MetaFilter

Twitter harassment from Mefi Outsider & Go Mefi

Just flat shutdowns of everything we're trying to talk about is cluttering up the conversation.

The Internet has been facing bad actors since before there was an Internet. The particular issues faced by Metafilter are in no way unique, and in fact there are regular technical papers put out about how to address them. At Metafilter itself there is significant technical knowledge built up over 20 years but what works and what doesn’t.… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 8:53 PM on July 12, 2020

CrystalDave wrote...
Every time I remember they exist (and aren't currently self-deleted, as they are now) I sweep through & flag the stuff that's blatant enough I think it may hit Twitter's anemic threshold

So do we need to wait for KPOP or do we have enough Twitter accounts to get these people regularly whacked on the nose by Twitter? I think having their posts removed will be far more discouraging than having people interact with them, but whatever works.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 9:11 PM on July 12, 2020

The holes are still there--again, this was a leak from a fellow logged in user--but it least felt like there was a reaction from the site owner to what had happened.

I believe you have summed up the purpose of this thread.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 2:59 PM on July 13, 2020

Should we redirect "but my case is special" COVID-19 questions on Ask?

The answer to questions involving COVID judgment calls is and always should be "No."

We are with a few exceptions a bunch of yahoos on the Internet. We are the very epitome of people who like to express opinions without any serious expertise behind them. We like to interpret rules, go with the newspaper articles, and even our own feelings (“I'm kind of a skeptic“) when giving advice. It’s all well and good except that in this case people can die.… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 7:15 AM on June 23, 2020

After the pandemic ...

I’m going to sit around the house and not do much. But voluntarily.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 9:05 PM on June 12, 2020

I as a gay man literally do not go to contra dancing or other such social dances literally because I don't want to be mistaken for a creepy single dude there to hit on the women.

I wouldn't worry about it. At the few SFBay contra events I've been at you would merely have been mistaken for a creepy single dude there to hit on the men.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 8:53 AM on June 14, 2020

There are only 3 people in my condo and it's over 1000 sq. feet but sometimes it feels so much smaller.

I'm one person in an 1800 sq foot house and I would be tossing bodies out the front door at this point. "Why yes, death from coronavirus *does* resemble being suffocated in your sleep."
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 9:48 AM on June 14, 2020

Another COVID communication post

In a more general sense, the absolutist, judgmental mentality that you're describing has been an undercurrent in MeFi's culture since long before the coronavirus.

The strangely overdetermined opinions on AskMe are a real problem. People clearly bring their personal shit to questions and their answers often reflect the anger or anxiety they have collected along the way.

But there is a BIG difference with coronavirus, and that… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 6:03 AM on May 18, 2020

Server move and downtime, take 2

I had the persistent maintenance page problem last time too. I tracked it up from my clients and through various devices and as far as I can see my ISP is doing the cacheing. Getting them to flush it may be difficult.

I can rearrange DNS servers but

a) I want to make sure I understand your process. You guys are changing the metafilter.com CNAME to point to a different server(-array) that just shows the maintenance page, and then changing it… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 4:26 PM on April 20, 2020

Is it time to retire "outragefilter" as deletion reason?

"that stuff needs to be talked about, big time" is a definite sign that a particular post is not a good idea.

I used to remind people of zanni's rule of thumb a lot (This is cool; other people will want to see it == Good post, This is important; I want other people to see it == Bad post).

It's not appropriate any more. The site has moved on.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 9:52 AM on June 5, 2019

and at its worst leads to regurgitation of single-link outrage bait that's already heavily circulating on social networks like Twitter and Facebook.

And frequently Daily Kos.

That said, this is a community weblog and it is up to the community to arrive at conventions for what is posted. If I’ve lost my investment in the site I’m sure someone new has picked it up.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 11:55 AM on June 5, 2019

★ I help fund MetaFilter!

I understand why people would do this, but I feel I would be acting unethically if I claimed a referral when I had arrived at Amazon through some other means.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 6:48 PM on April 8, 2019

It's a message board that isn't really around much anymore...

It’s a shame I’m on the road or I’d do a stats run. The number of people linking to the site seems like the key metric.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 4:16 AM on March 28, 2019

even if other outlets have popped up and/or grown so much that our relative prominence is not what it once was.

The community (and in turn the type of content) has shifted over the years too, which I’m sure has had an effect. Flash Friday sort of petered out in the Spring of 2013 for example.

So much analysis to be done, although I’m sure Google Analytics already has a lot of it.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 7:01 AM on March 30, 2019

Would others find it helpful if it was easier to report a post?

Also, what is a social-media canary please and thank you?

Because Poe wrote on both!


No, wait, that's not right...
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 2:20 AM on January 24, 2019

Fucking Fuck XIII - I'm sorry but I've got a bit to say.

(Warning: Privileged white male venting ahead. Feel free to skip)

I am anxious, and tired, and worried, and run down.

Since moving to the Yucatán in March I have sorted out all the logistics of my life. Securing medication, finding where I can buy the daily necessities, hooking up with volunteer groups and, related, connecting with other expats are all solved problems. The think-on-your-feet-or-your-pelt-is-for-the-trapper phase is over and… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 12:47 PM on July 21, 2018

tzikeh —

There is a tradition in Japanese warrior culture of accepting death before going into battle. It allows one to do anything at all because the outcome doesn’t matter. It sounds like you found yourself in that place and used it to great advantage.

(Accepting death as a probable outcome is not necessarily a good thing as it led to kamikaze pilots and Japanese troops who were willing to fight to the death despite overwhelming odds. But… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 7:39 AM on July 22, 2018

All we ever said was "hey, maybe we should stop being shitty to people". We've never tried to take anything away from anyone.

For some people suggesting any sort of regulation — even self-regulation on their part — is experienced as an attack on their autonomy. That’s a pattern that shows up around age 3; not everyone moves past it.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 10:46 PM on August 16, 2018

Fucking Fuck IX

Mail to agent finding me a rental

My main requirements are:

1) A main bedroom, a guest bedroom, and somewhere I can use as an office.
2) Relative quiet.
3) The plumbing works. I’ve lived with flaky electrical, but never again will I deal with unreliable plumbing.

After I move in I discover the street is a through route used by trucks and buses, and needless to say I had to… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 7:14 PM on March 15, 2018

Oh, and Amazon Mexico has a habit of showing an estimated delivery date on the purchase page and then immediately erasing it on the awaiting delivery entry. If there was one fucking chair in this fucking house I can sit on without destroying my fucking back in five minutes I would be okay with that, but the chair that was supposed to come Sunday may arrive... some day?

They need a "I am a goddamn gringo" button that charges 20% more but actually delivers… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 8:36 AM on March 16, 2018

Also, my mother is fucking freaking out about me living in Mexico like it's a goddamn foreign country or something.

You know what? There are no fucking foreign countries. People love their children and are trying to raise them. People hold down jobs to feed themselves and their families. 90% of people are nice but sometimes too busy to show it; 10% of people are out to screw everyone. Cities are built by people for people to support basic human needs and it shows.… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 9:00 AM on March 16, 2018

So unless you need some very specific high tech furniture, I'd suggest you talk to the locals and ask about a good carpintero.

Alas, I expect the equivalent of an Aeron chair is beyond the ability of any carpenter anywhere. It took me years to find a type of chair that works and I’m unwilling to give it up.

I also got a crap desk, but that’s because I’m still designing a wooden sit/stand desk from scratch. I’m planning to… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 10:19 AM on March 16, 2018

Oh, and bitching on Metafilter appears to work as today, for the first time in my life anywhere, the plumber showed up exactly on time and did a fairly routine job with no complications.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 10:24 AM on March 16, 2018

Mérida, Yucatá
Er... Mérida, Yucatán that is.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 10:49 AM on March 16, 2018

If you are living in a proper house in Merida it MUST have hammock hanging hardware in every room. If it does not, talk to the landlord.

You know, when I was touring houses I was wondering about the lack of hardware for Mérida's fabled hammock culture. Spurred by your comment I investigated my current home and low and behold I discovered why so many of the wall decorations were hats.

I'm afraid of the interaction between a… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 10:46 AM on March 19, 2018

And as this thread is winding down I'm going to add one last small annoyance, which is that training at your basic math tables in Spanish with a fluent maid cleaning the house is just embarrassing. Not that she hasn't been encouraging, and in fact her helpful correction of my accent has been a bonus. But still, I'm drilling things a third-grader knows cold.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 10:53 AM on March 19, 2018

Thanks for the instructions Index Librorum Prohibitorum. I need to find a hung hammock somewhere and give it a shot.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 8:45 PM on March 19, 2018

This is an okay place to vent and given the circumstances you should be pretty goddamn proud of yourself for opting to be a responsible adult. Not everybody does.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 6:31 AM on March 21, 2018

Most frightning thing I’ve heard recently is that with all those JavaScript programmers out there it makes sense to dump the other scripting languages and write the server side code in JavaScript as well.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 4:46 PM on March 29, 2018

Corb — That is scary.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 7:06 AM on March 30, 2018

That’s great to hear, other than the deathly sick part.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 9:54 PM on April 5, 2018

mathowie transfers ownership of MetaFilter to cortex

[Thinks of ways to create a sitewide clusterfuck to inaugurate cortex in his new role]

[Decides to give it a miss as a welcome present]
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 4:47 PM on August 1, 2017

Metafilter: Jokes that don't actually land successfully are a thing that people who think their jokes are landing tell sometimes.

"Neo, sooner or later you're going to realize there's a difference between making the joke, and landing the joke."
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 9:30 AM on August 3, 2017

Multiple AskMe Posts a Week: An Ideas Whose Time Has Come

Of the 9631 different people to post questions in the past 3 years, 71 of them posted forty or more. 14 people posted sixty or more.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 5:37 PM on February 10, 2017

Examples of MetaFilter used as a platform for creative writing?

This letter from a young rules-lawyer was fun to write and well received.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 2:42 AM on July 28, 2016

Am I the only one having trouble finding active threads?

The whole concept of an "active thread on subject x" is a pretty nebulous one on Metafilter for a casual user as there is basically no way to know what is considered active or not unless one happens to see a mod comment about it.

It seems like a comments/hour measurement would be useful here, perhaps weighed in with favorites to give the popular posts list.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 10:27 PM on July 3, 2016

Label fiction please?

"Radioplay" tag would have been good. Brief explanatory note below the fold would have been fine too.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 12:17 AM on September 26, 2015

Should we launch a Kickstarter for Ahmed Mohamed?

How about we don't all throw ourselves resolutely behind a 14 year old we know nothing about?

Speaking as someone who built the odd bomb timer -- not clock, mind you, but actual bomb timer -- while in high school I'd like to remind people that being a STEM geek does *not* automatically make someone a saint.

This is a great chance to focus on STEM and/or discrimination, but tying to an individual may backfire.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 11:29 PM on September 16, 2015

Tell Me No Lies: does someone need to be a "saint" to be worthy of support?

The question is on the other end: how compromising could the picture get before you say "yeah, um, this particular victim of discrimination is not the one we'd like rally behind."
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 2:40 AM on September 17, 2015

No, the question is, in a situation where there is a complete and total lack of evidence of wrong doing of any sort, why would you simply assume that a 14 year old is some sort of bad seed?

I don't recall that I have.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 9:25 AM on September 17, 2015

no one is reaching into your pocket, Tell Me No Lies, so maybe just consider your objection heard and move on.

I'm sorry my incessant single reply to someone who asked me a direct question has so thoroughly derailed this epic community discussion. I will hush now and allow this historical juggernaut of a MetaTalk thread march on to its glorious conclusion.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 9:31 AM on September 17, 2015

14!

<grumpy old guy>

If we keep the way we're going, in three years "Best of the Web" will be completely finished off and the front page will just link to Daily Kos.

</grumpy old guy>
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 10:47 PM on August 22, 2015

"Brown People" Don't Need You Defending Them Like That

It seems like a simple enough signifier. It's one of probably a hundred shorthand phrases used on Metafilter and I'm not seeing a particular reason to call it out.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 6:45 PM on May 8, 2015

Are you married to someone Ask MetaFilter told you to dump?

Let's put it this way: Barring a goddamn miracle, if you married someone MeFi told you to dump, you won't be married long

That's sort of what this question is about, isn't it? To test the common wisdom?

Yeah, confirmation bias FTW. If you ditch someone of course you're happy about it later.

But that's not the question being asked. The question is did you stay together in the face… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 8:20 AM on April 16, 2015

Is this a queue?

It's just so nice to see cortex embrace his dark side.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 9:33 PM on February 13, 2015

As an aside, I don't know if there is a precise measure for this, but I think this MeTa thread might have the highest ratio of moderator comments (current and retired) to user comments of any I have ever seen.

To follow up on that aside, I don't think this is neccesarily a good thing. When a post is vetted by moderators and then the comments are filled with moderators I don't feel like there is much free discussion to be had. Same applies to having… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 9:44 PM on February 13, 2015

Unless the argument is that moderators literally shouldn't respond to metatalk threads about moderation practice, I don't know what to tell you; stuff clumps up sometimes. If that is the argument, I pretty heartily disagree.

A moderator showing up to talk in a thread about moderation is one thing, all of them showing up is another.

Take moderator status out of it for a moment and just imagine a group of five posters who are… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 8:50 AM on February 14, 2015

Emoji in Metafilter posts

Set your title font size to 2 and all of your problems will go away.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 12:45 PM on February 10, 2015

What are Meta's Values?

Hey cool, I'm adding a bathroom to the house right now and was wondering about ADA compliance. Anybody know what the counter height should be?
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 5:54 PM on February 6, 2015

Unmoderated fora quickly become unofficially moderated by intimidation and bullying.

Shut up, newb.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 6:15 PM on February 6, 2015