MetaFilter

The wrong logo, the self policing logo, the together logo, the conersation logo,. Cool, I had forgotten about some of those.
posted to MetaTalk by soundofsuburbia at 1:46 PM on October 7, 2008

Logged in users should see their own deleted posts shown inline, along with the deleted reason. That would eliminate about 80% of MetaTalk threads.
posted to MetaTalk by Plutor at 10:46 AM on October 7, 2008

As I see it, multi-contributor sites like Blogcritics are problematic, because whereas it would be an obvious self link if you linked to something you'd written there, linking to something unrelated to you on the same site

You did hit the nail on the head there, actually: non-ginormous multi-contributor sites are problematic. They're tricky territory, because whether or not it's really pushing on the no-self-links/no-friend-links guidelines or not... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 1:57 PM on October 5, 2008

It's can be very frustrating to try to figure out what's permitted

I sympathize, and at the same time we're loathe to make specific rules about this because we'd be afraid it would keep out more content than it would allow because people were over-vigilant. The general rule is: if you're not sure, ask one of the mods or send it to the contact form.

Unless we think you're an SEO spammer the worst that happens otherwise is we... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 3:48 PM on October 5, 2008

Which is objected to for some reason, even though threads really do exist conceptually, they are just crippled by a lack of tools to handle them.

The natural threading of conversation is a much more elegant thing than any extant forum-threading model can account for; it is largely effortless and liquid, leveraged as it is not on software but on the cognitive powers of the reader. Conversation can bifurcate and meld via quotations and references in a... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 9:32 AM on October 2, 2008

Now if you would just apologize for calling it a crazy conspiracy video, we can probably close this out.

You're right, my bad, I shouldn't have called it a "crazy conspiracy". I meant to say it's batshit insane to blame minorities for the financial crisis.
posted to MetaTalk by mathowie at 9:23 AM on September 30, 2008

Can you blame us, Pastabagel? What's your take on the bill, if you've had time to digest it?
posted by Mister_A at 2:10 PM on September 29

I trust no one. I say pass anything that allows the government to profit from the buyout and mandates some congressional oversight. There's no time to do the bill right, it's too complex and too massive to slap together even in a week.

So we need to elect Obama. After... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by Pastabagel at 11:28 AM on September 29, 2008

More to the point -- now that I've had my lunch -- I think that not only could MeTa stand to have the "everyone needs a hug" note (did anyone make t-shirts form the iron ons I handed out at the Cambridge meetup way back when?) but maybe posting a thread to Meta should come with a set of checkboxes

[ ] I am not just me being peevish, I sincerely think this topic needs the attention of the whole community
[ ] This is not something that would be better suited by... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 10:54 AM on September 17, 2008

Snark has its place, and overly sensitive Mefis would do well to remember that. As I pointed out above, I feel that sometimes snark can provide clarity.

Maybe I should be clearer.

Snarking in a way that seems borderline-gleeful in an AskMe thread that is otherwise serious, especially when you're treading the line of insulting the OP is, generally speaking, something that isn't okay. The judgment call that cortex and I made... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 1:22 PM on September 14, 2008

all guys do this, and we don't often have the best intentions. We're not bad, ladies... we're just weak - and when you're our friends and you come prancing around in your little strappy tops, or hang around in your low slung jeans, or you fix us dinner, and give us hugs... well, you get the idea.

Yeah, you speak for me like Sarah Palin speaks for all women.
posted to MetaTalk by Alvy Ampersand at 1:11 PM on September 14, 2008

Have you ever seen the Michael Jackson sculpture in person?

It's big--bigger than an actual person. But it's not huge--it's not big enough to be a monument. It seems like it's exactly the size that's most deeply unsettling--an unfamiliar size, not the way we're used to seeing a human body.

And it's obvious it's not a representation of Michael Jackson, exactly--it's a representation of a miniature ceramic figurine of Michael Jackson. (It's not... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by neroli at 10:11 PM on September 11, 2008

AskMe's ability to dredge up hazily-recalled cultural ephemera from the collective memory of the userbase may not be the most useful thing the site does, but it's something I always enjoy seeing happen.
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 11:02 AM on September 10, 2008

My research has lead me to the thinking that, for "unknowns" such as myself you often need to have some kind of publisher interest before you can find that agent who will swoop in and earn his/her percentage.

I just want to add that this is true-- if your work is NON-fiction. Platform helps non-fiction in a fantastic way, but platform does diddley for you in fiction unless you're Madonna. I've been a screenwriter for 15 years, hundreds of... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by headspace at 1:35 PM on September 5, 2008 marked best answer

I hope this doesn't stray into the realm of off-topic, but I went through the same process about six years ago when I started dealing with websites that required more complex content management systems. I looked around for a few weeks, doing research, and came to the conclusion that it would be a better idea to spend my time building my own custom system than researching and learning about and customizing an existing system.

This was a mistake.... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Nothing at 1:55 PM on September 4, 2008 marked best answer

I really like Bechdel as a cartoonist, but I've always loathed this test. I understand the sentiment, and agree that women are often poorly-served in film (and books, and comics, etc etc). But I think it's a horrible idea to erect some sort of ideologically-motivated litmus test (even if it's for an ideology I support) and apply it to art. Bad, bad idea that just leads to closing your mind and inevitably deprives you of good stuff that happens to fail your test.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by languagehat at 7:33 AM on September 3, 2008

To be honest this feels like an attempt to bury a systemic problem within the community because we don't have the moderator personpower to deal with it.

Don't forget that the older MeFi gets, the less American it gets. Election year fatigue/outrage gets old real fast and we heard complaints from users a year ago when the Clinton/Obama/GOP stuff started.

Election years generally suck for Sept-Nov on MeFi, and they're... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by mathowie at 2:41 PM on September 1, 2008

this is only going to get worse & worse in the leadup to your election, right?

We have delete keys, and if today is any indication, we use them.
posted to MetaTalk by mathowie at 2:23 PM on September 1, 2008

making a point out of not adding pagination is cheapening their desire to have their discussion.

No, it's sticking by a policy decision that's not universally popular but that we nonetheless believe in. The links-vs-discussion debate about mefi is an ancient and living thing for a reason: just as the site isn't some posts-only memepool link log, it's also not a general forum. Facilitating months-long 10,000 comment threads isn't what the site has... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 1:55 PM on September 1, 2008

Part of the 1000+ thread phenomena is simply scale. As membership grows, threads on all popular topics are getting longer and longer in general.

But we can choose to do two things about it: make it so that 1000+ threads are a-ok with pagination, more reading/filtering tools, etc.

Or we can leave things as-is, and have threads that go long die of apathy. This also has the side-benefit of keeping people from signing up to... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by mathowie at 1:20 PM on September 1, 2008

Respectfully disagreeing with either the OP or the people in the thread is totally fine. It's even better if you can do it in a way that sort of states your objections, states why you feel that way [whether you have evidence, personal experience, whatever] and then leaves it alone. Bad AskMe answers tend to do the following

- have some sort of high falutin' or snobby tone that anger or annoy other people and so start derails about the tone/tenor of the comment [example:... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 6:18 AM on August 31, 2008

I swear it's the very last time. Honest. I'm fully aware the gag has been run into the ground, but this post is just so perfect.

Your post advocates a:
[ ] community moderated
[X] technical
[ ] social
[ ] legislative
[ ] economic
[ ] authoritarian
[ ] free-for-all
solution to crappy MetaFilter posts.

I'm afraid it won't work due... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by majick at 9:33 AM on August 30, 2008

MeFi could keep an astro-turfing shitlist that would list the people and businesses that we catch engaging in unethical promotion. Then instead of getting possible high positive Google placement, spammers would get assured high negative Google placement.

We would love to do that in some ways. However in reality people who lack the ethics/consideration to engage with an online community preferring the huge spam approach are also real bastards in terms... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 6:50 AM on August 30, 2008

Oh man, after I wrote the above comment, I thought about someone I added to the spammy list earlier tonight. Their account was something about a law firm that specializes in driving cases and my spidey sense was tingling.

So I checked their account and they followed the classic patterns I described. In about ten minutes they spammed loaded SEO phrases (one doesn't even make sense in english) linking to their site (and acting like they had used them or just happened to... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by mathowie at 9:36 PM on August 29, 2008

Behind the scenes, you guys have no idea how much of this crap goes on. It's A LOT, due I guess to the high search results weird phrases turn up Ask MeFi questions.

So we have an entire elaborate admin system for watching new users, watching new users that use links, and we also have a spammy-looking-when-they-signed-up list that we personally add new users to that seem oddball (anyone with "seo" in their username, homepage, or bio section for instance gets on the list... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by mathowie at 9:18 PM on August 29, 2008

This is a little inside baseball but the problem with the OP "owning" the question -- my opinion is about the same as cortex's on this topic -- is that when answers veer into the "tough love" arena where the OP wants to know how to keep the marriage together and people are saying "you can't do this" or whatever, the OP can sometimes not like that. We've seen people flagging every answer in an AskMe question that they simply do not agree with or ones that disagree... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 9:30 AM on August 29, 2008

Had he, I wouldn't have answered the Q. Because I don't know why it doesn't work and my answer wouldn't have been informed or on-topic.

Have you had any personal experience with the subject? You don't need to have an explantion for exactly how the universe works or anything, but if you've had direct negative experiences and you've reflected on them at all, surely you could have shared some of that to put your answer into context?... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 8:49 AM on August 29, 2008

Well, you told me how to cope with being a sexless single person.

Then you helped me sleep with my friend.

But should I take it farther I asked?

Which led to a no-strings relationship, which was great, but raised some questions.

Then I fell in love with her.

And had to decide whether to tell her or not.

Then I had to decide whether to date her or... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by ND¢ at 9:21 AM on August 15, 2008

A pre-deleted spam post is liminal. It's very existence is to be celebrated.

It's like hearing distant drums across the savanna.
posted to MetaTalk by cowbellemoo at 11:11 AM on August 13, 2008

I am very uncomfortable with the idea that a poster must water down the message of a link in order to make it more palatable to readers.

And I think that understanding the audience you are writing for is pretty important to being able to get your message across.

I think agregoli and I are fine on this issue, so this is not in any way directed at her, but if the difference between your MeFi post being a total trainwreck and... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 12:27 PM on August 11, 2008

Well it pulls, really...
posted to MetaTalk by Mister_A at 12:57 PM on August 6, 2008

orthogonality: the sad fact is, the stuff you're complaining about sells. (If it didn't sell, the publishers wouldn't buy it, and it wouldn't be clogging up your bookstore shelves. Right?) More to the point, it's also bloody hard to write hard SF about near-future whatevers in this day and age. The future we're living in -- the future of the 1950s -- turns out to have so many extra fields of scientific research and technological development that it's virtually impossible for... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by cstross at 8:51 PM on August 3, 2008

I give people a lot of room with insensitive comments and general cluelessness if I feel that they're making an effort but don't understand things. This is different from feeling like they just don't care what I think, or if something they said makes me feel bad. I'm also a little tone deaf to other people sometimes and can sometimes say something that I think is a small teasing thing and it turns out to be a big deal. I feel awful. So, I sympathize.

You're sort of... [more]
posted to Ask MetaFilter by jessamyn at 9:52 AM on August 1, 2008 marked best answer

I have no idea why that thread went on for so long.

- It was bloggy drama, which is personally engaging to a lot of people who pay attention to the blogosphere in a way that is more intimate and direct than, say, some Corporation X.
- When the dam finally broke on the 1st, there was nonetheless a lingering sense that This Wasn't Done Yet: Boingers saying they needed time to make a statement, folks wondering where Cory was.
-... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 3:27 PM on July 30, 2008

In the footer of all the sites here you'll see "All posts are © their original authors." As with text postings on mefi, you own whatever you upload, retaining full copyright....meaning that someone could revoke Metafilter's permission to publish?

Copyright on your posts designates ownership, but in posting to the site in the first place, you're agreeing to let me display it on the web server. That license to publish is separate from... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by mathowie at 10:28 PM on June 24, 2008

do not see anything protecting songs from commercial exploitation, or explaining about copyrights.

In the footer of all the sites here you'll see "All posts are © their original authors." As with text postings on mefi, you own whatever you upload, retaining full copyright. By default it's an all-rights-reserved copyright, which gives you the most rights possible and basically only lets people play the songs on the mefi music page.... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by mathowie at 7:22 PM on June 22, 2008

Jessamyn, there was at least one instance where I questioned something you wrote in Metatalk and you deleted or edited your comments without any warning.

If it's the instance I'm thinking of, I edited it to make what I said make more sense when it was clear it was being misunderstood in MetaTalk. Since what I say (or cortex, or mathowie, or pb) can sometimes carry the weight of policy, and I was concerned that people would quote exactly what I said,... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 3:17 PM on July 2, 2008

Any particular reason why ya'll "Hide from view" as opposed to actually delete?

1. It's useful to have a record of problematic stuff.

- If someone has not a bad day but a bad habit, having deletions available for review behind the scenes makes it a lot easier to get a sense of what happened, beyond Whatever We Just Deleted.

- While we'll discuss fuzzier things or give one another a heads up... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 1:33 PM on July 2, 2008

Ignoring the questions of hypocrisy and/or outright wack behavior, one interesting disconnect is that the posters of influential internet forii appear to believe that BoingBoing has crossed some unclear threshold of popularity/championship -- and are now held to a higher standard of net behavior/ethics.

I think that is a false assumption. The only reason why the BoingBoing thing became a problem is because they are such crusaders for transparency.... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by mathowie at 12:46 PM on July 2, 2008

Is the implication that the people over on Boing Boing don't like their site and aren't actively involved in it?

I think the implication is that the editors at BB aren't in the same sort of dynamic as we are here: they are by and large dictating the content, where here we are by and large co-consumers of the userbase's content. Whether and how that leads to a difference in framework or perspective for them, though, is again not something I think I can speak confidently on.
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 12:35 PM on July 2, 2008

It occurs to me to wonder whether or not the moderators of MeFi feel constrained as compared to the apparent relative unconstraint of the BB crew.

I feel contrained by my own sense of obligation to not be a jerk, my desire to not get petty with someone just because they're up my shirt, and what I think is fair to describe as a general professional obligation to not be a lousy example by doing the kind of stuff I sometimes have to clean up after others... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 12:30 PM on July 2, 2008

Actually our stated position on editing posts is that we NEVER do it except for very specific outlined instances. We don't edit to remove cleverness (unless you think witty lead-ins before the "more inside" on AskMe are clever) or twittishness. I made one recent comment to that thread but my feeling is that this sort of thing is unlikely here because there's never really a time when we're not all on the site, paying attention and if there's a disaster, we all get together on email FAST to talk... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 12:09 PM on July 2, 2008

Links have a half-life of approximately nine million seconds, or 90 days (choose yer units wisely). Complaining about something that's two years old is just lame.

While there are exceptional cases where a site's links have been designed to decay (mp3 blogs being one good example cited over at ML), the default function of web content is to go up and stay up. Link rot and intentional removal are two things that break from that... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by cortex at 9:24 AM on July 2, 2008

With several comment quotings and discussing it and the commenter making a mea culpa, I think it might be more dizzying to nix the comment now than to let it stand as an example of people on all sides of this discussion saying questionable things, but I'll head-check it with my cohorts because I've been the odd man out on that line of thinking before.
posted to MetaFilter by cortex at 6:22 PM on July 1, 2008

I don't envy her either, and of course you're bound to empathize with her position, but no, I don't think she deserves a lot of slack here. When you accept a position like that, you're taking on the responsibility of dealing with shitstorms wisely and gracefully. If you decide you'd rather come out guns blazing, defending your pals and calling the readers names, you've failed in your responsibility.

Yes. This.

I don't care if... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by dw at 8:09 AM on July 2, 2008

Here's how it works actually, for future reference

_We see and approve each one before they go live_
Projects
AnonyMe questions

_We see after-the-fact email about_
first post to MeFi by any user
AskMe that seems to be by a sock puppet of someone who already asked a question this week
MeTa posts (actually I think we may see them like five minutes before they go live)... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 2:15 PM on July 1, 2008

Matt (as the person who usually approves Projects submissions) reserves the right to not approve skeezy looking bullshit submissions from opportunistic SEO types.

Projects, and Music and Jobs in the same general sense, make for kind of interesting edge-cases in that sense. We've rejected Projects before, and deleted Jobs posts (no queue there, unlike Projects), and on a couple of occasions I've deleted posts (or arranged a significant edit) from a new Music poster who... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 1:27 PM on July 1, 2008

Why are you reading such a fascist website?

We have cameras.

Actually, as much as I have my own reactions to what I've seen in their moderation, I'm not all that jazzed about talking about it as e.g. BB vs. Mefi—moderation of a busy place is a strange and complicated thing and for a lot of matters of plicy there's rarely a Right answer so much as there are different options with trade-offs.

I... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by cortex at 1:12 PM on June 30, 2008

Why BB stopped having comments. They became a cesspool.

Why they have comments again -- they've got someone cleaning out the dreck. *No* anonymous unmoderated forum lasts. There are too many assholes in the world. Look at the efforts to keep MeFi working.

As to censorship -- they could have easily just deleted the comments. Instead, they leave them up, flagged in such a way as to show you they they (the editors!) think they are inappropriate.... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by eriko at 12:39 PM on June 30, 2008

That this topic comes off as inside baseball for the blogosphere is interesting because seven or eight years ago this would have been a gimme of a front page post on mefi. But six years ago, Cory was active on the site, too. The world has moved on, etc.

It's not clear to me here whether anybody has any idea what happened. This just went down? BoingBoing hasn't commented? It could be anything from epic technical fail to outright vengence deletions,... [more]
posted to MetaFilter by cortex at 10:25 AM on June 30, 2008

I like to think you guys see callouts as a part of metatalk's functionality, but I'll be damned if I can see why you don't make that more clear if I'm right about that.

I see MeTa as being for that, certainly. I see it as a call and response thing, often, and if something came to MeTa slowly (as this post did, after the thread was in full-swing) it's a different animal than someone complaining about a doomed post after 20 minutes in what should maybe... [more]
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 1:10 PM on June 23, 2008