MetaFilter

I really resent being ignored. I think it goes back to when as a kid my dad would ignore stuff I said or questions I asked if he was irritated or thought it wasn't worth answering. Working various CS jobs over the years, it always inordinately annoyed me when I'd greet someone or ask a friendly question and get zero response, even from a co-worker. And I'll never understand sending a (non-famous) person a polite question or comment about their work and hearing nothing back,… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 2:13 PM on February 12, 2021

If you don't want to adjust text size on the fly (Ctrl+plus/minus, or Ctrl+scroll wheel on Windows/Chrome), you can also run a basic userscript to disable the small tag:

small { font-size: 17px !important; }

I just published one to Userstyles.org; you can install it in Firefox (with Greasemonkey or Stylish), Chrome (with Stylish or Chrome User Script Handler), and jailbroken iOS (with Userscript Loader, using this URL)
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 7:42 PM on January 12, 2021

Never realized you can set a minimum font size; sounds like a better option for people who don't want to run a script.

Firefox: Options -> Language and Appearance -> Advanced... -> Minimum font size

Chrome: Settings -> Appearance --> Customize fonts -> Minimum font size

I don't have Safari atm, but it should be in the Accessibility settings.
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 3:41 PM on January 13, 2021

OP's ask was "please don't overuse small tags"; not sure about going from there to "ban them for everyone immediately", especially when there are already multiple ways to disable them if you want. I rather like having (reasonable) small text as an option, and don't think we should axe it unnecessarily. Maybe a profile setting to ignore the tag or set a minimum font size would work, like the font options in the classic theme?

As for mod notes, would it… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 5:03 PM on January 13, 2021

FWIW, text with one small tag is the same size as the byline under each comment, and the navigation at the top of each subsite, and the sidebar text, and the flagging box, and several other basic UI elements. Even Windows menus have smaller text, at least on my display. There may be people for whom this marginally smaller size is unreadably small, but that's what common accessibility options such as upping the default zoom or setting a higher minimum text size are for. It takes care of the… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 7:51 PM on January 13, 2021

theora55: "Why the fuss over the word ban? Sometimes we make things unavailable, and calling it what it is and looks like is more straightforward. There's no moral stance about having used it, but we've learned it doesn't work for some MeFites, so we're adapting."

Because it's a long-standing useful feature, and there are already multiple ways to solve the problem without taking that feature away? There are people for… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 7:56 AM on January 14, 2021

jacquilynne: "You have this desire to set the text small for a reason, right? To impart some kind of meaning about its importance or relevance to the ongoing discussion? If those who are small-print disabled have to work around that by disabling small text on their end, then that meaning is lost to them anyway. So what was the point of setting it that way, versus using some other indicator of decreased importance or relevance that more mefites can actually benefit from?… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 12:15 PM on January 14, 2021

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

(j/k, this is a fine compromise!)
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 1:23 PM on January 17, 2021

biogeo: "[Really, this actually works? I could have sworn I encountered some kind of block when I tried it once. Don't know how I confabulated that. Sorry for the error!]"

There actually is! But it's only if you try combining a [small] tag with "posted by" to make a fake comment byline. Here's the message that appears:

Please remove the "posted by..." line from your comment. This can… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 7:56 AM on January 25, 2021

I can't stop imagining the parallel universe where the invaders were a little more organized, or the police didn't evacuate the chambers in time, and the world ended up watching in horror as lawmakers were strung up on the Capitol lawn or executed live on the House floor, with the White House ominously silent the whole time. Almost as bad is wondering how many people in my day-to-day would have reacted with joy instead of shock at the decapitation of American democracy. As… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 6:14 PM on January 12, 2021

FASTUOUS FORUM FRONTMAN FLEECES FOLLOWERS FOR $4K FOLLICLE FASHIONING
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 12:14 PM on October 5, 2020

As a kid, one of my first experiences with multiplayer internet games was the virtual world platform ActiveWorlds, whose simplistic graphics were lightweight enough to run on the family computer (even if it did take ten minutes to stream the data in on dial-up). While you could pay to host your own custom environments, the original hub world, Alphaworld, was unique in that it wasn't a series of connected rooms or server shards, but a single shared virtual space the size of California. And apart… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 10:20 PM on October 3, 2020

cortex: "it's something I've run a dump of a couple times over the years; I'll see if I can find any of those previous dumps"

MeFi

MeTa

(Only updated through 2012, though.)
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 8:48 PM on August 12, 2020

I don't enjoy seeing people wipe their accounts -- IMHO, it's better to do targeted deletions of personal information like name/family/hometown/job/etc. -- but if they feel it necessary for personal safety, that's their right. But extending that to every thread they posted and all the content from others in those threads is several steps too far. That's literally thousands of other people's contributions being erased without their knowledge or consent on the whim of one… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 8:09 PM on August 5, 2020

sweetjane: "Think about safety. Think about people. Are people more important than an internet archive?"

Homo neanderthalensis: "Some people in this thread are really outing themselves as Cis men who’ve never been stalked/threatened/assaulted and therefore prioritizing an “archive” over peoples safety and it’s just super disappointing."

I really resent this framing. One can care about both… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 10:01 PM on August 5, 2020

zebra: "A more targeted approach might be preferable, for you. We have heard from at least one member of the community who said her safety required a complete wipe of her activity. I trust her to know her needs and preferences better than I do."

Her activity, though -- not other people's. And I fail to see why, say, a popular MeFi post or an important MeTa policy thread with zero personal information must be auto-deleted instead of anonymized… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 10:21 PM on August 5, 2020

If an AskMe post asking for the best restaurants in Cleveland is turned into a post by Anonymous, what does that reveal other than somebody in Cleveland was hungry at some point? If a post contains personally identifying details in itself, that's one thing, but random data points like that are useless when anonymized and combined with countless others. If somebody feels the details in a single post can help dox them, they should of course be able to delete it, but making it a blanket-delete… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 11:12 PM on August 5, 2020

death valley compound: "Cool. What about the people who say that's everything? Are you suggesting they shouldn't have that option? Should they have to individually justify each one? Do you really expect someone who may be actively being harassed to comb through their entire post and comment history to do that?"

If they choose to claim every single post as personally revealing, they should be able to do that. It just shouldn't be the default… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 12:24 AM on August 6, 2020

sagc: "I've got no problem if this includes the entire content of any post they've created, as opposed to the comments on a post.

I'm thinking entirely about Metafilter proper for all of the above."

Making a post about something you have a personal connection to, or even something a friend or family member has a connection to, is perhaps the most well-known bannable offense on this site. If posts are properly… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 4:42 PM on August 8, 2020

Thanks for the clarification, r_n. I think a lot of contention had come from different understandings of what is meant by "deletion." But I've seen accounts who have had all their posts, including MeFi FPP's and all comments, completely removed from the site, not merely soft-deleted. IIRC, comments by others in those threads weren't appearing in search, either.
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 10:55 AM on August 10, 2020

My gut tells me that taking a site offline for more than routine maintenance on a regular basis is a fantastic way to destroy traffic, search rankings, and revenue. This is true enough just for informational websites about COVID-shuttered businesses, and would be even more true for a site whose business is the site. Even if it were a read-only mode type of thing, regularly preventing existing users from being able to post or comment just discourages people from participating in general.
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 4:24 PM on July 23, 2020

Months offline would kill the site obvs, but even one day a week would be cutting participation and content (with knock-on effects on traffic and revenue) by ~15%. That's just not affordable.
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 4:51 PM on July 23, 2020

saeculorum: "Right now, wiping your account wipes all answers to the AskMeFi questions you post. That means wiping your account involuntarily erases the works of others (including marginalized groups). It'd be even more disrespectful to the question responders to claim ownership over their answers and that you have the right to both retain their answers yourself as well as the ability to delete those answers for others."

maxwelton:… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 3:47 PM on August 5, 2020

In the last thread I'd recommended letting comments with ambiguous words appear to post from the user's POV, but then place them in a private mod-side queue for rapid approval/deletion. That way people who post innocently don't get put out by automated false-positive rejections, while mods can still prevent truly problematic usage from being published and engage with the poster about why it's not okay. Cortex said it was too technically complicated for the initial roll-out,… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 5:39 PM on July 30, 2020

restless_nomad: "One new proposal:
- Hold comments with problematic words without warning the user until a mod approves or deletes it."

Specifically, not telling the user only if it ends up being approved -- if it is deleted, then the mod on duty can ping the user with an automated message explaining why their message was removed (with a link to the guidelines), plus maybe a copy of the original message so they don't have to write… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 11:28 AM on July 31, 2020

Does anyone have a spare code they'd be willing to Memail me? I meant to get this but confused it with the Humble Bundle and thought it would be available for a month. I can add a 5x donation to the original charity (or one of your choice) in exchange.
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 3:33 PM on July 21, 2020

Wasted my day off today trying to give blood at a Red Cross drive. Scheduled an appointment, set up an account, filled out the advance questionnaire, brought a mask along. But since my car's AC is broken, by the time I got there (less than 10 minutes) my temperature was stubbornly less than half a degree above their little forehead scanner's threshold. Went back home, waited 20 minutes, and used an oral thermometer -- 98.7°! I called them and got the OK to reschedule for their last slot of the… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 5:26 PM on July 7, 2020

paduasoy, if at first you don't succeed, try again! I got rejected twice in one day upthread due to micro-fever from a hot car ride, but I was able to go in again today and donate without issue. (Unfortunately they were out of free t-shirts in my size, but I don't think that merits a "fucking fuck"... I'll save that for if the COVID antibody test they do turns out positive.)
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 12:01 PM on July 16, 2020

As far as implementation goes, would it be possible to make the slur list fairly comprehensive, but then temporarily "shadowban" matched comments instead of blocking them outright or requiring users to petition the mods? I.e., make it so it looks like it posted from the user's end, but hide it from everybody else in a private queue. That way the on-duty mod can look at it fairly quickly and approve it if it's not harmful (or contact the user if it is). This also… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 9:13 AM on July 14, 2020

Just to clarify, it would only act as a silent filter for innocent comments like the ones I mentioned, to avoid unnecessary friction from false positives. If a term is actually being used as a slur, the mod could then dash off a note to the user letting them know what the issue is, with a copy of their comment for easy editing. This way we could have a much broader wordlist without worrying about making a lot of people feel frustrated over being wrongfully blocked by an overzealous filter.
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 12:52 PM on July 14, 2020

cortex, any change in your view of the queue idea? That is, silently screen matches, then a mod can quietly approve false positives, or reject them -and- notify the user if it's actually harmful. (I think I made it sound like harmful ones should be silently removed, too, but that wasn't my intent.)

To make it easier for mods and users, the notification for mod-rejected comments could be an automated message with boilerplate about offensive language, a link to the new… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 11:21 AM on July 16, 2020

Understood. I hope something like this is still a possibility down the road, because IMHO a filter with less nuance will be a lot more frustrating in practice and tend to discourage people from participating, especially new users.
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 11:48 AM on July 16, 2020

For reference, I have been tagged by this user several times before. Also, I hope EM's story discourages people from acting like the mods have laid low on this because they aren't affected or just don't care. AFAIK all the mods, including the new ones, have been harassed pretty viciously in one way or another.

As somebody who's thought a lot about growing MeFi's userbase and reach, I'm extremely wary of any changes that make it more difficult for people to sign up for,… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 6:01 PM on July 13, 2020

To add some more context, the account wipe that was implemented here was highly disruptive. Unlike some of the anonymization/member's-only options suggested above, all the user's comments have been completely erased. Their posts still exist, but they're all deleted, so they don't show up in site search and have been removed from people's favorites. Even posts with hundreds of comments' worth of discussion stemming from them -- even important policy discussions here -- are pretty much unfindable… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 6:52 PM on July 14, 2020

The corpse in the library: "I don't understand what you're saying there, WCWedin."

I reckon they were saying it wasn't casual or regular in this case, which, yeah. But my understanding of trappist's comments is that they were *livid* with how the site handled this problem in general and would likely want to be able to do a similar reset again in the future. Per cortex's response, he was open to them staying if they… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 8:14 PM on July 14, 2020

queenofbithynia: "If I really want to read something on the internet, like really REALLY want to, but the person who wrote it doesn't want to have it archived on the internet, to what extent should I (me) be able to disregard their urgent but powerless wishes and do what I like, because I've never heard of screencaps and because it makes me feel real good to have what I want?"

I'm not making an argument for people not being able to delete… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 9:20 PM on July 14, 2020

Fifty-Five Ways of Looking at a City: The Philosophy of Urbanism in Medieval Venice

(It is so very Metafilter that I had to rewrite this one twice, on account of "phenomenology" and "14th century Italy" both appearing in the last 20 comments.)
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 8:05 PM on May 23, 2020

Orange Dinosaur Slide: "Interspecies Intervention: The Impact of Internal Combustion Engines on Early 20th Century Rural Amphibian Psychology"

the primroses were over: "The Wind in the Willows"

also frogger
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 9:53 PM on May 23, 2020

Is there a reason screen readers don't have an option to treat these as regular characters? I can't imagine how it would be useful to read out the weight, style, and case of each individual letter like that. Searching unicode letters on Google, for instance, brings up the same results as if you'd typed it in normally.
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 2:27 PM on May 19, 2020

Fun times here in west Alabama. Our big regional hospital set up last week for drive-thru coronavirus testing, which you'd think would be great for getting a handle on the extent of the outbreak. But then they had to cancel on like the third day due to rain. Then most of the hundreds of tests they did do got spoiled on the way to the testing center. Then they were closed over the weekend. Then they just had to cancel Monday's testing... due to rain.… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 1:17 PM on March 23, 2020

mumimor: "Authorities say the virus doesn't spread through food, but I feel insecure about the handling part."

I don't understand how it couldn't. If touching a contaminated surface and then touching your face is a major vector, why wouldn't putting contaminated food in your mouth be, as well? There's a rather important tube going from there directly to your lungs.

I've also been trying in vain to learn whether cuts… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 11:25 AM on March 16, 2020

I'm in the middle of reading your book "A History of the Future in 100 Objects" and it is so great! Thanks for being here.
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 9:53 AM on February 21, 2020

girlmightlive: "I find it odd that MeFi allows links to that site that posts NYT articles whole cloth."

jessamyn: "Which site is that?"

I haven't seen any on MeFi yet, but they definitely exist and are super-brazen about it. As an example, I check Drudge Report pretty often to get a sense of what the right-wing spin du jour is, and I've noticed they've stopped linking to NYT articles in… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 7:14 AM on February 14, 2020

I'd noticed this trend over the last few weeks, and while the posts are excellent I was secretly wondering how long until somebody made a grumpy trainwreck MeTa post about the tags. I'm glad to see it announced like this instead!

They do still give me a little pause, since they can read antagonistic to folks not steeped enough in site culture to savvy the tongue-in-cheek intent (which speaks to ongoing worries about MeFi's learning curve). But then again, anybody who… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 12:39 AM on January 14, 2020

As somebody who reads the site almost entirely through RSS (hello, week-and-a-half-old MetaTalk thread), I'm a little miffed that the repaired feed didn't catch up on the skipped items. Here's a list of the missing posts for reference, at least according to my Feedly account:

MeFi
“I just like talking, writing about, and playing games” by Fizz (Game Awards)
unexpectedly confronted with circumstances by roolya_boolya (news of the weird)… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 8:21 PM on December 23, 2019

Rock Steady: Once upon a time someone (it might have been me, that's how long ago it was) did a quick and dirty mockup of a unified MeFeed where it looked basically the same as the Blue, but each post had the background color of its subsite. It was kind of an ungodly rainbow, but I think something along those lines, where the core MeFi design stays the same (text posts in chronological order) but there is some visual treatment of each post to differentiate it.… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 12:47 PM on December 6, 2019

WCityMike: "Seconding JustWatch, as well as canistream.it."

JustWatch is okay, but canistream.it has never worked for me any of the times I've tried it. Painfully long load times that lead to glitchy, empty search results pages. Even their app is broken! I don't know why they bother to host the thing anymore.
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 7:17 PM on December 1, 2019

Film: WALL-E. Every facet of it from the art direction to the music to the visual humor to the end credits is so pleasing, and the first third seems like sympathetic viewing for somebody stranded all alone. (Runner-up is The Lion King, for similar art/music/nostalgia reasons, but I never could get into the goofier sing-along parts.)

Book: Invisible Cities. Not the longest of books, but the writing is so… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 10:53 AM on November 14, 2019

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was the first book I ever really fell in love with, and it had a huge impact on my sense of humor and love of science fiction. (And while I love my old English Lit teacher, I don't think I'll ever be able to fully forgive her for losing the original dogeared paperback copy I loaned her one summer in a failed attempt to lobby for its inclusion on our optional class reading list.)

Also, alongside The Daily… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 12:21 AM on September 29, 2019

Thanks!
posted to MetaTalk by Rhaomi at 9:53 AM on September 20, 2019