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MetaTalk post: Enough, already
Can't you just send her a note, and if that fails, ban her?

Not really. I mean a callout that is like "you suck I hate you" is one thing, but something that is like "the way you are interacting here is bad for the community" is another. It's sort of important that people who are problematic users here realize that they're problematic to lots of people and not just me or cortex. This is sort of a big deal here because problem users... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 12:29 PM on August 7, 2009
MetaTalk post: The Filter. Or maybe just The Ter.
Go home, Dad, you're drunk.
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 12:08 PM on August 4, 2009
MeFi post: Can the New York Times and Washington Post survive on a pay-wall business model if they do it together?
Obviously the solution is to crossbreed Hunter Thompson and Warren Ellis; I seem to recall that producing some high-quality journalism.
posted to MetaFilter by Pope Guilty at 5:45 AM on July 25, 2009
MetaTalk post: You're no FUN!
leotrotsky: "Jessamyn, if we'd applied that rubric for deletion in the past, we'd be without such gems as this Best of Metafilter answer."

DU: "My first post to MeTa was complaining about an AskMe that wanted help in breaking the law. At the time, jessamyn was OK with it. Huh."

Two things that might help you guys get through life (or at least AskMe):
1) Community norms are... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Plutor at 6:45 AM on July 24, 2009
MetaTalk post: Asking for a friend!
This may be a well meaning idea, but MeTa isn't really for "poll the audience" sorts of things. If peopel want to get ahold of you and chat about prison, they are more than welcome to but I think the thread is just going to go lulzy out of the gate.
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 2:08 PM on July 22, 2009
MetaTalk post: Deleted Posts Accessible to the User?
Saving the mail is our way of giving you a record of what you've posted and likely as far we're going to go in that direction.
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 11:56 PM on July 18, 2009
MetaTalk post: MetaMetaMetaMetaTalk
Back when we did that podcast I really had to sort of bottle up a desire to grab Jeff and Joel through the internet and shout NO, REALLY, YOU NEED TO SET UP A META SECTION OR YOU WILL DIIIIEEEEEE during the conversation; I think I feel as strongly about its necessity as Jeff did about not wanting to go there.

I'm glad they went ahead and did it—I don't think it'd be impossible to continue managing Stack Overflow and its newer sibling with third-party... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 11:55 AM on July 17, 2009
MetaTalk post: Should the profiles of deceased MeFites be preserved?
Aw shucks misha.... thanks!

Brandon Blatcher's line about his epitaph was the inspiration. He'd put "This account has been closed" on his tombstone and then all the mefites would stop by his grave and take pictures of it for their twitter feeds and it'd be weird and sad and kind of cool... and ultimately a great memorial. Epitaphs are how we declare allegiances: you tell people where you think you're headed or what you'll miss. An injokey metafilter epitaph... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by anotherpanacea at 3:40 AM on July 17, 2009
MetaTalk post: Get Your Own Blog. Well, Perhaps I May...
Yeah, that's fine, they're your words. Reprinting other folks' comments in context, in moderation and with attribution, is pretty much unimpeachable as well.

Really the only problems I can recall us having as far as mefi/YOFB interactions (and these are all pretty rare at that) are:

1. People copying mefi content wholesale or without attribution or both,
2. People being specifically abusive or stalkery about mefi... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 9:27 AM on July 15, 2009
MetaTalk post: Though now they are giants, once they were just like us.
I was mostly referencing their work in MetaTalk before they became mods. From some time in 2000 through 2004, Jessamyn would periodically pop in here to steer people the right way and she did it way better than I did. Ditto to cortex through 2005 and 2006 before he came on board -- you can often see him pop in and re-explain stuff better that I was trying to explain to a user with such regularity I pretty much had to hire him to help out.
posted to MetaTalk by mathowie at 10:21 AM on July 15, 2009
MetaTalk post: How to scan a cat and other subjects
Wow. That was fast.

So yeah, that's me who wrote it. I've been writing about the web for the Globe for a good four years now, and I couldn't put a number on how many ideas have come from MeFi, except to say 'many'. I figured this was a good opportunity to give the site some well-deserved spotlight.

Thanks all for the kind words. And thanks to mathowie and cortex for being so generous with their time! I really do find MeFi to be something of an... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by bicyclefish at 12:20 PM on July 9, 2009
MetaTalk post: Sometimes we need to know 'neigh'...
if your wish to respond with sarcasm was because I irritated you with my question, I sincerely apologise. The site management does an excellent job, for reals.

I think the bigger issue is it's just been a slightly crazy weekend what with all the Sarah Palin stuff going on and us all trying to have decent holidays. We're not really looking, at this point, to having volunteer moderators for a whole heap of reasons. It would be a whole new way to run... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 1:05 PM on July 5, 2009
maybe it's time for some volunteer admins

I was going to post a sarcastic bit about how a dozen other voices as admins would lead to even worse problems, but I'll just say this could turn into a management nightmare very quickly.
posted to MetaTalk by mathowie at 12:49 PM on July 5, 2009
Emailing the admins usually results in an explanation email within minutes.

As always, we'll have to point to the potential workload of not only having to prepare balanced explanations that won't hurt any feelings, we'd also be opening up dozens of new email threads for the mods every week. In our experience looking at just deleted questions and mefi threads, about a quarter of them end up in our inbox, asking for explanations beyond the stated reason, which turn into... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by mathowie at 12:17 PM on July 5, 2009
MetaTalk post: Elevating the level of discourse
Why are comments like this and this not deemed totally unacceptable?

They're not really.

It was a late-Friday fast moving thread on a holiday weekend. I've had it with the bitch/cunt lazy insults and tkchrist's performance art ranting personally. But, I wasn't around and cortex is painting his new house and was out late at karaoke last night and I'm going to go walk on the beach and then go read the Palin thread.... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 6:47 AM on July 4, 2009
Why are comments like this and this not deemed totally unacceptable?

There's a small upside to the term 'not being deemed totally unacceptable'. If you don't like the word, make note of who flings it around willy-nilly. Then you'll know who doesn't think very much before mouthing off. You can use that bit of information as you will.

Another example. I find it useful that it's not totally unacceptable to speak of "MF's... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by CKmtl at 6:56 PM on July 3, 2009
MetaTalk post: No other information
I think that post was pretty thin, and just deleted it; it's been up for just about exactly as long as I was outside washing doing the north side of my house, so the main phenomenon here is that DIY housepainting has a deleterious effect on admin response time.
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 12:28 PM on June 29, 2009
MetaTalk post: Ruth Madoff's glasses
Your two comments in that thread were this:

maybe they were forged by the devil when she made her pact with hell

and then, after I had removed it and a couple other non-answers, this:

My earlier response, which was removed, was NOT intended as comedy -
it was intended to highlight the insensitivity of this question.

Those people that destroyed your friends,
... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 2:54 PM on June 29, 2009
How should I have registered my disgust with question, if not leaving an answer?

This is decent, for starters.

I'm not sure why you think "help me find these glasses" is not an okay question for AskMe. Since it is an okay question, then it means the usual rules apply. Responses must answer the question. I'm not saying that you shouldn't be offended, clearly you have strong feelings about this, but that doesn't mean... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 2:54 PM on June 29, 2009
MetaTalk post: Add a tag? Don't mind if I do!
Users who are mutual contacts have the ability to add tags to one another's posts; you and Marisa each contact the other, so, bam!

The general thinking is that at that point there's some implicit established trust that would prevent random asshat driveby vandalism, basically. Use your powers only for good!
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 9:27 PM on June 28, 2009
MeFi post: Geek feminism
I mean this more as an honest musing than as a bulwark of excuse. I guess there are gradations and in contexts where women are the minority it's more important to be more careful?

Yeah there's a real strange place here for a lot of people I think. Part of this has to do with what I personally perceive as stereotyping [i.e. women don't like the swearing, don't swear around women!] and how that affects the shift from a previously-all-male environment... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by jessamyn at 1:21 PM on June 27, 2009
MetaTalk post: Flags with weight
cortex pretty much said what I was going to say. We usually check the "top ten" list of what's been flagged which doesn't have usernames attached. It's a rare day where I'll look at the "last 100 flags" list which does have usernames on it. This has its downsides because sometimes I'll be clicking through the top ten list -- usually I'll click through and sort of evaluate what's been flagged and either Do Something, Do Nothing and Wait, or Do Nothing and Delete the Flag -- and I'll notice... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 7:30 AM on June 24, 2009
We very rarely look at who flagged something; the main view of flags we use is an abbreviated "top ten" list that shows the most-flagged stuff in the last 24 hours in descending order, and that view doesn't include the name of the flagging individual(s).

Pretty much the only time I do look at who has been flagging is if there's suddenly a dozen single flags on a dozen different comments in the same thread. In that case I'll sometimes click... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 6:37 AM on June 24, 2009
MetaTalk post: Artists' control of their output at Mefi Music
I just wanted to add that I think the short term "let me just try one version of this without drums" is a bad idea that should be discouraged. If we did a delete option, we'd require that songs stay up for at least a month because I think it's shitty to be really short time frame on this stuff and the community starts to feel "used" if they're commenting on stuff all the time that suddenly gets vaporized hours later.

If people posted five attempts at... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by mathowie at 10:23 AM on June 22, 2009
Obviously this needs some talking about, and if what it comes down to is Matt wanting to go the Big Delete Button route then that's what we'll do.

But I am really, really powerfully disinclined to go there.

The general social contract on metafilter includes the expectation that stuff posted is going to stay around, that it's being provided to the mefi community in good faith as a contribution to the site, period. This really does go for... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 9:45 AM on June 22, 2009
If you build that functionality in, it says clearly that the INTENT is for impermanence.

it's simply codifying what already exists


The codification is an important step, though, because it speaks to how the site is saying that part of the site should be used. Default settings matter. I'm, again, not arguing against people having control over their contributions. But, if we build this into how MeMu works, it does make a... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 9:25 AM on June 22, 2009
MetaTalk post: MeFi user matching?
And just because this is fun and interesting, here's a list of the top fans/stalkers... that is, who has given the greatest percentage of their favorites to one specific person (provided they have given at least 20 total favorites, or else everyone who has given 1 favorite tops the list):

davey_darling: 91.4% (6953 of 7611) to ThePinkSuperhero
mattfn: 88.0% (22 of 25) to asavage
Horken Bazooka: 77.1% (101 of 131) to Dave... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by FishBike at 4:10 PM on June 20, 2009
MetaTalk post: Crowded behind the green curtain.
In my perfect world, new people would always sign up for new accounts. I think in practice it's understandable for someone to pass on a not-super-high-profile account to someone else if it makes sense to the folks involved—it's not something we're going to ban someone over—but it'd be nice if in those cases the handoff were pretty clearly and openly delineated by the account holder(s).

Multiple people actively using the same account is something we're not so... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 10:23 AM on June 20, 2009
MeFi post: It is available through churches and at Wal-Marts....
Reader's Digest isn't looking for conservative reader. The frame of the times article is wrong.

Reader's Digest is suffering from the same problem as all print media - the encroach of the internet and online publishing. The article implicitly confirms that the web as a publishing medium, is now seen as a a legitimate source of news and commentary by most of the public. But not all, not yet.

So reader's Digest is really looking for a demographic... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Pastabagel at 11:34 AM on June 19, 2009
MeFi post: You Can't Filter Twitter: Clay Shirky TED Talk on Global Citizen Journalism
And after Jayson Blair and Judith Miller, fightorflight, we also know that we can't trust traditional journalism. We know that professional reporters will fabricate facts to meet deadline pressures and advance their careers. We know that they will quote unnamed sources in the halls of power, only to have those same people, in circular fashion, cite such "reporting" as a justification for war. We know that network news, cable news, and newspapers are utterly impotent to expose a faulty... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by macross city flaneur at 8:43 AM on June 17, 2009
So, anywho, on the whole social media vis-a-vis Iran.....one thing that I've been thinking a lot about in recent days, on a meta-level, is how it's possible for me to be riveted by this, checking in with Andrew Sullivan and The Lede and the Huffington Post once an hour, for me to be loading up a twitter feed with a 1,000 updates every ten minutes, reading a student tweeting from the roof of a Theran University dorm, talking about the security forces forming a ring around the building....and at... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Diablevert at 5:17 AM on June 17, 2009
http://blog.ted.com/2009/06/qa_with_clay_sh.php

Shirky on Iran & Twitter.
posted to MetaFilter by k8t at 10:19 PM on June 16, 2009
MetaTalk post: He ain't Ralph.
I know that the mods pay careful attention to new users first posts to make sure they aren't SEO spammers and the like, but is there any sort of policy about being gentle with them in terms of deleting posts which might not meet the full standards of someone who's been around a little while.

We get everyone's first post emailed to us, really. And we try to either be all "OMG SPAMMER BAN THEM" or "huh, that's a decent first try but it's... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 7:46 PM on June 16, 2009
MetaTalk post: Cakethrashing my Plate of Ghost-written n00bspiel
I bring this up so we can maybe talk about just what kind of talk falls outside of the guidelines for MetaTalk

That's good because it seems like something you could maybe use a litte primer on.

The categories pretty much say it all: bug reports, feature requests, meetup announcements, uptime [more of a problem in Olde Tyme MeFi], policy and "MeFi related" which is more of a place for "Hey we got mentioned in the New York... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 2:06 PM on June 15, 2009
MetaTalk post: Outrage? Why, yes.
I think my initial huffy whinging screed should ideally be interpreted to be asking about--rather than questioning, like an asshole--the amount of consideration given to those deletion reasons, their intended purpose, and so on.

Fair question. My take:

The reason is there as, ideally, a guide to some of the reasoning behind the deletion, but not so much as sole and canonical justification for the deletion.... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 2:45 PM on June 14, 2009
Yeah, honestly, we'd be totally satisfied with this:

"If you seriously don't like a mod decision, please figure out some polite way to let us know and don't lose track of the fact that we're probably pretty sympathetic in the first place as long as you aren't yelling at us or ascribing shitty motivations to us."

When shit goes off the rails after those first eight words, it can make for a not-great day, but the existence of Metatalk and... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 2:05 PM on June 14, 2009
Sorry to arrive late to my own callout.

It's a little difficult to discuss some of this stuff without dragging up a bunch of backroom inside baseball that we usually keep to ourselves in the interests of not being snitchy and trying to allow everyone to create the persona they want for themselves here.

That said, the post that's the subject of this question was made late at night by a member who had been banned a ways back for pretty much being... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 7:14 AM on June 14, 2009
I saw an idea proposed in that Holocaust museum Metatalk thread, something along the lines of "You know what would be great? A Paypal-style button at the bottom of each Metafilter thread, with which you can contribute to buy the mods a treat. Some chocolate, or a fruit basket, maybe some flowers or such."

I wish this was implemented, because ye gods do you guys deserve some material thanks for the crap you've put up with this week.
posted to MetaTalk by pseudonymph at 12:20 AM on June 14, 2009
I don't think it's quite as clearcut as just one or the other, regardless. We're leaving the question up, and I have no doubt that the dad is someone genuinely stressed, and everyone is generally deserving of some compassion.

It's more a problem of not dealing very well with that as far as how it intersects with the site. Crappy, inappropriate handling of an understandably worrying situation, not something we want to go endorsing in some sort of "hey, if you're... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 12:15 AM on June 14, 2009
This is not how people with normal jobs spend their Saturday nights, I can tell you that.

Yeah, that was good metafilter right there. Let's do it again!

That's pretty much it on the head right there. Add in the fact that this latest post was made by one of the people behaving pretty goddam badly in the Holocaust thread and related metatalk and the whole thing starts to stink.

There may be a good,... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 11:25 PM on June 13, 2009
> KokuRyu said it before, and I'll say it again: jessamyn is good people, and does not deserve this kind of hateful crap.

This has been a low week for MetaFilter, and I have spent much of it marveling at the quiet dignity and efficiency with which Matt, cortex and especially jessamyn have cleaned up all sorts of shit and made all the right decisions despite not quite being able to hide all of their frustration and exasperation. We should be giving... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by nowonmai at 10:57 PM on June 13, 2009
MetaTalk post: There's a reason we didn't give you that pony, Timmy.
As an answer can be marked "best" only once, it would negate any incentive to give an answer just to garner high numbers.

Ah, but a question asker can mark as many answers as he or she likes as 'best' with no limit on that.

I believe this change would cause two possible changes down the line:

- turn the # of best answers into a game to be 'won'. You'll see things like mefi mail from people asking that... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by mathowie at 9:14 AM on June 12, 2009
Since I'm frequently Captain Bringdown for pony requests, I'll put forth the party-killing argument that giving more visibility to best answers could make them more like favorites. I can picture a not-too-distant future where someone says, "oh YEAH, well I have x best answers and you only have y best answers, so I win!" I'm just throwing out the idea that it could turn best answers into a game.

In a perfect world where numbers are simply numbers and not the measure of a... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by pb at 9:07 AM on June 12, 2009
MeFi post: Digital Killed the Radio Star
It used to be that, if you cranked your dial way to the left, you could hear whatever was Channel 6 on your local TV.

I grew up in a small Midwestern town that was, as far as I can recall, entirely white. My Fundamentalist church was all-white, and my friends were all white because I was homeschooled and wasn't allowed friends from outside of church. There was little overt racism, but non-Caucasian people were presented as outsiders with whom I could... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by [user was fined for this post] at 9:25 AM on June 12, 2009
MetaTalk post: What the spam is this?
> It does kind of annoy me when people just ask questions and don't contribute to the site, but that's certainly not being a spammer.

I'll never understand this attitude. The site is for people to get answers to their questions. There are no requirements aside from the $5 and the waiting period; it's specifically so that people who need answers can get them. They have no obligation, legal or moral, to "contribute to the site" otherwise;... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by languagehat at 10:13 AM on June 10, 2009
His question history is chockablock with stuff that gives me more an impression of young-and-clueless than anything.

Funny story, my cousin who is about 19 or so emailed me a few months back and was basically all "hey, you make money on the internet, how do I do that?" When I answered it takes hours of hard work on something you're passionate about every day and years of dedication building a name for yourself online, he just replied with... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by mathowie at 9:08 AM on June 10, 2009
MetaTalk post: If you don't have anything nice to say....
But for the moment, the only way to say that is to choose "other", or to say it in the thread.

We've gone over this many times. If it's a crappy post for MeFi it's fine to flag it as "breaks the guidelines" or "noise" or whatever you want. Saying "well there isn't a flag to say how bad this is so I'm going to shit in the thread" is pretty much not okay.

That said, there's a difference... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 1:22 PM on June 7, 2009
MetaTalk post: Free Herbal \/1@8R@
Is this really that different? Why is it OK to point out when a self-linker is trying to pull the wool over our eyes (and post their real-life identities in the process) but not when someone is doing the same thing within a comment thread?

Self-linkers are against the rules in the same way that outing someone is - like a hard and fast rule. I'm not even totally sure I did the right thing here, but I felt that putting someone's real name next to their... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 8:00 PM on June 1, 2009
MeFi post: Miracle Cure or Risky Business?
no. i asked to remain anonymous, which allowed you to assume absolutely anything you wanted about me, good or bad. and i did not lie about a single detail in anything i wrote.

I'm normally less eager to go OMG SHOPPED than many people here. In fact, when someone walks into a thread and asks to remain anonymous but references some credentials they have (by proxy, even), I still give them the benefit of the doubt. When I read that someone's mother is a... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by nasreddin at 7:25 PM on June 1, 2009
MetaTalk post: AskMeFi-Jamming: how often?
I'm rarely a vindictive person, but if I find out someone's asking lulzy questions under the guise of being someone with a true problem, I'll ban them so hard they'll forget MetaFilter ever existed.
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 3:41 PM on May 28, 2009
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