MetaFilter

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

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?

Damnit. I read above the fold and said to myself "I bet anything you want that this is about the MRA post."

Now I owe myself a coke. And I don't even like soft drinks.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 5:47 PM on February 6, 2015

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

Neckbeard, is this a word we need?

This is weird. I always assumed neckbeard referred to older Berkeley style geeks with large beards and birkenstocks. Apparently I've been under-outraged all this time.

"Mansplaining" is annoying for same reason that saying a woman must be on the rag is. It's a lazy way to dismiss someone's opinion based on a gender stereotype that may or may not apply.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 6:04 PM on December 23, 2014

That's wrong, sorry.

how aware do we think a casual user is that ask mefi is curated, but not heavily, so "bad" answers can easily slip through.

I think that as Metafilter "locals" we have built up a story about how much better our site is than all the others. For an outsider about the only thing that differentiates AskMe is better grammar and less overt racism.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 12:44 AM on December 2, 2014

Hollis Henry remembered: White Legos turn ochre with age.

This Halloween, if you could dress as any fictional character, who would it be?

Looking for something topical to MetaFilter and being a tasteless smartass I was going to say Kaycee Nicole, but then I went back and read the outing thread again and now I'm just depressed.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 9:28 AM on October 31, 2014

Well, naturally, my first choice would be a Bear costume with wifely accessories.

Okay, you've piqued my curiosity...
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 1:11 PM on October 31, 2014

Moderating GamerGate Threads

Is anyone actually pro-gg on Mefi?

I'm sure there are, but none of them are stupid.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 1:36 PM on October 28, 2014

For those of you who have been niggardly with your research into cultural references: Tar Baby.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 6:45 PM on October 28, 2014

Yeah, you should probably avoid using the phrase [..] solely because some people will think its [...]

On an extremely tangential note my favorite two words of late are "gunsel" and "nimrod". Both gained public visibility in very limited circumstances, both were taken to mean something very different from their actual definition, and both have lost their original definitions in favor of the popular misinterpretation.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 9:05 PM on October 28, 2014

Intent is entirely beside the point: it's just a foolish and distracting thing to do.

That would appear to be the case. Truthfully I had no idea that the word held any emotional currency other than "Fifteen year old reference to a bit of silliness in the D.C. Mayor's office." Apparently people are freshly upset by it, so I apologize for using it.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 9:02 AM on October 29, 2014

But all you've done is insult someone [...]

And of course provide a bit of context for a term that was being used to justify openly calling someone a racist.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 9:06 AM on October 29, 2014

Great article inviting bad/ boring comments = deletion?

This is true and especially needs to be addressed, IMO. In my experience Metafilter "not doing topic X well" is sort of code for "there are substantial numbers of people around who do not hew to the progressive orthodoxy and may be vocal about it."

Thank you for such a perfect example of the sort of reasoning that really does make threads go wrong. In about eight directions at once as the beleaguered victims rail against their own view of site "orthodoxy".
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 10:23 AM on September 7, 2014

Meta Slander?

I agree. I also think that it's total bullshit that John Wilkes Booth is famously defamed for the murder of Lincoln.

What kind of bullshit is that? Let's wait for the trial first. Until then, it's just self-defense.

This is why actors need to have active video recorders attached to their bodies at all times.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 4:31 PM on August 19, 2014

Pretty grossed out by people using this man's death as an excuse to trot out murder-killing puns here to get yucks and favorites in this Meta.

This is just the overture. When the real Brown/Ferguson jokes start I promise you'll be able to move up from grossed out to appalled.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 5:04 PM on August 19, 2014

I also find it odd that Gungho just made this meta then disappeared.

Perhaps he made a post in a fit of frustration but then calmed down and decided to lay off the internet for a while.

[I've never done that.]
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 6:21 PM on August 19, 2014

Some of our now infrequent policy metatalk posts have this wide-eyed wadda ya wadda ya smirking tone that I associate with a smartass.

Metafilter needs an intern. Specifically it needs someone we can get to go through posts over a period of years and characterize them based on a list of qualities. There are so many questions about site norms and progressions that we could answer...
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 6:35 PM on August 19, 2014

it's total bullshit that John Wilkes Booth is famously defamed for the murder of Lincoln.

As an aside I got curious about it and took a look. As far as I can tell Booth was never actually convicted.

All of the surviving conspirators were hauled up in front a military tribunal based on the reasoning that attacking the Commander In Chief during a time of war made everyone involved enemy combatants. Booth's name and history were… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 8:50 PM on August 19, 2014

3)I just noticed that people use the tag "metafilter" on metatalk. Isn't that a little tautological?

Could be about AskMe.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 12:00 AM on August 20, 2014

Well it certainly heads off the "That's just YOUR opinion!" rebuttal.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 11:13 AM on August 20, 2014

and there's shades of grey here.

Ah hah! It *is* a BDSM thing!
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 2:02 PM on August 20, 2014

Meta has no reality. It's time to stop believing in a place called Metafilter and calm the fuck down already.

Is this a variation of "sticks and stones..."? 'Cuz whoever told you that was very misguided.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 9:27 AM on August 21, 2014

You can turn off the viewing of favorites. The site is much more relaxing not knowing or caring what comments and posts are getting favorites, yet you still click the Popular link and check for useful or fun stuff. It's the BEST way to view the site.

Holy shit, that is the best thing anyone has taught me in a month. Now I just need a script to suppress any posting with the word "favorites" in it and my every wish is granted.… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 4:25 PM on August 21, 2014

But the purpose of Metafilter the website is not to effect positive social change.

Unless there are hedge fund charities or young Russian women involved. Then we're all over that.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 10:44 PM on August 21, 2014

I don't see how that contradicts anything I said, though? Groups of Mefites did both those things rather than something intrinsic to the purpose of the site itself?

No, it was not my intent to follow you into that philosophical territory. I will say that the de facto purpose(s) of the site may be different than the whatever official one there is.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 5:16 PM on August 22, 2014

Fantastic commenters will never know they're fantastic

I guess I'm too shy to do that - also, it's a tad more labor-intensive; I edit and re-edit a lot, so a brief note would probably take me ten minutes. I kind of like the anon thing, too.

OK I guess that's a no-go, then. I thought it might be a neat idea.

No pony for you! :)


Flagged as fantastic.






(See? That wasn't hard.)
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 1:37 AM on July 18, 2014

Bonfire of Vanity?

if they correlate to fewer average comments, lower than normal FPPs or that sort of thing.

Could you please enumerate what "that sort of thing" is? I can provide some data but only if I know what you're looking for.

Right now we have:

1) Number of FPPs on the three major sites (mefi, askme, and meta)
2) Average of comments/answers per post on the three major sites.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 10:44 AM on June 22, 2014

Thanks, Michele In California. Unfortunately I've run out of weekend so it only handles number of posts per day and doesn't have a lot of the bells and whistles I wanted to add, but here's the bare beginnings of a MetaFilter Metadata Visualizer I've been meaning to write for a while now.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 11:13 PM on June 22, 2014

Leveraging the community to help develop Mefi functionality?

Yeah, I'm not quite sure what the donations have to do with this idea. It can stand on its own or not.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 7:14 AM on June 9, 2014

Tagging Users In Comments and Posts

Just a reminder for people whose lives are MetaTalk centric: There are huge swaths of the world where constructive criticism is a thing and people are able push their little baby ideas out into the world secure in the knowledge that while the idea may be gently rebuffed, it will not immediately be torn to shreds by a pack of shrieking harpies.

To cut to the chase,

Metafilter: A pack of shrieking harpies
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 8:33 AM on June 1, 2014

It might be easier just to list the ways not to get snarked at in MetaTalk.

The only winning move is not to play.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 11:28 PM on June 3, 2014

WHOPR!
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 8:00 AM on June 4, 2014

Oops.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 2:40 PM on June 6, 2014

Words that are not okay for minorities.

The fact that you think it's okay to call a mentally ill person 'wackadoodle' is a clue, Justinian

No, not really. You don't have to be mentally ill to be wackadoodle as demonstrated by most of the Tea Party. Being mentally ill and being wackadoodle overlap in this case, but that doesn't make them equivalent.

Signed,

Mostly mentally ill with occasional moments of wackadoodle
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 3:26 PM on May 24, 2014

fffm was clearly offended

...
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 5:48 PM on May 24, 2014

That's really small of you!

Small text on Metafilter denotes one of two things: a humorous aside or administrative comment.

Seeing it used otherwise always throws me a bit. It would take me a while to arrive at hostile intentions however...
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 10:59 AM on May 4, 2014

With respect to the folks who are saying, 'Metafilter has accepted quoting conventions' it really doesn't. Okay, yes, italics. But still. Even though the MefiQuote script is used by quite a few folks, people use a few different styles to quote other comments [...]

A convention does not require that everyone follow it rigidly. I just poked through all of the threads with more than 30 comments on the front page and there can be no doubt what the… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 5:11 PM on May 4, 2014

Why are we still using isn't it time to use cite and blockquote as the gods intend.

You still use <I>? No wonder your quotations are so hard to read.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 5:06 PM on May 5, 2014

It's naive, or perhaps morally bankrupt, to think that a "reasoned argument" is inherently respectable.

It's the most unrespectable type of argument there is, except for every other type of argument.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 5:08 PM on May 5, 2014

(mis)handling non-US content

the framing of this post about Storypick

Given that the thread included a generous dollop of people saying the framing the was weird/inappropriate isn't your issue with the poster and not Metafilter at large?

In fact it seems to me that the events went:

1) One person makes post that appears to be LOL foreigners.
2) Bunch of people say WTF?
3) One person says "oh yeah, I… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 4:46 PM on April 18, 2014

Using askme as therapy?

As a therapist, I generally deal with a number of clients who come in and hash out the same problem week after week after week for months, with slight gains in insight and behavior. The deeper and longer-lasting the problem, the slower the progress. That's how the process works -- big problems take a long time to break down and figure out and change.

This is totally why I am not a therapist. By the third week I would be slapping clients.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 1:57 PM on April 13, 2014

Some people are just lonely and have no one to talk to. Isn't that ok?

It's not really what askme is meant for.
posted to MetaTalk by Tell Me No Lies at 2:41 PM on April 13, 2014