Content or quality?

December 13, 2005 1:08 PM

I'm confused. What is more important to mefites, actually responding to the content of FPPs, or rating their quality? I see a general (hence, no links in this question) preponderance to the former. It seems that many responses to posts are actually rating the quality of it and/or the poster, rather than the content of the FPP. I've read a lot of the sites about Metafilter and maybe I'm missing a concept or something.

I am truly not trying to be a smartass, I'm genuinely interested in understanding this. Thanks.
posted by Slap Incognito to etiquette/policy at 1:08 PM (93 comments total)

You should have used [more inside] for such a lengthy post.
posted by driveler at 1:12 PM on December 13, 2005

You got former and latter mixed up.
posted by selfnoise at 1:13 PM on December 13, 2005

This website is an aggregater and Filter-er of the web. As such, the quality of the filtration seems to be quite important. This isn't a discussion site primarily; if it were, the discussion of topics might take more prominence.

There are some people who prefer to use the website to explain what issues they care about and try to convince others that they should care about them too. These threads aren't about filtering the web; they are about the poster and his message. Those threads will also likely bring out comments regarding the quality of the post.
posted by dios at 1:13 PM on December 13, 2005

Theoretically? Content rules.

In practice? Sometimes it's more fun poking something that will poke back.
posted by cribcage at 1:15 PM on December 13, 2005

Or, in other words, it seems a feature of Metafilter that the comments would focus more on the quality of the linked item. The issue is whether the link is good or bad and worthy of being filtered onto the website. The website doesn't exist as an educational tool or a tool for presentation of an idea, so the emphasis should not be on debating topics.
posted by dios at 1:15 PM on December 13, 2005

All of my posts are amazing.
posted by The Jesse Helms at 1:17 PM on December 13, 2005

You are a bad person.
posted by jewzilla at 1:18 PM on December 13, 2005

If a post is sub-par... it will be cut down pretty quickly, and the comments will devolve into off-topic banter, some jokes, and a few people will link some random images in there too.

Basically, knowing the post sucks, everyone throws their shit at the wall. In many instances, it ends with that post being deleted. This is often why such silliness is put forth in the first place, because they know the post will be gone soon anyway.

Metafilter is supposed to be the best of the web, so if you can't bring it, you're liable to get told.
posted by banished at 1:18 PM on December 13, 2005

This post sucks.
posted by tr33hggr at 1:28 PM on December 13, 2005

> You got former and latter mixed up.

Or you don't know what "preponderance" means...
posted by benzo8 at 1:30 PM on December 13, 2005

I agree with dios. Some people try to push an agenda, or to jump on a *-bashing bandwagon (hence the amazing divining strawman) so that they can seem intellectually hip, and this really drives the quality of MetaFilter down. I have made FPPs out of news items before, but I try to explore the science behind them rather than encouraging political name-calling.
posted by Eideteker at 1:34 PM on December 13, 2005

I wish the editorial comments were reserved for metatalk or expressed as a silent flag, because they really get in the way of the few people geniunely interested in a topic that happened to have one misspelling or something.

I've proposed a discussion or "talk" page for every thread on mefi, just like on wikipedia, so if feel the need to say something sucks, there's a place for it that doesn't muck up the comments about the topic, link, and post itself. I'll eventually try it out, mostly to see if that truly improves things around here.
posted by mathowie at 1:53 PM on December 13, 2005

I don't think that would stop anyone, matt, sadly.

there are certain people who always comment on the quality or appropriateness of a post, rather than the content of it--they're pretty much assholes, and sometimes end up derailing the post entirely (which might be their aim).
posted by amberglow at 2:00 PM on December 13, 2005

well, amberglow, I would arm myself and jessamyn with a simple [send to the talk page] link that we could clean threads up with. It would copy them over to the page dedicated to "omg this post sux, please find more links next time, etc, etc, etc,"

Of course, I think once it's established as a rule, people can then start filling threads with "that should be on the talk page instead" :)
posted by mathowie at 2:08 PM on December 13, 2005

How'bout we flag posts and posts are made invisible if flagged a certain number of times. And...anyone saying "flag post 53663 to get it deleted" would be banned.
posted by null terminated at 2:19 PM on December 13, 2005

I don't know if the talk page will actually turn out to work, but I am just absolutely freaking jazzed to see it implemented anyway.
posted by cortex at 2:19 PM on December 13, 2005

nt: What's to stop someone from ganging up on another user, either intentionally, or through a bias where they tend to perceive that user's comments as inflammatory when really they're not?
posted by Eideteker at 2:26 PM on December 13, 2005

Well, taking the blue out of the feedback loop seems dangerous. Only a fraction of people read Metatalk, and only a fraction of people would read a wiki-like talk page.

If indeed this site is about filtering the links, then at least part of the focus should be on the quality of that filtration. If the filtration is done well, then there should be positive feedback. If it is done poorly, then there should be negative feedback.

There seems to be a prejudice against negative feedback. Positive feedback seems valued: e.g., "this is good," "oh my god that link made me laugh", "I'm glad you showed this to me." Negative feedback is ostracized: e.g, "this sucks", "You shouldn't have posted this," "My god that link is horrible". But both forms of feedback serve the same purpose, even though techinically they are not substantive.

But I never assumed that the point was searching for a link as a pretext for having an argument over some substantive issue. In that were the point, this place would be different.

The only time this appears to be a problem is on the news/political topics---another problem with them. But on the "Neat" links, do we really want to remove all feedback? How do you have a substantive discussion of zombo.com? Either you think it is neat or not. It's feedback on the link.
posted by dios at 2:27 PM on December 13, 2005

driveler said: You should have used [more inside] for such a lengthy post.

No doubt, however, I couldn't find it and I wasn't going to muck about, I had more important things to think about, like:

selfnoise saying: You got former and latter mixed up.

Yes, I did. As much as I preview, I always miss something. I did spell check, though, so I got that going for me.

Thanks for answering, everyone, I now have a better understanding and will act accordingly.
posted by Slap Incognito at 2:30 PM on December 13, 2005

maybe I'm missing a concept or something.

Perhaps an aspect of self-policing. If people never comment on the quality or suitability of the posts, then how will there be any standards for same?
posted by scarabic at 2:30 PM on December 13, 2005

On the positive side of comments about the quality of post... There are also the post like the one on Narwhal that don't bring up a lot of discussion on the topic but people enjoy them so you get a lot of the "neato" variety comments. I think people appreciate the post, don't feel the need to discuss but want to show their appreciation.
posted by Carbolic at 2:33 PM on December 13, 2005

Like dios just said...
posted by Carbolic at 2:34 PM on December 13, 2005

dios said: Only a fraction of people read Metatalk.

Wow, I know people who only read MetaTalk (primarily for the car-crash entertainment value), and will only read a thread on the other sites if it's linked at MetaTalk. Go figure.
posted by matildaben at 2:36 PM on December 13, 2005

Well, taking the blue out of the feedback loop seems dangerous. Only a fraction of people read Metatalk, and only a fraction of people would read a wiki-like talk page.

I disagree wholeheartedly. From my rough traffic analysis, less than 1/10th of members ever look at MetaTalk. Now compare that to a link, right next to a post that said "talk page for this post (12 comments)" on every MeFi post, and I bet much more than 10% of the membership clicks it just to see what's going on.
posted by mathowie at 2:37 PM on December 13, 2005

So is all feedback to be removed from the post? Or only negative feedback?

Again, if all feedback is pulled from a post, what does a discussion of zombo.com look like?
posted by dios at 2:39 PM on December 13, 2005

But would that be a good thing?
/not a snark
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:39 PM on December 13, 2005

She's talking about me.

Matt, what about the flagging purely up/down thing?
posted by Eideteker at 2:42 PM on December 13, 2005

Damn. That question was meant for "a link, right next to a post that said "talk page for this post (12 comments)" on every MeFi post, and I bet much more than 10% of the membership clicks it just to see what's going on."
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:42 PM on December 13, 2005

AAAAAAAAAAAAA++++++++++++ post, would read again.
posted by caddis at 2:51 PM on December 13, 2005

I think this becomes more MetaTopicDiscussion instead of Meta(Web links)Filter where the existence of a substantive discussion on whatever the pretext is in the link is valued more over interest in the quality of the link.

Couple that with the fact that FPPs are suppose to be about "finding things new and unique and interesting that most people haven't seen before," I don't see how substantive dialogue is even a consideration. For sure, the vast majority of "substantive issues" are things which are redundantly played out. So when a poster posts their 15th post about torture or atheism or problem with Bush or peak oil or why hipsters suck, no negative reinforcement is tolerated in thread? We can only be substantive with respect to whether we in fact agree or disagree that all Americans are stupid racists or whatever the topic is?

It seems we should have more and more effective feedback, both positive and negative. It should be better known what is good and what is not. That would help separate the wheat from the chafe. De-emphasizing the feedback and promoting (more times than not) agenda-driven arguments seems to be a goal incongruous with the what (I, at least, thought) this website was about.
posted by dios at 2:55 PM on December 13, 2005

Ooh, I like the sound of the talk page.

So is all feedback to be removed from the post? Or only negative feedback?

Now that I think about it, I leave a lot of 'Great post, thanks' comments, which are noise, really, but 'good noise' - I've never seen a comment like that derail a thread. Negative comments, especially uninformed drivel like 'A single link post is simply not appropriate on MetaFilter' always do.
posted by jack_mo at 3:02 PM on December 13, 2005

If indeed this site is about filtering the links, then at least part of the focus should be on the quality of that filtration. If the filtration is done well, then there should be positive feedback. If it is done poorly, then there should be negative feedback.

There seems to be a prejudice against negative feedback. Positive feedback seems valued: e.g., "this is good," "oh my god that link made me laugh", "I'm glad you showed this to me." Negative feedback is ostracized: e.g, "this sucks", "You shouldn't have posted this," "My god that link is horrible". But both forms of feedback serve the same purpose, even though techinically they are not substantive.
If it was just about the quality of filtration then there's no need for comments at all. There are comments so that we can discuss the link--not so that we can critique the style or form of the post. Feedback solely about the poster or the grammar or the suitability of the link, etc, belongs here, not in the blue. There are also flags that further eliminate any need at all to comment on those things in the thread. And--"this is good" is about the content of a post. "this doesn't belong here" and "this is an op-ed" and "grind that axe" etc etc etc are not at all about the content of a post, but about the poster. There's a gigantic difference.
posted by amberglow at 3:06 PM on December 13, 2005

"this is good" is about the content of a post.

No it's not. Or, rather, it is generally not. "This is good" is typically a reference to the fact that the user liked the link, not that the user thought the substance of the link was good. "This is good" can be applied to a post about a link about some new set of chaps with a built in toilet. By saying that is not saying that you really think the selling of assless chaps is a good thing; it is saying "that is new and unique and a haven't seen it before so it is good that you posted it here."
posted by dios at 3:13 PM on December 13, 2005

"that is new and unique and a haven't seen it before so it is good that you posted it here."

But are you saying that you think "this is good" and "this post sucks" are good comments?
posted by Chuckles at 3:18 PM on December 13, 2005

There seems to be a prejudice against negative feedback. Positive feedback seems valued: e.g., "this is good," "oh my god that link made me laugh", "I'm glad you showed this to me." Negative feedback is ostracized: e.g, "this sucks", "You shouldn't have posted this," "My god that link is horrible".

It's kind of like you might say to someone that their new hairdo looks nice, but you are not so likely so say that it looks terrible. If you do start telling people that they look terrible, people will think you are rude.
posted by caddis at 3:20 PM on December 13, 2005

"this is good" is about the content of a post.

Oooh. Jeez. The more I think about it, the less certain I feel about my opinion on this. Suddenly I'm not sure what to think. I thank you for the valiant attempt, dios, but it didn't help me.
posted by scarabic at 3:22 PM on December 13, 2005

dios: "That would help separate the wheat from the chafe."

This is a spelling error that somehow just seems to fit.

I agree wholeheartedly with dios that we need a serious upgrade to the feedback system. I think the flags should be much more detailed, and that a vote should be added. The vote should probably be a simple "for/neutral/against" system, not a "rate from 1-to-10" system.

I'm thinking that flags need either more initial categories, or very few categories and subcats for each to achieve the necessary detail.

But hey, I'm just a $5 user...
posted by mystyk at 3:22 PM on December 13, 2005

mystyk, I don't remotely understand what a complex flagging system would actually accomplish, aside from making you feel like Something Is Being Done Because I Flagged It when in reality, it'd still be up to the whims of me and jessamyn to do anything about it (and no, I will never, ever automatically have stuff deleted when it gets X flags).
posted by mathowie at 3:42 PM on December 13, 2005

this is good" is about the content of a post.

No it's not. Or, rather, it is generally not. "This is good" is typically a reference to the fact that the user liked the link, not that the user thought the substance of the link was good.
that's what i just said--it's about the link, not the style of the post nor the person who posted it. It's about what's contained in the link. It's that the person typing "this is good" is typing it because of what they found in the link.

On the other hand, something like I think this is a really thin post, amberglow. Short highly emotional op-eds? Haven't we seen enough of them? when i clearly stated in the post it was an excerpt from a book adds nothing to the discussion of the link. It's not feedback at all. There's far too much of that kind of thing.
posted by amberglow at 3:45 PM on December 13, 2005

Metafilter is FLAWED. Okay, close this now.
posted by fire&wings at 3:46 PM on December 13, 2005

I like the fact that people frequently leave positive feedback. Gives the place a more positive atmosphere.
posted by russilwvong at 3:46 PM on December 13, 2005

So is all feedback to be removed from the post? Or only negative feedback?

dios, there is a difference between "I'm glad scientists figured out what a narwhal's spike is for, I've always wondered about that ever since gradeschool. By the way, _here's_ the homepage of the dentist behind the study" and "wtf? a one-link post to the moonie times? GYOBFW!"

One is about the subject of the post, the other is merely noise that falls under the umbrella of "editorial". Editorial goes on the talk page, if you want to actually discuss the issues, subject matter, and/or links in the post, post a reqular comment.

dios, do you think comments that complain about the quality of a post are valuable feedback?
posted by mathowie at 3:48 PM on December 13, 2005

dios, my interpetation of the talk page isn't that it's for criticisms or praise of the link (i.e. this is good or this is bad wouldn't go there) but rather for discusion pertainingg to how a FPP is constructed (i.e. self-link alert, don't link to the same thing three times, stop using that damn small type y2karl). Is that right Matt?
posted by panoptican at 3:57 PM on December 13, 2005

dios, do you think comments that complain about the quality of a post are valuable feedback?

I think they are. If a link sucks, and everyone says it sucks, why waste the time to click on it.
posted by panoptican at 3:58 PM on December 13, 2005

I can't answer for dios, but I think "comments that complain about the quality of a post" are only valuable when emailed to the poster. Otherwise, it's just a case of "Look at me! I could have written that FPP better than you." If you have links or background to help a FPP than post them as a comment. If you just want to bitch, then move it to the proposed "talk" page. That includes comments that just bitch about spelling, word choice, grammar, or personality.
posted by ?! at 4:02 PM on December 13, 2005

if you want to actually discuss the issues, subject matter, and/or links in the post,

Perhaps I am not making clear a distinction which seems pretty clear to me. We link here to other websites. We choose to link to websites based on whether the website is something new, interesting and unique that most users haven't seen before, so feedback regarding that effort seems to be imporant. A "substantive" discussion of the link seems to me to be either agreement or disagreement with what the website is about. For instance: the Kirk Cameron ministry link (or whatever that is). A substantive discussion would be whether the Kirk Cameron ministry is doing good/right/whatever. A "feedback" comment discussing the value of the link might include whether you find the existence of a website with Kirk Cameron preaching funny/odd/scary. Those would be comments on the link, the source of the information. So would "this is good" and "this sucks." Those are comments on the value of the link to Metafilter.

Perhaps I am drawing too fine a line.

But it seems rather clear to me that discussion about the links is what is important; that is, a discussion of the quality of the link. For if the links aren't quality, then we aren't really filtering anything.

Now, it becomes skewed when you are discussing "issue based posts." While I take it to read that you fully accept issue based posts, I think you are shifting the standard. "Commenting on the link" somehow becomes verboten. Now, we only can be purely substantive. We have to address the issue instead of pointing out the poor quality of the link. We are suddenly not allowed to say anything about the link, the source of the information. I am not sure why we adopt that distinction.

dios, do you think comments that complain about the quality of a post are valuable feedback?
posted by mathowie at 3:48 PM PST on December 13

Absolutely, because without feedback, the filtration process doesn't work and the "self-policing" concept is impossible. Posters should understand that their single link rant that says "______ group of people suck" is not an appropriate link.
posted by dios at 4:04 PM on December 13, 2005

dios, my interpetation of the talk page isn't that it's for criticisms or praise of the link (i.e. this is good or this is bad wouldn't go there) but rather for discusion pertainingg to how a FPP is constructed (i.e. self-link alert, don't link to the same thing three times, stop using that damn small type y2karl). Is that right Matt?
posted by panoptican at 3:57 PM PST on December 13

Hmm. Well that is different than my understanding. I was certainly referring to comments regarding the quality of posts. If we are only discussing comments regarding grammar or style or structural problems, then I would withdraw my earlier position.
posted by dios at 4:11 PM on December 13, 2005

mathowie: "mystyk, I don't remotely understand what a complex flagging system would actually accomplish, aside from making you feel like Something Is Being Done Because I Flagged It when in reality, it'd still be up to the whims of me and jessamyn to do anything about it (and no, I will never, ever automatically have stuff deleted when it gets X flags)."

The attitude is already wrong. Just because you're the omnipotent member of the community doesn't make it any less a community. Your whims are exactly that, but if you ignore the village voice quite a few valuable members would leave in disgust.

What you view as more complex (most likely because the code would have to be written by you or someone close) I view as more efficient. If you care about the community you created, you'll listen to its desires, and anything that helps you to clearly understand those desires can only be viewed as a step forward.

The added benefit is that once in place, a detailed system of reporting *would* help to lessen snarks in thread, because they would be able to choose not to add noise. That's why I suggest a multi-directional vote. It allows the flavor of the post to be visible to others without a bunch of comments clogging up the page at the same time.
posted by mystyk at 4:23 PM on December 13, 2005

mystyk: If a million mefi members want a stupid thing and Mathowie doesn't, it's still a stupid thing.
posted by blue_beetle at 4:37 PM on December 13, 2005

mystyk, the feedback I get most often about flags is where are they are located and how does someone actually flag something. So that's where the readership is at. You're asking for sub-categories of reasons and all sorts of crazy crap and people reading the site have a hard time clicking on the [!] or knowing what it means.

That's why I asked what a more complex system would accomplish -- it wasn't to trott out my "attitude" about being in charge, it was to say that I don't believe adding complexity to the flagging system will help, and even if it was more complex, I don't see how that would improve the website as a result. Aside from "fantastic" flags in Ask MeFi, no one ever even sees them. You're asking for slashdot's full karma system and all its limitations and pitfalls, and that's not something I'm keen on doing.
posted by mathowie at 4:39 PM on December 13, 2005

dios, I think we're splitting hairs at this point.

I look at any random thread on MetaFilter posted today and I see at least a handful of comments complaining about some silly aspect of the post, either the quality or the presentation or whatever, and they're often the first few comments, skewing what could have been a discussion about the topic at hand. Maybe there's value in "this sucks" and "whatever dude, just ignore it and read the next post then" and "hey, I've been ignoring your lameass posts for years now, and I'm tired of it" ad naseum, but I have trouble seeing it.
posted by mathowie at 4:41 PM on December 13, 2005

Fair enough. I guess I overestimated the average user's ability to understand what the [!] is for. My pony wouldn't really require much extra work, and would improve things for the people that make use of it, but it would require people actually using it. I guess even a feature that magically granted wishes wouldn't be that useful if only a few people even knew it existed.
posted by mystyk at 4:49 PM on December 13, 2005

Can't we just have a flag for "give this user ass cancer"?
posted by mr_crash_davis at 4:54 PM on December 13, 2005

I argue that "metacommentary" and "substantive talk" exist on a long continuum, and that it's hard to draw a bright line.

Setting up a tool to easily bump users' comments from the conversation page into the chat room will likely result in a lot of MetaTalk threads along the lines of, "why did you bump my comment?!"

Personally, I don't think the current level of in-thread meta-chat warrants any change.
posted by squirrel at 5:20 PM on December 13, 2005

Funny, I was going to endorse the "only offer criticism of the post after making a substantive contribution to the discussion of the link" as a good rule (or at least as my rule), but amberglow beat me to it.

Thanks, amber. ;)
posted by mediareport at 6:21 PM on December 13, 2005

mystyk-

My understanding of the flagging system, which I rarely use myself, is just that it sends a signal to mathowie or jessamyn to look at a certain post because lots of people have flagged it. If the flagging is overwhelmingly negative, would it really matter whether people clicked "noise," "noise-subcategory A," or "noise-subcategoryB"? They will still have to actually go to the FPP and use their discretion about whether to delete it, change it, or leave it be. It is a blunt instrument, like an alarm bell.

Others, please correct me if I am wrong about the flagging system.
posted by Falconetti at 6:32 PM on December 13, 2005

another vote for talk pages. My only concern would be on behalf of #1 and jessamyn. No matter how simple the act of moving individual comments to the talk page may be, you'd still have to police individual comments one at a time for every thread. Isn't that asking a bit much of yourselves? If I'm wrong, then hey, GO FOR IT! I like the idea. i just know I wouldn't want to sift through all those flags/comments and click that "move to talk age" button that many times.
posted by shmegegge at 6:52 PM on December 13, 2005

"Maybe there's value in 'this sucks' and 'whatever dude, just ignore it and read the next post then' and 'hey, I've been ignoring your lameass posts for years now, and I'm tired of it' ad naseum, but I have trouble seeing it."

You can't both have the ad hoc moderation that you and jessamyn provide and no metacommentary in discussions. As long as your moderation is is not very effective as a deterrent, people will take it upon themselves.

That dios likes metacommentary in threads and amberglow doesn't is both their expected positions (to me) and makes sense. Amberglow thinks metafilter is a discussion site where anything that encourages discussion is good, anything that discourages it is bad. Dios (and I) thinks that metafilter is not primarily a discussion site and anything that gives people the impression that it is primarily a discussion site is bad, and anything that encourages actually good links is good.

Maybe making negative commentary on posts more accessible by a nearby obvious and easy-to-use "talk" page will increase negative reinforcement against crappy posts. Or maybe not. The current situation, where meta is supposed to do this, doesn't work.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 6:54 PM on December 13, 2005

You can't both have the ad hoc moderation that you and jessamyn provide and no metacommentary in discussions. As long as your moderation is is not very effective as a deterrent, people will take it upon themselves.

*sigh* I really have to agree with that. To completely deny the positive value of at least *some* in-thread feedback about the quality of a post (the generally polite kind that comes after contributing positively to a thread, e.g.) is to deny one of the most effective self-policing/newbie-educating measures Metafilter has. A talk page for each thread seems like overkill, not to mention more work for the moderators who'd be moving numerous comments to various talk pages, but if you think it's an experiment worth doing...
posted by mediareport at 7:02 PM on December 13, 2005

Wouldn't it be easier to just delete meta-commentary that's about the post and not about the topic? Post a MeTa about your new policy against this, and delete away.

I don't really need to go to a separate page to find out that 4 people thought that the post sucked.

If the topic degenerates into post quality, that might have something more to do with the topic of the post than the post itself.
posted by graventy at 7:16 PM on December 13, 2005

we should just be done with it and eliminate posts and comments entirely.
posted by quonsar at 7:18 PM on December 13, 2005

Hey mathowie, you said that only ~1/10th of people read MeTa and that having (yet) another page would promote them to take a look.

I was wondering if you have any ballpark notion of the ratio of blue page views to comments page view. I ask because although I've been a member for a long time, for the first few years I only ever came here link trawling and never read comments let alone MeTa. I figure it's maybe 30% or thereabouts - so if there was a MeTa callout then the thing would be fractured into 3 parts. That seems crazy.

I would vote no extra page by the way. The present system may be suboptimal but I know I don't want to go to (yet) another page about a post. I do think it is all about the links, I do think the discussions are important and I also do rely at times on going inside to find out whether or not to click on a link. Besides, 'artsy' sites won't have any comments at all - the 'thankyou' and 'good post' will all have to go to the talk page.

At the risk of promoting more MeTa entries (dear gOd), users should be quicker to bring things here and perhaps when a thread is started here about a post, that somehow is highlighted on the front page of the blue so people will know to come here with their pitchforks and gasoline rather than add noise to the discussion at the blue.
posted by peacay at 7:19 PM on December 13, 2005

Are you also going to set up a seperate jokes page?

Y'know, for when I say something stupid, and then someone else makes fun of me for saying something stupid.
posted by graventy at 7:19 PM on December 13, 2005

Yes, adding a talk page to each thread is going to create a truly colossal amount of extra work for the admins -- the need to set up the talk page system, to watch the threads more closely, to manually move the offending comments, and to deal with the ineviable complaints about comments being moved and the inevitable games people will play to try and get around having their comments moved. If you and jessamyn are willing to take on that much extra work, why not simply moderate a little more and cut out the talk page part? It's true that people are going to complain about being censored no matter what method you use, but you may as well use a method that'll create the least amount of extra work for you.
posted by Gator at 7:21 PM on December 13, 2005

The current situation, where complaints are inappropriately made within a post, does not work. Worse, if the complainant is considerate enough to restrain his behavior to Metatalk, fewer people have the chance to complain as well. The only solution is to rewrite Metafilter for the benefit of its complainants.
posted by Rothko at 7:23 PM on December 13, 2005

The idea that a talk page is about the post and the main page is about the link content seems very clear and reasonable to me. Nonetheless, the amberglow/mediareport point about positive contribution first, then editorial is very reasonable too.

quonsar: we should just be done with it and eliminate posts and comments entirely.

Hmm... This is noise, but it wouldn't really belong in the talk page because it is about the subject matter at hand. However, this comment would definitely belong in the talk page, because it is pure editorial. The analogy is a little broken... Probably because this is already the talk page...
posted by Chuckles at 7:24 PM on December 13, 2005

Damn, foiled by my own bad grammer!

That - quonsar's post - was noise. This - my last post - is editorial.

See how much more sense it makes now...
posted by Chuckles at 7:26 PM on December 13, 2005

I'm with Squirrel and Dios. But I also think that a lot of "This post sucks" would be avoided if, well, posts that sucked were deleted quickly. But that would mean having moderators that were constantly aware of all of the posts, and not overburdened and often inconsistent (which I don't mean to be a slam on you or Jessamyn; rather I think that's what happens when there are only two people who are in charge, and only one in charge with a capital C, and who both have lives outside of this website).
posted by klangklangston at 7:29 PM on December 13, 2005

What do you do with a comment that combines both? Should I just pad my comments to prevent them being shuttled to the talk page?
posted by Eideteker at 7:41 PM on December 13, 2005

You are all talking about positive feedback. Negative feedback means: nothing happens.

If you say hello to me, and I smile and pat your arm, that's postive feedback. If you say hello to me and I hit you over the head with an iron skillet (my closest weapon atm), that too is positive feedback.
posted by reflecked at 7:43 PM on December 13, 2005

reefer: Maybe you're thinking of reinforcement?
posted by Eideteker at 8:02 PM on December 13, 2005

I was wondering if you have any ballpark notion of the ratio of blue page views to comments page view.

It's about 50-50 in terms of actual pageviews, so most people view the index page, and a subset view a few comments to bring the comment page totals up to the index page.

I would vote no extra page by the way. The present system may be suboptimal but I know I don't want to go to (yet) another page about a post.

That's partially the point. Look at any contested wikipedia page, just pick a topic that is kind of controversial (but not tooo controversial) like say Stem Cell Research. You'll see an informative entry on the main page and it will mention that certain aspects of the topic are contested. Then view the Talk page for it. This one is pretty tame, it mentions parts that were removed and why, but some of them are filled with shouting matches and arguments by strong opponents about the nature of the topic.

The point is to keep the main area people see on topic, about the post, and the people that want to discuss why or why not a post should stay can do so on the talk page. It's like an automatic metatalk thread for every post, with the goal of removing off-topic editorial comments from the main comment page and giving them a home for readers that want to read absolutely everything or be vocal about their protests over the post's font size, number of links, quality of linked material, etc.
posted by mathowie at 8:48 PM on December 13, 2005

Well, Matt, what about Eideteker's point? What do you do with a comment (like mine, which annoyed amberglow but which I think was fine) that combines both discussion content and a brief criticism of the post itself?
posted by mediareport at 8:56 PM on December 13, 2005

mediareport, I would guess to start, we'd dump the most obvious offenders to the talk page. It's just like ask mefi, which asks people not to make wisecracks, but you often see Hollywood Squares answers with the first line being a joke, followed by "but seriously,..." and a good answer. I don't delete those.
posted by mathowie at 8:59 PM on December 13, 2005

Also, I envision the interface for commenting on mefi would include a short note like below the ask mefi comment box, saying please keep comments on topic, or click a checkbox to make an editorial comment which would send it to the talk page.

kuro5hin has had this type of setup for ages, where "meta" comments are separated from on-topic and you can filter them away from the site completely when reading threads.
posted by mathowie at 9:01 PM on December 13, 2005

How about when people comment about themselves ad nauseam? How many people come here for more WhatIWantToEatTodayFilter, HowUnfairlyIAmTreatedHereFilter and all the varieties of of AllAboutMe24/7Filter ? Maybe you could make a Dear Diary Page, too.
posted by y2karl at 9:08 PM on December 13, 2005

Here's an example. First comment, not so helpful. Noisy even, if you wanted to talk about the article. Second comment, on topic. The first one would be pushed to a Talk page, and people could go about their business of discussing the topic at hand.
posted by mathowie at 9:16 PM on December 13, 2005

I argue that "metacommentary" and "substantive talk" exist on a long continuum...

*calmly sights on squirrel and pulls trigger*
posted by quonsar at 9:32 PM on December 13, 2005

I appreciate the attempt to tweak things but I forsee a bit of a nightmare job for you and jessamyn - certainly to begin with and it will definitely set you both up for more criticism - starting a MeTa thread to complain that a comment was shifted to the talk page would be the thin edge I suspect. It's a notionally big change in posting behaviour. Good luck with that.

It is still an extra page to read. Which multiplies to many extra pages per 'session'. Hm. I'll be watching with interest to see how it goes though. I'm skeptical yes, but openminded.
posted by peacay at 9:32 PM on December 13, 2005

Matt, maybe a flag to move a comment from the main page to the talk.metafilter page would be useful?
posted by Rothko at 9:35 PM on December 13, 2005

Also, I envision the interface for commenting on mefi would include a short note like below the ask mefi comment box, saying please keep comments on topic, or click a checkbox to make an editorial comment which would send it to the talk page.

I was totally against the idea of a metacommentary page for each and every post, but if people honored this system, this might actually work. I'd like to see some AJAXian farting about to show/hide it in a sidebar or something, rather than a separate page entirely, though.

My concern is that it could in effect pretty much abandon Metatalk to banter and woowooing and meetup chat, for the most part. The potential for the FYAD-ification of Metatalk scares me.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 9:58 PM on December 13, 2005

If we get callouts on every eighth FPP as it is now, imagine how much fun it'll be when everyone whose comment got shifted out of a MeFi thread starts a MeTa thread questioning that decision.
If it isn't automated there's no hard rule to point to, and jessamathowie's judgment will be challenged every time. If it is automated, it will be gamed from day one. I can't imagine it'd be less work than you put in now. Reaching an AskMe-like level of pertinence in the blue might well be more trouble than it's worth.
posted by trondant at 10:24 PM on December 13, 2005

click a checkbox to make an editorial comment which would send it to the talk page.

That seems like it could work in a reasonably efficient way, actually. And I do see the point to your Wikipedia analogy. For what it's worth, if it became a site guideline to keep all meta-comments to a talk page, I'd go along.
posted by mediareport at 10:29 PM on December 13, 2005

It's like an automatic metatalk thread for every post, with the goal of removing off-topic editorial comments from the main comment page and giving them a home for readers that want to read absolutely everything or be vocal about their protests over the post's font size, number of links, quality of linked material, etc.

Don't we already have that? And isn't it here? (and hasn't it not stopped derailments and noise about posters and wording totally?)
posted by amberglow at 10:42 PM on December 13, 2005

The idea that there will be more than a handful of metatalk threads about comments moved to talk pages is kind of silly. You can complain all you want about being moved to the talk page in the talk page. I mean, such a metatalk thread would be immediately deleted, and there might even be consequences for such blatant abuse...
posted by Chuckles at 10:42 PM on December 13, 2005

stavrosthewonderchicken writes "some AJAXian farting"

That would be awesome, and perhaps even better just for the comment thread, were my xmas pony to be delivered. Something like the nonist. Yeah, yeah...I have no idea about the technicalities.
posted by peacay at 10:45 PM on December 13, 2005

...and they're often the first few comments, skewing what could have been a discussion about the topic at hand. Maybe there's value in "this sucks" and "whatever dude, just ignore it and read the next post then" and "hey, I've been ignoring your lameass posts for years now, and I'm tired of it" ad naseum, but I have trouble seeing it.
posted by mathowie

mark this date--it's prob the first time i'm in complete agreement with #1--or as i like to call him-- "Mr. Spirit Foam". ; >
posted by amberglow at 10:50 PM on December 13, 2005

mediareport: "but amberglow beat me to it". OK. I'm dense. Where did amberglow mention "only offer criticism of the post after making a substantive contribution to the discussion of the link"?

mathowie: I think this is a case of build it and they will use it. However, it'll take months before the community is used to the new speed bump.
posted by ?! at 12:00 AM on December 14, 2005

Eideteker, you're right; that's exactly it: I was thinking of re-inforcement.

My username's not "reefer", though it's easy to think I might have been stoned as a rat. Impaired after the 3rd double shift this week, that's all. Who let me drive home, anyway?!

Thanks.

:) After a few hours sleep, I can handle speedbumps, yes i can.
posted by reflecked at 3:07 AM on December 14, 2005

The thing is, the quality of posts here has really declined since the early days and it's very hard to sit on hands and not mention that. Looking back, I first noticed the place really hitting the skids about the time mefi passed user #3344 so you see how far gone it must be by now.
posted by jfuller at 4:48 AM on December 14, 2005

If no one goes to metatalk, and no one can figure out how to flag a post, and they're not suppose to comment on the post in the thread, and moderation is very light, how does having another page to discuss the post solve anything?

Besides, other than double posts and self links, what isn't accepted at metafilter? As someone already said, most members now seem to regard metafilter as a discussion board. And basically, that's what it's become. It's not what everyone wants, but we've been outvoted.

The part about "most people haven't seen it before" should be taken out of the guidelines, now. Already today we've had two one link posts to cnn (1,2) If those are acceptable, and they're becoming more frequent, what's the point of debating links at all?
posted by justgary at 9:21 AM on December 14, 2005

If no one goes to metatalk, and no one can figure out how to flag a post, and they're not suppose to comment on the post in the thread, and moderation is very light, how does having another page to discuss the post solve anything?


Simple--you post here in Metatalk, and then do a one-word comment in the thread itself, saying "MetaTalk" and linking to here--it'll send interested people to the thread here without messing up the original.
posted by amberglow at 11:45 AM on December 14, 2005

Simple--you post here in Metatalk, and then do a one-word comment in the thread itself, saying "MetaTalk" and linking to here--it'll send interested people to the thread here without messing up the original.
posted by amberglow

Point taken.
posted by justgary at 12:27 PM on December 14, 2005