04/03: Bad day for double posts

2001/06/22: Proposing a statute of limitations on... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 9:50 PM on June 21, 2010

And let's not forget DoublePostGuy, whose posting history seems to run a nice chronological line to the evolution of the double post taboo above.
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 9:39 PM on June 21, 2010

On double deletion, here's a quick partial survey of comments from Matt re: double posts, over the period of 2000 and 2001. I just searched his activity for the word "double", so this isn't exhaustive.

2000/01/28: Matt shrugs off and comments in a double post

2000/04/15: Matt deletes a double for apparent stuntiness. Not clear whether it would have been deleted if it wasn't stunty. This is presumably that double, but back in the day... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 9:36 PM on June 21, 2010

All the cool kids were at Memepool.

RIP
posted to MetaTalk by msittig at 5:59 PM on June 21, 2010

Yeah, cortex, you're right. When I said that no messages got deleted, I was undoubtedly looking back through rosy glasses. Messages did get deleted, though surely not with the frequency they do now. While arguably most of the deletions now are doubles (did Matt delete doubles back in the day, or did we just carry on?), hardly a day goes by without something getting deleted somewhere on the site.

And it's completely understandable. in 2001, Matt had his hands full just... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by crunchland at 5:51 PM on June 21, 2010

Guess this ties into the moderation thing mentioned above, but the let's have a callout because someone is meany-mean and/or said "cockroach", "gun", or "there is no God" thing was once blissfully unknown around here.

I just picked January 2001 out of a hat and found these on a quick skim:

- complaint about US-centricism on mefi
- argument about deleting a post because of the sensitive topic
-... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 5:15 PM on June 21, 2010