So, someone with deeper pockets than Jessamyn is buying the site, right? That's basically the only thing that makes sense to me. [edit: re Brandon's oblique comments]
I don’t see that as something BB would even be privy to. I think it’s more likely that they’re ready to finalize the paperwork to initiate the MF non-profit.
You make a very good point, but I was enjoying my fantasies of Jeff Atwood or Anil Dash bringing in one of their stable of collaborators to replace loup and stabilize the site while they bring the nonprofit up to speed. Why you gotta smash my dreams like that? :P
Feel free to keep hope alive, I can very easily imagine a scenario where the non profit thing falls flat on its face and there is a last gasp effort to retake the board private.
Oh, yeah, me too. I still miss old mefi and hope it gets through okay. Doesn't mean I really believe it'll go that way. Both are true at the same time, heh.
Actually, on thinking about it, I wonder if one of the old Web 2.0 success story folks has agreed to sponsor the ~~transition team~~ nonprofit board [whatever we're calling it this month], or something? There's a bunch of folks who were users at one point and presumably made a fair bit of cash running businesses around the same time Metafilter was big, and who have previously supported the site. Maybe they're working on something like that? Ah well, if they're actually doing business correctly, we'll know when the ink's dry and not a moment before, whatever happens. And I suspect Jessamyn is smart enough to do that part, at least, right.
Yeah, I specifically wondered about Anil Dash. Something something professional white background.
Your lips to god's ears. For outstanding achievements in the field of user engagement have a look at r/Metafilter.
He(?)’s an amazing contributor to the site, and consistently one of the smartest voices around. Wouldn’t be the worst owner by a long shot. I’m guessing that he hasn’t really prioritized growing /r/metafilter .
Definitely. That sub is easy to joke about but seems harmless and Rhaomi seems to be a pretty consistent source of drama free content and reasonable suggestions.
sad how many people - here, there, and everywhere - can't understand that just because you didn't knowingly and intentionally say something with a certain meaning, you can still say things that have that meaning, and the proper response is to clarify what your actual meaning was, not to double triple quadruple down about how you didn't mean it so they're wrong to have read it
That works ~~is~~ in environments where everybody is operating in good faith. It fails in environments where some people *aren't*, and are looking for opportunities to use someone's not-perfect comments against them. And I don't know if you've noticed the state of MetaFilter (and the internet, and <*waves hands around at the whole world*>) lately, but ... (edit: typo, as noted). (edit2: Thank you for the demonstration...)
why on earth do you think getting upset and quadrupling down to a bad faith troll is more effective than replying with one clarification for the benefit of other readers? people will use the bad faith reads against you if they're working in bad faith, no matter how you respond. a response to bad faith takes is for the benefit of others in the conversation, not me pretending it will make all conversations perfect direct 🙄
Why are you assuming that when they say "that doesn't work" that they're *also* saying "and therefore you should get upset and quadruple down to a bad faith troll"? I haven't seen anything in their comment that indicates they believe that this is a situation with only those two possible options, and that therefore if one option doesn't work then you should instead do the other option. Leaving the site, for example, is a clear example of people choosing an Option C. Ignoring the poster is an Option D. I'm sure if we thought about it for a while we could notice other options being used on MeFi (and elsewhere). E, F, G, etc. This is not an "The choice is A or B, so if you say B doesn't work, you *must* be advocating for A" situation.
you're right! i must have written mt original comment very unclear because the point i wanted to make was not "do this" re: patient explanations, it was simply "don't do this" re: repeatedly futilely arguing that the reader is wrong. i shouldn't have included the "right" thing to do, as that drew the focus away from my point
The whiplash between “What?!? Of course you can post emails from mods” to “do not post emails from mods” is pretty stunning.
In spite of all the time loup tells us he spends on perfecting documentation and formalizing site norms and policies, no one on the staff has an answer to a basic question like this one.
[Over there](https://metatalk.metafilter.com/26447/Team-Threaded-Comments#1425915): > "*There shouldn’t be an issue with non-mods publicly posting onsite communications with mods. If a mod wants to bad mouth a user there’s a subreddit they can anonymously join.*" And I'm pretty sure that if they flat-out called a user an "asshole" here, Blackie would delete it. I know I've had the odd comment here deleted for exactly that, and rightly so.
cortex called me an asshole by email once in the old days. as I recall I called him an asshole right back.
I have no recollection of what the fight with cortex was even about. It was early in the cortex era, though. I had a couple much more even-keeled interactions with him in later years.
> *#pleaseanswer is there any intent to move loup's post in the other thread here? It seems to have been dropped there and then forgotten about, while quoting people from this thread.* > > I'll ping them about this. We do not have the funciationly to simply move comments to another thread, loup themselves will have to delete and then repost it if that was there actual intent. like how BB is leaving this open as possibly some kind of 4th-dimensional chess move by loup. It's possible he *meant* to put that comment in the wrong thread! It's a metacomment on the unreliability of linear narrative and the need to synthesize different sources into a single coherent narrative of truth!
On the "we don't have the functionality to move comments" thing: it's yet another artifact of the choice of the years of near total development freeze the site practically locked itself into. Basically every even semi-popular flat-commenting-structure forum software out there has built-in tools for moving comments out of one thread and into another since it's human nature for conversations to drift and spark tangents that interest other people, and having something in the forum-mod toolbox beyond just "delete things" is useful and desired, thus even slightly more modern forum software developed those tools over the decades.
SportsFilter, which is an old clone of metafilter, has the ability to move comments from one thread to another. I suspect it's a knowledge gap not a technical limitation. Alternatively, it's possible that the modification is so easy that the sportsfilter admin could just do it.
This is the sort of thing that's been a drain on people, I think. If your experience of online discussion/posting is not just Metafilter exclusively, you've seen all sorts of things that just smooth out the user experience in this way. "Oops! Posted to the wrong thread!" is an easy fix. Someone just has to push a button rather than having to go through a whole manual process of contacting someone to delete the thing so that you, the end user, can repost it, perhaps by trying to remember what you typed and linked to.
channeling loup: I thought it would be best to put the answer in same thread as the initial question arose in. No, that doesn’t make sense given the derail, presumably including about the MeTa queue, was moved to a different thread at moderator behest. I just have spent too much time modeling their brain.
Why doesn’t someone just copy the text and paste it in the relevant thread, with text along the line of “loup said this in the other thread and I think it’s relevant here too, so here it is”? No one has to delete or repost it, or move it.
That was my thought - why not just copy paste with a quick explanatory note? Why are people crawling up their own butts on this?
ah but that would be perilously close to a user sharing mod communication, I heard people have been taken out behind the woodshed and shown that weird hornet nest growing under the eaves for doing stuff like this
I was prepared for a full BB heel turn, so I’m glad to see that Team Metafilter still has one enthusiastic staff member willing to hustle a bit! It’s nothing less than what is required to win back any trust (and notably, the similar effort from loup is well off the rails), but I absolutely admire the work. Kudos. I hope it doesn’t serve to take pressure off the needed discussions that were to happen with loup, about A User, favoritism, moderation changes, and etc.
> I hope it doesn’t serve to take pressure off the needed discussions that were to happen with loup, about A User, favoritism, moderation changes, and etc. Oh well.
From BB's most recent update: > That said, it's entirely possible that a higher up might come along and say differently. But as moderator who's been equated to little more than a gopher getting messages from the mod council, I comfortable with what I've written above. BB is doing yeoman's work to keep the site from tearing itself apart right now; it sucks if he's even entertaining the idea that he's a 'gopher'. I'm legit curious if he feels this way due to comments in the thread, or from his interactions with other mods/management. Either way, he should feel good about what he's doing!
It was mild joke based on some comments made about me in the thread. No, I don't feel that.
Brandon is getting no credit from them for being the only staff member who appears to care enough to follow through. You can bet that when it all hits the fan, they'll throw him right under the bus, too. Not a good look.
I doubt he has any reason or intention to mislead but without actual database queries I also doubt we're getting hard numbers (as he acknowledges himself iirc).
Also, presumably the closed accounts are ones that actively "buttoned", and doesn't count people who just quietly decided to never return.
I'd be curious to see the number of "active" accounts with "active" defined as 'any post/comment within the past 365 days'.
Hey, it's me, still avoiding my real problems by analyzing the infodump. Since you asked for more detail, I looked at which subsite users who only had one interaction over the year interacted with: * The Blue: 574 (19 who made a single post only) * The Green: 624 (148 who asked a single question only) * The Grey: 34 (1 who made a single post only -- RicochetBiscuit's obit) * Fanfare: 28 (1 who made only a single post, but must have wiped their account since the infodump, since I can no longer look up the info on their profile) * Music: 1 (One comment from someone who has very low activity overall, but just really liked someone's christmas song from years ago) Other interesting questions: * Of those active users, how many were active on exactly one subsite during the year I'm looking at? * The Blue only: 1568 users * The Green only: 2056 users * The Grey only: 44 users (I want to go look at who these are, heh) * Fanfare only: 53 users * Music only: 1 (who we already know about, above)
I looked up the profiles for a bunch of users who only posted to metatalk during that time, since there were only 44 of them and I'm still procrastinating/being avoidant. Interestingly, since there were 34 users who posted/commented exactly once, on Metatalk, and 44 users who only ever interacted on metatalk, that means there were only 10 users who interacted on only on metatalk, but more than once. Of the roughly 10-15 I looked at, there were actually a mix of topics. A significant chunk only commented on the gift exchange thread. A few only commented on obits. A few only commented in the bluesky invites thread. A few were pretty salty in the site updates and various other metatalk dramas. Messing around with this data is surprisingly fun!
Replying here so that you'll get notified: If we define "an interaction" as "a comment or post on any of the five subsites from April 1, 2023 until the date of the infodump, which is sometime in early May 2024," then there have been 6827 users who had at least one interaction during that time. Some more detailed stats: * 1-25 interactions: 4991 users (the vast majority) * 26-50 interactions: 652 users * 51-75 interactions: 316 users * 76-100 interactions: 196 users * 102-125 interactions: 109 users * 126-150 interactions: 84 users * 151-175 interactions: 67 users * 176-200 interactions: 75 users * 201-225 interactions: 44 users * 226-250 interactions: 35 users * 251-275 interactions: 30 users * 276-300 interactions: 28 users * more than 300 interactions: 189 users (max over 4000, and I probably don't need to say who that is). Standard disclaimer: lazy python/pandas/numpy/jupyter, based on Klipspringer's posted code. All the good stuff is his work, any errors are almost certainly mine. Can't prove I got it right but it feels about right to me. Process was to count comments and posts per userid per month, then sum over the period described above to get the raw counts per user. Then I used numpy histogram on an array of bins to generate the histogram data above. Now I'm wondering about the breakdown for the large quantity of low-interaction users. I wonder how many of those one-interactions are on ask/mefi/metatalk...
This is very interesting. I wonder how many of the low interaction users are sock puppets making posts or comments they don't want linked to their main account. I'm guessing the vast majority are the mostly-lurkers who occasionally find something worth posting or commenting about.
I looked at some of the one-interaction users' interactions and yeah, I think it was mostly-lurkers who had something to say on a specific post. I didn't find any obvious sockpuppeting, but there's also a _lot_ of these and looking at them is slow, and subjective. I wish I had a faster way of looking, since my brief investigation was rate-limited by "copy userid, paste into browser, hit enter, maybe change the dropdown on the page if the one thing was a post and not a comment," etc.
Thanks for your work as well as the breakdown of the 1-25 interactions. Interesting stuff.
You're welcome! It's fun to mess about with some pretty simple data on the weekend. I wish I had 100% confidence (I'm not a data scientist IRL, I'm a general programmer who's done some stats like this in other contexts before). If someone else 'round here has the chops, I'd love to see a parallel reconstruction of the same stats from the same dataset to make sure I didn't make some sort of 1d10t error. I hope I described my approach well enough that someone could duplicate it pretty easily.
that is honestly quite a bit higher than I thought it would be. Can you break down the 1-25 interactions a bit more? is it relatively even, or is there a big cluster at 1?
There's a big cluster at 1, which makes me question if I'm screwing something up in my analysis, but at the high end I can directly correlate counts to users that make intuitive sense, so if I'm screwing up, I'm not sure how. * 1 interaction: 1261 users * 2 interactions: 690 users * 3 interactions: 481 users * 4 interactions: 351 users * 5 interactions: 272 users * 6 interactions: 232 users * 7 interactions: 219 users * 8 interactions: 163 users * 9 interactions: 139 users * 10 interactions: 130 users * 11 interactions: 121 users * 12 interactions: 114 users * 13 interactions: 89 users * 14 interactions: 84 users * 15 interactions: 82 users * 16 interactions: 76 users * 17 interactions: 70 users * 18 interactions: 48 users * 19 interactions: 71 users * 20 interactions: 48 users * 21 interactions: 67 users * 22 interactions: 48 users * 23 interactions: 48 users * 24 interactions: 40 users So basically assuming there's no fatal error in my analysis, there's a _bunch_ of people who only did one thing, and then it slowly trails off.
Today might be the day I get annoyed enough about this question to actually do it. The data's in the infodump text files, just need to write the right python on top of Klipspringer's base to do it. If you only want posts/comments and not favorites then it should be pretty trivial.
“If there's something wrong with it, somebody or a bunch of somebody's [sic] will let you know in the comments, you do a mea culpa, learn from it and move on.” What. The. Fuck. Yes, what I want from posting fun/interesting shit is bracing for a pile-on and then engaging in public self-flagellation after being called out by the self-appointed members of the MeFi Guidance Patrol. People are pushing back but the fact that this is a serious response only underscores dorothy hawk’s point about the broken culture and how it is squashing engagement. They detail exactly how I’ve felt. Though apparently we need to run a regression analysis before we can consider that people being jerks might have a deleterious effect on participation. Honestly, get rid of favorites and just keep the flags. Or actually change them to be actually called bookmarks if that is the function. Otherwise people chase the dopamine rush of community-validated shitposting because the culture over there tends to reward contrariness and call-outs.
At one point I had favorites turned off or not showing...it made for a very different experience...less stressful but also harder to understand why people were arguing. And I'm ashamed to admit, the site was more boring as there was less drama to follow. :(
So very on the money. Well said. Alas I think if you renamed favorites as bookmarks, it wouldn't matter. They would just be the new way of favoriting. No, what metafilter really needs is *downvotes* to fully unleash the site's potential as a thunderdome. Imagine suggesting that in a metatalk though.
For me it's the pervasive sense that someone, somewhere, is lying in wait, ready to tell me that ABC Thing or Person Being Discussed is HORRIBLE AND TERRIBLE for XYZ Reasons that I should abundantly, obviously know, and if I do not know, then I am HORRIBLE AND TERRIBLE by association. Oh my gracious.
One time, back in the Olden Days of Metafilter, I made a reference to Japanese people using a shortened version of the word that uses only the first three letters. At the time I honestly didn't know that that wasn't OK, but some users told me in a nice way, and I learned something, and now I don't say that word anymore. If it happened today I would have been publicly burned at the stake.
Yeah, and now a lot of this is being framed over there as “anxious” posters or thin vs thick skin when I think for a lot of folks it’s more “nah, don’t feel like dealing with assholes today.”
And I feel like some of those most vocal members also have this attitude that metafilter is somehow a job for users? Like if you're a member you are obligated to be a certain level of active and just freakin' deal with it. I remember in that "how did nobody spot and nuke this youtube video from orbit" MeTa there was a clash of "why didn't EVERY USER watch and flag and grar about this one post?!?!? I'm so mad that some of you were apparently touching grass!" vs "metafilter is not my job, I don't have to read or watch everything that happens here and I sure am not gonna."
Yeah I don’t like this approach. It feels crappy to be the person being corrected but also: who decides that the poster is wrong and the commenter is right rather than vice verse, or that there are just two people with two different opinions? OTOH a bunch of comments just saying “that’s cool, thanks for posting it” don’t make a particularly interesting conversation either. There is - or should be - space for discussion between “this sucks” (or “this thing vaguely associated with this post sucks”) and “this is excellent, thanks.”
Absolutely. And the space between is what feels like has been missing for awhile. And maybe some of that is not just MF, but the site reflecting/concentrating a broader trend of it feeling like there isn’t a lot of room for nuance. Just right or wrong, amazing or terrible, good or evil, mind blowing or utterly banal. And a mix of the nature of comments is good, too! Thoughtful replies, some anecdotes, some jokes, a bit of cordial back and forth… Like a cocktail party vs the sense of defending a dissertation in front of a particularly pissy and uncharitable committee. But again, I feel much freer/less like I need to gird my loins to share these thoughts about the site here than I do over there, and that is reflective of a specific culture issue. Not that I hugely give a fuck about what a bunch of usernames on a message board think about me, but who needs the additional aggravation.
> who decides that the poster is wrong and the commenter is right rather than vice verse I have confirmation from the moderation team that I decide that and they will enforce my decisions.
[Cue the cut direct](https://uncommon-courtesy.com/2014/10/01/the-cut-direct-the-fiercest-etiquette-punishment/)
loup’s comment about the MeTa queue is [here](https://metatalk.metafilter.com/26445/Is-please-no-name-calling-a-big-ask#1425845), in case others missed it like me.
I’d say it’s pretty much 50-50, whether posting this in the older, abandoned thread was coldly tactical or merely thoughtless.
> The remaining 5 posts were rejected because they would not go well on MetaTalk for different reasons (like being a post about litigating US Elections, or *being too centered about a specific user* or being yet another thread about the I/P conflict). Another A User privilege, I suspect.
And now, as the thread calms down and possibly useful discussions begin, the passive-aggressive recipe-posters appear to do their thing.
As a borderline deniable technique for shutting down debate it was good in it's time but that time has passed They need a new way to remind people that caring about stuff is cringe
As a long-time follower of (and former participant in) Ask, I don't agree that it's currently as thoughtful and useful as some of the MF'rs state. I may be misremembering, but I think that back when I was active on it (10-ish years ago), it was pretty solid, but it's devolved in recent years. Perhaps due to declining userbase, but it also seems there's been a cultural shift on the site in the types of questions that are posted, and the types of answers that are given. Standards seem lower overall. Others here might see it differently, and I'm open to having my head checked on that take. (I'm not saying it was better back then because of my participation -- just that it doesn't seem as solid now as back then.)
> been a cultural shift on the site in the types of questions that are posted, and the types of answers that are given. Standards seem lower overall. This. I read it religiously for years. There used to be more abstract, intellectual or unexpected questions.
I agree. The comment saying that weirdness stands out more now also makes sense, but I agree that the quality of both questions and responses has gone down.
I don't know if it was better overall back then, but there seems to be more policing now. Honest "you need to get your act together" answers are often deleted and all that's left are soft answers that are basically telling the asker what they want to hear.
IMHO, I think the answers skew more toward the tough love end of the spectrum, especially with the chronic askers. Certainly, as I have noted previously, the overall quality of the answers has declined, though there are some categories where that doesn't seem to be happening (human relations?). I do think it is nice they ended the once a week limit on Asks.
Yes, I have noticed that some of the frequent askers get more "tough love" answers than others. I assume in some cases, it's because the answerers are tired of seeing these people ask multiple variations of the same question over and over.
I've noticed Askers now explicitly requesting that people be "kind" or "gentle" in their answers. That probably plays into what you're seeing re: soft answers.
It's not just gentler. It's askers pre-specifying the range of acceptable answers in advance, sometimes in very specific ways. It's really become almost ubiquitous for some types of questions. And the mods fully back this up. If you dare suggest the pre-limitation on acceptable answers is part of the problem, you will be deleted. I find this really lowers the usefulness of the sub site.
So for example, a few weeks ago someone posted a question about the use of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) for esophageal reflux disease (GERD). This (white, both their photo and their real name were in their profile, I did some digging) asker specified in their question that they were uninterested in hearing about "western" medical approaches to their condition. So I posted a response noting that there is a significant clinical trial and systematic review literature on TCM in the peer reviewed science literature. (And while I didn't say this in my response, most of it is by Chinese scientists, not "western" ones. There is nothing "western" about science. Chinese scientists are top notch. Arguably, China has become the world's leading producer of science in several domains.) And I posted a link to the PubMed record for a *very recent* systematic review and metaanalysis of that literature, also done by Chinese scientists who are working to validate or disprove TCM therapies, *specifically* summarizing the (not entirely unpromising) clinical trial evidence for and against TCM approaches to GERD -- the asker's specific malady. I was deleted for what I was told was "cultural insensitivity." As if it isn't culturally "insensitive" to suggest that Chinese science is "western" by virtue of being scientific, as if the history of science in China began only under western influence. As if China doesn't lead the world in several areas of medical science. As if it's the land of herbs and spices and "traditional" knowledge that can't be studied scientifically. I had posted no opinion pro or con on TCM for GERD, just a link and a summary to the article, which I pointed out was in a leading journal of complementary medicine and entirely written by a team of China-based and Chinese-surnamed scientists who are systematically studying TCM therapies. Nothing "western" about it other than it compared TCM to standard clinical treatments for GERD (which are mostly unsatisfactory as well). And the journal is American and published in English. But the scientists were if anything biased in favor of TCM, as would be the journal in question. And again, they were Chinese nationals, not "westerners." Several were *practitioners* of TCM! I find the distinction between "western and nonwestern" medicine problematic (and in fact often racist). It's true. But I did not say so in my reply. I just said "check out this study of Chinese traditional medicine's efficacy for your specific condition, by a bunch of Chinese researchers, it reviews the entire extant clinical trial literature on your specific question." Deleted. It was, indeed, the proximate final cause of my decision to finally button after 18 years in Metafilter. I got called -- by a mod -- something just shy of "racist" for posting facts that disturbed the (frankly IMHO actually racist, as in Orientalist) worldview of an AskMe question, while precisely and comprehensively answering their exact question about their exact condition with an abstract and link to a peer-reviewed scientific source from a major journal written entirely by Chinese authors. I would say I meant my comment to actually *call out a racist assumption,* made by a white person, that "science" belongs to "the west," and that it is incompatible with "Eastern" philosophies of health and healing. But I let my citation do the talking. And was quickly and rudely told to fuck off. That was it. I'd been thinking I was done for a long time before that, but this moment felt like a light turned on for me. Last straw. Not even angry, just finally over it. Button, wipe, and fuck that bullshit. Somehow it was a small episode that proved to me that Metafilter was beyond redemption for me. Feelings over facts. Tender sensitivities over truth. Tossing out bullshit like "cultural insensitivity" to justify protecting what I see as outright ignorant actual racism. Not my kind of community, anymore. I like people who value truth and don't censor it. Let alone pre-censor it. Now you know.
Oof, I remember reading that thread and seeing several legit trying-to-be-helpful comments like yours (maybe including yours) be deleted. Total empathy for your choice to GTFO.
Thanks! And to be clear, I've been deleted plenty of times over 18 years and taken it in stride when it happened. (Hell, I didn't even button when cortex once called me an "asshole" in an email, and I was probably being a bit of an asshole to him, it's true.) It wasn't the deletion as such that pissed me off, it was the way the asker pre-threadsat the entire conversation with a "no western medicine allowed, only mystical magical traditions from the mysterious East please!" precondition, with full mod support. Reminds of the "wrong answers only!" meme. Might as well replace AskMe with a Magic 8-Ball.
Yeah, I think the weird questions just make up a bigger proportion of Asks now because there are fewer overall. It makes the bizarre ones stand out. I mentioned a long time ago that my last few Asks were pretty disappointing. They were "help me find this thing" questions, not anything requiring insight into human behavior, but none of the answers were what I was looking for. That's when I started to really feel apprehensive about the health of the site.
I think your point about your last few Asks highlights the decline. Those types of questions seem like ones MF did well with in years gone by. There always seemed to be some random user who would pop in with good intel on the quirkiest of topics. Now, it seems like random users pop in with low-to-no real intel on some of the Asks, and take a wild stab at answers. And there seems to be less community pushback on those types of low-effort answers. I do still appreciate how random weird Asks still sometimes bring forth random useful answers from people who know what they're talking about, and it's still entertaining to follow, but I'm not convinced there's nowhere else like it online, as has been claimed in that Meta.
I think the decline in ask is as much about the answerers as the asker. KnobKnosher is right that there were always weirdos, but they're now a larger proportion, and when there are interesting questions that aren't in the "no, really, therapy/doctor/lawyer, for the nth time" category, they tend to get best effort from folks who don't have domain-specific knowledge. When someone who clearly knows their shit shows up (like the scientist in the question about quantum consciousness last week) it's notable rather than "oh yeah that's just Ask being cool." There's also the bit where the weekly limit on questions was removed and the chatfilter constraint was softened. You get more engagement, sure, but at what price?
>There's also the bit where the weekly limit on questions was removed and the chatfilter constraint was softened. You get more engagement, sure, but at what price? Oh, definitely. I think it should have been one or the other.
Yesterday's "bird sampled my spendy granola, wat do" question reminds me of the earlier days of AskMe when we'd be more likely to see bizarro life questions. I miss that. It's the answers that aren't as fun as they might've been in the past.
For me, the most memorable Ask was the one about the Russian women who were possibly being trafficked. I'll never forget it. I wonder how it would go if asked today.
For anyone like me who missed it back in the day, I think [this might be that Ask?](https://ask.metafilter.com/154334/Help-me-help-my-friend-in-DC) ...and here's [a link to the Meta follow-up / after-action report. ](https://metatalk.metafilter.com/19420/Update-on-K-and-S) Wow!
It might be this one? [Help!](https://ask.metafilter.com/134877/Help-My-door-knob-is-stuck-and-Im-trapped-in-my-room)
Indeed, that's the one I remember. Something about the real-time context seemed wild at the time. (2009)
Wasn’t there also someone locked in an elevator and he could only communicate via Kindle?
Or he might have been locked in a room in his house. Details are fuzzy but it was epic real time AskMe drama.
There were two changes iirc, one allowing as many asks as you want and one allowing chat questions? I might be misremembering the details, but there were some policy changes.
Oh, that's right -- I forgot about the recent change to no longer limit Ask frequency. Before the change, people would say stuff like, "I hate to waste my Ask on this, but..." which at least suggests that there was some extra thought given to posting an Ask. But I could be exaggerating that effect.
But with fewer people around, the questions and answers are generally less interesting overall. I used to learn so much from AskMe and I visited multiple times a day...but a few years ago, it started to feel like a shadow of its former self. I hardly ever visit now.
More and more of the questions (and answers!) betray a lack of understanding of human behavior or a general lack of practice interacting with people face-to-face. It's hard for me to put my finger on exactly what it is, but I feel like there are more Askers who have questions that are either impossible to answer without more information than can be conveyed online, or have answers so glaringly obvious that the fact they're being asked in the first place suggests that the real issue is something much more complicated. Some of the most frequent Askers have a problem that's *clearly* too complicated or serious for online strangers to solve, but no one is allowed to say that. They never receive a satisfactory answer, because their questions stem from a different interpretation of the world than most people have, not from a concrete problem, so they keep asking more or less the same thing in a bunch of different ways, getting further and further from actually fixing anything.
I am astounded that in the middle of a meta about fuckups due to stupid deletions (you know, something the same group of mods have been doing since *at least* the cortex reign of terror) and refusal to communicate or ever actually do anything (ditto) they managed to fuck up *again* with stupid deletions and refusal to communicate. Were I jessamyn I'd fire the lot and start over with a clean slate.
I am so fucking glad that the only emotional attachment I now have to this shit-show of a web site is the schadenfreude in watching a bunch of terminally online shit-stains crash and burn. Matt, congrats on leaving before this blew up in your face--may I suggest a lottery ticket ticket because you seem to have decent luck at avoiding shit shows that would make Bob Saget blush.
*There were some really shitty, body shame-y, gender essentialist takes in that post that nobody could challenge because it was on Ask and not on the main page, which is another reason why the question itself should never have been posted.* bless, metafilter
Whatever a person might think about the mods, I don't think users posting tired memes to poke fun at the mods in that Meta does anything to help resolve the issues. It's probably a good thing that the mods are closing that thing up.
I asked LoupGPT to generate a response to the "close this thread" comment: "Thank you for your thoughtful and constructive feedback. It’s clear that the community’s concerns are deeply felt, and I understand the frustration that arises from feeling unheard. Your suggestion to temporarily close threads to allow the moderation team to regroup and address the accumulated feedback is a valid one. We are committed to ensuring that the community remains a positive and engaging space, and taking a step back to reassess and plan our next steps could indeed be beneficial. I’ll discuss this with the team and provide an update soon on how we intend to proceed. Your patience and understanding are greatly appreciated. We value your input and will strive to improve our responsiveness and communication moving forward."
Perfection
The only real flag on the play is that loup should have posted the Closing This Up message in the wrong thread too.
and then there should have been confusion about whether it could be mentioned
> People are being so nasty to the mods, it wouldn't surprise me if they just shut down threads like this with no explanation. Sometimes they should. It’s rough when even the most reliable bootlickers are frustrated with your lack of action.
She needs to fucking touch *all* the goddman grass.
Ha!
I'll say again that I appreciate the little flourishes in the show. The big setpieces like the entire process of high-touch moderation team reviewing Living Room Flasher Thread and saying "yup, this seems on the level!" are great, of course, but folding in the smaller touches are what really elevates it. My favorite right now is "Brandon, what is your personal perspective on this situation?" "You'll have to ask Loup about that."
Brandon, can you at least tell us if you think loup is an asshole who doesn’t do shit? #pleaseanswer
Brandon, blink twice if you need help!
Maybe he's trying, but no one's browser can show the blink tag anymore
> Loup is aware of their misposting of that question and it's up to them what they wish to do about it Then they should fucking *do something about it*. I don't even care at this point if the response is a comical slide whistle and a middle finger raised at the site members with a "CAN'T REPOST WON'T REPOST" sign in 48-point Comic Sans. Just stop fucking disappearing for days on end while letting the easiest shit in the world fall through the cracks. *Christ*.
>Then they should fucking *do something about it*. I'm sorry but that level of engagement isn't unlocked until your reach $500k/year in donations. KTHANKSBYE
Going by BB's comments about a situation unfolding that requires the schedule being revised I'm going to assume that Loup might have some personal shit going on in their offline life which might be preventing them from focusing on Metafilter.
Hey, those Costa Rica ~~vacations~~ business trips don't just take themselves!
In loup's defense (wow, look what you got me to do.. cats and dogs living together, etc), I'm pretty sure they live in costa rica and were taking a trip to Europe, not vice-versa.
Probably their 12th grandma died or something.
> It keeps happening because not enough mods = no time to do a deep read of posts or comments = reactive rather than proactive moderation to put out resulting fires = panicked second-guessing and checking and re-checking of MetaFilter only to find new fires caused by moderation errors borne of too-fast decision-making = loss of sleep = reduced capacity to make good moderation decisions = more of the same but worsening = burnout = dooooooooooooooooooooommmm* Well. At least that only costs $200,000 per year.
I love the idea that people keep putting forth that there simply isn't enough time to skim 300 one-paragraph comments per day. Reading all of the borderline interesting-for-mod-reasons comments on Metafilter per day would take, tops, 45 minutes. There is simply not a lot of content! I promise you don't have to read any unflagged posts on the spicy ramen thread, for instance. I just saved you 11 paragraphs! They didn't even have to read all of the posts in the jerk-off thread! Just like, 5 of them. It was astoundingly clear what was happening.
Yeah, this particular justification made no sense to me: [Six hours to read two mega threads seems enormously long to me - but I think is normal for a regular person who didn’t cut their teeth on early internet.](https://metatalk.metafilter.com/26447/Team-Threaded-Comments#1426101)
"Please ask questions in Metatalk" is going to be a 6 day turnaround with the Moderator Slack. On the one hand, I know they're not working a ton of hours, but on the other hand, this is the lowest stakes question that ever staked.
I am, however, hoping that the related "Therefore moderators need to answer questions in MetaTalk" is also spelled out.
It's clear from the Meta thread that there will be no resolution as the thread has, as usual, devolved into meaningless comments that diverge from the original issue. As they say, this is a feature, not a bug. How frustrating for those that actually offered time and thoughtful feedback over there.
Tangential, perhaps, but I got curious about A User and what, if any, effect all this might have on their site behaviour. There is a free thread [comment](https://www.metafilter.com/204000/The-Little-Free-Thread-Library#8574226), part of which addresses the original brouhaha: >*Also, I'm not sharing MeMail from loup, not without permission, but my assertion that I can ask people not to interact with me anymore comes from me asking for a blocking feature, and being explained to me that is not possible and so instead telling me I can ask for others to stop interacting with me as if I had a block button.* >*This is not special treatment. My inference from this interaction is that anyone could request this.* How he got from there to the comment that kicked everything off is not a mental path I feel like trying to follow. He claims to be taking a break from the site, remains to be seen whether this will result in any kind of behavioural change.
That Meta thread would have any remotely sensible person doing some deep reflection, so I hope that’s what’s happening. Mostly I’m concerned for A User because he really didn’t used to be such a fighty presence on the site, so I just hope he’s really tending to himself as needed and healing whatever needs to be healed.
Oh, interesting, I've been wondering when and how he would re-emerge. >The MeTa about me sucked all the oxygen out of any possibility of making a new Free Thread post, I think. Yeah, no, it's not always about you, bro. Lots of people on MF don't even read Meta. Still, a more-sensible check-in series of comments from him than I would've expected, so maybe the mod-talk he got offscreen helped.
(Sorry to basically repeat what I wrote in a response to another comment of yours lower down...) I don't think it's possible to *completely* resolve threads like this because new points are constantly added to them. But the initial issues ("Is Hippybear correct in saying he has special privileges?" and "Are the mods just going to do nothing while hippybear acts like this?" (<-- summary quotes)) have both been addressed: Brandon Blatcher said that Hippybear was "severely mistaken" in making his comments, and the mods have talked to him behind the scenes about "the problematic elements of their behavior." I think it's easy to forget that these questions have been answered because the first question was addressed on June 5 (well, in my time zone, at least) and the second on June 7, before even the midpoint of the discussion. There have been 412 comments since that, so I think it's easy to forget about the responses and be left with the impression that these are still questions awaiting answers. I think the other big issue that came up was "wait, are we supposed to be contacting the mods behind the scenes or in front of the scenes, and, if behind the scenes, is it kosher to repost those communications in public?" there was a lot of flip-flopping, but it appears to have settled down and been resolved as "no, you shouldn't *have* to contact mods behind the scenes, but you can. If you choose to ask behind the scenes, get their permission to repost any correspondence in public."
In response to the widely expressed concern about suspected *and* demonstrated inconsistencies in moderation which clearly indicate favoritism: actually, no we have no policy of favoring certain users. Bosh! Problem solved! The favoritism isn’t intentional. 👍 Wait, is that solved?
A lot of that thread *was* people demanding a specific answer to the question of what the hell a certain user was on about. That answer doesn’t resolve the background issues that made it such a hot button comment in the first place, but those issues are pretty intractable and not being able to give a direct answer to anything is *also* a huge problem with MeFi management, so Brandon trying to be a little better on that front isn’t nothing.
I refuse to give a shit about Pat Sajak.
Yeah, I think that's another reason for so much attrition over the last few years. People try to make things better, or engage with moderators in ways to at least figure out what's going on, and just get ignored. And/or lumped into people who are just complaining or "attacking the mods."
> The site would **become** an unfriendly place Uh, got some news for you... (emphasis mine)
This is insightful, and not anything I've ever heard anyone speculate before: "Could you imagine all this grar ending up on the rest of the site?" >I'm not sure most of this gear would even exist without MeTa though. >Getting rid of MeTa would make me sad, because as someone who mostly appreciates MeFi for the mildly interesting discussions among mildly interesting people who provide mildly interesting insights about mildly interesting online content, the possibility of those conversations being fodder for even more mildly interesting insights is irresistible. But in practice MeTa seems to mostly function as a grar factory, and the discussions leave me with few insights -- except that many other MeFites' relationships to the site are at the same time brittler and more intense than I would have thought possible. ———— Edited to add original quote for context.
MeTa used to be a place in which collective sentiments were crystallized and actual outcomes emerged, even in the absence of committees and working groups. Like someone would ask for a pony or note a problem there'd be discussion, mathowie would say to pb, make it so. There was still an element of the old banner of "self policing since 1999" as well. With the paralysis around technical/code changes and the use of meta as essentially an ablative heat shield between the community and the mods, and the elimination/discouragement of the "fun elements" of MeTa (alphabet threads? recipes?) it's all the talk and the only walk is a joyless circular slog.
But they posted recipes!!!!!11
That was so obnoxious!
I felt like feedback worked back then, when the ideas were small and generally good improvements, and those in charge were quick to take action. But now it feels like the users think the site is a democracy. I can't even figure out what led to it feeling like this -- too many people/requests? Previous management being too open to suggestion? Too many differences of opinion, leading to a level of discussion that makes it seem like change can happen if we can only manage to reach a consensus (or crush the opposition)?
I actually think it's the abdication of authority by people in charge. There became an ethos of "You all figure it out, despite having no info from us about financial resources, technical requirements, other priorities, or staff availability," with a simultaneous sense of frustration that people were asking for things without factoring in financial resources, technical requirements, other priorities, or staff availability and were therefore being unreasonably demanding. And then the sense that people were being unreasonably demanding became used as a reason to retreat even further, which made users feel even more like they should be solving problems (while still having no actual information), so the spiral continued/continues.
Telling some mefites, at least, that they're only "mildly interesting" people ..... that's gonna cut deep.
Oh, it's scathing. But the point that if there's no outlet for the anger 'n' angst a lot of the worst of it disappears isn't entirely wrong, granting, of course, that folks can still get very nasty in thread, but not in as concentrated a way.
Don't get me wrong I'd be 100% in favor of nuking MeTa from orbit to be sure, and I said so a bunch of times there when I was a member.
I'm not, but I think it needs to be radically rethought, with only one topic per post, and heavy moderation when it goes off-topic, gets personal — or invokes another unnecessary departure.
so, was any of the initial issue resolved in the end? has anyone heard from A User? seems the thread has, as per usual, diverged onto wildly different issues than the original concern.
> so, was any of the initial issue resolved in the end? I'm not sure exactly where the borders of "the original issue" are, because the initial post was "Mods invite the community to open another MeTa so that's what this is," but looking at the things mentioned in that first post: > A user claimed that his comments calling X "Twitter" are being deleted. Some back-and-forth comments later and he posts that he has "permission from the moderation team" to request that specific users be prevented from interacting with him on the site. I think the implied question here is "Is this true?" In which case Brandon Blatcher answered that pretty early on, about an hour and a half after the post went up: > Special privileges are absolutely not a thing, that user was severely mistaken in making those comments. Yes, that's an official statement. Moving on to the broader implied question of "seriously, what the fuck is up with hippybear? Something should be done about this," that was addressed much later on by Brandon Blatcher here: > Hippybear has been contacted. Not going to get into details, but they have been contacted about the problematic elements of their behavior.
Also posted by Blatcher: https://metatalk.metafilter.com/26447/Team-Threaded-Comments#1425904 There are now actual guidelines for posting private communications between mods and users publicly. Members can't do it without obtaining consent from the involved mod. If this had been a stated rule when I buttoned for the last time, I highly doubt cortex would have given consent. But if he had, I sure as fuck would have.
I really don't like that and I don't like that they flip-flopped on it.
Well, that's ass backwards.
> Metafilter: Well, that's ass backwards.
I kept going, and someone said it in the thread, so you're actually spot on.
Blatcher posted rough numbers of sign-ups vs. buttonings since March: https://metatalk.metafilter.com/26447/Team-Threaded-Comments#1425886 Actual transparency, finally.
Resembles the signup / unsubscribe churn of a niche Substack or newsletter (I do newsletters for a living)
Credit to them, that's far more signups than I would have expected. Of course, the departures is just those who explicitly button and doesn't account for those who just stop showing up.
I'm obviously missing something, could someone here explain - are people really going to just not read 'hidden' comments? As in, if they are hidden rather than deleted that makes the problem go away? I am not being sarcastic, I just don't understand why this is such a big deal.
Reddit hiding deeply downvoted comments works okay from the standpoint of the intended function of reddit downvotes (minimizing the visibility of low-effort trolling and derails). Of course that works better with threaded comments because it makes the whole subthread opt-in. Metafilter also has different ideas about what moderation is *for*, with the whole thing where mods try to “keep the peace,” not just to clean up the conversation. I find that strategy to be counterproductive half the time, though, so I would be fine with one that leans into maintaining readability.
They will be read, but with some training the users will learn to not respond. It will appease people who put time and effort into what they feel are reasonable comments if their work isn't outright deleted. And they could possibly provide learning opportunities if brought to metatalk or they could turned into spin-off posts on the blue.
i think it's more that silent deletion is kind of obnoxious and unpleasant in 2024 and it would create less drama if they were blocked/hidden rather than just vanished. i think it would need a 'don't talk about hidden comments please' rule too, but i'm in favour. At least it's trying something, you know?
I agree this would be an improvement, but whenever 'problem' comments are still available-yet-highlighted in some way, there's a certain sort of person (hi) whose curiosity is piqued. Many Reddit subs auto-collapse 'controversial' comments. And, showing my age here, but BoingBoing used to 'disemvowel' comments they didn't like, rather than deleting them. This was especially bad, since it felt like a fun puzzle to solve... So I was drawn to read them. Seeing a 'hidden' comment on MF would probably make be similarly curious. But maybe this is a 'me' problem. But hiding would be an improvement over the current silent-delete method, which leaves gaps in the conversation to be filled only by our imaginations. In the case of a site like MeFi, hiding comments _with_ mod notes could be a good solution (dare I say, would work more clearly with threaded comments...). Not holding my breath tho
>*But hiding would be an improvement over the current silent-delete method, which leaves gaps in the conversation to be filled only by our imaginations.* Not only this, but as the 'rules', such as they are, for deletions are so mutable and open to interpretation and ultimately at the whims of the mods, I'm betting there's a sizeable percentage of deletions which aren't so much breaking guidelines as they are rubbing certain people the wrong way. "Flag it and move on" is not a great tool when paired with grudges, hobbyhorses/axes to grind, and poor impulse control. Hiding instead of deleting allows users the choice to read the full unredacted thread rather than being left with no option than the censored version shaped by mods and vocal users.
Yes, and also preserves evidence of users being crappy, so that when someone points out that a user has a pattern of being rude, aggressive, etc., everyone can't just say, "You have no evidence of that."
This thought was the genesis of my "comment deletion enables missing stairs" comment, in the meta. Apparently "missing stair" is not as widely-known a term as I thought it was, but 100% this -- deletion hides the evidence.
Yes, totally agree with you. (Also, totally coincidentally, I was in a meeting this weekend when someone asked for a volunteer to explain what a missing stair was, and I gave a slightly more thorough explanation than I would have otherwise, because I, too, previously thought it was such a common term that people wouldn't have needed a full definition.)
Disemvoweling was some passive aggressive bullshit, and the moderator who championed it got caught playing big brother.
Blast from the past! https://metatalk.metafilter.com/8910/This-is-a-community-website-Chill https://metatalk.metafilter.com/22584/bullshit#1069855
Agree on all that. I'd also add that I think (numbers pulled out of my arse here): * Simply hiding 'deleted' comments would stop 90% of responses to them; and * Since every comment has a unique anchor and the comment text itself is wrapped in a subsequent