For want of effort.

April 10, 2007 8:38 PM

Is it worth flagging AskMe questions that seem to have been asked without any attempt by the user to answer the question? They may contain a "legitimate" question, but the user has clearly failed to make the effort prior to posting. I'm asking not in reaction to a specific post, although there was one recently, but just to know if it's worth the effort, and would such questions be likely to be removed?
posted by edgeways to etiquette/policy at 8:38 PM (38 comments total)

If the question is easily Googleable, shows no signs of the OP having tried, and is a dead simple question, we might remove it. However we've seen a lot of questions where people seem truly stumped by what to a lot of us might seem like basic Google functions [put a phrase into quotes in order to search the words in order] so I tread lightly here.

The general rule is that you're not bugging us if you flag things except under a few circumstances

- You flag more than a few comments in a thread. If the whole thread is shite, we'll be there checking it out, nineteen flags all from you doesn't do any more good than three.
- You're flagging stuff in an old closed AskMe thread. There are only a few cases I can think of where this might be appropriate. Generally once something is closed it's archived and we're not going to be removing comments from it, or fixing typos.
- You always flag a specific user. We see you doing that. Unlss we've previously communicated about the user and you're poining out something specific, this sort of thing is often better taken care of in an email
- You think things break the guidelines when they don't. It's fine to flag posts that you don't like for whatever reason but when I see a "breaks the guidelines flag" I usually think "goatse!" or "big gaping HTML" or something.

So, other than that, and it's really a short list, just heavily qualified, feel free to flag away.
posted by jessamyn at 8:49 PM on April 10, 2007

::takes notes::
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 9:05 PM on April 10, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

::peers over TPS's shoulder::
posted by dobbs at 9:08 PM on April 10, 2007

What flag choice should I use for "chatfilter"? Is that "noise" or "violates the guidelines"?
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 9:11 PM on April 10, 2007

Either one. Swearing does not break the guidelines, and we see that more frequently than I'd suspect. We also see a lot of noise flags in MetaTalk and since MeTa is barely moderated at all, these always surprise me.
posted by jessamyn at 9:16 PM on April 10, 2007

So does "big gaping HTML" cancel out the old closed thread rule? Cause there's a nasty HTML issue on 9/9/01. Breaks the whole first week on the archive, that one.

eh, I'll flag it.
posted by niles at 9:16 PM on April 10, 2007

Flagging noise in MetaTalk is a good way to let off steam.
posted by Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America at 9:18 PM on April 10, 2007

That was really weird niles, that post had, besides a missing </small> a weird little hidden tag that said

<!-- 3918 on the enthusiastic counter -->

what is that?
posted by jessamyn at 9:24 PM on April 10, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

What flag choice should I use for "chatfilter"? Is that "noise" or "violates the guidelines"?

I wondered the same thing. I can never decide on noise, other or breaks the guidelines. Though the latter seems like it should be used to indicate spam or self-linking. My philosophy is: flag it with whatever seems to make sense and jessamyn/matt/cortex will be able to discern whether or not it is questionable and for which reason (sorry, mods, if this somehow creates more work for you).
posted by necessitas at 9:39 PM on April 10, 2007

< !-- 3918 the enthusiastic counter -->

Oh god she's found it.

Cabal: Execute code A39 Zebra immediately. All restrictions lifted. Danger level ESCHATON.
posted by Rock Steady at 9:52 PM on April 10, 2007 [6 favorites has favorites]

I, for one, welcome our enthusiastically counting overlords.
posted by niles at 9:58 PM on April 10, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

 
posted by blue_beetle at 10:03 PM on April 10, 2007

ya mean you can have noise in metatalk? wow!
posted by lester at 10:22 PM on April 10, 2007

Oh sweet holiest of shits!

Cabal^Cabal!! Activate Emergency Counter-Contingency Plan Atlas Seven Delta Mk. 5436, vector codes, SNARK, ALIAS and STONEBURNER. You have insertion, window and all-clear for MAX Q, MAX V and DELTA V. This is not a drill.

Your Authorization Override Triad Code is PANCAKE, BUNNY and QUONSAR. Repeat: NOT A DRILL. All tacnet subsystems network-wide are ARMED, alive and lively. Keep your fingers off those molly-guards, they're hot. This one's for real.
posted by loquacious at 11:14 PM on April 10, 2007 [2 favorites has favorites]

*wraps fingers 'round molly-guards*
posted by Floydd at 11:19 PM on April 10, 2007

I hate these drills.
posted by flabdablet at 12:16 AM on April 11, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

What's the appropriate flag for "Not FPP Worthy" in the blue? I've been using "breaks guidelines" every now and then when I'm feeling judgemental.
posted by Manjusri at 1:32 AM on April 11, 2007

As more n00bs show up up askme, it's entirely possible that more and more people won't even know to check google. So if a question just requires a simple google search, just politely explain how you found it (I've found myself explaining google to several people lately IRL, and for people who did know how to use google, I've sometimes had to explain how to do things like site search).
posted by drezdn at 2:50 AM on April 11, 2007

What's the appropriate flag for "Not FPP Worthy" in the blue?

I use "other" a lot.

And until now, I never imagined that flagging stuff would ever "bother" the admins.
posted by Dave Faris at 4:19 AM on April 11, 2007

*begins blaring SMOCK SMOCK SMOCK like a klaxon*
posted by quonsar at 4:21 AM on April 11, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

*begins blaring KLAXON KLAXON KLAXON like a smock*
posted by mr_crash_davis at 6:19 AM on April 11, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

I was going to flag the Fair Trade Coffee question, but then I thought, "oh, what the hell..." Then someone rephrased it in their answer.
posted by Robert Angelo at 6:35 AM on April 11, 2007

So does "big gaping HTML" cancel out the old closed thread rule? Cause there's a nasty HTML issue on 9/9/01. Breaks the whole first week on the archive, that one.

eh, I'll flag it.

I'm not sure how much Matt and Jess care about long-past HTML fixes, but I'm a nut for that sort of thing and so say, heck yeah, flag it 'other' and drop me an email.

In addition to you talking about that post on the ninth, there's another, this, from the 2nd. It had an unclosed <tt> in the post text that rendered the whole thread (or, in archive view, the whole rest of the page) in fixed-width. Whee!
posted by cortex at 6:43 AM on April 11, 2007

What's the appropriate flag for "Not FPP Worthy" in the blue?

"noise" and "it breaks the guidelines" make the most sense as an FPP complaint, to me, and that seems somewhat consistent with how people use them, but when it comes down to it we're going to notice a spike in flags on a given post/comment more than whether it was one or the other or the next.

Though it's not universal usage, I mostly associate "other" with more value-neutral problems: broken html, "there's [more inside]" cuteness, giant text dumps on the front page, that sort of thing.
posted by cortex at 6:47 AM on April 11, 2007

problems..."there's [more inside]" cuteness

Speaking of cuteness problems, I'd like to see a FilterFilter.
posted by kmennie at 7:39 AM on April 11, 2007

thanks for the clarification

So sounds like the answer/s seem to be, No and No.


Now, gotta find me some of those magic glasses that filter out stupidity, course I'm guessing that means I'd end up living in a world of pitch black solitude with pin pricks of blinding starlight every once in awhile.
posted by edgeways at 7:58 AM on April 11, 2007

new flag suggestion: "vibrates the guidelines".
Flagging should be collapsed to "this is very good" and "this is very bad". Maybe "this needs cleanup" in line with cortex's comment above.
posted by boo_radley at 8:32 AM on April 11, 2007

Yeah, an "admin please hope me" flag was suggested a month back or so, and seems like it'd be a good'n. Matt's mentioned working on the flag interface, so that might already be pipelined.
posted by cortex at 8:42 AM on April 11, 2007

In a perfect world, we could select other and it would bring up a little box where we could explain exactly what got our underwear in a bunch.
posted by drezdn at 8:56 AM on April 11, 2007

The "breaks the guidelines" one is tough. Looks like jessamyn sees it as "breaks the hard and fast rules", while I think people use it as "doesn't follow the general community guidelines".
posted by smackfu at 10:17 AM on April 11, 2007

You think things break the guidelines when they don't. It's fine to flag posts that you don't like for whatever reason but when I see a "breaks the guidelines flag" I usually think "goatse!" or "big gaping HTML" or something.

I seem to recall either you or Matt saying in the past that an ask metafilter response that didn't address the question was accurately described as "breaks the guidelines." Has that stand changed?
posted by phearlez at 10:19 AM on April 11, 2007

In a perfect world, we would be wearing no underwear.
posted by found missing at 10:20 AM on April 11, 2007

you are?
posted by edgeways at 10:22 AM on April 11, 2007

My point is just that I think of "breaks the guidelines" flags like a self-link to the blue or some sort of "fuck off you fat cow" comment in AskMe, but really I was just sort of free associating. Breaks the guidelines flags get looked at more quickly than "noise" flags, at least by me, but I didn't mean to make people overthink this too much.
posted by jessamyn at 11:04 AM on April 11, 2007

...I didn't mean to make people overthink this too much.

Haven't we established that that is unpossible?
posted by found missing at 11:07 AM on April 11, 2007

flagged as "plate of beans"
posted by cortex at 11:08 AM on April 11, 2007

klaxon klaxon klaxon
posted by Kwine at 2:49 PM on April 11, 2007

MetaTalk: Fuck off klaxon you klaxon smock fat cow fuck klaxon SMOCK SMOCK SMOCK
posted by loquacious at 7:14 PM on April 11, 2007