How frequently are MeTa posts both deleted and zapped from existence?

June 19, 2006 12:26 PM

How frequently are MeTa posts both deleted and zapped from existence? [more inside]
posted by nevercalm to etiquette/policy at 12:26 PM (60 comments total)

I was happily monitoring the "war against metafilter" thread. I went out, came home, and zango! Gone. Was it getting a little too mushroomy? Or were the powers that be simply trying to not give a troll more attention?
posted by nevercalm at 12:26 PM on June 19, 2006

Good riddance.
posted by smackfu at 12:28 PM on June 19, 2006

very rarely it seems these days. what smackfu said. we should nuke this thread as well, just to be sure.
posted by loquacious at 12:33 PM on June 19, 2006

Go for it.
posted by nevercalm at 12:36 PM on June 19, 2006

There was never a "war against metafilter" thread.
posted by Floydd at 12:39 PM on June 19, 2006

That was not the MeTa thread you were looking for.
posted by junkbox at 12:41 PM on June 19, 2006

All MeTa posts that are deleted are zapped from existence, I think.
posted by Zozo at 12:43 PM on June 19, 2006

From orbit, loquacious?
posted by brundlefly at 12:46 PM on June 19, 2006

War with Metafilter is really Peace with Metafilter, hence no thread is needed.
posted by OmieWise at 12:49 PM on June 19, 2006

mod parent doubleplusup
posted by cortex at 12:50 PM on June 19, 2006

It's this kind of menstrating commie censorship that has led me to declare war on Metafilter.
posted by chasing at 12:52 PM on June 19, 2006

Sleep now.
posted by boo_radley at 12:55 PM on June 19, 2006

You think that was frustrating? I am always witty and refined, but there was this one MeTa thread where I was on fire. My repartee was crackling with electricity. I was blowing everybody away with my brilliance. Then, poof, just like that, it was gone. Keyser fucking Soze. When other threads are deleted, you know that there is a record somewhere of what you said, and you can hope that sad friendless dorks will stumble across it one day and think you are cool, but when a MeTa thread is gone, that shit is gone for good.

Relevantly, I think that the "war" was declared by pathetic people wanting attention, and unfortunately there are probably members of this fine site who, be it from boredom or just the full-of-piss-and-vinegarness that comes from being an angry young man, would have given it to them in the form of fighting back if they were aware that these losers had declared war on their beloved MeFi. Then it would seem like Metafilter was fighting these pathetic losers, because our angry young man contingent would be fighting it in our name. That makes Metafilter look lame, because you are judged by your enemies (“One does not hate as long as one has a low esteem of someone, but only when one esteems him as an equal or a superior.” - Friedrich Nietzsche). Engaging in a "war" with these people helps them by giving them attention, while it hurts us by making us look like we consider these people worthy of notice, rather than deserving of nothing but contempt (“The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them; that's the essence of inhumanity” - George Bernard Shaw) Therefore, I think that the admins made a wise, if somewhat hard to swallow, decision to delete it. Interestingly, I think of that Shaw quote all the time, but not in the "Don't be indifferent to someone, because it is mean" sense, but in the "I am really going to get that jerk, I am going to be indifferent to him". Does that make me inhuman, or does it mean that I am denying the humanity of my fellow man all the time, and therefore I am a bad person? Off to AskMe with me.
posted by ND¢ at 12:57 PM on June 19, 2006

I was happily monitoring the "war against metafilter" thread.

You mean the War Against Eastasia thread? We have always been at war with Eastasia.
posted by Robot Johnny at 1:18 PM on June 19, 2006

I thought we had alwas been at war with Eurasia.

God, this is all so confusing.
posted by Astro Zombie at 1:28 PM on June 19, 2006

I deleted two previous self-link posts by the kid behind that site, and sent him an email why it's wrong to use MeFi to promote your own site (while also mentioning projects). He then used another account to do the exact same thing, so after two account bannings and three threads removed, I see a MetaTalk thread pointing out the deleted thread, driving traffic to his site.

So I removed the thread which I agree is unfortunate, but screw the kid trying his hardest to garner traffic from MeFi. He trolled the site one last time and got exactly what he wanted, so I deleted the reference to it.

It wasn't about anything anyone said or did here, I just didn't want to give him the traffic he gamed us all for.
posted by mathowie at 1:48 PM on June 19, 2006

Under the circumstances, this seems reasonable.
posted by raedyn at 2:03 PM on June 19, 2006

Right on, thanks number one.
posted by nevercalm at 2:03 PM on June 19, 2006

Looks like MetaFilter is winning this war.

Matt, I salute your Army of One (two if you count jess, I guess).
posted by GuyZero at 2:09 PM on June 19, 2006

We have always been at war with Metafilter.
posted by interrobang at 2:12 PM on June 19, 2006

We have seen the enemy and it has cameras.
posted by ND¢ at 2:18 PM on June 19, 2006

And this is precisely why the kid was wrong. He was all obsessed that MeFi was a horrible communist board (by which I think he meant dictatorship) instead of a wonderful democracy. Well, when we were working democratically, we were driving traffic to his site. When the Steel Fist of Dictator Mathowie crushed the thread, it crushed this kid's traffic. So, yeah, metafilter is a dictatorship, but that's what makes it so good.
posted by Bugbread at 2:18 PM on June 19, 2006

posted by mathowie at 2:42 PM on June 19, 2006 [2 favorites]

posted by loquacious at 2:48 PM on June 19, 2006 [1 favorite]

matt, that chicom image made me laugh out loud!
posted by quonsar at 3:06 PM on June 19, 2006

And, as for a specific answer to your question, almost never.
posted by jessamyn at 3:09 PM on June 19, 2006

I so hope that clueless selflinker using that brand new day jpg.
posted by puke & cry at 3:11 PM on June 19, 2006

using

uses
posted by puke & cry at 3:18 PM on June 19, 2006 [1 favorite]

Touché mathowie. Well played.
posted by peacay at 3:31 PM on June 19, 2006

I thought of that Chairman Matt image as soon as I saw risk's lame post last night.
posted by Devils Slide at 3:49 PM on June 19, 2006

Matt, if you've banned the self-linker and deleted a MeTalk thread to avoid drawing more attenton to the selflinker, why is the link still up in the deleted but accessible* thread? Shouldn't you be doing EVERYTHING possible to deny this asshat any more "Google Love" from his gaming the Filter?

*and linked via a post at MetaChat

And why do the unwashed MetaMasses here seem to think his "War" was serious? It sure looked like nothing more than self-promoting attention-whore trolling to me.
posted by wendell at 3:54 PM on June 19, 2006

Metafilter: nothing more than self-promoting attention-whore trolling
posted by mr_crash_davis at 4:13 PM on June 19, 2006

wendell, all deleted threads are blocked from google indexing, so there's no issue there.
posted by mathowie at 4:52 PM on June 19, 2006

posted by Devils Slide I thought of that Chairman Matt image

It's Maothowie, baby!
posted by fandango_matt at 4:58 PM on June 19, 2006

q: genesis of the Brand New Day here, in case you missed it. fandango_matt for the photoshop win, again.

That's the first time I've seen the Episode III one though, and it's damn good too. Well done to whoever's responsible!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:03 PM on June 19, 2006

Never let it be said that mathowie has no sense of humor.
posted by mischief at 5:04 PM on June 19, 2006

posted by stavrosthewonderchicken That's the first time I've seen the Episode III one though, and it's damn good too. Well done to whoever's responsible!

*cough*, *ahem*


posted by fandango_matt at 5:08 PM on June 19, 2006

*cough, hack, wheeze*
posted by brownpau at 5:17 PM on June 19, 2006

see also: mattsrecumbentbike clusters
posted by jessamyn at 5:34 PM on June 19, 2006

You could just change the target for the link from his site to metafilter.com and then remove the links from his profile, then you wouldn't have to delete the whole post. Just a suggestion. /relurk
posted by middleclasstool at 6:29 PM on June 19, 2006

I think it's worth noting that the kid wasn't angry at metafilter at all. If you really think he went on a serious crusade against metafilter, a crusade whose total campaign amounted to a self-link and nothing more by the way, because metafilter is too communist for his taste, then there's a pretty nasty malfunction in your bullshit detector. He's trying to make a somethingawful clone, and that's it. He wrote an incredibly obvious flamebait article whose internal logic doesn't even quite mesh, and wanted to see how many fish he could hook with it, while driving up site traffic. ta-dah! leave it alone, the kid isn't angry about anything, just ignore it.
posted by shmegegge at 8:52 PM on June 19, 2006

posted by fandango_matt at 8:59 PM on June 19, 2006

I think Jess should be Captain of Enterprise C.

What?
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 9:18 PM on June 19, 2006

Oh, thanks stavros!
posted by fandango_matt at 9:33 PM on June 19, 2006

the guy was trolling us ... and i think both "war" threads should have been nuked and totally erased, not just the one in meta

remember, comrades, this is the way the soviets did it to build correct communist history

and for those who mourn their especially witty comments on the totally gone thread ... there's an old saying about pearls and swine ...
posted by pyramid termite at 9:36 PM on June 19, 2006

Speaking of posts going the way of the Dodo bird, what became of the comics I posted in this thread?
posted by fandango_matt at 10:07 PM on June 19, 2006

Hey, my cheap ass MSPaint ripoff of f_m's comics is gone too!

WTF, Matt? Did you actually get a C&D over those?

Though, I felt kinda squicky about them, in general. Though mild-mannered, that comic strip is alright in my book and probably didn't deserve such an X-rated remix, not even for simply being mild-mannered.

Family Circus, however, deserves throbbing piles of horsecock and anything else the full brunt of the perversity of the internet could bring to bear - which is a whole heaping lot of perversity.
posted by loquacious at 10:32 PM on June 19, 2006

Oh yeah, the copyright holders of the originals contacted me. I could have gone all EFF on them and argued parody, but it was late and I was tired so I just deleted them. I'm surprised they didn't go after you or your ISP fandango_matt.
posted by mathowie at 11:00 PM on June 19, 2006

Oh yeah, the copyright holders of the originals contacted me.

You are fucking kidding me. That boggles my little mind.

I could have gone all EFF on them and argued parody, but it was late and I was tired so I just deleted them.

I understand, but I kinda wish you'd told them to go fuck themselves. More than kinda, actually. But the 'it was late and I was tired' defense is one I've used a hell of a lot, myself, so I can't really complain.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 11:09 PM on June 19, 2006

here is the metachat thread.
posted by delmoi at 11:11 PM on June 19, 2006

fm: I never saw your cartoons, since you still have them, could you link to them? Shouldn't be a problem with simple links.
posted by delmoi at 11:15 PM on June 19, 2006

He has a new post declaring victory (sort of?) that links to this thread, incidentally. Apparently, "victory" means "I spammed the site and managed to not get flamed out of existence."
posted by antifuse at 2:07 AM on June 20, 2006

mathowie writes: Oh yeah, the copyright holders of the originals contacted me. I could have gone all EFF on them and argued parody, but it was late and I was tired so I just deleted them. I'm surprised they didn't go after you or your ISP fandango_matt.


Holy crap. I love the internet. Granted, I wish you'd fight it too - but I'm stupidly stubborn - and I'm not complaining. You've got to do what you've got to do.

In the future would it be possible (or reasonable) to get a brief MeTa notification about such removal requests? It'd be nice if only to be able to know who is actually reasonable with parody usage and otherwise. Santa's keeping a list.

antifuse writes: He has a new post declaring victory (sort of?) that links to this thread, incidentally. Apparently, "victory" means "I spammed the site and managed to not get flamed out of existence."

That's awesome. He was pretty much flamed into elemental ash and dust. Not B1FF/usenet level industrial grade flamage, but still.
posted by loquacious at 2:44 AM on June 20, 2006

This is the _best_ _thread_ _evar_!
posted by keijo at 3:13 AM on June 20, 2006

delmoi--the comics are in the same (open) directory as the above Star Trek image.
posted by fandango_matt at 7:41 AM on June 20, 2006

antifuse writes "He has a new post declaring victory (sort of?) that links to this thread, incidentally. Apparently, 'victory' means 'I spammed the site and managed to not get flamed out of existence.'"

Too clueless to realise we expend minimal effort on non contributing losers.

fandango_matt writes "the comics are in the same (open) directory as the above Star Trek image."

Those are hilarious. Where did you get that clear phone?
posted by Mitheral at 8:29 AM on June 20, 2006

Fantastic!
posted by UKnowForKids at 9:05 AM on June 20, 2006

He has a new post declaring victory (sort of?) that links to this thread, incidentally.

By all means, feel free not to bring up what he's doing with himself ever again.
posted by shmegegge at 9:21 AM on June 20, 2006

I think it's worth noting that the kid wasn't angry at metafilter at all. If you really think he went on a serious crusade against metafilter, a crusade whose total campaign amounted to a self-link and nothing more by the way, because metafilter is too communist for his taste, then there's a pretty nasty malfunction in your bullshit detector.

I don't think anyone took it seriously.
posted by Devils Slide at 11:25 AM on June 20, 2006

I suppose that's possible, but then I'm not following why people would bother trying to refute his arguments at all, since they're clearly just bullshit nonsense.
posted by shmegegge at 4:06 PM on June 20, 2006