I will not even CONSIDER [the obvious and necessary]. October 16, 2006 8:06 PM   Subscribe

Is it a serious faux-pas to suggest things or give answers contrary to specified criteria in the questions at AskMe?
posted by wackybrit to Etiquette/Policy at 8:06 PM (30 comments total)

Sometimes there are questions on AskMe which ask a question but then have a priviso in the "more inside" that says "No, I'm definitely not going to try [x]" or "Please don't suggest [y]". Is it wrong to pick up on these points and make suggestions on them even if you feel the original poster might have missed the point or be otherwise ill-informed?

The reason I ask is because it has come up a few times in the last few weeks for me. The latest was in this question about feral cats where the poster specified she would not be putting the cat outside at night due to "cold and raccoons". I know nothing about raccoons, but thought I'd suggest (after seeing the OP was in Atlanta) that, at the least, the cold was definitely no reason not to put a cat out, since cats can live, and be comfortable, in far wider temperature range situations than we'd find comfortable. I felt the confinement might have been the issue (since my semi-feral cats have always loved going out at night, even in thick snow), so thought I'd raise it, despite the "[x] is not an option" comment by the OP.

I'm cool with people hating my comments and posts, but to get a snippy reply made me think.. did I actually do the wrong thing? Should we assume the poster is well informed about everything to do with their question already? Personally, I think not, since when I ask questions, I want people to call me out on every dumb point so I get the best range of answers. But.. what do others think? Should I just tread more carefully and only give advice the poster seems to want to hear?
posted by wackybrit at 8:06 PM on October 16, 2006


Cats are a hot button topic on MetaFilter for reasons that are a little murky to me. If people specifically say "foo is not an option" and you still feel the need to suggest foo, it's usually a good idea to make sure you say something like "I know you said foo is not an options but I think you might want to reconsider because of bar." That said, I don't think it was your suggestion about indoors vs. outdoors, I think it was your blanket statement that the OP was being "cruel." Then you went on to say "Keeping a cat like that indoors at night is like stapling a guy's wiener to his leg so he can't use it." in case the word "cruel" was unclear.

Certainly that's your opinion and you're entitled to it, but seriously, what were you expecting?
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:12 PM on October 16, 2006


Maybe. Probably should tone down the superlatives a tad ;-) Still, I think it is cruel to restrict animals from their natural behavior, but, you have a point about cats.. people probably get more protective than usual (never deal with kids or pets, I'm guessing).

I do, however, think AskMe is a venue where we should challenge opinions and preheld conceptions, considering people are asking total strangers for suggestions so are likely on-the-fence.
posted by wackybrit at 8:22 PM on October 16, 2006


Agreed. My guess is if you omitted the cruel bit and the weiner bit your comments might have received a more receptive ear.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:31 PM on October 16, 2006


I do, however, think AskMe is a venue where we should challenge opinions and preheld conceptions, considering people are asking total strangers for suggestions so are likely on-the-fence.

The purpose of askmefi is to answer questions, not to "challenge" anything.

Situations arise when contrary advice may be useful. But that's very different than when a poster asks you not to bother them with an untenable or already-considered answer.

Is it really unclear why cats are a hot-button topic, Jessamyn, or is it unclear for you, as it is for me, why people are so obsessed with them? It's not like this obsession hasn't been observed and noted before- like the flickr "interestingness" joke that happened a while back.
posted by fake at 8:33 PM on October 16, 2006


If someone goes to the trouble to say "don't mention x", why would you think they're receptive in any way to an answer of x? Their first response is probably, "dammit, I said don't mention x", and their second response is to not read the rest of it.
posted by smackfu at 8:40 PM on October 16, 2006


I think the problem with cats may arise because Metafilter seems to have a disproportionate number of inner-city apartment dwellers, who see their cats (and sometimes little dogs) as precious, cuddly little toys instead of the trained killers live animals they are. But live animals hunt, live outside, get into fights, and fuck each other senseless. There's no getting around that. The whole question, in this case, is based around the premise that you should be able to achieve some kind of "perfect cat" that's never going to do anything mommy doesn't approve of.

In terms of giving people answers they don't want to hear; I'm all for it, if you do it in a constructive way that helps them, rather than pisses them off.
posted by Jimbob at 8:42 PM on October 16, 2006


Is it really unclear why cats are a hot-button topic, Jessamyn, or is it unclear for you, as it is for me, why people are so obsessed with them?

It's unclear for me why people will, with people they barely even know, draw lines in the sand and hurl insults over whether a cat goes outside or not. I've had cats. Some were indoor cats and some were indoor/outdoor cats. I can't imagine fighting with someone about whether my cat should be a different way than my cat is. I've observed it to be true with others, I just find it a little mysterious.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:47 PM on October 16, 2006


They don't call them sane cat ladies.
posted by smackfu at 8:55 PM on October 16, 2006 [6 favorites]


wackybrit, you admit you don't know much about racoons, but how much do you know about Atlanta weather? It gets quite a bit colder there than (I bet) you imagine.
posted by MrMoonPie at 9:04 PM on October 16, 2006


Askers don't get to dictate the rules for answering, they only get to clarify what their question is about. They often try to dictate the rules, but as far as I can tell those attempts are always ignored, as they should be.
posted by Chuckles at 9:24 PM on October 16, 2006


It gets quite a bit colder there than (I bet) you imagine.

hmph ... that's not that cold
posted by pyramid termite at 9:36 PM on October 16, 2006


it's also my experience that when it does get really cold, cats don't like going outdoors in it
posted by pyramid termite at 9:39 PM on October 16, 2006


Sometimes people get pretty obnoxious about what they do not want to hear in askme, but this does not strike me as one of those times. Now if the question had been along the lines of: "I am trying to shave my feral rescue cats because I can not stand cat fur in my abode - should I go electric or lather and blade? Please, no answers questioning the wisdom of shaving a cat. Please stick to the question as asked."
posted by caddis at 9:57 PM on October 16, 2006


"It's unclear for me why people will, with people they barely even know, draw lines in the sand and hurl insults over whether a cat goes outside or not."

I think the biggest part of this conflict in a place like MetaFilter occurs between Brits and Americans. The "responsible cat owner" ethos in the US is soundly behind keeping cats indoors these days (certainly this is true for urban cats) but the Brit "responsible cat owner" ethos is soundly behind the idea that keeping a cat locked up indoors is cruel. Note that the rationale behind the US position is about avoiding outdoor dangers like vehicles, disease, cat-snatchers, etc. So the thinking on this side of the pond is also all about avoiding cruelty.

Therefore both sides see the other as behaving irresponsibly and, effectively, being cruel. Of course people will have strong feelings about this. Also, each viewpoint is dominant in its respective culture and thus people also feel more free to denounce the heretics than they would if they were accustomed to more diversity of opinion on this matter in their own personal experience.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 10:57 PM on October 16, 2006


Cats are popular here since #19. This site was founded as a place to display feline affection.
posted by blue_beetle at 11:22 PM on October 16, 2006


My own personal not-necessarily-generalizable rule is: If I want to tackle the verboten issue, I do so only if I can also offer a direct, potentially useful response to the actual question. And even then I do my best to be diplomatic.
posted by Clay201 at 12:30 AM on October 17, 2006


Just give your answer, a second look is often helpful.
posted by jeffburdges at 3:21 AM on October 17, 2006


I'd say a handy rule of thumb is:

If someone says "Don't suggest X, because Y", and you know Y to be false, then it makes sense to so "You should reconsider X, because Y is false".

If someone says "Don't suggest X, because Y", and you want to say "You should reconsider X, because Z", then don't say it. In that case, you wouldn't be ignoring their restriction because it's based on a false foundation, but just because you personally don't think that foundation is as important as some other thing. That is, it's not the case that they're wrong, just that you think your opinion is above theirs in importance.
posted by Bugbread at 6:19 AM on October 17, 2006


the Brit "responsible cat owner" ethos is soundly behind the idea that keeping a cat locked up indoors is cruel.

I'm not sure it's a transatlantic difference - all the mad cat ladies I know here in the UK have indoor cats. I think the cat flaming is down to the fact that, no matter what a cat-owner does, their cat will never, ever give a shit about them.

Cat-owners know this, and their frustration at being faintly despised by the creatures on which they lavish so much attention is easily translated into anger at cat owners who use different methods in their attempts to feel sweet cat love; they fear deep down that the opposing method is the secret way to engender that sweet cat love, and that they are therefore personally responsible for their cat basically hating their guts.

People who are mad on dogs or horses, animals which actually rather like humans, never get in such a flap.
posted by jack_mo at 6:45 AM on October 17, 2006 [1 favorite]


Keeping a cat like that indoors at night is like stapling a guy's wiener to his leg so he can't use it.

Yeah, I think the problem here is not "addressing the wrong topic" but "being an asshole in AskMeFi." If you're going to take that tack, you're going to get slapped down for it, and you really shouldn't be taking it to MeTa to whine about it. Just learn to answer more civilly.
posted by languagehat at 6:48 AM on October 17, 2006


wackybrit, you admit you don't know much about racoons, but how much do you know about Atlanta weather?

I grew up in Northern Canada, which is, in Winter, almost always quite a lot colder than Atlanta's all time record low. Our cat stayed out at night if she felt like it.

And they're talking about feral cats here. Where do you imagine they spent the night before she tried to tame them?
posted by jacquilynne at 7:00 AM on October 17, 2006


Where do you imagine they spent the night before

I love it when the absurdity is so obvious, yet overlooked completely..
posted by Chuckles at 7:16 AM on October 17, 2006


They spent the night in Cat Hostels.

Duh.
posted by exlotuseater at 8:09 AM on October 17, 2006


Cats are popular here since #19. This site was founded as a place to display feline affection.

*yawn*
posted by vraxoin's cats at 9:00 AM on October 17, 2006


What jack_mo said.
posted by oddman at 12:32 PM on October 17, 2006


Don't be too dismissive of the racoon issue.
Racoons are nasty fuckers.
In some rural areas there are even larger predators that would love to make a tasty treat of your plump snuggly-wumpkins, such as mountains lions or coyotes. It is a real issue.
In urban areas, well, haven't you ever seen someone's Fluffly lying by the side of the road?

But back to the topic of the thread, the tone of the post is everything.
posted by bobobox at 1:57 PM on October 17, 2006


Sometimes people (self included) just get excited or lazy and don't read closely enough and re-refer. To pick a random eg, on the peanut butter link the guy said "I've looked at vegan lunchbox.com, and it's not doing it for me," and then the second comment was "oh! have I got a great site for you!" just an oversight on the commenter's part. Not a troll or anything inherently evil, just a little more careless than a spelling mistake. Easy to do when you're at work and the phone's ringing and you're just catching MeFe or AxMe on the fly.
posted by DenOfSizer at 5:28 PM on October 17, 2006


And I thought this thread would be about the question from the virgin and how she asked people "don't just tell me to tell him the truth" and yet the whole thread seems to have this theme.

How dissapointed I was to find out it was all about cats!
posted by ranglin at 5:30 PM on October 17, 2006


I think key to this discussion is the fact that the answer is equally valid for other people who read and search for topics touched on in the post.

So, even though the OP said "Don't tell me about ____", you could say that the community has an opportunity to answer fully for anyone else reading. If not, we get another question where someone says "I have the same question as OnlyAnswerMYQuestionPerson, but I actually do want to know about ____". Then there would be a pile-on from people saying you double posted or somesuch.

So, on balance, I think those who would answer anyway should win out. With the proviso that they say "This is for the topic, not your request" and also answer the OP as well as they can. It's win-win!
posted by qwip at 5:18 PM on October 20, 2006


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