X-posting AskMeFI and Uclue - is it bad?

July 10, 2008 4:36 AM

Is it considered bad etiquette to post the same question to both Ask Metafilter and Uclue?

I can imagine that on the one hand it might be a useful thing to do and on the other that potential answerers on either system might find it objectionable - or indeed that it might break a rule? But then I wouldn't really know. Guidance gratefully received.

posted by vogel to etiquette/policy at 4:36 AM (53 comments total)

I can't imagine a case where that would upset anyone who isn't already mostly insane.
posted by Grither at 4:47 AM on July 10 [13 favorites]

Hahaha! Grither is right; so in other words, you shouldn't do it, as there are lots of mostly insane people here.

Nah just kidding, the point of MetaFilter is to irritate the mostly-insane userbase, so post away. Post to Yahoo! Answers! too! Go nuts!
posted by Mister_A at 4:57 AM on July 10

If you do, Matt will kill a puppy.
posted by Dave Faris at 5:08 AM on July 10

The two sites are really pretty different so it's no big deal. If it's something you do a lot, we'd probably be like "um hey AskMe is sort of a community, if you're just coming here to post drive-by questions that you're posting other places maybe this isn't the right place to do that" but really I never even think about Uclue so I can't imagine it would be a problem. Don't do that weird [please excuse cross-posting] thing though.
posted by jessamyn at 5:08 AM on July 10

if you do, emily post will sever your genitalia.
posted by quonsar at 5:26 AM on July 10 [1 favorite]

Hey, we're Mefites, we'll love you no matter how much you break our heart. Just remember that we express our love by burning you in effigy.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:37 AM on July 10 [1 favorite]

It's not bad etiquette but personally, I'd never speak to you again if you did.
posted by dobbs at 5:49 AM on July 10

Also, what did the people on Uclue say when you asked them?
posted by dobbs at 5:50 AM on July 10 [4 favorites]

It's like ordering a porterhouse steak and an Arby's hamburger for lunch. No one will be angry, but they will be confused and dismayed.
posted by Plutor at 5:59 AM on July 10 [1 favorite]

Also, what did the people on Uclue say when you asked them?

I don't know, but the people on Yahoo! Answers said

I LIEK POKEMON111!!!
posted by electroboy at 6:00 AM on July 10 [5 favorites]

I'll be playing the part of dismayed.
posted by Dizzy at 6:01 AM on July 10

OMG!!! Somebody killed my puppy!!!
posted by chillmost at 6:17 AM on July 10

What the hell is Uclue? Or should I use up this week's AskMe to find out?
posted by TedW at 6:19 AM on July 10 [1 favorite]

What TedW said.
posted by Floydd at 6:23 AM on July 10

Also, what did the people on Uclue say when you asked them?

Arf! Actually I did wonder (albeit very briefly) about doing that, then considered that it might just be a tiny bit too selfmetareferentiallyloopy-re-entrant and as such might cause the Universe to melt, strong men to faint, dogs to howl, ekt. Also, it would have cost me at least ten United States dollars and I am a cheapskate, and I might well have been less entertained there than I was by the answers here.

Thank you all very much for the responses. For the record, I don't think I will x-post that particular thing here, not at the moment anyway, though I am not sure if jessamyn would approve of my doing that weird [please excuse non-cross-posting] thing. Which is what I now appear to be doing.
posted by vogel at 6:27 AM on July 10

What the hell is Uclue?

Uclue is the undead of Google Answers come back to haunt you. It's quite good but, no longer being a Child of Google, is presumably attracting roughly one teeeeeeenzy billionth of the traffic of its more glamorous yet doomed predecessor. You get good answers for money.
posted by vogel at 6:29 AM on July 10

Go and sin no more, you FNG.
posted by Mister_A at 6:31 AM on July 10

You get good answers for money.

Post to askme, then come back at the end to post all the correct answers you bought somewhere else. That'll keep people on their toes.
posted by StickyCarpet at 6:48 AM on July 10

Surely this is more likely to annoy Uclue than Ask.me. When they were Google Answers, one of the things the people that worked on it complained about was having their answers gasumped by people commenting in the threads. Now it's Uclue, they no longer allow that, I believe.
How is it set up now is there still tipping?
posted by munchbunch at 6:58 AM on July 10

You posted to Uclue as well ?


You complete and utter bastard.
posted by sgt.serenity at 7:07 AM on July 10

...mostly insane...

It's a graduated scale? I'd love to see the descriptions at each level:

Kinda insane: Talks to pets, thinks they answer.

Mostly insane: Gets angry about cross site posting.

Insane: Tries same thing, expects different result.

Barking mad: Uses flare gun inside, on purpose.

Out of his fucking mind: Believes that pets^* are telling him to use flare gun as a divine instrument of God's wrath.

*: And by 'pets', I, of course, mean 'cats'. Everybody knows that dogs can't talk.
posted by quin at 7:33 AM on July 10 [1 favorite]

Yeah, for a one-off thing I think the only thing to worry about from our side of the equation is making sure that the question you post to AskMe is a good fit for AskMe. I have no idea what the guidelines are for questions at Uclue, but if they collide with the AskMe guidelines at all you might need to be mindful to tailor your question to one site and the other instead of posting precisely the same thing at both.
posted by cortex at 7:36 AM on July 10

Uses flare gun inside, on purpose

Don't be stupid, you'll burn the place to the ground!
posted by TedW at 7:44 AM on July 10

When I one day found a great University, I will call it UClue.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 7:47 AM on July 10

Arby's has hamburgers? I'm so out of touch.
posted by netbros at 7:50 AM on July 10

Ask MeFi is more like UdaManClue.
posted by lukemeister at 8:00 AM on July 10

This brings up another question that's bugged me on and off. I'm sure there's no right answer, but I'll ask it anyway: How much is Metafilter part of a larger "blog" community. How much do you expect members here to be involved and interested in that community?

Once, I posted something here, and someone called me out saying, "You just posted something straight from BoingBoing without even adding anything interesting to it." At the time, I didn't even read BoingBoing.

If I post something here, is it expected that I not only check MeFi for previous posts, but that I also check ten or twelve other high-profile sites? I have other blogs I read occasionally, but Metafilter is the only one I read regularly. I almost never read any one-person blogs (Zeldman or whatever.)
posted by grumblebee at 8:02 AM on July 10

I have never once seen cross-posting ever be an issue for AskMetafilter. I'm sure the site will survive your question.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 8:06 AM on July 10

If you do, Matt will sever Emily's post.
posted by davejay at 8:06 AM on July 10

You know what's funny, is that I'm reading a story that involves the game Clue, is what's funny. Furthermore, in the story it is revealed that the game originated in England, where it was called Cluedo!

This supports my long-standing theory that Britons are totally bollocky at naming things.
posted by Mister_A at 8:13 AM on July 10

If I post something here, is it expected that I not only check MeFi for previous posts, but that I also check ten or twelve other high-profile sites?

Each post must be lovingly handcrafted from the blood of spammers and loud cell phone talkers.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:15 AM on July 10

How much do you expect members here to be involved and interested in that community?

Short answer is "not at all, really". Nobody who comes to Metafilter is presumed to have any involvement anywhere else in the blogosphere, or to even care that such a thing exists. There's no entrance exam, no citizenship test.

That said, a lot of folks who hang out here do watch other parts of the web, so there's always going to be an element of let's call it situational awareness, such that folks will recognize when something has been making the rounds. That doesn't really put the onus on a poster to be aware that something is out there—the fundamental question should be "is this a good post for mefi", not "omg is this ten minutes ago".

Every once in a while that means someone does make a post that's kind of, huh, really, this is the first you've seen of it? But that's a matter of bad luck, not a violation of the spirit of the guidelines. It's more in the realm of an accidental double post.
posted by cortex at 8:17 AM on July 10

This post was deleted for the following reason: please make the smallest effort to tailor your question for the metafilter community before you ask it.

That was a somewhat different case though, as the 192-comment accompanying MetaTalk thread indicates.
posted by Partial Law at 8:24 AM on July 10

This supports my long-standing theory that Britons are totally bollocky at naming things.

Flagged as racist, 'cos you're behaving like a [redacted].

1. The female external genital organs. Cf. QUAINT n.
Its currency is restricted in the manner of other taboo-words: see the small-type note s.v. FUCK v.

[c1230 in Ekwall Street-Names of City of London (1954) 165 Gropecuntelane.] a1325 Prov. Hendyng (Camb. Gg. I. 1) st. 42 Yeue i cunte to cunnig and craue affetir wedding. c1400 Lanfranc's Cirurg. 172/12 In wymmen e necke of e bladdre is schort, & is maad fast to the cunte. c1425 Castle of Perseverance (1904) 1193 Mankynde, my leue lemman, I my cunte ou schalt crepe. 1552 LYNDESAY Satyre Procl. 144 First lat me lok thy cunt, Syne lat me keip the key. a1585 POLWART Flyting with Montgomerie (1910) 817 Kis e cunt of ane kow. c1650 in Hales & Furnivall Percy's Folio MS. (1867) 99 Vp start the Crabfish, & catcht her by the Cunt. 1743 WALPOLE Little Peggy in Corr. (1961) XXX. 309 Distended cunts with alum shall be braced. c1800 BURNS Merry Muses (1911) 66 For ilka hair upon her ct, Was worth a royal ransom. c1888-94 My Secret Life VII. 161, I sicken with desire, pine for unseen, unknown cunts. 1934 H. MILLER Tropic of Cancer (1935) 15 O Tania, where now is that warm cunt of yours? 1956 S. BECKETT Malone Dies 24 His young wife had abandoned all hope of bringing him to heel, by means of her cunt, that trump card of young wives.
posted by roofus at 8:28 AM on July 10 [2 favorites]

roofus, that is the exception that proves the rule. Hello, bangers and mash? What the hell is that? I am certain that you people are responsible for scrod as well. Feckenham? Pleas, don't be such a tw*t about this.
posted by Mister_A at 8:42 AM on July 10

plutor: where do you live that arby's sells hamburgers? that confuses and dismays me more than anything else in this thread.
posted by boo_radley at 8:48 AM on July 10

I leave the last "e" off of please as a protest.
posted by Mister_A at 8:48 AM on July 10

"*: And by 'pets', I, of course, mean 'cats'. Everybody knows that dogs can't talk. "

That's not what Sam says.
posted by klangklangston at 9:42 AM on July 10

That's not what Sam says.
Yeah, but he hangs out with a psychotic lagomorph. I think you have take what he says with a grain of salt.
posted by juv3nal at 9:57 AM on July 10 [1 favorite]

Dogs can't talk? Man, I am so out of touch.
posted by netbros at 10:01 AM on July 10

boo_radley: "plutor: where do you live that arby's sells hamburgers? that confuses and dismays me more than anything else in this thread."

I'm not an Arby's expert. I'm also not a Uclue expert. You can see my metaphor was planned several levels deep.
posted by Plutor at 10:02 AM on July 10 [1 favorite]

plutor: where do you live that arby's sells hamburgers? that confuses and dismays me more than anything else in this thread.

Maybe he lives in Atlanta circa 1984...

On the other hand, Arby's did just buy Wendy's, so in a sense you can get an "Arby's hamburger" from any Wendy's.
posted by jedicus at 10:06 AM on July 10

When cats speak, it's in code. "Oh Don Piano" is his way of telling his owner that it's time to send the neighbor through the woodchipper.
posted by quin at 10:14 AM on July 10

Some dogs can talk! We had a Viszla named Vergil who conversed. Of course it is necessary to listen creatively to understand a dog.
posted by Cranberry at 10:20 AM on July 10

I'm not an Arby's expert. I'm also not a Uclue expert. You can see my metaphor was planned several levels deep.

In that case, do you have any GreaseMonkey scripts for porterhouse steaks?
posted by burnmp3s at 10:39 AM on July 10

This thread is an advertisement.
posted by roll truck roll at 11:06 AM on July 10

When cats speak, it's gone.
posted by klangklangston at 11:37 AM on July 10

burnmp3s: "In that case, do you have any GreaseMonkey scripts for porterhouse steaks?"

Indeed I do.
posted by Plutor at 12:08 PM on July 10 [5 favorites]

Aha! Plutor is David Brooks.
posted by Dave Faris at 12:09 PM on July 10

Indeed I do.
That's silly and I can't believe I installed it even after looking at the source to see what it would.
posted by juv3nal at 12:11 PM on July 10

Hey, we're Mefites, we'll love you no matter how much you break our heart. Just remember that we express our love by burning you in effigy.

Oh shit, we're supposed to use an effigy? Now you tell us!
posted by languagehat at 12:29 PM on July 10

Did you know that Arby's bought the right to use an apostrophe from McDonald's back in 1964?
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 2:20 PM on July 10

Is it considered bad etiquette to post the same question to both Ask Metafilter and Uclue?

No.
posted by juiceCake at 8:59 PM on July 10