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

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

nevercalm — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 12:26:05 -0800

How frequently are MeTa posts both deleted and zapped from existence? [more inside]

By: nevercalm

nevercalm — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 12:26:19 -0800

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?

By: smackfu

smackfu — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 12:28:23 -0800

Good riddance.

By: loquacious

loquacious — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 12:33:35 -0800

very rarely it seems these days. what smackfu said. we should nuke this thread as well, just to be sure.

By: nevercalm

nevercalm — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 12:36:39 -0800

Go for it.

By: Floydd

Floydd — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 12:39:26 -0800

There was never a "war against metafilter" thread.

By: junkbox

junkbox — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 12:41:17 -0800

That was not the MeTa thread you were looking for.

By: Zozo

Zozo — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 12:43:50 -0800

All MeTa posts that are deleted are zapped from existence, I think.

By: brundlefly

brundlefly — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 12:46:06 -0800

From orbit, loquacious?

By: OmieWise

OmieWise — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 12:49:15 -0800

War with Metafilter is really Peace with Metafilter, hence no thread is needed.

By: cortex

cortex — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 12:50:00 -0800

mod parent doubleplusup

By: chasing

chasing — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 12:52:04 -0800

It's this kind of menstrating commie censorship that has led me to declare war on Metafilter.

By: boo_radley

boo_radley — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 12:55:05 -0800

Sleep now.

By: ND¢

ND¢ — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 12:57:34 -0800

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.

By: Robot Johnny

Robot Johnny — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 13:18:34 -0800

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

You mean the War Against Eastasia thread? We have always been at war with Eastasia.

By: Astro Zombie

Astro Zombie — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 13:28:38 -0800

I thought we had alwas been at war with Eurasia.

God, this is all so confusing.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 13:48:05 -0800

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.

By: raedyn

raedyn — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 14:03:04 -0800

Under the circumstances, this seems reasonable.

By: nevercalm

nevercalm — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 14:03:59 -0800

Right on, thanks number one.

By: GuyZero

GuyZero — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 14:09:55 -0800

Looks like MetaFilter is winning this war.

Matt, I salute your Army of One (two if you count jess, I guess).

By: interrobang

interrobang — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 14:12:35 -0800

We have always been at war with Metafilter.

By: ND¢

ND¢ — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 14:18:40 -0800

We have seen the enemy and it has cameras.

By: Bugbread

Bugbread — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 14:18:59 -0800

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.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 14:42:02 -0800

By: loquacious

loquacious — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 14:48:06 -0800

By: quonsar

quonsar — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 15:06:53 -0800

matt, that chicom image made me laugh out loud!

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 15:09:20 -0800

And, as for a specific answer to your question, almost never.

By: puke & cry

puke & cry — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 15:11:46 -0800

I so hope that clueless selflinker using that brand new day jpg.

By: puke & cry

puke & cry — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 15:18:12 -0800

~~using~~

uses

By: peacay

peacay — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 15:31:30 -0800

Touché mathowie. Well played.

By: Devils Slide

Devils Slide — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 15:49:21 -0800

I thought of that Chairman Matt image as soon as I saw risk's lame post last night.

By: wendell

wendell — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 15:54:05 -0800

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.

By: mr_crash_davis

mr_crash_davis — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 16:13:01 -0800

Metafilter: nothing more than self-promoting attention-whore trolling

By: mathowie

mathowie — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 16:52:03 -0800

wendell, all deleted threads are blocked from google indexing, so there's no issue there.

By: fandango_matt

fandango_matt — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 16:58:57 -0800

posted by Devils Slide I thought of that Chairman Matt image

It's Maothowie, baby!

By: stavrosthewonderchicken

stavrosthewonderchicken — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 17:03:15 -0800

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!

By: mischief

mischief — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 17:04:36 -0800

Never let it be said that mathowie has no sense of humor.

By: fandango_matt

fandango_matt — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 17:08:16 -0800

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*

By: brownpau

brownpau — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 17:17:20 -0800

*cough, hack, wheeze*

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 17:34:43 -0800

By: middleclasstool

middleclasstool — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 18:29:07 -0800

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

By: shmegegge

shmegegge — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 20:52:37 -0800

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.

By: fandango_matt

fandango_matt — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 20:59:21 -0800

By: Ethereal Bligh

Ethereal Bligh — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 21:18:52 -0800

I think Jess should be Captain of Enterprise C.

What?

By: fandango_matt

fandango_matt — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 21:33:17 -0800

Oh, thanks stavros!

By: pyramid termite

pyramid termite — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 21:36:06 -0800

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 ...

By: fandango_matt

fandango_matt — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 22:07:43 -0800

Speaking of posts going the way of the Dodo bird, what became of the comics I posted in this thread?

By: loquacious

loquacious — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 22:32:10 -0800

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.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 23:00:25 -0800

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.

By: stavrosthewonderchicken

stavrosthewonderchicken — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 23:09:52 -0800

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.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 23:11:48 -0800

here is the metachat thread.

By: delmoi

delmoi — Mon, 19 Jun 2006 23:15:58 -0800

fm: I never saw your cartoons, since you still have them, could you link to them? Shouldn't be a problem with simple links.

By: antifuse

antifuse — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 02:07:39 -0800

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."

By: loquacious

loquacious — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 02:44:18 -0800

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.

By: keijo

keijo — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 03:13:45 -0800

This is the _best_ _thread_ _evar_!

By: fandango_matt

fandango_matt — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 07:41:17 -0800

delmoi--the comics are in the same (open) directory as the above Star Trek image.

By: Mitheral

Mitheral — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 08:29:36 -0800

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?

By: UKnowForKids

UKnowForKids — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 09:05:23 -0800

Fantastic!

By: shmegegge

shmegegge — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 09:21:37 -0800

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.

By: Devils Slide

Devils Slide — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 11:25:05 -0800

By: shmegegge

shmegegge — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 16:06:02 -0800

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.