Seeking help with my research of online communities

October 20, 2009 10:55 AM

I am writing a dissertation about online communities, and MetaFilter will serve as the primary focus of my research. I need your help to better understand why MetaFilter functions better than so many other online communities. Can you spare 15-30 minutes to complete a short survey to improve our understanding of online communities?

I am a doctoral student in the Rhetoric and Professional Communication program at Iowa State University, and my dissertation research focuses on the role of rhetoric in online communities. Specifically, I'm interested in two big issues: (1) how people shape their individual and collective identities in anonymous/pseudonymous environments, and (2) how members of online communities deliberate to govern themselves.

I've been reading MetaFilter pretty much every day since 2000, and I've been a member since 2002. With the exception of some contributions to AskMetaFilter, I've never been an active contributor to the site, but I consider myself a dedicated lurker and a student of MeFi's culture. It has become a commonplace in popular media and among some academics to characterize online forums as a place where immature dialogue and mob rule trump thoughtful, sophisticated argumentation, but I think MetaFilter (and MetaTalk, in particular) provides strong evidence to the contrary. I'm fascinated by the way MetaTalk functions, and I'm constantly amazed by various MeFites' artful use of language to resolve disputes, request changes in site policies, and praise or shame other users. In short, I think that MetaTalk serves as a model of effective community governance through skillful debate. My goal with this research is to figure out why MetaTalk works so well—and why it has worked for so long.

Much of my research will focus on analyzing old MetaTalk threads, but in order to accurately represent the MetaFilter community, this needs to be a genuine "human subjects" project, with input (and pushback, if necessary) from the community itself. I am trying to make my research as transparent as possible, and I want to involve members of the community as often as I can.

OK, with that long explanation out of the way, here is the formal invitation to participate in this study: Please take a few minutes and respond to this survey. The survey consists of a few multiple choice questions and several open-ended questions about your experience on MetaFilter. At the end of the survey, I ask if you would be willing to be interviewed for this project, so if you have more that you'd like to say (or just want to keep tabs on this project), you'll have an opportunity to do that.

I hope at least a few regular readers of MetaTalk will be able to complete the survey. Your responses will be incredibly valuable as I pursue my research over the next several months. Thanks in advance for your help!

[The fine print: My research plan has been approved by my university's Institutional Review Board, and I have received permission from Matt Haughey to post this request to MetaTalk. If you have any questions before you take the survey, please feel free to contact me using my MeFi user page. I will also keep an eye on this thread and do my best to respond quickly if I need to clarify anything.]

posted by lewistate to MetaFilter-Related at 10:55 AM (720 comments total)

You might want to tell folk that cookies need to be enabled. I just spent some time repeatedly being told I couldn't add up. :)
posted by Solomon at 11:23 AM on October 20, 2009

Matt Haughey, the owner of the MetaFilter, has given me permission to conduct this survey.

You, er, might want to fix that. Or else this is The Metafilter, where many sockpuppets enter and only one sockpuppet leaves.
posted by marginaliana at 11:27 AM on October 20, 2009 [2 favorites]

Is it a few minutes, or fifteen to thirty?
posted by box at 11:31 AM on October 20, 2009

Seems like the quantitative part of this is all in the cortex data dump, or could be extracted without much trouble, and no self-selection. The president of the Metafilter didn't offer that?

Which leaves your questionnaire as:

Briefly describe your reasons for becoming and/or remaining a member of MetaFilter. Why did you come? Why have you stayed?

This survey will be the basis of a graduate dissertation, wow. Kids these days, etc. etc.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 11:32 AM on October 20, 2009

Which leaves your questionnaire as:

Briefly describe your reasons for becoming and/or remaining a member of MetaFilter. Why did you come? Why have you stayed?

You saw that there are actually several pages of questions beyond that, right?

My impression is that for anyone who wants to answer all of the questions thoughtfully, it would take a lot more than 15-30 minutes.
posted by scody at 11:36 AM on October 20, 2009

scody's right, I'll have to try and do it when I get home from work. how long is your survey period going to last?
posted by Think_Long at 11:42 AM on October 20, 2009

I haven't got any pants, but boy have I got some time.
posted by carsonb at 11:42 AM on October 20, 2009

Answering the survey completely requires research and a willingness to spend time. With or without pants. You can save the survey for later completion.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 11:47 AM on October 20, 2009

You saw that there are actually several pages of questions beyond that, right?

No, I didn't see that. But I feel my hasty, snarky, ill-thought-out comment will add valuable color to the OPs research and so I stand behind it. Glad to help!
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 11:47 AM on October 20, 2009 [16 favorites]

Aw, I like "the MetaFilter." It's like something my dad would say.
posted by availablelight at 11:52 AM on October 20, 2009 [1 favorite]

When asking about contributions to the site, the survey does not ask how many favorites you have! That's a pretty big thing to skip! How will the survey know that my opinions matter more!?
posted by robocop is bleeding at 11:55 AM on October 20, 2009 [5 favorites]

Matt Haughey, the owner of the MetaFilter, has given me permission to conduct this survey.

You, er, might want to fix that. Or else this is The Metafilter, where many sockpuppets enter and only one sockpuppet leaves.
posted by marginaliana at 1:27 PM on October 20 [+] [!]

No, he had it right. The Web, the Google, the Torrents, the Metafilter.
posted by jtron at 12:00 PM on October 20, 2009 [1 favorite]

When you asked for our username, I accidentally wrote "cortex" would you please correct that to say "sixcolors"? Thanks.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 12:00 PM on October 20, 2009 [12 favorites]

Solomon: Thanks for the heads-up. The CAPTCHA page now tells people that they need to have cookies enabled.

marginaliana: Nice catch on the typos. Those are fixed now, too. (You can read something a thousand times, but inevitably something slips through the cracks.)

stupidsexyFlanders: I have the infodump, and I'll be using that in my research, but I'm interested in the post/comment numbers for the people who choose to respond to the survey. mathowie volunteered to rig up an automated tool to pull in all of that data for people, but my IRB said no (privacy/confidentiality issues).

This survey will be the basis of a graduate dissertation, wow. Kids these days, etc. etc.

Yeah, I expected a few comments like that. The survey is just one part of the case study, and the case study is just one part of the larger dissertation project. If anyone is interested, I've uploaded copies of my dissertation prospectus and original IRB application. Those documents explain how this survey fits into my dissertation research.

About the time required to complete the survey: I realize that this could take MUCH longer than 30 minutes, depending on how thorough your responses are, which is why I included this sentence on the introduction page:

"Thoughtful and elaborate answers are certainly appreciated, but please don't feel you need to spend more than 15-30 minutes on the survey."

If you're feeling really generous with your time and helping poor graduate students warms your heart, by all means, write a novel! But short answers will be very helpful, too.

Thanks for the feedback, and thanks to those of you who have already completed the survey!
posted by lewistate at 12:00 PM on October 20, 2009 [3 favorites]

I have to say 30 minutes for an estimate of the length, considering the depth of the (many essay-style) questions requested, is not long enough. I could only finish this survey (based on the progress bar of a partly completed attempt) in 15-30 minutes if I gave relatively brief, shallow answers. It's pretty long.
posted by nanojath at 12:05 PM on October 20, 2009

how long is your survey period going to last?

I'll leave it up for at least a month, just in case people don't have time to complete it now.

You can save the survey for later completion.

Thanks for pointing that out, JohnnyGunn. I've tested the save-and-return-later feature, and it works fine. If you get started on the survey and need to stop for whatever reason, you won't lose your responses.

Aw, I like "the MetaFilter." It's like something my dad would say.

My father has asked me a few times if I'm using "the Google" in my dissertation research. Now I can say, "No, Dad, I'm focusing on the MetaFilter."
posted by lewistate at 12:07 PM on October 20, 2009 [3 favorites]

I mentioned Sixcolors in three separate questions.
posted by harperpitt at 12:09 PM on October 20, 2009

based on lewistate's dissertation proposal, is it too late to change my username to 'rhetor' ?
posted by Think_Long at 12:18 PM on October 20, 2009

It's pointless surveying the users; MetaFilter has thrived and survived merely because by happy chance Matt located the server farm in a facility with particularly auspicious feng shui and we've been coasting along on the generated 'good vibes' (hope that's not too technical for you) since.
posted by Abiezer at 12:33 PM on October 20, 2009 [4 favorites]

My impression is that for anyone who wants to answer all of the questions thoughtfully, it would take a lot more than 15-30 minutes.

How about "don't spend longer than the aggregate of time you'd normally spend posting on Metafilter in a given day?" :)
posted by weston at 12:41 PM on October 20, 2009 [2 favorites]

I mentioned Sixcolors in three separate questions.

Heh, I kept it to once.

It's pointless surveying the users; MetaFilter has thrived and survived merely because by happy chance Matt located the server farm in a facility with particularly auspicious feng shui and we've been coasting along on the generated 'good vibes' (hope that's not too technical for you) since.

I thought the trick was to cover the server in mirrors, so wicked spirits couldn't find a way in. Or were server mirrors for stability? I forget.
posted by filthy light thief at 12:42 PM on October 20, 2009 [3 favorites]

Didn't someone do this before, but focused only on metafilter? I had some paper on my laptop for a long time, but seems I finally trashed it.
posted by cjorgensen at 12:51 PM on October 20, 2009

In the "How many contributions have you made..." section, do I have to add up the contributions from all my sockpuppets, or can I pick and choose?
posted by mr_crash_davis mark II: Jazz Odyssey at 12:51 PM on October 20, 2009

previously
posted by cjorgensen at 1:02 PM on October 20, 2009 [2 favorites]

Much of the information in this survey could be automagically scraped from user pages or the info dump.
posted by blue_beetle at 1:04 PM on October 20, 2009

I think it was GW Bush who first referred to it as The Metafilters.
posted by i_cola at 1:12 PM on October 20, 2009

Didn't someone do this before, but focused only on metafilter? I had some paper on my laptop for a long time, but seems I finally trashed it.

You're probably thinking of Quartermass, who wrote his thesis on MetaFilter back in 2006: "Capital and Stratification within Virtual Community: A Case Study of Metafilter.com." It's a beautiful piece of work, and I'll be citing it in my dissertation. My research takes a different approach, focusing on the language and rhetoric used by MeFites, specifically on MetaTalk. I hope my work will complement Quartermass's project, not duplicate it.

In the "How many contributions have you made..." section, do I have to add up the contributions from all my sockpuppets, or can I pick and choose?

mr_crash_davis mark II: Jazz Odyssey, I'll be writing a second dissertation that's specifically about you, just as soon as Iowa's board of regents approves the new PhD program in Sockpuppetry Studies.

On preview: cjorgensen, that's a great thread. Thanks!
posted by lewistate at 1:12 PM on October 20, 2009 [5 favorites]

Like Batman / The Batman:

Metafilter - colourful, campy fun.

The Metafilter - Dark, brooding, violent.

(Although come to think of it, The Pink Floyd were colourful and campy, and without the article became dark and brooding, so perhaps I should think that through more...


...nah.)


(And The The were always dark and brooding. So.)
posted by Grangousier at 1:17 PM on October 20, 2009 [3 favorites]

MAN, I suck at this flash game. How do I jump or climb?
posted by not_on_display at 1:17 PM on October 20, 2009 [1 favorite]

mathowie volunteered to rig up an automated tool to pull in all of that data for people, but my IRB said no (privacy/confidentiality issues).

Really, they did? But people are opting-in when they respond to the survey, so what possible reason could the IRB have for rejecting this?


Didn't someone do this before, but focused only on metafilter? I had some paper on my laptop for a long time, but seems I finally trashed it.

You're probably referring to Quartermass' masters thesis.

Also, loping recently presented a paper on MeFi meetups at the Association of Internet Researchers conference a couple of weeks ago.

But enough derailing the thread. I shall take the survey in a few minutes.
posted by DiscourseMarker at 1:17 PM on October 20, 2009 [2 favorites]

Although if someone can point me in the direction of Teh Metafilterz... thank you.
posted by Grangousier at 1:18 PM on October 20, 2009

Do you have a question on your survey about whether people preview before posting? Because, d'uh, should'a previewed. Oh well.
posted by DiscourseMarker at 1:19 PM on October 20, 2009

I need your help to better understand why MetaFilter functions better than so many other online communities.

3 things:

1. Moderation
2. Moderation
3. Moderation.

All things in moderation.
posted by dash_slot- at 1:25 PM on October 20, 2009 [6 favorites]

With respect to the moderators (who do a great job), I think it's more complicated than that, dash_slot. Communities only work if people want them to prosper - and imo, Metafilter has prospered for a long time because of the user base. This site feels more like a collaborative effort, because the community values and rewards content.
posted by Kevin Street at 1:33 PM on October 20, 2009

I have $10 that this wins next year's Nobel Peace Prize. That's two(!) sockpuppets.
posted by Ufez Jones at 1:41 PM on October 20, 2009

Well that's a shame. I went through the effort of referencing old posts and links as instructed by the questions. I spent the time editing and proofreading my responses so that they were clear and thorough while also being brief enough to fit into the text boxes.

Apparently on the third or fourth page, that meant I took long enough for the session to expire, which I didn't know until I clicked "next". Also, because the form is posting each set of answers directly to the next page of questions, it meant I couldn't hit "back" without resending the information and losing all of the responses I'd written.

Just a heads-up for people filling this out: do so fairly quickly.
posted by Riki tiki at 1:46 PM on October 20, 2009

I mentioned Sixcolors in three separate questions.

I managed not to do it at all. Glorious, glorious freedom.
posted by cortex (staff) at 2:01 PM on October 20, 2009 [2 favorites]

Really, they did? But people are opting-in when they respond to the survey, so what possible reason could the IRB have for rejecting this?

IRBs are notoriously suspicious about anything that isn't standard operating procedure. In this case, the plan to run a query on another server that wasn't under my control and then populate survey responses with that data suggested some kind of privacy/confidentiality breach. Also, waiting for the board to respond to the change in protocol means another eight weeks of not collecting data. In the end, my major professor advised me to abandon the idea.

Just a heads-up for people filling this out: do so fairly quickly.

Riki tiki, I am so sorry to hear that. I tried to put the survey software through its paces before I made the survey public, and I thought I had worked out all the bugs, but I guess I missed one. My apologies for the snafu. I'll search the LimeSurvey forums and see if I can do anything to fix the problem.
posted by lewistate at 2:02 PM on October 20, 2009 [1 favorite]

Riki Tiki: Well that's a shame. I went through the effort of referencing old posts and links as instructed by the questions. I spent the time editing and proofreading my responses so that they were clear and thorough while also being brief enough to fit into the text boxes.

It wasn't a problem for me and I left the tab open for ages before I started answering anything.
posted by Kattullus at 2:11 PM on October 20, 2009

A census taker tried to question me once. I ate his liver with some fava beans and a big Amarone.
posted by longsleeves at 2:14 PM on October 20, 2009 [1 favorite]

lewistate: "I am so sorry to hear that."

Don't sweat it. These things happen. It's like my grandpappy used to say... "Riki, if you ever find yourself in the Louisiana bayou with a machete in one hand and a collector's edition of Teen Wolf Too in the other, be absolutely, positively sure you don

SESSION EXPIRED
posted by Riki tiki at 2:16 PM on October 20, 2009 [20 favorites]

Oh, and your dissertation sounds fascinating, lewistate, and your prospectus taught me a fabulous word that I'll endeavour to drop into conversation at all times: "ethotic."
posted by Kattullus at 2:23 PM on October 20, 2009

Go comm grads.
posted by k8t at 2:36 PM on October 20, 2009 [1 favorite]

Can I suggest that if you really want to get a grip on the "meta" aspect of The Metafilter, you'd need to post your results here, to be subjected to the scrutiny snark of The Metafilterers.

Just in case this isn't part of your scope, here is a representative sample of the feedback:

"Correlation is not causation!"

"Christ, what an asshole!"

"His sampling methodology is completely useless and lacking in any predictive value - he neglected to survey the fish in our pants!"
posted by UbuRoivas at 2:52 PM on October 20, 2009 [4 favorites]

IRBs are notoriously suspicious about anything that isn't standard operating procedure. In this case, the plan to run a query on another server that wasn't under my control and then populate survey responses with that data suggested some kind of privacy/confidentiality breach. Also, waiting for the board to respond to the change in protocol means another eight weeks of not collecting data. In the end, my major professor advised me to abandon the idea.

Wow, your IRB sucks, sorry to say. I've never had a project take 8 weeks to get approved. But it is true that many IRBs are slow to get on the internet research cluetrain. Your IRB is still wrong, in this instance, but I totally understand your desire to get moving on your project.

I finished the survey, though it took me a while. I was totally paranoid that my answers were going to get zapped while I was typing or trying to remember stuff, but it seems to have gone through ok, no "session expired" message.

Go comm grads.
His program is actually housed in the English department, k8t. BOO, HISS!
just kidding!
posted by DiscourseMarker at 2:54 PM on October 20, 2009 [1 favorite]

I did the survey, though I might be having a jaded week since I laughed at the question "When have members solved disputes in MetaTalk" and answered "I don't think that this has ever actually happened."

Also: I felt mighty weird answering the "trusted MeFites" portion and elected not to. I just feel really weird dropping a list of usernames and then, the worst, what if I forgot someone?! There are people whose opinions I really value, but in general - the list of MeFites I trust is pretty much all of them with a few notable exceptions. Even a lot of people I disagree with I "trust" on the basis that I trust that they're well-educated on the topic and have clearly thought out their opinions... even if their opinions are wrong.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 3:00 PM on October 20, 2009

I mentioned Sixcolors in three separate questions.

I didn't mention sixcolors, but did reference wfrgms and kldickson.
posted by zarq at 3:05 PM on October 20, 2009

I did some poking around and found that LimeSurvey can produce a "session expired" error if the memory limit is exceeded, which can happen when a lot of people are trying to respond at once. I quadrupled the memory limit (from 32 to 128 MB), and I increased the session limit to 10 hours (it was set at one hour), just in case Riki tiki's problem was a genuine session problem. With any luck, other people won't lose their responses. *fingers crossed*

Kattullus: your prospectus taught me a fabulous word that I'll endeavour to drop into conversation at all times: "ethotic."

Best. Word. Ever.

UbuRoivas: Can I suggest that if you really want to get a grip on the "meta" aspect of The Metafilter, you'd need to post your results here, to be subjected to the scrutiny snark of The Metafilterers.

I am planning to share my findings on MetaTalk, but I don't want to violate the self-linking policy by popping in every week to say, "Hey, guys! I coded more data! Who wants to see?" I'll see what mathowie and the other mods have to say about keeping MeFites in the loop without being a pest.

I know, I know, get my own blog.
posted by lewistate at 3:08 PM on October 20, 2009 [1 favorite]

You could probably post it to Projects....?
posted by UbuRoivas at 3:09 PM on October 20, 2009

One of the reasons Metafilter functions so well, in addition to the moderation, the clear guidelines, the transparency, etc., is that Metafilter is not filled with a bunch of idiots.

And that is an extremely hard thing to recreate elsewhere, and why so many similar models fail, even with the best of intentions.
posted by A Terrible Llama at 3:36 PM on October 20, 2009 [5 favorites]

So Iowa State is starting a Department of MetaFilter studies to stimulate the economy and replace the filmmakers who just fled the state? And there's going to be a statue of mathowie in Des Moines? Cool!
posted by lukemeister at 3:36 PM on October 20, 2009

Riki Tiki: Get thee to Lazarus: Form Recovery (for Firefox). It's the absolute first add-on I install on any new Firefox setup.
posted by niles at 3:42 PM on October 20, 2009 [3 favorites]

Er, to help in the future. It can't recovery things from before it was installed.
posted by niles at 3:43 PM on October 20, 2009

I would like a list of other Mefites who mention me in their answers to this survey, a brief synopsis of the content and context of those responses, and addresses of said responders, please. Also, SSNs and PINs would be helpful, too.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 4:09 PM on October 20, 2009 [1 favorite]

The lewistate, the answer is simple. In this case, it really is all about the Benjamin. Very few middle-school students are willing to pay $5 to annoy people here when there are so many other places they can do it for free.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:16 PM on October 20, 2009 [1 favorite]

3 things:

1. Moderation
2. Moderation
3. Moderation.


In recent years perhaps. It was not always so, and the transition between models as the site scaled would be an interesting study in itself. But I've long since gotten down off the appeals-to-authority hobbyhorse I was riding for a while, so I'll stop right there.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 4:23 PM on October 20, 2009 [1 favorite]

no images allowed. Man that is so...I dunno...one of those commandments.
posted by telstar at 4:37 PM on October 20, 2009

Its been a while Metafilter.

Noticed that my thesis wasn't available from those links, so here it is again:

http://www.mediafire.com/?txdzefax0y5

Four-years removed from my thesis (an in the heart of my dissertation writing, looking for any way I can to get off this sinking ship called academia), I guess I am pretty happy with much of it, though my biggest critique of it is that I found what I was looking for (though the same could be said of most academic research).

Thank-you for those kind words Lewistate. Honestly, I'm in such a funk in my research these days that little things like calling my work "beautiful" goes a really long way.
posted by Quartermass at 4:45 PM on October 20, 2009 [6 favorites]

[paraphrasing] Which MeFites do you trust and why?

In Meatbomb I Trust.
posted by not_on_display at 5:07 PM on October 20, 2009 [2 favorites]

Jesus holy God, it took me an entire episode of Star Gate to complete that survey!

Quartermass, that thesis was one of the most interesting things I've ever read about online communities. I still have a copy saved somewhere. A++ would confer graduate degree again.

Has anyone done a thesis on how online language evolves into offline use, especially specific community slang? I mean, I don't say "LOL" ever but I do use the term "pony requests" when presenting at conferences to describe unreasonable client requests, and I do say to genhis "Oh yeah, that will end well" quite often (which I did not do prior to Givewell.)
posted by DarlingBri at 5:12 PM on October 20, 2009 [1 favorite]

I felt mighty weird answering the "trusted MeFites" portion and elected not to.

I put down ColdChef, languagehat, and Astro Zombie.

I didn't go into detail, but I should have. Chef on death and dying, languagehat on language (not hats), and Astro Zombie on...ah, crap, can I change my answer? What's he do again?
posted by cjorgensen at 5:31 PM on October 20, 2009

I felt mighty weird answering the "trusted MeFites" portion and elected not to.

I put down ColdChef, languagehat, and Astro Zombie.

I think "everyone's trusted mefite list" would be fun to read, but I also think that sort of hero worship is bad for the site, so here's a vote against any more comments like this maybe?

Stavros doesn't ride his appeal-to-authority hobbyhorse anymore because I kidnapped it.
posted by Kwine at 6:00 PM on October 20, 2009

Only a small proportion of members ever read metatalk. Won't that make the responses kind of biased? Is this going to have wider exposure than just a post here? I'm sure it's hard to balance, this isn't an 'official' metafilter thing so I don't know how much it can or even should be pushed elsewhere on the site, while at the same time the wider the range of members that answer the better (I assume).

Not sure where I'm going with this, guess I'm just curious?
posted by shelleycat at 6:06 PM on October 20, 2009

I think his focus is intentionally on those who read metatalk, as he is specifically focusing on site-related disputes
posted by Think_Long at 6:15 PM on October 20, 2009

Stavros doesn't ride his appeal-to-authority hobbyhorse anymore because I kidnapped it.

GIVE ME BACK MY PONY YOU BASTARD

Also, survey status: completed.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:20 PM on October 20, 2009

shelleycat: Only a small proportion of members ever read metatalk. Won't that make the responses kind of biased?

Good question. My prospectus and IRB application, linked upthread, provide a little more detail about the project, but Think_Long summed it up nicely: I'm studying MetaTalk, not the larger MetaFilter site. In the survey, I ask for post/comment counts for other parts of the site, but those responses will be used mainly to tease out the connections between activity levels on MetaTalk and activity levels on other parts of the site.

stavrosthewonderchicken: Also, survey status: completed.

stavros, I've been enjoying your posts since 2001. That you (and other Monsters of MetaFilter) would take the time to complete my survey really means a lot to me. Thank you.
posted by lewistate at 6:41 PM on October 20, 2009

...but...but I joined in 2000! *lip quivers*

My pleasure. I'm not around as much as I used to be with so many damn projects of my own I'm working on, but I'll never quit you, Metafilter.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:44 PM on October 20, 2009 [1 favorite]

Briefly describe your reasons for becoming and/or remaining a member of MetaFilter. Why did you come? Why have you stayed?

I came for the lulz, I stayed because the lulz became in-jokes to be used again and again!
posted by turgid dahlia at 6:47 PM on October 20, 2009 [1 favorite]

I finished the survey, where can I pick up my "I finished the METAFILTER SURVEY" pin?
posted by pwally at 6:51 PM on October 20, 2009

As a social scientist, I appreciate the effort to achieve informed consent.

But I decline to take the survey.
posted by fourcheesemac at 6:56 PM on October 20, 2009

I put down myself as the Mefite I trust the most.

Actually, that's a lie.

I didn't fill out the survey.

I'm not even a Mefite.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 7:09 PM on October 20, 2009 [1 favorite]

I finished the survey, where can I pick up my "I finished the METAFILTER SURVEY" pin?

Didn't you read the part where he clearly states there is no compensation? RTFA!

And..."that sort of hero worship is bad for the site..."

First off, what I have going for Astro Zombie isn't hero worship. Second, bah. I don't see why this would at all be bad for the site. Maybe if people started disagreeing with someone's choice, but otherwise, works for me.

I know there are people on here that when I see the username I pay a lot more attention or give more credibility. Mostly because they've earned it.
posted by cjorgensen at 7:10 PM on October 20, 2009

Also, loping recently presented a paper on MeFi meetups at the Association of Internet Researchers conference a couple of weeks ago.

Really? Any more information on this?
posted by onlyconnect at 7:14 PM on October 20, 2009

I'm studying MetaTalk, not the larger MetaFilter site.

Ah, cool, that makes sense. I haven't read all the stuff because I'm at work trying to sort out my own thesis (procrastinating currently...) but I will when I get home. It's always interesting to see the hoops other people have to jump through if nothing else.

I feel you on the ethics change request thing. Convincing the of a change can be harder than getting the ethics in the first place, even if it makes thigns better. Getting human ethics here in NZ can take one or two years rather than a few months (for example, I know someone who worked with them for two years before being turned down), so you're probably not doing too badly. I've heard that anyone wanting a PhD student to do human work here has to have the ethics before the student starts, otherwise they'll never graduate. Which is sad because then the student doesn't get to be involved in sorting that out which should be a fairly important part of their education.
posted by shelleycat at 7:14 PM on October 20, 2009

I put down myself as the Mefite I trust the most.

Actually, that's a lie.

I didn't fill out the survey.

I'm not even a Mefite.

This is exactly why I did *not* put you down as the MeFite I trust most.
:P
posted by DiscourseMarker at 7:19 PM on October 20, 2009 [1 favorite]

> As a social scientist, I appreciate the effort to achieve informed consent.

social scientists represent!
posted by needled at 7:20 PM on October 20, 2009 [2 favorites]

Getting human ethics here in NZ can take one or two years rather than a few months (for example, I know someone who worked with them for two years before being turned down)

I suppose I should be more grateful for my eight weeks of waiting in bureaucratic no man's land. The thought of waiting two years for human subjects approval, only to be turned down, is enough to give any PhD student a few nightmares.
posted by lewistate at 7:24 PM on October 20, 2009

I'm with odinsdream. If I have a few hours, I'll try to do it, but otherwise all my answers will be "well, a few times stuff happened like this - and once, there was that real funny thing, you know?"
posted by yhbc at 7:38 PM on October 20, 2009 [1 favorite]

I really had fun thinking about what users I consider "credible" and why. That was enlightening. I did give some really short shrift to questions which were so broad as to be practially unanswerable, like "If you can, describe a time when you’ve been misunderstood on MetaFilter. Have you ever had to justify or explain your comments? (Provide links or post numbers, if you think they would be helpful.)" We've all been misunderstood so many times, and had to explain or justify my comments so many times, that I think it's really hard to isolate some specific illustrative incident and use it to draw any conclusions about the site.

I love that you're doing the survey, lewistate, but I wonder if your habit of lurking might have made you construct it differently than you would have if you were a frequent participant and understood more from a personal perspective what it's like to participate in the daily ebb and flow, the ruffling and smoothing of feathers, so that individual incidents of clashing points of view recede in their importance a bit.
posted by Miko at 7:45 PM on October 20, 2009 [4 favorites]

odinsdream and yhbc, fuzzy answers are totally understandable, and perfectly acceptable. My memory is like that, too. If the only thing you can offer is "I remember one time when somebody asked the mods to do X and it actually happened," that's enough to point me in the right direction. I'm pretty handy with a search box, and I'm happy to do some of the legwork if you don't have the time to track down specific threads.

Alternately, you can just skip questions that you don't want to answer. Seriously. I don't expect every response to be uniform in length/content/tone/etc. Any response will be a welcome addition to the data set.
posted by lewistate at 7:45 PM on October 20, 2009

One of the reasons Metafilter functions so well, in addition to the moderation, the clear guidelines, the transparency, etc., is that Metafilter is not filled with a bunch of idiots.

...and to pick up on this very important point, I've always felt that one of the biggest reasons it's not filled with idiots is that it's an all text, discussion-driven website. You have to be able to read and write at a fairly high percentile level to even want to be here in the first place. Participation here is self-selecting for educated and highly verbal people. The sheer resistance of MeFi to going down the road of "IT's a visual culture, dude!" attracts people who are facile with words and accomplished with their use.
posted by Miko at 8:01 PM on October 20, 2009 [13 favorites]

Lauryl sulfate!
posted by Miko at 8:09 PM on October 20, 2009

I gotta retire my username

No, no! Keep going so I can write about how credible I think you are!
posted by Miko at 8:14 PM on October 20, 2009

Did you disagree strongly with their directions for hair washing techniques?

If I used the tiny amount they suggested my hair would never be clean. Plus what's with the whole washing twice thing? If they want me to use more product then recommend a decent amount to start with. If the stuff is so crap I have to have two goes then don't tell me that, it's bad advertising!

I love my shampoo but the instructions are stupid.
posted by shelleycat at 8:18 PM on October 20, 2009 [2 favorites]

Also, loping recently presented a paper on MeFi meetups at the Association of Internet Researchers conference a couple of weeks ago.

Really? Any more information on this?

Here ya go!
posted by DiscourseMarker at 8:21 PM on October 20, 2009 [5 favorites]

The thought of waiting two years for human subjects approval, only to be turned down, is enough to give any PhD student a few nightmares

Oh no. You don't just wait for two years. You fill in forms and deal with red tape and answer questions and work with inflexible bureaucrats and basically bust your arse for two years. And even then some significant percentage get turned down. I have a friend currently running a human-involved trial and getting the ethics was far and away the hardest part, and it involves totally innocuous interventions.
posted by shelleycat at 8:23 PM on October 20, 2009

(to be fair some really high percentage of applicants don't fill in the forms properly and they now run compulsory applicant courses and have advisors and stuff to try stop this happening but still, it sounds like a total nightmare)
posted by shelleycat at 8:24 PM on October 20, 2009

I got the timeout too.
posted by klangklangston at 8:48 PM on October 20, 2009

Only a small proportion of members ever read metatalk. Won't that make the responses kind of biased? Is this going to have wider exposure than just a post here?

Only a small proportion of members ever post in metatalk. I'm sure I'm not the only person who reads it all the time, but doesn't post much at all.
posted by headnsouth at 8:54 PM on October 20, 2009 [3 favorites]

Miko: I love that you're doing the survey, lewistate, but I wonder if your habit of lurking might have made you construct it differently than you would have if you were a frequent participant and understood more from a personal perspective what it's like to participate in the daily ebb and flow, the ruffling and smoothing of feathers, so that individual incidents of clashing points of view recede in their importance a bit.

Well, someone who's an outside observer will notice a lot of things that may be invisible to us who live here. God knows there's a gazillion examples of the observant traveler from Herodotus to Bill Bryson (you thought I was gonna say Tocqueville, didn't ya?).
posted by Kattullus at 9:02 PM on October 20, 2009 [1 favorite]

I got the timeout too.

Aw, crap. I'm sorry, klangklangston. I made some changes to the server settings several hours ago, and I hadn't heard about any other problems, so I assumed everything was working OK. I'll do some more poking around to see if there's something else I can do to address the timeout issue. I wonder if the problem is really a timeout issue, or if it's related to the length of responses. Were your responses especially long?

Problems like these tend to go hand in hand with open-source software, but that doesn't make them any less acceptable, especially when you're sacrificing your time to help someone else. Please accept my apologies for the glitch. I'll keep working on it.
posted by lewistate at 9:20 PM on October 20, 2009

Anytime you do ethnographic research, you run into this problem. If you're core in the community, you have the advantage of a thorough understanding of the cultural knowledge, social norms, pragmatics, etc., but you might not be able to see the big picture or trends and you will inherently have some sort of bias. If you're too far outside the community, you are able to be more objective, but you run the risk of misinterpreting information and mis-characterizing your subjects (as we saw with the IT guys' study of MeFi about 6 months ago).

It's a balance, and you gotta play your hand. Miko brings up a really good point, and this is exactly what the 'discussion' and 'future research' sections of the write-up are for.

Good luck Quinn! I'm really looking forward to seeing how this all turns out.
posted by iamkimiam at 9:27 PM on October 20, 2009

I mentioned Sixcolors in three separate questions.
>I didn't mention sixcolors, but did reference wfrgms and kldickson.

My MetaFilter experience is waaay different from other peopleses. Not really a surprise, just a reminder that every last one of us comes at this thing of ours from a different angle.

Dayum, this thing sort of requires a lot of thoughtfulness, doesn't it?
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 10:08 PM on October 20, 2009

Plus what's with the whole washing twice thing?

Camping trip. After a good long weekend, my hair smells like campfire for days despite multiple washings. Also, depending on the nature of the festivities, my hair still has dirt/bits of flora in it after one wash. (My camping trips are extremely fun and not for the delicate.)
posted by little e at 10:33 PM on October 20, 2009 [2 favorites]

a few minutes is not half an hour! D:
posted by cowbellemoo at 11:25 PM on October 20, 2009

Also, who brings coins in the shower to measure their shampoo?

I normally just pick up one that an audience member has tossed at me. The notes, I'm afraid, aren't much good until I've hung them out to dry on a clothesline.
posted by UbuRoivas at 11:29 PM on October 20, 2009

I think washing your hair twice "if needed" is completely bizarre! When would you need that?

Have you ever been in a Turkish Prison?
posted by loquacious at 12:40 AM on October 21, 2009

I'm probably not going to take part in the survey because I hate them, but I will answer the following here and now, but not very seriously:

Briefly describe your reasons for becoming and/or remaining a member of MetaFilter.

It was free. They had cats wedged in scanners. They had cameras. They had witty, dry sarcasm and the web was still pretty wild. I snuck in the back door and crashed the party. I like crashing parties, particularly good parties.

Why did you come?

Ghostbusters 2? I saw a turtle? Twenty bucks, same as in town?

Why have you stayed?

It's the only place that will have me where I can write 20-30 paragraphs of disjointed, hallucinatory ramblings based on vague memories and be rewarded for it instead of ostracized with grunted, monosyllabic insults questioning my sexual orientation or the weight or morals of my maternal parent.

Also, it doesn't have nested threads or a professional white background.
posted by loquacious at 12:55 AM on October 21, 2009 [3 favorites]

I gave credibility points in the survey to UbuRoivas, but only when he speaks to certain topics.

The rest of my assigned credibility points I handed out to airnxzt, prince of persia...
posted by Rumple at 1:00 AM on October 21, 2009

Ever since I learned about Cat Valium during the lectures on "Club Drugs" in pharmacy school, when faced with an open-ended question, if the thought of answering "Cat Valium" makes me laugh, then I cannot resist answering "Cat Valium". Even if I actually know the answer. I'm pretty sure this cost me a letter grade in at least one class. So if a survey that is half CAT VALIUM LOL would provide useful data, let me know, otherwise I am not going to participate.

Fuck, how did I not choose Cat Valium as my username? That's so much better than what I ended up with.
posted by little e at 1:08 AM on October 21, 2009

Maybe I'm just really nitpicky, but a lot of these questions seemed to paint a completely different picture of MetaFilter than the one I know.

I'll post one and then lay off unless you don't mind me commenting further, lewistate.

If you can, describe a specific instance (or instances) that illustrate how new members of the site are treated by the community. (Provide links or post numbers, if you think they would be helpful.)

A specific instance of how a new member is treated by the community? The user joined, commented on some threads, received favourites, was replied to... I imagine this is true for the vast majority of new users and illustrates pretty well how they're treated, but this is not what this question will result in.

A question asking for a specific instance of a new member joining is naturally going to receive answers where it stood out as a memorable event either good or bad. You're going to be getting a bunch of answers where a new user is either hailed as awesome or universally reviled.
posted by ODiV at 1:18 AM on October 21, 2009 [1 favorite]

I should have said that maybe my answers are a little less helpful than they could be. I honestly couldn't get past the wording on some of the questions because I feel like I know what you're getting at and I resent it.
posted by ODiV at 1:20 AM on October 21, 2009

I answered my first survey as Pretty_Generic; I tried to answer the second time as EB but it timed out.
posted by adamvasco at 1:22 AM on October 21, 2009 [2 favorites]

it's true there seemed to be no real safeguard that the user answering is actually the same user whose name was connected to the survey. not that I care.

-- Todd Lokken
posted by Rumple at 1:32 AM on October 21, 2009 [2 favorites]

tl;dr, much.

Didn't have to.

More than a month ago, I politely asked to have my user nic/number obfuscated in the InfoDump. And was "promised" it would be.

But I'm still in there as user #19792 in:
commentdata_askme.txt
contactdata.txt
favoritesdata.txt
postdata_askme.txt
postdata_mefi.txt
postdata_meta.txt

and possibly other InfoDump files,

as of 4:23 EST, 10/21/09, you stupid bastards.

I can't begin to express how pissed I am about this. I didn't pay $5 to join this site, or spend many hours trying to post worthwhile contributions to other users, hell to other humans, to have some dink PhD candidate download the InfoDump, and try to "study" me.

Fuck you, cortex.
Fuck you, mathowie.

And fuck you, especially, in every non-naturally-lubricated-orifice-you-posses, you worthless, opportunistic bottom-feeder, lewistate.
posted by paulsc at 2:02 AM on October 21, 2009

All this pshaw about IRBs. Maybe in New Zealand it really is that hard to do social research, but in the US the IRB is largely a formal way for the university to avoid being sued (or to comply with federal granting policies). I am PI on something like 30 IRB approvals right now (a few my own, mostly students). They take between a week and a month to complete, depending on whether the project is exempt or not, and how many times they send it back for (always clearly requested) revisions. I've had maybe 2 real arguments with my university's IRB in 10 years, and won them both. Many of my students work with children or non-literate populations. Getting an IRB approval for a survey instrument of a website should not take so long, and I really don't see why they saw the use of centralized data aggregation on a site where people voluntarily participate using pseudonyms (or voluntarily reveal their identity) would be so much trouble. It woudn't be at my university, at all.

Beyond that, as a social scientist, I have problems with "surveys" in general (because they give the appearance of quantitative rigor, when they are usually just a shortcut to doing actual ethnographic interviews), and completely biased surveys like this in particular. You will learn nothing from this survey that is actually quantifiable, objective information, as the many quips in this thread reveal, that you could not have learned from observing and asking people direct questions in context. And learned much more thoroughly and specifically.

Non-randomized, non-anonymous surveys are interesting tools for formulating broad questions at the outset of qualitative research, or for checking the generalizability of qualitative findings. I'm not saying this is a useless approach. I am saying it's silly to treat such a survey instrument as any more scientific than transcribing and analyzing the conversation in this thread.
posted by fourcheesemac at 2:12 AM on October 21, 2009 [5 favorites]

paulsc:
More than a month ago, I politely asked to have my user nic/number obfuscated in the InfoDump. And was "promised" it would be.

cortex making said promise:
That said, I do hear you, and will actively look into munging implementation.


I'm glad you put "promised" in quotes there, because I don't see anything that could be construed as a "promise" in the linked reply from cortex. "Looking into" something is a lot different from promising to do it.

Of course, you can always leave. It might be wise for Matt to add an explicit agreement to be info-dumped to the new user signup (since I haven't signed up lately, I don't know if it's there). But if you get upset about MeFi aggregating data that is already publicly accessible, I sure as hell hope you don't use Google, webmail, or any other online services. News flash: we are all represented, often by name, in millions of database cells all over the internet. Someone, somewhere, is always scraping that data to find new ways to sell shit to us, spy on us, or write PhD dissertations about our strange online communities.
posted by fourcheesemac at 2:23 AM on October 21, 2009 [7 favorites]

Wow. Um. Paul? look, I know we don't know each other or anything, and I know I just kinda skimmed this thread, but from an outsider's point of view it looks like your comment might be a tad..harsh maybe?

I mean, it seems like you value Metafilter a lot. lewistate seems to value it too, or at the very least respect it and how successful it is (in terms of being valued by those who use it). Is it really so wrong to be "studied"? Shouldn't the world know that wonderful communities can happen when you {resolve differences on a separate site | ban everybody who self-links | whatever other sort of magic Metafilter might have}. If you love metafilter, set it free!

Also, it seems like Cortex's promise ("That said, I do hear you, and will actively look into munging implementation.") was a promise to look into doing such a thing. There didn't seem to be a guarantee in there at all. (on preview, what fourcheesemac said).
posted by Brainy at 2:31 AM on October 21, 2009

"cortex making said promise:
That said, I do hear you, and will actively look into munging implementation.
posted by fourcheesemac at 5:23 AM on October 21

Other than being a complete dick in the thread in which I originally raised the point, I don't know what you'd have had me do, in the face of cortex's promise.

I took his comment on good faith.

He took a trip around America.

Who's fucked now?

Hint: user #19792
posted by paulsc at 2:33 AM on October 21, 2009

paul, again, i'm just trying to be respectful here. Maybe we'd have a better time sympathizing with you if we understood in which way you are being "fucked"
posted by Brainy at 2:40 AM on October 21, 2009

Other than being a complete dick in the thread in which I originally raised the point, I don't know what you'd have had me do, in the face of cortex's promise.

Again, he promised to "look into" something, not to do something. And what I would have you do is not be a complete dick in this thread. If you're so concerned with anonymity, why do you post things online?
posted by fourcheesemac at 2:41 AM on October 21, 2009 [1 favorite]

"... Is it really so wrong to be "studied"? ..."
posted by Brainy at 5:31 AM on October 21

Ask any disappearing frog who has paid $5, and spent a lot of time trying to contribute to this site, for the privilege of being "studied."
posted by paulsc at 2:44 AM on October 21, 2009

Well, I can't ask any disappearing frog who has paid $5, because, as far as I know, most of the members of this board are humans, and none are frogs. As the article you linked was mostly about fungus and pesticides, it's difficult for me to find a parallel (lewistage is a fungus?). At this point, I just don't understand.

Also Paul, you do contribute and you do add a lot to this site. I don't see how anything anybody does with data could ruin that. Your account info being the 23rd pixel line on this column of a bar graph doesn't take anything away from what you've shared and the people you've touched here.
posted by Brainy at 2:51 AM on October 21, 2009 [1 favorite]

"Again, he promised to "look into" something, not to do something. ..."
posted by fourcheesemac at 5:41 AM on October 21

You know, that's a brilliant bit of legalese, fourcheesemac. Perhaps, before the Supreme Court of the United States of America, it completely excuses cortex from modifying the InfoDump, as was being discussed in that earlier MetaTalk thread. Of course, in the meantime, I got exactly 0, that is zero, communications from cortex, as to how his "active" investigation was going.

I'm just a punky post "2004 new user sign ups" user, who did what he could, to bring up the point of obfuscation of user IDs in Metafilter supplied data to independent researchers, before it became a Metatalk "research" request.

But, you know, there's the "black and white" of law, and the spirit of law, and occasionally, courts see the spirit as more important than the ink. IANAL, etc.

"If you're so concerned with anonymity, why do you post things online?"
posted by fourcheesemac at 5:41 AM on October 21

There's a difference between what you call "anonymity," and handing 3rd parties InfoDump. That difference is the effort 3rd parties would expend in hammering Metafilter Web servers for data, and shoving it out to them, for nothing more than download bandwidth, with data fields defined. The first is inescapable, the second is cooperative.

Why isn't lewistate "studying" http://answers.yahoo.com?
posted by paulsc at 3:05 AM on October 21, 2009

paulsc if you want to be so anonymous how come you put so much information in your profile?
You could always have called yourself alienhorsepiss or whatever and given nothing more.
Don't like the survey; don't take the survey.
You paid $5 to join Metafilter therefore Matt can do what he likes with data you have supplied.
Don't like it - go away or at least stop shouting and being abusive at 0500 hrs in the Florida morning.
posted by adamvasco at 3:24 AM on October 21, 2009 [3 favorites]

"... You paid $5 to join Metafilter therefore Matt can do what he likes with data you have supplied. ..."
posted by adamvasco at 6:24 AM on October 21

So, you're saying Metafilter is Matt's personal $5 flytrap?

Even I, angry as I am, think more of Matt, and cortex, than that.
posted by paulsc at 3:29 AM on October 21, 2009

On the internet, no one knows you're a frog.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 3:35 AM on October 21, 2009

Most frogs could care less about the Internet, however heavily they are studied.
posted by paulsc at 3:36 AM on October 21, 2009

I gave credibility points in the survey to UbuRoivas, but only when he speaks to certain topics.

I guess the rest of the time, I'm simply in-credible.
posted by UbuRoivas at 4:10 AM on October 21, 2009

How many naturally-lubricated-orifices does a person have?
posted by gman at 4:32 AM on October 21, 2009

Does that definition include orifices lubricated with natural products?
posted by UbuRoivas at 4:37 AM on October 21, 2009

"Does that definition include orifices lubricated with natural products?"
posted by UbuRoivas at 7:37 AM on October 21

Depends a lot, I think, on your definition of "natural products."

I'm angry, but not so perverted by anger as to get into specifics as may interest you, or lurker PhD "researchers" with cheap access to InfoDump.
posted by paulsc at 4:44 AM on October 21, 2009

I like gman's survey better. I'm going to put down... nine? yeah nine.
posted by not_on_display at 4:46 AM on October 21, 2009

Oh, come on. I think gman also meant natural orifices, not the holes left behind after you've scooped somebody's eyeballs out with a soup spoon.
posted by UbuRoivas at 4:52 AM on October 21, 2009

Please don't put words in my mouth (or anything else, for that matter).
posted by gman at 4:58 AM on October 21, 2009

Paulsc, you're being abusive and childish. (Perhaps paranoid, too.)

The mods don't *owe* you anything. You voiced a personal concern and Cortex said he'd look into it. He didn't give you a time frame. If you were so overwhelmingly concerned about your special, personal pony request, then you should have memailed him a reminder about it after your initial discussion. You asked for a favor. Special treatment. The onus on you to follow-up.
posted by zarq at 5:26 AM on October 21, 2009 [2 favorites]

I can't imagine soup spoons mixing well with orifices of any kind.
posted by lmm at 5:27 AM on October 21, 2009

Lewistate, thank you for posting the survey. Thought provoking questions. Finished and submitted.
posted by zarq at 5:30 AM on October 21, 2009

Can everybody please stop arguing with paulsc? He's not interested in reasoned discourse, no one who ends his first post with "and fuck you, especially, in every non-naturally-lubricated-orifice-you-posses, you worthless, opportunistic bottom-feeder, lewistate" would be (hey, welcome to MetaTalk, lewistate! it's a crazy place sometimes). Nothing anyone will say will make paulsc change his mind and getting into an argument with him will end up with everyone feeling bad about themselves in the morning.
posted by Kattullus at 5:38 AM on October 21, 2009 [2 favorites]

And fuck you, especially, in every non-naturally-lubricated-orifice-you-posses, you worthless, opportunistic bottom-feeder, lewistate.

This, my friends, is a wonderful example of that legendary "southern charm" you've all heard tell about.
posted by octobersurprise at 5:53 AM on October 21, 2009 [4 favorites]

Nothing anyone will say will make paulsc change his mind and getting into an argument with him will end up with everyone feeling bad about themselves in the morning.

I already feel bad about morning in the morning. Ugh.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 5:57 AM on October 21, 2009

Beyond that, as a social scientist, I have problems with "surveys" in general (because they give the appearance of quantitative rigor, when they are usually just a shortcut to doing actual ethnographic interviews), and completely biased surveys like this in particular. You will learn nothing from this survey that is actually quantifiable, objective information, as the many quips in this thread reveal, that you could not have learned from observing and asking people direct questions in context. And learned much more thoroughly and specifically.

Repeated for emphasis, and also to resume normal thread dialogue after paulsc's god-awful self-involved derail. Paulsc, you have some prestige in this community, but you don't have enough to cash in for the Drama Tiara. Don't cut off your hand to spite your favorites.

Fourcheesemac has managed to convey similar concerns in a significantly more polite and less fighty way. If you want to know about us, talk to us. The anonymous online survey is not as rigorous as it pretends to be, especially in a world that also includes /b/.
posted by anotherpanacea at 5:59 AM on October 21, 2009

I really had fun thinking about what users I consider "credible" and why. That was enlightening.

I found that bit of the survey delicious as well. Just thinking about how all the individual site features (profile info, posts counts, favorites, etc.) might affect perceptions of credibility.
posted by lmm at 6:37 AM on October 21, 2009

Non-randomized, non-anonymous surveys are interesting tools for formulating broad questions at the outset of qualitative research, or for checking the generalizability of qualitative findings. I'm not saying this is a useless approach. I am saying it's silly to treat such a survey instrument as any more scientific than transcribing and analyzing the conversation in this thread.

You know, if his really research goal was to see how people on Metatalk would react to being asked to fill out a survey, then he's struck gold here. That would be a brilliant move.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 6:40 AM on October 21, 2009 [3 favorites]

Flagged as homeworkfilter.
posted by flabdablet at 6:42 AM on October 21, 2009

Paulsc, you are one snowflake among tons of special snowflakes on this site (I'm a Special Snowflake too) and I seriously doubt anyone really cares about any info they find about you in particular in an infodump.

We have two choices-not post stuff online if we don't want folks to see it, or post stuff and decide not to care. I personally think you owe Matt and Cortex an apology as you were incredibly rude to two people who work very hard to give us this nice online place to hang out and argue at. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.

Besides, for someone so concerned with your online privacy and rep, that is a pretty blatant example of being an (expletive deleted) for God and everybody to see, no infodump needed.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 6:46 AM on October 21, 2009 [5 favorites]

an orifice?
*Nice clue with the word 'infodump'.
posted by gman at 6:50 AM on October 21, 2009

Paul, are you getting enough sleep?
posted by flabdablet at 7:14 AM on October 21, 2009

Well, you go bed feeling pretty good about life, and you wake up to something else entirely.

I didn't pay $5 to join this site, or spend many hours trying to post worthwhile contributions to other users, hell to other humans, to have some dink PhD candidate download the InfoDump, and try to "study" me.

Noted, paulsc. I can't do anything about taking your data out of the infodump, but I will exclude your MetaTalk contributions from any threads that I quote in my dissertation. I realize you have a bigger problem with the idea internet research (and, apparently, with me in particular), but on the advice of counsel, I'm not going to take up that battle in this thread.

fourcheesemac: Beyond that, as a social scientist, I have problems with "surveys" in general (because they give the appearance of quantitative rigor, when they are usually just a shortcut to doing actual ethnographic interviews), and completely biased surveys like this in particular. You will learn nothing from this survey that is actually quantifiable, objective information, as the many quips in this thread reveal, that you could not have learned from observing and asking people direct questions in context. And learned much more thoroughly and specifically.

I agree that most surveys don't offer quantitative rigor, and I don't plan to draw quantitative results from the survey data, other than something like, "User X was mentioned by 25 respondents as a credible member of the community. Hence, I asked User X if he would be willing to be interviewed about his contributions to the site." The survey is just one part of my data collection (see my prospectus, linked upthread, for more details), and it will serve mainly as a jumping off point for longer interviews with MeFites who want to contribute to this study.

ODiV: I honestly couldn't get past the wording on some of the questions because I feel like I know what you're getting at and I resent it.

That's funny, because I don't even know what I'm getting at, other than the idea that credibility and trust are important factors in virtual communities, and that they are worth examining more closely.

I realize that some of the questions are worded a bit tortuously; that's the result of working with a dissertation committee of five professors and an institutional review board made up primarily of scientists. I can't tell you how many drafts those questions went through, and now, as I look them again, I still see ways they could be improved.

I cannot stress this point enough: I haven't written this dissertation yet. I'm not here to gather responses and force them into a pre-established framework. I have no idea what I will find when I open the survey responses, and I love that feeling. It's the best part of doing research.
posted by lewistate at 7:17 AM on October 21, 2009 [2 favorites]

lewistate: on the advice of counsel

IANALBICBLOW

(I am not a lawyer but I can bill like one would)

Acronym not chosen for maximum mental image unpleasantness, I swear, I swear... okay maybe.
posted by Kattullus at 7:27 AM on October 21, 2009

More than a month ago, I politely asked to have my user nic/number obfuscated in the InfoDump. And was "promised" it would be.

It's on my Infodump to-do list. I work on things in fits and starts, I was on a big distracting vacation for a month, and I haven't gotten back to the code since mid-August to overhaul all the scripts with the exception checking that implementing munge lists will require. I still have every intention to do so, your scare-quoting of "promise" notwithstanding. This is something you would know if you had asked. At all.

The only reason the Infodump itself has been updated since then is that pb had the organizational wherewithal to actually set up the recurring event on the server to run the master update script. Otherwise it'd still be dated August 17th or whenever it was that I was in there, since I used to have to run the thing by hand.

You know, that's a brilliant bit of legalese, fourcheesemac. Perhaps, before the Supreme Court of the United States of America, it completely excuses cortex from modifying the InfoDump, as was being discussed in that earlier MetaTalk thread.

I appreciate people's willingness to get my back in the face of a shitty comment, but it's not really on target—I have had no intention and made no maneuvers to avoid implementing the munge stuff. It just hasn't gotten done yet, which, considering there was no schedule for it being done (except apparently one inside your head that you declined to share with anyone) doesn't seem like a particularly big deal.

Of course, in the meantime, I got exactly 0, that is zero, communications from cortex, as to how his "active" investigation was going.

And I got none from you asking. About something you care about so strongly that you're willing to act like a complete ass in a Metatalk thread about it.

Even I, angry as I am, think more of Matt, and cortex, than that.

But not enough to refrain from telling us and an apparently totally good-faith member to get fucked, without bothering to ever check in on the subject that's pissing you off once in the interim.

And this:

And fuck you, especially, in every non-naturally-lubricated-orifice-you-posses, you worthless, opportunistic bottom-feeder, lewistate.

Is completely out of line. You have beefs with us as administrators, take them up with us, but don't take some righteous, elaborate shit on a guy who had done you zero harm and whose only mistake is trying to pursue his academics in the same room as you.

lewistate, I'm sorry you were on the receiving end of that. It's bullshit and I don't know what the fuck paulsc was thinking.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:43 AM on October 21, 2009 [24 favorites]

If he invites you down to the firing range to clear the air, for the love of god, don't go.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 7:45 AM on October 21, 2009

"User X was mentioned by 25 respondents as a credible member of the community. Hence, I asked User X if he would be willing to be interviewed about his contributions to the site."

So does your IRB prevent you from looking at the Metafilter Contribution Index? Because it's much more likely to give you the names you need. Also, I hope you're keeping IP logs on that survey....
posted by anotherpanacea at 7:46 AM on October 21, 2009

I share an ethnographer's suspicion of surveys for lots of kinds of data, but in the context of an online community this "survey" was really more of a semi-structured interview. I mean, text seems like a logical medium for interviewing an online site's members, the structured data was all quite limited, and the text-based questions were extremely open ended, both in terms of how a person could interpret them and in terms of what information they could include and how they could choose to present it.

fourcheesemac says he declined the survey, and so I think it's a bit unfair for him to assume that it is going to provide "deceptively quantitative data". It's design did not suggest such a purpose to me at all (confirmed above by lewistate). It seems like a great way to introduce the research to potential participants, get some discussion of the things lewistate wants to study, and collect a list of contacts for people interested in further interviews. The survey does not preclude an in-context discussion, but it does shortcut what might otherwise be something very annoying in the site (in other words, fourcheesemac, what kind of alternative are you suggesting for "in context" stuff? Every time you make a comment in MetaTalk, you get a memail "why did you say that? did you change your mind? What do you think of cortex's response"? Gah!). This way, we are aware of lewistate's project, and he is aware of who is interested enough to give him contact info, and he doesn't have to pepper every thread with meta-meta research talk. Unless we decide we want him to.

I mean, I haven't taken the time to read his whole research design and consider alternative methods and ethical/scholarly implications, so I'm not trying to say he had no alternative or that this was the best one. But it seems rather ungenerous to both the efforts that members of this site may choose to put into these questions and to the practice of ethnographic research to dismiss his methods out of hand without even finding out what questions he's asked or how he intends to use them.
posted by carmen at 7:53 AM on October 21, 2009 [4 favorites]

anotherpanace: So does your IRB prevent you from looking at the Metafilter Contribution Index?

The only thing that the Contribution Index will tell lewistate is who posts and comments much, not whose opinion is trusted. Also, it's quite a bit out of date, I have 52 more posts than the "most MeFi threads" list tells me.

I hope you're keeping IP logs on that survey

Why should he keep IP logs? So that people don't pretend to be MeFites they're not? I'm confused.
posted by Kattullus at 7:56 AM on October 21, 2009

I certainly understand something of the difficulty of negotiating community membership/outsider status in survey design. I was just thinking that for a relatively longer-term user, the questions are so broad as to be somewhat overwhelming. Something like "Choose one debate on MetaTalk in which you participated. Please provide a link to the thread. " and then a discussion of details within that one thread would have felt more manageable. But at this point, a few years after joining and after being consistently pretty active, the idea of probing my user history for several different instances to answer the different questions was exhausting just to consider. Where to start?

credibility and trust are important factors in virtual communities

Definitely they're important in the community and that topic certainly . Where I'm unclear is how you decided that these questions would get at issues of credibility and trust. They seem to be more directed toward issues of contention, opposition, and debate. It's the three questions that focus on "arguments" and "disagreements" that I think create that impression, and they seem like the meat of the survey. How do arguments and disagreements relate to trust and credibility? While credibility and trust sometimes play a part on the site - particularly on AskMe, where credibility emerges as a function of correct, authoritative answering over time. But in MetaTalk and in argumentative/disagreement-heavy threads, the contention is often not about whether one user finds the other trustworthy or credible - it's about whether they have notions that are seen as wrongheaded, whether they are being an asshat, whether a grudge has been established, whether they are grinding an axe, etc. So I'm wondering, in what way does looking at disagreement of this kind help reveal the importance of credibility and trust?

Sorry if it looks like I'm leaping all over what is, in the end, an interesting project which I'm sure will be revealing and we'll all read it and love it. I guess I am somewhat biased in that I share fourcheesemac's view that an ethnographic interview process designed to explore and elicit conversation about credibility and trust - our own and the perceived level of others' - might get at the topic more directly than questions about argumentation will.
posted by Miko at 7:57 AM on October 21, 2009

Yeah, and maybe we're all kibitzing needlessly because we haven't seen the survey design, and maybe this survey process is really seen as one of lead generation from which there will be followups, lengthier targeted interviews, and deeper explorations of threads as case studies. it does seem as though the survey is not the single data-gathering instrument you're planning, lewistate. So forgive me for the kibitzing...the positive takeaway is that I'm just interested.
posted by Miko at 8:03 AM on October 21, 2009

Miko: it does seem as though the survey is not the single data-gathering instrument you're planning

As far as I understand it the survey's main purpose is to identify people to interview and get informed consent from potential interview subjects. Correct me if I'm wrong, lewistate.
posted by Kattullus at 8:05 AM on October 21, 2009

Why should he keep IP logs? So that people don't pretend to be MeFites they're not? I'm confused.

Because of this:
"Do you want your responses to this survey connected to your MetaFilter username? If so, please list it below. Otherwise, your survey responses will be quoted using a pseudonym."

I'm no /b/tard, but I know the community, and I know there are some who will take this as an opportunity for mischief, because you can put words in somebody else's mouth. Doubtless they will be cited as "A survey respondent who identified himself as "Kattullus" described his experience..." but only you will know if that was really you, and if lewistate doesn't check quotes with each used by memail, you might not find out that you've been misquoted until the dissertation is published.
posted by anotherpanacea at 8:16 AM on October 21, 2009

> Also Paul, you do contribute and you do add a lot to this site.

Mostly assholery, as far as I can see. The exit's over there, just beyond the "Abuse" room.
posted by languagehat at 8:19 AM on October 21, 2009 [5 favorites]

Nothing anyone will say will make paulsc change his mind and getting into an argument with him will end up with everyone feeling bad about themselves in the morning.

All I did was read what he said and I feel yucky. What gross, over-the-top behavior and language. Ew.

Anyway. If I have time today, I'm going to hop on over to the survey and see what's what.
posted by rtha at 8:22 AM on October 21, 2009 [1 favorite]

I think this study is interesting. I will just note quickly, before the baby wakes up, that you appear to be very interested in the "public shaming" aspect of MetaTalk as something that keeps the userbase in line. FWIW I don't actually think that public shaming is necessary here, especially when taken to extremes. I think MetaTalk is extremely useful as a place to have a conversation about community norms -- what they are and what they should be. But I don't think it's ever very helpful to be ruthlessly harsh to someone for the purpose of trying to change their behavior. I mean, that's the online equivalent of hazing. I know some folks here would disagree, but there you go.

I will be disappointed if the end result of your research is to exult this sort of "frat boy" aspect of MetaTalk as what makes the community so special, because I think it's the honest and straightforward conversations we have with one another and the mods here, as opposed to the rudeness, that makes MetaFilter stand out. I think MetaTalk works best when we remember that there are actual people typing on the other side of those computer screens, and not faceless blobs that won't mind some witty insulting zingers.

Good luck in your research!
posted by onlyconnect at 8:31 AM on October 21, 2009 [1 favorite]

I see my comment above about 'good vibes' was a touch premature.
posted by Abiezer at 8:35 AM on October 21, 2009

This is all about that damn plane on a treadmill, isn't it?
posted by BitterOldPunk at 8:35 AM on October 21, 2009 [5 favorites]

I'm no /b/tard, but I know the community, and I know there are some who will take this as an opportunity for mischief, because you can put words in somebody else's mouth.

Ideally any use of a survey response will involve checking in with the purported user to verify, etc. It's definitely something to attend to, but a straight-up conversation with the user is going to be more useful than IP records in any case.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:37 AM on October 21, 2009

So does your IRB prevent you from looking at the Metafilter Contribution Index? Because it's much more likely to give you the names you need.

Thanks for the link, anotherpanacea! I hadn't seen that site before. I can certainly use that index, but as Kattullus points out, it only shows how much (and how regularly) individual users post to the site. Getting at which of those users are trusted/respected (and why) is a bit trickier. I thought about using the "favorites data" in the infodump, but people favorite posts for different reasons. For some, favoriting is an indication that the post is one of their all-time-favorite things ever written on MetaFilter. For others, it's just a bookmarking system so they can find old comments later on.

Also, I hope you're keeping IP logs on that survey....

IP logs might reveal if a particular user took the survey multiple times using different usernames, but they wouldn't catch someone who took the survey just once, posing as someone else. Anonymous/pseudonymous surveys are inherently messy, and this one is no exception. Several people have pointed out the potential for abuse, so I've come up with this solution: If you chose to link your survey responses to your MeFi username (rather than respond anonymously), I will contact you through MeFi Mail to make sure that you really wrote the things that might be attributed to you. As for people with multiple sockpuppets and IP anonymizing software, well, that's just part of the game when it comes to internet research. At some point, I'm relying on the good will of the community, which is why I'm studying MetaFilter rather than 4chan.

So I'm wondering, in what way does looking at disagreement of this kind help reveal the importance of credibility and trust?

Miko, you raise some great questions, and you don't need to apologize for interrogating the study. I am still thinking through these ideas myself, so comments like yours are incredibly helpful.

Maybe this will help: My dissertation is tentatively titled "Ethos and Argumentation in an Online Community," so I'm looking at ethos (a concept I have often oversimplified in this thread as "credibility," but you get the idea) as it functions in the context of online argumentation. Here, I'm using "argumentation" in the academic sense, so it's not just about "arguments," but about broader issues of discourse, about the give-and-take that goes on in any community where communication matters. MetaTalk seemed like the perfect place to explore these issues, given what goes on here: talking about talking.

By asking people about disputes, or about times when they've changed their mind or been persuaded by another user, I'm trying to provide people with a context for discussing the criteria and the processes they use for determining whether (and when) to trust someone else. I realize that I could have posed entirely different questions to get at these same issues, but the questions on the survey are the ones I settled on after lots of back-and-forth discussion with my major professor, my committee, a few pilot testers, etc.

The good news is that many respondents, in true MetaFilter fashion, will completely ignore the questions I asked and write whatever they want. And that couldn't make me happier.
posted by lewistate at 8:49 AM on October 21, 2009 [2 favorites]

Fuck you, cortex.
Fuck you, mathowie.

And fuck you, especially, in every non-naturally-lubricated-orifice-you-posses, you worthless, opportunistic bottom-feeder, lewistate.
posted by paulsc at 5:02 AM on October 21

thank god this is metatalk so i can both save this for posterity and point out that you are a bitter sad old man whose imminent exit from metafilter i will savor like salted caramel ice cream
posted by zoomorphic at 8:56 AM on October 21, 2009 [4 favorites]

I'm relying on the good will of the community, which is why I'm studying MetaFilter rather than 4chan.

Heh. Hugs!
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:59 AM on October 21, 2009

paulsc, what the heck? When I first joined Metafilter, I thought your contributions were super interesting and insightful. (In fact, 2 of my top 10 favorite comments are from/by you.) You behaved like such a thoughtful, sincere person and I respected your opinion highly.

But lately, I've really seen everything change with regards to your orientation and attitude towards the site and the people here. All I can say is this: It really fucking bums me out. I hope that whatever you're going through will pass, and one day you'll find a happier place. But until then, please either go away and deal with your anger elsewhere, or stick around and stop being such a jerk to everyone.
posted by iamkimiam at 9:19 AM on October 21, 2009 [1 favorite]

I flagged Paulsc's post. Using sexually threatening language like that is beyond offensive. I know this is metatalk, but this is such a hateful and abusive way to express yourself, and even more so after all the long threads we've had on sexism and rape and sexual violence. It's almost incredible to me that he would express himself this way in a comment supposedly about his experienced violation of his own privacy/boundaries expectations. Ugh.
posted by Salamandrous at 9:22 AM on October 21, 2009 [4 favorites]

lewistate, I'm curious about how these surveys are going for you, despite the inevitable hiccups (server timeouts, user flameouts, and various study concerns). Are you getting the info you need? Maybe you don't want to answer that Q at this point, but I'm just curious.

Also, is it ok if we pick and choose which questions we want to answer? I may not have time to answer everything, but I would like to thoughtfully provide responses to some of the questions that appeal to me. Is that ok? Basically, are you going more for quality or quantity (ideally both of course)?
posted by iamkimiam at 9:24 AM on October 21, 2009

Using sexually threatening language like that is beyond offensive.

We've talked about this among ourselves and figured we'd wait for the clear light of day to see if paulsc had any follow-up comments. He's more than welcome to leave this community if he finds it so noxious, but abusive language like that is flat out not okay and we're in the "if we see it again, banned for life" position now.

lewistate, sorry about that. I'll buy you a beer/coffee on Friday.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:26 AM on October 21, 2009 [1 favorite]

I started the survey, but because of yet-another-family-tragedy, my head is all fucked up and I feel like my answers are spinning wildly all over the place and becoming way too uselessly emotional, so I'll save it and pick it up later. I really want to participate; and I'll be interested to see how it turns out.

On the exceedingly slim chance that someone lists me as "credible", point and laugh. Even I question my credibility on a pretty much minute by minute basis.
posted by quin at 9:30 AM on October 21, 2009

Also, is it ok if we pick and choose which questions we want to answer?

Yeah, that's a-okay it sounds like.
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:31 AM on October 21, 2009

It's odd, because I find people credible who are in some way authentic or appear so -- for example, Dick Cheney is a credible spokesman for American neoconservatism. I listed paulsc as credible in the survey because he seems like an authentic example of what for a better term I'll call "traditional American masculinity" -- and while I don't agree with that outlook on life he is a credible representative of it.

And when his engineering brain can't cope with a problem (planes on treadmill) then the inner male rage he sees all around him (whacking the anvil with a ball peen hammer) snaps the overstressed bolt, and this outburst then is entirely in keeping with that.

Reprehensible of course but anyone who thinks this isn't the real paulsc hasn't paid much attention.
posted by Rumple at 9:37 AM on October 21, 2009

katherineg -- that's exactly what I meant - the outburst is part of who he is, but not the only part.
posted by Rumple at 9:48 AM on October 21, 2009 [1 favorite]

I'm curious about how these surveys are going for you, despite the inevitable hiccups (server timeouts, user flameouts, and various study concerns). Are you getting the info you need?

At this point, 142 people have completed the survey, and another 35 have saved incomplete responses, which indicates at least the intention to come back and finish it later. 146 people started the survey (or at least completed the CAPTCHA to see what what the survey was about) and bailed out without saving/completing it.

I had no idea what to expect when I posted my request yesterday, so I was prepared to get ten responses, or to get 200. I set a private mental goal of 100, and it was gratifying to creep up on that number and then pass it by.

There comes a point at which I'll be drowning in data, and it's hard to tell if I'm there yet. If people are just finding this thread and thinking about taking the survey, by all means, please do so! But I'm definitely past the point of stressing out about not getting enough responses to complete my research.

Again, thank you to everyone who has taken the survey, rushed to my defense in this thread, and pushed back against what is, admittedly, an imperfect dissertation project. Watching this thread unfold has confirmed my instinct that no other online community is more worthy of study.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have some data to analyze.
posted by lewistate at 9:53 AM on October 21, 2009 [2 favorites]

The trust and credibility question is difficult because there are a lot more people on this site who I do trust and respect than who I do not. I've been here long enough where I do have a sense of who is who and there are so many people I think are highly trustworthy that it's impossible for me to list them. The respect/credibility thing has to be triggered by the sight of a username and just coming up with a list got impossible quite quickly.

The short list of people I do not think are credible or trustworthy would be a lot easier to compile and I actually started to do that before the ewwww factor got to me and I decided I really didn't want to make a list of People I Do Not Trust on Metafilter like some kind of socially maladaptive seventh grader. I imagine you kind of came up against the same thing when designing the survey and I don't really see a way around it. I thought it was worth mentioning, though, because one of the great things about this site is that the two lists are so very unequal in length.
posted by mygothlaundry at 9:56 AM on October 21, 2009 [2 favorites]

abusive language like that is flat out not okay and we're in the "if we see it again, banned for life" position now.

I'm not sure why paulsc even merits a chance to do it again, but I'm glad to see this decision.
posted by scody at 10:50 AM on October 21, 2009

(whacking the anvil with a ball peen hammer)

I missed that story. Ha. Shine on you oh-so-crazy diamond.
posted by octobersurprise at 10:50 AM on October 21, 2009

How many naturally-lubricated-orifices does a person have?

One, two, three, four... uh... Eleven.

When the only tool you have is being a dick, I reckon every problem starts to look like an orifice.
posted by loquacious at 10:58 AM on October 21, 2009 [6 favorites]

huh.

This thread isn't at all like what it was like when I went to bed.

I'm not 100% certain I see paulsc's issue. I'm also not sure I want to put forth a lot of effort trying to understand.

But since metafilter is built on predictable urls, it wouldn't be that difficult to put a site sucker on the whole things and have everything anyone ever said on here in not too much time.

So where is the desire to obfuscate user ID in dumps of the site?

Putting aside how the objection was raised, can someone explain the objection? I realize my concerns don't have to match anyone else's, but I don't get why I should care.
posted by cjorgensen at 11:20 AM on October 21, 2009

We talked about it back and forth a bunch in the thread that paulsc linked, starting from there and carrying on for a while. It was a long-ish conversation and I'd rather let it stand as it is than bother to try and summarize it right now.

Suffice it to say that I have the same general criticisms of the value of obfuscation as you do, but find the notion of munging on an opt-in basis reasonable enough as a compromise that I'm comfortable making that happen for him and doing so in a way that'll make it easy to add others to the exception list should anyone else ever express such a desire.
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:28 AM on October 21, 2009

Mostly assholery, as far as I can see

hat, you need to read more AskMe.

I for one would be very sad to see paulsc go.
posted by flabdablet at 12:08 PM on October 21, 2009

Maybe in New Zealand it really is that hard to do social research, but in the US the IRB is largely a formal way for the university to avoid being sued (or to comply with federal granting policies).

The person I mention who got turned down after two years? Ended up flying to the US to do the research. It ended up being cheaper, faster and way easier to fly half way round the world than doing it here. It was scientific research instead of social science but not medical research or anything terribly scary. So yeah, I'm not exaggerating (and also not suggesting we're typical).

After doing the survey last night I agree that it felt off. The questions seemed angled in an odd way, like it was trying to make issues where there were none (FWIW I said that the majority of new users just start posting with no fanfare) and making things a bit black and white (e.g. issue resolution is never all from the mods or all without the mods, it's an interaction and splitting it into two questions felt weird). But it also seems like the survey is only a part of the research, he's also going to go through metatalk threads and stuff, so maybe this will all come out in the wash.
posted by shelleycat at 12:56 PM on October 21, 2009

I'm trying to provide people with a context for discussing the criteria and the processes they use for determining whether (and when) to trust someone else.

I also had issues with the credibility question (which I discussed in the survey), but using the word trust makes me even more confused. I wonder if I'm defining trust in a particularly narrow and/or idiosyncratic way.

Other than AskMe, where credibility is relevant in terms of whether or not I can rely on an answer (but for me this is really about the answer, not the soecific person in most cases), I can't figure out *why* I would need to trust anybody on MetaFilter. Trust them to do what, exactly?

I read MetaFilter discussions because they are interesting, clever, and often very witty. Sometimes the debates and arguments are enlightening, sometimes they are maddeningly frustrating. I don't see what trust has to do with this.

Now Miko mentioned respect, and if the question had been worded that way (whose ideas/opinions/contributions do I respect) I would have found it much easier to answer. Maybe for me trust is a much broader concept that extends beyond having admiration for the way someone expresses him/herself on a website.
posted by DiscourseMarker at 2:15 PM on October 21, 2009

Metatalk: Your own private dissertation committee. Only less qualified, and snarky.
posted by mecran01 at 2:57 PM on October 21, 2009 [5 favorites]

I also had issues with the credibility question (which I discussed in the survey), but using the word trust makes me even more confused. I wonder if I'm defining trust in a particularly narrow and/or idiosyncratic way.

The problem with the survey (and I do think it's a problem) goes back to that maddeningly complex word at the center of this project: ethos. In modern parlance, ethos can mean anything from "character" to "credibility" to "spirit" to "personality." It is used in so many different ways by scholars and non-scholars alike that it has become almost meaningless. The concept pre-dates Aristotle, but we commonly trace it back to his Rhetoric and the three pisteis, or proofs: logos, pathos, and ethos. Aristotle says that ethos-based claims depend "upon the personal character of the speaker," but he argues the persuasion that results from this proof must reside in the text itself: it "should be achieved by what the speaker says, not by what people think of his character before he begins to speak" (emphasis mine). For Aristotle, ethoic claims reside in the text, and their effectiveness depends on the careful construction of the speech, not the personal attributes of the speaker.

Zoom forward 2000+ years. We're still teaching college freshmen to evaluate texts using logos, pathos, and ethos, but when it comes to ethos, textbooks (and even a lot of great rhetorical scholars) completely ignore what Aristotle's Rhetoric actually says. Instead, we talk about ethos as a function of the speaker's actions, a la Quintilian's vir bonus, the good man speaking well. But this conception of ethos becomes problematic in online environments, where identity is ambiguous and sometimes the only thing you have to go on is the text itself. My research poses the question, What if, for the first time in two millennia, Aristotle's description of ethos is actually useful?

So I'm trying to find ways to explore that idea, to discover what strategies people use to establish their ethos in online communities and what strategies they use to evaluate ethotic appeals made by other members of those communities. This project is one way to tackle those questions, but it's not the only way. The Stanford Persuasive Technology Lab has done a lot of work on how people assess the credibility of entire websites, and people like Jo Mackiewicz are doing fascinating work on how people assert their expertise in online reviews. I hope that my dissertation will add something to this bigger conversation.

But you're right, DiscourseMarker, I probably oversimplified "ethos" by relying too heavily on the terms "trust" and "credibility." Part of that comes the admonition from my IRB to eliminate all rhetorical terminology and replace it with "language understandable to a layperson." Hence the non-appearance of "ethos" in the survey.

I know that survey respondents will interpret terms like "trust" and "credibility" in different ways, and that's probably a good thing. It will open the door for interesting conversations about what it really means to establish one's ethos, or assess the ethos of one's interlocutor, in an online community.
posted by lewistate at 3:03 PM on October 21, 2009 [5 favorites]

I want to be clear that my critique above concerns the use of surveys for social scientific research in general, especially with non-random sampling techniques (which is the case here in abundance). I wasn't picking on lewisstate's survey in particuar, and I agree that it really is a kind of structured, written interview; and what's more, it's clearly exploratory and not meant to define a quantitative data set directly.

I decline to answer surveys in general, even though I sometimes use them for research myself, *because* I am a social scientist and cannot fill out a survey without second-guessing the research questions motivating the survey questions, making me think my answers will be biased and unusual. But given the meta nature of metatalk, this dissertation project more generally, and the survey instrument specifically, comprise a sort of meta-metatalk, and it's highly self-selecting at several levels (people who participate in Metatalk discussions are a small and active subset of the larger community; people who choose to answer your survey, judging by the responses in this thread, are a small and even more active subset of that subset) meaning that all the responses will be biased by an above average interest in and *conscious* and theorized commitment to the principles of this community. As an ethnographer, those are the people I want to interview directly in any community -- indeed, I want to collaborate with them when I write about their community, because they've done a lot of the crucial analytic thinking already. I want to survey the *average* (or typical, or less consciously invested) user. Unfortunately, that seems not to be an option here, and the InfoDump is already a better and less biased body of quantitative data on average users.


lewisstate, i would be happy to engage in an email interview or discussion in lieu of answering your survey, and it would be for attribution (under my real professional identity as an anthropologist) as long as you would not associate my offline identity with my username. I have a great deal of interest in online communities and in cyber-ethnography (and have numerous students doing work in these areas). It's why I came here and stuck around in the first place. Now I feel like a (relative) native, at once proud of this community's coherence and invested in its reputation, as well as my own within the community. I think this level of double investment, which resembles the factors that make a "real" (offline) community cohere and function, is the backstory of Metafilter and the few other really successful online communities out there. I think Metatalk is an important source of that double investment, and certainly a vital part of creating and maintaining it for many of us, but I think a view of this community that focused too closely on Metatalk without dealing with the other areas of the site which get explicitly subjected to critical debate on Metatalk will misrepresent what I am calling a double investment as an explicit ideology, when for most people here, and for all of us a lot of the time, that double investment is naturalized and taken for granted when we represent ourselves in the conversation -- what might be called the truth-conditional norms of Metafilter, which make gestures like Paulsc's above *obviously* wrong and subject to immediate response. Anyway, I wish you luck with the dissertation and would be happy to talk about it offline, and look forward to reading it when it's done. Just remember: all disserations are written in six months, and the only question is, which six months?

posted by fourcheesemac at 3:13 PM on October 21, 2009 [5 favorites]

Just to explain a bit more clearly: by "double investment" I mean that a) any given member of this community is concerned for her/his own reputation within the community as trustworthy, sane, polite, truthful, intelligent, empathic, etc. And at the same time many of us are concerned for the community's reputation in the outside world, both as the context in which our own internal reputations are meaningful and sustainable, and because we realize (consciously or not) that what makes this place work is that *almost* everyone is generally concerned with the overall well being of the community. Being a dick to one member is, effectively, being a dick to every member, and it reduces the quality of everyone's experience if dickishness is tolerated.

But of course, in the real world, all people (myself totally included) can be dicks sometimes. So the idea of a regulatory system -- a legal system, effectively, and a court of public opinion in MeTa specifically -- is crucial to this ecology.
posted by fourcheesemac at 3:18 PM on October 21, 2009 [1 favorite]

But you're right, DiscourseMarker, I probably oversimplified "ethos" by relying too heavily on the terms "trust" and "credibility." Part of that comes the admonition from my IRB to eliminate all rhetorical terminology and replace it with "language understandable to a layperson." Hence the non-appearance of "ethos" in the survey.

So I see where you're coming from now (and am reminded of why I avoided taking rhetorical theory classes in grad school!) and I see why I was confused. I associate the word "trust" with what I would call "interpersonal trust," i.e. I trust you to keep a secret or I trust that you will do what you say you will do.

You might consider, for your follow-up interviews, wording more along the lines of "who typically writes good (for any user's definition of good) comments," if you want to get at MeFites' perceptions of text-based ethos. I would personally find the answers to that question extremely interesting.

I hope this thread isn't going to make your dissertation committee's collective heads explode!
posted by DiscourseMarker at 4:20 PM on October 21, 2009 [1 favorite]

Can everybody please stop arguing with paulsc? He's not interested in reasoned discourse, no one who ends his first post with "and fuck you, especially, in every non-naturally-lubricated-orifice-you-posses, you worthless, opportunistic bottom-feeder, lewistate" would be (hey, welcome to MetaTalk, lewistate! it's a crazy place sometimes). Nothing anyone will say will make paulsc change his mind and getting into an argument with him will end up with everyone feeling bad about themselves in the morning.

[swoon]

This sort of reasonable, calm, taking-the-high-road reaction is hawt.
posted by desuetude at 4:45 PM on October 21, 2009 [2 favorites]

Man, I keep thinking about this. Sorry to keep going here, but it seems to me that any long-time active member of this community would be likely to say Metatalk is the *least* representative face of the community in certain ways. I don't know the numbers, but I'm guessing a quite small percentage of all registered users are active on this site in any given month, and I'd bet (but am willing to be proved wrong, and the infodump should yield this information, right?) it isn't above 10 percent in any given year (with a huge percentage of those including new members who signed up that year). Conversely, I'd bet that of the already small set of active users, a much smaller set are like most of us in this thread, posting nearly daily (or more than once daily) across several areas of the site, and in most cases having been here a good while and engaged in more than a few MeTa battles and wars in that time, in which we have honed ideological positions we would otherwise voice only implicitly elsewhere on the site (or be called out), and, fortunately or not, in which a very high level of vitriol, snark, abuse, and acting out is tolerated and even encouraged (in the case of long snark-fests after an issue has been decisively resolved and before a thread has closed). I remember being terrified of Metatalk as a new user (and here's another variable to consider: that was years back, under a different username, now long retired; some of us have tried and failed to leave this community in the past). Its rules seemed so arcane, its humor so "inside," the risks of saying something stupid and enduring a pile-on so great (and it happened to me more than once, as it has to many of us; we all have bad days and blind spots). I think the culture of MeTa selects for active users who are committed to the community to an unusual degree. (It also functions as a reservoir for holding in what would otherwise be floodwaters of douchebaggery, as in "take it to MeTa.")

But then, maybe "we" means "the most active members." I mean the couple of hundred (maybe? I doubt it exceeds 500) active users who know each other by reputation and long histories of following each other, or antagonizing each other, or noticing ourselves in the same kinds of threads over time, those who meet up, or form real cyber-friendships that extend beyond the site, those of us who already know each other from the offline world (a lot, it seems to me, and this is not to factor in meetups -- I know at least a dozen Mefites in my other life who have outed themselves as Mefites to me after guessing my identity, and I've done the same with others). We've had marriages and deaths, brouhahas and crises together mediated by this website. Or maybe it's the coherence of that community of active users (and even they divide by interests, by gender, by age, and distribute differently across the subsites; I know people -- mostly women -- who never leave AskMe, and ditto for the Blue. As an ethnographer, I'd say AskMe has a slightly different subculture from MeFi, and both from MeTa, although lots of us move as social actors through these different subcultures with ease (as happens in the offline world) and of course they intersect and interact.

When I teach social research, I follow Howard Becker and always push students to tell me what this topic or thing they are interested in is "an example of" for comparative and theoretical purposes (a town could be an example of all towns, small towns, southern towns, the town as a symbol of a national identity, a regional identity, a local identity, a place people live, a place people work, a place people leave, etc.) Any given thing is, of course, an example of itself, a trivial and uninteresting claim except for truly unique things (which are only a hypothetical possibility, really, in real human worlds). Your comments above placing your project in the theoretical context of, effectively, media studies, and studies of human-technology interaction make Metafilter an example of the operation of trust and reputation in an online community.

But what Metafilter shares with other *online* communities (mostly textual interaction, different time cycles for different aspects of the site, different users, and different parts of the world, etc) and even what it *doesn't* share (images, threaded discussions, tolerance for nastiness, low bar to entry) are both less interesting than what it shares with other communities *of any sort* that have a similar range of functions (a shifting range, to be sure), a similar scale, a similar longevity, a similar demographic and geographic identity, and as far as I can tell, in that context, Metafilter is very nearly the elusive truly unique thing out there except to the extent that it is an original that has inspired creative appropriation; (I know for sure I've taken ideas from how this community runs into other projects, for example.) For me, Metafilter is an example of a *functional* (online) community that serves a diverse but related set of functions for a remarkably diverse user base. I tend to compare it to functional offline communities, because I can think of so few on the web that work this well at this scale over this much time. Or any. Really, any.

Finally, while MeFi is generally quite surprisingly diverse by age, gender, class, sexuality, nationality, ethnicity, educational level, and interest affiliation, there is a core set of values, which ultimately trace to the founder and moderators, who seem to espouse those same values more broadly in their online and even personal lives, and whose enforcement (both structural and incidental) of those values on MeFi produces a community in their image that attracts others who share those values, who tend (like the mods and Number One) to be of a certain generational and cultural orientation I would call (with trepidation) "alternative," (and broadly, Gen X/Y, ugh) and which has turned "online" from an adjunct to an integral part of "real life" but still entails a range of offline commitments (to political ideologies, cultural values, etc) that are not fully represented here. One could get into more specifics here -- the politics of race, gender, religion, and sexuality on MeFi are dense and sometimes conflicted (but one of the remarkable things is how this site has leveraged the fact that you *cannot see* your interlocutor before you *hear* what s/he has to say, confounding stereotypes and confusing naturalized assumptions about identity and ideology).

There are non-trivial differences between the logics of trustworthiness and truthfulness and deference in a community like this one and those that apply in highly specialized or highly commercialized situations like the ones you mentioned, which I'm sure you've considered. And then there are properties of trust and reputation that are at work here that are at work in any real world community, online or not. (Actually, by the way, Quartermass' MA thesis dealt with the reputational economy here in sophisticated ways, as I recall by applying a Bourdieuian analysis of the accumulation of symbolic and cultural capital to our discourse norms and reputational politics.) (Now that favorites have become so institutionalized, reanalyzing some of his arguments quantitatively could provide a very interesting historical baseline.)

Anyway, I have the flu, so take this as the delusional ranting of a febrile mind if you like.
posted by fourcheesemac at 5:03 PM on October 21, 2009 [11 favorites]

I don't know the numbers, but I'm guessing a quite small percentage of all registered users are active on this site in any given month, and I'd bet (but am willing to be proved wrong, and the infodump should yield this information, right?) it isn't above 10 percent in any given year (with a huge percentage of those including new members who signed up that year).

I think that, while a common perception, may be lowballing the share of active mefites visiting the grey.

Here is a diagram showing a (hand-created, not probably quite to scale) Venn diagram of visitors across the three big subsites in a given month—you can see that, by the admittedly very rough metric in play there, close to half of the people who visited any part of the site in a given month visited, in most cases among other places, Metatalk.

It'd be interesting to break that down with a much more thorough analysis—what's the difference between visiting a subsite at minimum once in a month vs crossing some larger threshold activity, for example, and how does the proportioning change at that point—but at a bare minimum it's safe to say that the popular notion of Metatalk as being a largely unseen part of the site isn't accurate these days at least.

I would, in fact, be pretty curious to see an Infodump-driven analysis of actual activity patterns—posts, comments, favorites—that produced the same class of information.

But that's not really a dispute of some of the general points you're bringing up, fourcheesemac. I just like Venn diagrams.
posted by cortex (staff) at 5:22 PM on October 21, 2009 [1 favorite]

And of course I've forgotten that when that diagram went up, Plutor actually crunched some participation-rather-than-visit numbers; I respond to his post with some more thoughts in the next comment.
posted by cortex (staff) at 5:25 PM on October 21, 2009

Awesomely interesting, thanks cortex. I actually wavered on that number, put 15 percent, then decided it was lower.

Venn diagrams rock.
posted by fourcheesemac at 5:31 PM on October 21, 2009

thanks fourcheesemac for your last comment. I was a bit disappointed (knowing your background some) to see you were seemingly dismissive of the project but I get now where you were coming from and the last comment is a real gem.
posted by Rumple at 6:22 PM on October 21, 2009

the last long comment that is, who gives a fuck what you think about venn diagrams.
posted by Rumple at 6:23 PM on October 21, 2009

Hee, fourcheesemac was one of the people I could think of and then listed as being trustworthy. Before this thread, even!
posted by mygothlaundry at 6:26 PM on October 21, 2009

That Venn diagram is amazing. The categories are much more congruent than I would have predicted, and a plurality of users visit all three sites, making it the most common pattern of viewing. That may cast doubt on the accuracy of some of the anecdotal self-reporting mentioned by fourcheesemac, which I have also heard much of: statements like "I really limit my participation to Ask, it's more humane/less snarky" or "I just read MeTa, for the flamewars."

I think the disparity between the Venn diagram and the participation analysis is interesting, too. The participation is definitely a valuable metric that plays into some conclusions, but readership really is, too - I know too many people in RL who read and never comment, yet track every kerfuffle, to think that their usage habits are not meaningful.
posted by Miko at 6:29 PM on October 21, 2009

Oh god venn diagrams. I have six long spreadsheets which I'm supposed to turn into two venn diagrams and I don't even know where to start. I was trying not to think about it
posted by shelleycat at 7:11 PM on October 21, 2009

Anyway, I have the flu, so take this as the delusional ranting of a febrile mind if you like.

Where can I get some of that flu?

Seriously, fourcheesemac, thank you for your long and thoughtful responses, and for your kind offer to talk offline. I may very well take you up on that.

It's great to see how people from various academic fields come at a single subject (or a single research site) in so many different ways. Ultimately, my dissertation needs to do some very specific things to please a very specific group of people (five people, to be exact), but I will do my best to address the issues that so many smart people have raised in this thread.

Just remember: all disserations are written in six months, and the only question is, which six months?

The six months starting ... NOW.
posted by lewistate at 7:18 PM on October 21, 2009

It has become a commonplace in popular media and among some academics to characterize online forums as a place where immature dialogue and mob rule trump thoughtful, sophisticated argumentation, but I think MetaFilter (and MetaTalk, in particular) provides strong evidence to the contrary.

REPUBS SUCK.

OBAMA RULEZ.

LOLREDNEX.

LOLAMURRIKINS.

Yep. It sure does. The sophistimicated political arguments definitely keep me coming back for more.
posted by jason's_planet at 7:20 PM on October 21, 2009

The sophistimicated political arguments definitely keep me coming back for more.

Know a better place, online?
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 7:24 PM on October 21, 2009

Man, I keep thinking about this. Sorry to keep going here, but it seems to me that any long-time active member of this community would be likely to say Metatalk is the *least* representative face of the community in certain ways.

'In certain ways' dooms you from saying anything substantive there.

Coming up on a decade here (fuck me) and I would claim just the opposite -- that it is the *most* representative face -- without even using your qualifying 'in certain ways'.

This has been changing as it's become more of a free-for-all in recent years, but as I suggested in my comment on the survey, as far as I can tell that's due to a conscious easing (or complicit winking) by moderators and admins, cortex in particular. All good, mostly.

Also, hooo fuck paulsc brought the crazy! That was awesome, and so appropriate given the subject of the thread at hand. It's like the shambling non-descript guy down your suburban street that you've only just slightly noticed in passing for years suddenly going automatic-weapons gonzo and gunning down motherfuckers left and right because the government gave him psoriasis or something. You don't want to get too close, but you can't look away.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 7:30 PM on October 21, 2009 [1 favorite]

The sophistimicated political arguments definitely keep me coming back for more.

They're a far, far cry from the kinds of comments you reference. It wouldn't be that hard to come up with an 'argument-quality' rubric of some kind, and apply it to a lot of websites. I'm confident that on most measures that we here are likely agree make a sophisticated political argument, MeFi would do very well.
posted by Miko at 7:46 PM on October 21, 2009 [1 favorite]

i just thought paulsc was taking one for the team - ie by acting up deliberately, just so that lewistate could observe in real time some of the things he was asking about in his survey...how people deal with disagreements, how the moderators solve disputes, and so on.

the fact that he kept his act up so credibly makes me think i should go back and change my survey responses.
posted by UbuRoivas at 8:19 PM on October 21, 2009

That was also my thought, Ubu.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:26 PM on October 21, 2009

(this might be a result of too much time speculating wildly on RelationshipFilter)
posted by UbuRoivas at 8:32 PM on October 21, 2009

Fourcheesemac, will you be on my committee?
posted by k8t at 9:13 PM on October 21, 2009

>Mostly assholery, as far as I can see
hat, you need to read more AskMe. I for one would be very sad to see paulsc go.

Seconding languagehat. The few times I've noticed paulsc, it's for wrongheaded knobbery either here or on the Blue, and I couldn't figure out why someone would extend the courtesy of saying his contributions are valued until I clicked over to his profile page and saw that he was very active on AskMe.

Big whoop. Being deemed an A++ Would Checkmark Again Superstar on AskMe (Or a swell fella once you get to know him on MeCha, or a funny bugger in IRC, just to name a couple other examples of apologias people've offered for other dinks in the past) doesn't and shouldn't give someone a free pass for being a gratuitously nasty little prick elsewhere in the community.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 9:35 PM on October 21, 2009 [2 favorites]

In short, I think that MetaTalk serves as a model of effective community governance through skillful debate. [and related]

Unfortunately, it seems as if you are assuming a proposition and then asking for data on how the proposition is proved. That's not quite begging the question, but it seems too close for solid research. Your writeup reads like "MetaFilter is really great doing this, tell me why it's so great at doing this". That approach demonstrates bias which will affect who elects to answer your questionnaire and how they respond. One simple consequence is that your data quite likely will exhibit a higher weighting of forum evangelists than would a more neutral introduction and instruction. People who don't agree with your position are less likely to invest their time in an effort where you already have shown, strongly, that you hold an opposing view.

For example, I personally don't believe that MetaTalk "serves as a model of effective community governance through skillful debate". MetaTalk, and MetaFilter in general, to me, is an example of a forum being more useful, helpful and interesting than unuseful, unhelpful, and uninteresting, and those deltas are currently sufficient for my purposes here. That's all.

It's great that there are members who think MetaFilter and MetaTalk represents mastery of online communities, a status which is often posted here, but when you designate that status as a part of your research introduction, before you ask your questions, you have already messed with the data you will receive in ways that are difficult or impossible to predict and adjust for. In short, you have lost that transparency that you wished to have.

I did look at the questionnaire, by the way.
posted by mdevore at 11:27 PM on October 21, 2009 [1 favorite]

Fourcheesemac, will you be on my committee?

+1

If you're looking for ways MeTa changes people, then you can cite this thread as having made me get my copy of Babbie's Practice of Social Research (11th ed.) on the couch with me at almost 3am. And to think I was whining to somebody today that I'll never come up with a thesis topic I can stick with. Thanks, MeTa!

Dear tarheelcoxn of Tomorrow Who Can't Remember What That Topic Was You Thought of at 3am: you wanted to study boundary regulation by metafilter users, especially those users who engage in both metafilter and some offshoot, eg. #mefi (IRC) or metachat.
posted by tarheelcoxn at 12:01 AM on October 22, 2009 [1 favorite]

Oh, and thank you lewistate for this thread. ♥

Best of luck with the next 6 months.
posted by tarheelcoxn at 12:03 AM on October 22, 2009

Thanks for kind words, folks. I mentioned him upthread (and I mention him in every AskMe where someone asks for reading suggestions to help plan a dissertation), but let me explicitly plug the most useful overview of social research logic I know: Howard Becker's *Tricks of the Trade: How to Think About Your Research While You Are Doing It.* I make every grad student read it in their first semester working with me, and I read it myself annually as a result, and always feel sharpened by it. (Also, for those of you dissertators stuck on getting the thing written, Howie's *Writing for Social Scientists* is a nifty companion volume.)

Heck, I'll be on all y'alls' committees. Remember, I'm a stickler for IRB compliance!
posted by fourcheesemac at 2:57 AM on October 22, 2009 [5 favorites]

mdevore: Unfortunately, it seems as if you are assuming a proposition and then asking for data on how the proposition is proved. That's not quite begging the question, but it seems too close for solid research.

All research is built upon a series of assumptions. Those who strike an objective pose might claim that their research is completely neutral, completely unbiased, but every discipline has its traditions and preconceptions upon which research in that field moves forward. I freely admit that I'm no different.

If my research question was, "Is MetaFilter a successful online community?" and I introduced the survey by saying, "Hey, I think MetaFilter is a successful online community! You guys agree, right? Fill out my survey and tell me so," that would constitute a serious problem in research design. But I'm not asking people to tell me whether or not MetaFilter is a successful online community; I don't need additional evidence to support that point. The fact that the community is 10 years old (ancient in Internet years), that people pay money to participate in the community, that the community has been written about widely in the press as an example of what's right with the web, that users schedule real-life meetups and wear t-shirts bearing the site's logo, etc., etc.—these facts have already established that the community is successful. I'm interested in studying how people keep it that way. Specifically (and this is a product of my academic background), I'm interested in the language—the rhetoric—that people use to sustain a successful community.

Several people have suggested out that MetaFilter won't serve as an effective research site because it is not a "typical" online community. I'm not interested in typical; I'm interested in exemplary. I think there is great value in shining a light on successful communities, in hopes that other communities (online and off-) can communicate more effectively.

I haven't made a secret of my admiration for MetaFilter and its denizens, and I wrote my introductory post in this thread and my survey questions in a way that (I hope) made my positionality clear. At the same time, I tried to make it clear that I wanted to hear from those who disagreed with my assumptions. Whether or not I did make that point clear, I'm glad that several people have written to challenge what I'm doing. Comments like mdevore's will keep me honest as I move forward with this project. Thanks for pushing back.
posted by lewistate at 6:33 AM on October 22, 2009 [1 favorite]

i just thought paulsc was taking one for the team - ie by acting up deliberately, just so that lewistate could observe in real time some of the things he was asking about in his survey...how people deal with disagreements, how the moderators solve disputes, and so on.

the fact that he kept his act up so credibly makes me think i should go back and change my survey responses.
posted by UbuRoivas at 8:19 PM on October 21 [+] [!]

That was also my thought, Ubu.
posted by jessamyn at 8:26 PM on October 21

I have to say I am astounded at which people here get the benefit of the doubt and which do not. Between the racist shit about gyspies and African-Americans, and the misogynistic shit, and the actually saying, quote, "Fuck you, cortex. Fuck you, mathowie," and the seven follow-up comments that made it clear he was not joking . . . where do you draw the line? Why him?

Look, I have had comments deleted in MetaTalk for making fun of a member's rape loli anime obsession. It's like this weird forbidden topic that everyone knows about but which no one can mention. But paulsc gets a pass for saying literally "fuck you" to Matt and cortex as well as a regular member - who not only had permission from his review board but also from Matt himself.

Is there some sort of Endangered Posters Act which protects old-ass conservative contrarians/racists/misogynists here as some sort of diversification quota?
posted by Optimus Chyme at 7:14 AM on October 22, 2009 [1 favorite]

I thought that Ubu was himself being archly facetious in his defense of paulsc's flipout and that Jessamyn was playing along. I can tell you very plainly that we're not chuckling about that shit in practice with some "oh that paulsc!" sitcom dismissal, and as far as I'm concerned he's done here for good if he so much sneezes something similar to the above again.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:27 AM on October 22, 2009 [2 favorites]

I really can't fathom why paulsc still has an active account here.
posted by marxchivist at 7:28 AM on October 22, 2009 [1 favorite]

I'm not here to gather responses and force them into a pre-established framework. I have no idea what I will find when I open the survey responses, and I love that feeling. It's the best part of doing research.

Didn't mean to sound confrontational. Maybe it's just how I read them, but the questions seemed to require (encourage? presuppose? where's my thesaurus?) a different view of MetaFilter as a community, based more on cliques and arguments, than how I see it.

Asking me who is an accepted member or who I trust and deem credible seems a little strange. A user who I don't recognize can post an incredibly important, moving comment. I wouldn't "trust" it any more if it came from someone I've spoken with on the site frequently. Accepted is the default for me.

Then again, I just remembered I'm bad at taking surveys, so I should probably bow out.

??? No one is stopping you from just answering it honestly. You don't have to answer it how you think he wants you to. Of course, demand characteristics, study design, blah blah blah, but I don't think it rises to the level of getting mad about it or resenting it. If he fucks up this project, fine, but it's no skin off our backs, yanno?

I did try to answer honestly. I was just trying to explain why my answers are not answering the questions as presented.

I honestly didn't mean to come off as argumentative and I'm glad that lewistate seems to have taken it how I meant it.

Hey! Here's a comment where I had to explain myself!
posted by ODiV at 11:21 AM on October 22, 2009 [1 favorite]

Fuck you, cjorgensen!
posted by cjorgensen at 12:03 PM on October 22, 2009

Hey! Here's a comment where I had to explain myself!

You have no idea how much that brightened my day. Thanks, ODiV. Still chuckling over here.

And thanks for helping me understand why the survey rubbed you the wrong way. I'm sure if I had been asked to take it without having seen the numerous drafts or without having an intimate knowledge of the thought process behind it, I would have taken issue with a few questions, too. Like fourcheesemac, I often decline to take surveys for the simple reason that after having written a bunch of them and critiqued a bunch of them in various methods classes, all I can see when I look at a survey for the first time are the flaws in research design or the gaps in logic. I imagine that's how a lot of people felt when they looked at this survey, and I completely understand the choice to not participate. Given the fact that MetaFilter doesn't owe me anything, I'm grateful that so many people stuck it out and completed the survey, even if parts of it seemed misguided.
posted by lewistate at 12:36 PM on October 22, 2009

Between the racist shit about gyspies and African-Americans, and the misogynistic shit

Wow, I guess I must've completely missed those threads. That's starting to sound a bit beyond the pale, unless it was just some kind of innocent joking around, like:

A gyspy, an African-American, and a woman walk into a bar.

The bartender says, "Fuck you in every non-naturally-lubricated-orifice-you-posses, you worthless, opportunistic bottom-feeders"

Wait. That wasn't the punchline.
posted by UbuRoivas at 1:12 PM on October 22, 2009 [3 favorites]

Between the racist shit about gyspies and African-Americans, and the misogynistic shit

Don't forget the overt, crackling hostility toward children who have been victims of bullying and abuse (I don't have the energy to go look for the elaborately long-winded rant in question, but I believe he denounced them as "manipulative little shits," among other things). Yeah, paulsc's a real stand-up guy.
posted by scody at 1:21 PM on October 22, 2009

funny, that would be the childhood or teenage experience of a significant number of mefites, if my memory of the last bullying thread is anything to go by.
posted by UbuRoivas at 1:33 PM on October 22, 2009

Wait a second... paulsc is the guy who unrepentantly went after Rom and sticks up for bullies?

Umm... maybe he's already had one too many second chances?
posted by anotherpanacea at 2:24 PM on October 22, 2009

oops, unrepentantly went after Rom culture
posted by anotherpanacea at 2:26 PM on October 22, 2009

I think lewistate should print out this thread and attach it as an amendment to his IRB application.

Welcome to real social science: the subjects speak back, and they know the theory too!
posted by fourcheesemac at 2:42 PM on October 22, 2009 [1 favorite]

And thanks for helping me understand why the survey rubbed you the wrong way.

For what it's worth I've been thinking about this and I think all the reasons why it rubs me wrong are all the ways in which what you do is different from what I do (am currently near the end of my PhD in biochemistry). So it's a cultural thing, but between two academic disciplines rather than different countries (although we have that difference too and it definitely plays into how I perceive Metafilter). I would never do research like this. I'd get ripped apart for even trying (so much bias, anomaly seeking and cherry picking in the questions, such weird assumptions it's based on). But that doesn't mean shit, we're not doing the same thing so of course we don't do them in the same way. You could never investigate the questions you're interested in using the systems and practises I do (and I bet you'd find my methods boring as hell), particularly given my research subjects are mute cells whereas your have thoughts and ideas of their own.

On the whole culture clash is fun and it's good for me to see that things aren't always done they way I'd do them. And there seems to have been a lot of thought gone into this, from both lewistate and from the respondents. It will be interesting to see how it all turns out.
posted by shelleycat at 3:23 PM on October 22, 2009

My previous comment was deleted. I will link to the comment to which scody referred without making any judgment calls.

In fact, kids that can't or won't duke it out, are often lying little manipulators, who often cry "Wolf!" when there is no actual bullying happening to them, simply to get adults to sanction or punish bigger kids that they themselves can't or won't engage, but don't like. Adults are often no better at outing these little weasels, than they often are at stopping actual bullying, and from what I've seen, are always more reluctant to punish the lying little sacks as harshly as they would physical bullies, even when the adults do discover the little creeps are the demon-spawn they actually are.
posted by paulsc at 3:34 PM on August 11
posted by Optimus Chyme at 3:31 PM on October 22, 2009

I've also been trying to think of naturally unlubricated orifices. There aren't many, maybe the urethra, do milk ducts count? How big does it have to be to be an orifice? Most of them have natural lubrication, even the anus has some degree of lubrication while faeces are passing through (mucus secreted by the intestinal tract). Ears, noses, mouths, vaginas, all have natural lubrication at least most of the time. The body doesn't like things to dry out too much.
posted by shelleycat at 3:32 PM on October 22, 2009

thanks for that shelleycat. I'm eating dinner right now. thank you very much for the image of somebody boning someone's urethra and milk ducts.
posted by Think_Long at 5:35 PM on October 22, 2009 [1 favorite]

I don't have time to track it down right now, but paulsc is also the guy who has a lot of experience and insight into caretaking a mentally ill family member, and who is a lot less holier-than-thou about interpersonal relationships. He has a different life expeience than the majority of the posters here. The diversity he adds is a credit to the site, even when I vehemently disagree with him. I would be very sorry to see him go.

More generally, I don't need my metafilter experience sanitized beyond what it currently is. Offensive viewpoints, if held in good faith, are assets, not liabilities. We can't argue what we can't see. But then, we just had this argument a few threads back, and I realize this isn't a truth as universally held as I had assumed.
posted by small_ruminant at 6:36 PM on October 22, 2009 [7 favorites]

I remember being moved by his comment on caring for the family member, and I agree with your statements about diversity and good faith opinions. I was more pissed off about him telling the mods to f* off.
posted by marxchivist at 7:07 PM on October 22, 2009

fourcheesemac, bought both books. In the midst of proposal writing now. :)
posted by k8t at 7:12 PM on October 22, 2009

Although the plate-of-beaning doesn't reach the same stratospheric heights elsewhere, I don't think MeFi's the only place where you'll find reasonable thoughtful, reasonable argumentation, or artful discourse or whatnot. But in my experience you find most of it on topical forums (and there are plenty of thoroughly shitty technical forums), so MeFi's sort of unique in being general purpose.

I also tend to follow individual authors more than general discussions, and I value people who know what they're talking about much more than those who can make a "cogent argument".
posted by Monday, stony Monday at 7:16 PM on October 22, 2009

I just want to point out that a "fuck you, especially, in every non-naturally-lubricated-orifice-you-posses, you worthless, opportunistic bottom-feeder" is infelicitous. He's essentially saying 'NOT fuck you' since we don't possess non-naturally lubricated orifices. And bottom-feeders live in water.
posted by iamkimiam at 7:20 PM on October 22, 2009

My read was "non (naturally lubricated) orifices" So like "fuck you in the ear" for example.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 7:47 PM on October 22, 2009

Earwax, also known by the medical term cerumen, is a yellowish waxy substance secreted in the ear canal of humans and many other mammals. It protects the skin of the human ear canal, assists in cleaning and lubrication, and also provides some protection from bacteria, fungi, insects and water.

posted by Monday, stony Monday at 7:51 PM on October 22, 2009

also provides some protection from bacteria, fungi, insects and water [and fucking]
posted by marxchivist at 8:00 PM on October 22, 2009

Yeah, the problem is that pretty much all orifices have natural lubrication in some form or other. It's a fairly common bodily function actually, lubricating things.
posted by shelleycat at 8:09 PM on October 22, 2009

Also, who brings coins in the shower to measure their shampoo?

what
posted by turgid dahlia at 9:50 PM on October 22, 2009

He's essentially saying 'NOT fuck you' since we don't possess non-naturally lubricated orifices

That isn't necessarily true.

For example, if I wanted to oil my arsehole up with Crisco, it'd be a non-naturally lubricated orifice.

For the sticklers out there, I could even use some kind of synthetic oil.

So, he may have been saying:

- IF you are currently sitting around with one or more of your orifices lubricated artificially, then fuck you. Makes sense to me, because otherwise why the hell were you lubricating your orifice(s) in the first place?

- IF you are NOT all lubed up, then no fucking for you.

Perfectly simple, really.
posted by UbuRoivas at 10:07 PM on October 22, 2009 [1 favorite]

Ahhh, the classic 'undoable' problem. I think in this case however, I would still have to contend that if one were a bottom feeder, they would be in water, and therefore naturally and non-naturally lubricated all of the time in all available orifices, and then both possible reads of non-naturally-lubricated could be argued as infelicitous. My point is, paulsc is full of shit.
posted by iamkimiam at 10:18 PM on October 22, 2009

"fuck you, especially, in every non-naturally-lubricated-orifice-you-posses, you worthless, opportunistic bottom-feeder" is infelicitous. He's essentially saying 'NOT fuck you' since we don't possess non-naturally lubricated orifices.

I thought it implied, um, well, I guess maybe the classy way to put it would be stomal intercourse. Or, as those industrious kids at Urban Dictionary put it...

Holy shit, he was the gypsy guy, too?
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 10:30 PM on October 22, 2009

Oh, I didn't even think of stomas! Or I suppose gills would count too. Fuck, there goes my bottom-feeder theory of anti-fuck-you sentiment.
posted by iamkimiam at 10:47 PM on October 22, 2009

I wonder if gills have mucous or anything similar? Lungs do but they'd be dry otherwise.

And some orifices are non lubricated some of the time, so maybe it's just a timing issue?

Maybe I have too much time on my hands and not enough attention spent on my actual work rather than other random biological problems?
posted by shelleycat at 11:26 PM on October 22, 2009

Gills have boney gill rakers, which would be uncomfortable during intercourse regardless of chosen lubricant.
posted by Rumple at 11:56 PM on October 22, 2009

So that's how we use MetaTalk to work things out here, lewistate. Somebody flies off the handle and then we spend spend three days having a kind of gross, dirty conversation about it. Good luck with that dissertation.
posted by nanojath at 12:10 AM on October 23, 2009 [2 favorites]

There's nothing gross or dirty about normal bodily functions like lubrication.

Of course, we might want to keep in mind my history of putting people off their lunch, which has apparently now spread across the world thanks to the internet ...
posted by shelleycat at 12:44 AM on October 23, 2009

MetaTalk: A Rhetorical Model of Effective Community Governance Through Skillful Debate.

Doctoral dissertation by Mr Lewis State.

Subtitled "Solidarity Through Smut"
posted by UbuRoivas at 12:49 AM on October 23, 2009 [1 favorite]

So that's how we use MetaTalk to work things out here, lewistate. Somebody flies off the handle and then we spend spend three days having a kind of gross, dirty conversation about it. Good luck with that dissertation.

Yeah, my major professor is loving this thread.
posted by lewistate at 7:58 AM on October 23, 2009

Yeah, my major professor is loving this thread.

I'm reminded of one of those stories where the naive scientist goes into the far reaches of the jungle to study the Aborigines and end up having all his research assistants eaten.
posted by cjorgensen at 8:17 AM on October 23, 2009

OM NOM NOM rhetoricians NOM!
posted by DiscourseMarker at 8:32 AM on October 23, 2009 [1 favorite]

This thread is a classic example of how linguists end up with sentences like "goat with three legs peeing uphill" in their field research notes.
posted by iamkimiam at 9:44 AM on October 23, 2009

"goat with three legs peeing uphill"

Huh. I guess I missed it where paulsc came back into the thread.
posted by scody at 11:08 AM on October 23, 2009

How did somebody get eleven??? I can get to nine, maybe even ten if I include the (improbable) bellybutton out of desperation, but where is the elusive eleventh??? This bothered me all night.
posted by onlyconnect at 12:36 PM on October 23, 2009

onlyconnect: How did somebody get eleven??? I can get to nine, maybe even ten if I include the (improbable) bellybutton out of desperation, but where is the elusive eleventh??? This bothered me all night.

How could you forget about the floomfy, silly?
posted by Kattullus at 12:48 PM on October 23, 2009

Confucious said, "he who goes to bed worrying about elusive eleventh orifice, wakes up with slippery finger."
posted by Rumple at 12:51 PM on October 23, 2009

I would still have to contend that if one were a bottom feeder, they would be in water

Not necessarily. Depends what kind of bottom you're talking about.
posted by flabdablet at 3:43 PM on October 23, 2009

I'm not interested in typical; I'm interested in exemplary.

You won't have an exemplary site until there is a button function that publicly registers exemplary posts, or otherwise excellent. What you have now is a favored site, with all of the subjective implications that favoritism carries. This is for better or worse, relatively speaking, but not truly exemplary. Regardless, doesn't your apparent attachment to Metafilter concern your committee?
posted by Brian B. at 10:37 AM on October 25, 2009

onlyconnect: Ladies have eleven if you count the bellybutton. Dudes only have ten.

(Don't ask me why I even considered figuring this out.)
posted by grapefruitmoon at 11:40 AM on October 25, 2009

For dudes, are you counting the urethra?
posted by box at 11:44 AM on October 25, 2009

I was, but I still only get to 10. (Including bellybutton)
posted by grapefruitmoon at 11:51 AM on October 25, 2009

For dudes, are you counting the urethra?

Chicks have urethras too.
posted by headnsouth at 3:11 PM on October 25, 2009

ORIFICE COUNT! From, er, bottom to top.
Ladies: Anus, vagina, urethra, (belly button), mouth, nostril x2, eye socket x2 (only really an "orifice" if the eye itself has been removed), ear x2 = 11
Dudes: Anus, urethra, (belly button), mouth, nostril x2, eye socket x2, ear x2 = 10

If you want to get REALLY FANCY and count nipples - which secrete breastmilk and have a passage to the outside world - then you can get 13 and, for the lucky lactating gentleman, 12.

I can not for the life of me think of any other possible orifices on the human body unless we're just taking knives and carving holes, which totally doesn't count and in any case, the number there is INFINITY.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 4:16 PM on October 25, 2009

I suppose one might count the pharynx and trachea separately. But please don't.
posted by box at 4:19 PM on October 25, 2009

Or the nasopharynx and laryngopharynx? You know what I mean.
posted by box at 4:20 PM on October 25, 2009

I suppose one might count the pharynx and trachea separately. But please don't.

Well then when do you stop? Bronchus? Esophagus? Duodenum? (I just wanted to say "duodenum.")

Though the dictionary definition simply states that an orifice is an opening, for our purposes I think it has to be directly accessible from the outside to count as an orifice that may or may not be fucked, so the pharynx and/or the trachea don't cut it. Unless you've had a tracheotomy. Bonus orifices can also be obtained by colostomy. Etc. Probably meatus would be a more accurate term, if we're going to start splitting our cilia.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 4:35 PM on October 25, 2009

eye socket x2 (only really an "orifice" if the eye itself has been removed),

Tear ducts.
posted by shelleycat at 8:32 PM on October 25, 2009

Pores.
posted by flabdablet at 8:35 PM on October 25, 2009

Alphabet game: pet names for said orifices.
posted by not_on_display at 4:19 AM on October 26, 2009

Bung-hole. For which Cornholio often needs T.P.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 6:35 AM on October 26, 2009

BUNGHOLIO!

qed
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 7:01 AM on October 26, 2009

Cable closet.
posted by Rumple at 7:21 AM on October 26, 2009

I've only just come across this thread now, and just read the whole thing start to finish.

I cannot begin to describe how bizarre that experiene was.

And I think, somehow, moments like THAT are ultimately why I am on MeFi.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:10 AM on October 26, 2009 [2 favorites]

Door, back
posted by not_on_display at 10:08 AM on October 26, 2009

You guys realize if lewistate fails it will be THIS THREAD'S FAULT!
posted by cjorgensen at 10:13 AM on October 26, 2009

Somehow, I read the above comment in a way that had something to do with levitation.
posted by box at 10:21 AM on October 26, 2009

Entry, at your own risk
posted by Rumple at 12:43 PM on October 26, 2009

Festering gob.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 1:24 PM on October 26, 2009

Hairy oracle.
posted by box at 1:27 PM on October 26, 2009

Innie.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 1:57 PM on October 26, 2009

Juggahole
posted by cortex (staff) at 2:23 PM on October 26, 2009

Knickerbocker.
posted by box at 2:43 PM on October 26, 2009

Lemme tell you, I have a double barreled shotgun made by Knickerbocker, and it's a real beauty. It looks almost exactly like Ash's Boomstick.
posted by quin at 2:53 PM on October 26, 2009

Maw.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 2:59 PM on October 26, 2009

Narthex.
posted by box at 3:29 PM on October 26, 2009

Peehole.
posted by Kattullus at 3:57 PM on October 26, 2009

Rectum? Damn near killed 'm.
posted by not_on_display at 5:01 PM on October 26, 2009

Snothole.
posted by box at 5:14 PM on October 26, 2009

twig and berries.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 5:18 PM on October 26, 2009

uterine tract
posted by Kattullus at 5:48 PM on October 26, 2009

vajayjay
posted by Miko at 5:52 PM on October 26, 2009

Where-I-Lost-That-Quarter.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 5:58 PM on October 26, 2009

Yoni
posted by Miko at 6:38 PM on October 26, 2009

Zamboni, the ol'
posted by not_on_display at 6:39 PM on October 26, 2009 [1 favorite]

Abscissa.
posted by box at 7:29 PM on October 26, 2009

Barrel of monkeys
posted by Rumple at 7:36 PM on October 26, 2009

Cherry Pie.
posted by zarq at 8:14 PM on October 26, 2009

Ectoplasma rifle
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:30 PM on October 26, 2009

Goohole
posted by not_on_display at 9:09 PM on October 26, 2009

Hoohah.
posted by Kattullus at 9:30 PM on October 26, 2009

iPod dock
posted by Rumple at 9:37 PM on October 26, 2009

Kindereggsit
posted by Rumple at 11:49 PM on October 26, 2009

Les Naughty Bits.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 3:59 AM on October 27, 2009

Manhole.
posted by box at 6:36 AM on October 27, 2009

Nougatnozzle
posted by cortex (staff) at 6:58 AM on October 27, 2009

Omphalos.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:11 AM on October 27, 2009

Peashooter.
posted by schyler523 at 7:22 AM on October 27, 2009

Rural Route
posted by Rumple at 7:51 AM on October 27, 2009 [1 favorite]

Schnoz.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 8:02 AM on October 27, 2009

Tackle box
posted by Rumple at 8:33 AM on October 27, 2009

Urethra.
posted by box at 9:49 AM on October 27, 2009

winhole!
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:59 AM on October 27, 2009 [2 favorites]

X
posted by box at 11:19 AM on October 27, 2009

yer mother
posted by scody at 11:28 AM on October 27, 2009

Zeus's Beardhole!
posted by schyler523 at 11:43 AM on October 27, 2009

Alimentary Love Canal Hooker Chemical Superfund Site
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 11:51 AM on October 27, 2009

Blarney Stone
posted by cortex (staff) at 12:03 PM on October 27, 2009

Caballero Canyon
posted by schyler523 at 12:09 PM on October 27, 2009

Dingus.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 12:12 PM on October 27, 2009

Frittata dentata
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 12:15 PM on October 27, 2009

Glory hole.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 12:20 PM on October 27, 2009

Isthmus
posted by not_on_display at 12:42 PM on October 27, 2009

Jrunk in the trunk
posted by cortex (staff) at 1:04 PM on October 27, 2009

Krunk in the bunk
posted by scody at 2:01 PM on October 27, 2009

Maw
posted by Miko at 2:21 PM on October 27, 2009

Not an entrance
posted by Kattullus at 2:23 PM on October 27, 2009

Ponyfeed
posted by cortex (staff) at 2:33 PM on October 27, 2009

Quimpervious
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:48 PM on October 27, 2009

quiver
posted by Rumple at 2:50 PM on October 27, 2009

Rug-covered fun zone. (May or may not match drapes.)
posted by grapefruitmoon at 3:22 PM on October 27, 2009

Slippery slope
posted by iamkimiam at 4:03 PM on October 27, 2009

Universal socket
posted by dersins at 4:18 PM on October 27, 2009

venn diagram.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 4:50 PM on October 27, 2009

Wally World
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 4:59 PM on October 27, 2009

Waxy listener.
posted by box at 5:02 PM on October 27, 2009

Xaviarbles
posted by cortex (staff) at 5:13 PM on October 27, 2009

Yap
posted by Miko at 5:17 PM on October 27, 2009

Pudenda.
posted by box at 6:00 PM on October 27, 2009

This rocks!
posted by cjorgensen at 6:01 PM on October 27, 2009

Zither case
posted by Rumple at 10:37 PM on October 27, 2009

Your willy bits.
posted by ocherdraco at 10:42 PM on October 27, 2009

Xena's purse
posted by Rumple at 10:50 PM on October 27, 2009

Woo-woo.
posted by team lowkey at 11:16 PM on October 27, 2009

Va va mammy-jammin' voom, yo.
posted by dersins at 12:57 AM on October 28, 2009

Urine passing zone.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 5:16 AM on October 28, 2009

Tiddlywinks
posted by Kattullus at 6:15 AM on October 28, 2009

Rand Hein
posted by cortex (staff) at 6:37 AM on October 28, 2009

Queef Machine
posted by ocherdraco at 6:44 AM on October 28, 2009

Peter Principle
posted by Rumple at 7:04 AM on October 28, 2009

Oval Office.
posted by box at 7:33 AM on October 28, 2009

minefield
posted by Rumple at 7:50 AM on October 28, 2009

Loo faucet
posted by Kattullus at 8:07 AM on October 28, 2009

Koo-koo clock
posted by iamkimiam at 9:33 AM on October 28, 2009

Jar Jar Binks
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 10:05 AM on October 28, 2009

Ichabody Drain
posted by Rumple at 10:22 AM on October 28, 2009

Heaven's Gate
posted by box at 10:26 AM on October 28, 2009

Gobsmacker
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 10:27 AM on October 28, 2009

Elephant Ear.
posted by box at 12:23 PM on October 28, 2009

Draco Mouthful
posted by cortex (staff) at 12:24 PM on October 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

Bile duct tape dispenser
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 12:43 PM on October 28, 2009

Badass
posted by Rumple at 12:57 PM on October 28, 2009

Coochie Snorcher
posted by ocherdraco at 1:13 PM on October 28, 2009

Elliptical Drainer
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 1:55 PM on October 28, 2009

Filk Machine
posted by cortex (staff) at 2:00 PM on October 28, 2009

Gangplank
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:49 PM on October 28, 2009

Jewels (of the Family).
posted by grapefruitmoon at 3:09 PM on October 28, 2009

Keppie.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 3:11 PM on October 28, 2009 [1 favorite]

Leaky faucet
posted by iamkimiam at 3:17 PM on October 28, 2009

Mineshaft Sweeper
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 3:24 PM on October 28, 2009

Nun Tickler
posted by dersins at 3:27 PM on October 28, 2009

Opening for Business
posted by wendell at 3:45 PM on October 28, 2009

Pearly Gates
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 3:47 PM on October 28, 2009

Q's batcave
posted by iamkimiam at 3:50 PM on October 28, 2009

Robin Wood
posted by cortex (staff) at 3:51 PM on October 28, 2009

Sylar's third eyebrow
posted by iamkimiam at 4:33 PM on October 28, 2009

The Y.
posted by team lowkey at 4:38 PM on October 28, 2009

Velveteen Rabbit
posted by ocherdraco at 4:54 PM on October 28, 2009

Whatchamacallit.
posted by wendell at 4:55 PM on October 28, 2009

Zouzoune!
posted by zarq at 5:20 PM on October 28, 2009

You missed a spot!
posted by dersins at 5:30 PM on October 28, 2009

Alcohole
posted by Rumple at 6:12 PM on October 28, 2009

Booger chamber.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 6:28 PM on October 28, 2009

Christ what an assholio
posted by Rumple at 6:32 PM on October 28, 2009

Dickhead
posted by UbuRoivas at 6:36 PM on October 28, 2009

Fibro-fatty tissue
posted by not_on_display at 9:46 PM on October 28, 2009

Goo Goo G'Joob
posted by Rumple at 10:44 PM on October 28, 2009

Huminahumina
posted by wendell at 3:50 AM on October 29, 2009

In your pants, the fish.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 5:06 AM on October 29, 2009

Junk
posted by wendell at 7:45 AM on October 29, 2009

Land of the Lost
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 9:18 AM on October 29, 2009

Neverland
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 10:00 AM on October 29, 2009

ouroboros of love.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 10:04 AM on October 29, 2009

Ouroboros.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 10:04 AM on October 29, 2009

[JINX]
posted by grapefruitmoon at 10:05 AM on October 29, 2009

PENIS!
posted by dersins at 10:05 AM on October 29, 2009

Quentin Tarantinhole
posted by Rumple at 11:35 AM on October 29, 2009

Sucking Chest Wound
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 11:44 AM on October 29, 2009

Turdchucken
posted by Rumple at 11:51 AM on October 29, 2009

Uvula
posted by not_on_display at 12:03 PM on October 29, 2009

Volvo
posted by Rumple at 12:13 PM on October 29, 2009

Wild Thing
posted by wendell at 1:15 PM on October 29, 2009

Xanadome
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 1:24 PM on October 29, 2009

yabba dabba don't
posted by not_on_display at 1:52 PM on October 29, 2009

Apple pie
posted by iamkimiam at 3:28 PM on October 29, 2009

Beefcakehole
posted by Rumple at 4:22 PM on October 29, 2009

Cockpit
posted by zarq at 4:46 PM on October 29, 2009

Dungin' Donut
posted by Rumple at 4:48 PM on October 29, 2009

Eggplant Eclair.
posted by box at 5:16 PM on October 29, 2009

Felch-O-Rama
posted by Rumple at 6:06 PM on October 29, 2009

The Go-Gos
posted by wendell at 9:01 PM on October 29, 2009

Hymen
posted by not_on_display at 9:38 PM on October 29, 2009

Itchy and Scratchy
posted by Rumple at 9:52 PM on October 29, 2009

Jordan's almond
posted by iamkimiam at 12:01 AM on October 30, 2009

Kootie Katcher.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 6:53 AM on October 30, 2009

Love Pocket #9
posted by iamkimiam at 9:16 AM on October 30, 2009

Muffy!
posted by zarq at 9:20 AM on October 30, 2009

Nether Leather
posted by Rumple at 9:33 AM on October 30, 2009

Puddin' Pounder Jr.
posted by Rumple at 10:10 AM on October 30, 2009

Quidditch Cup.
posted by box at 12:05 PM on October 30, 2009

Redundant Receptacle
posted by not_on_display at 12:10 PM on October 30, 2009

Slippery Pocket Wocket Socket
posted by zarq at 1:06 PM on October 30, 2009

Tadpole.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 1:51 PM on October 30, 2009

Ugandan strongman Idi Amin (iykwim, aityd)
posted by dersins at 4:01 PM on October 30, 2009

Victoria and Albert
posted by Miko at 4:59 PM on October 30, 2009

Welsh rarebit
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 5:00 PM on October 30, 2009

X-Rated Fun Zone.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 5:44 PM on October 30, 2009

Yo' Mama
posted by Rumple at 6:10 PM on October 30, 2009

Zip-Zap-Zoomer.
posted by box at 7:43 PM on October 30, 2009

Angus Third Pounder
posted by wendell at 8:29 PM on October 30, 2009

Bazooka Bullseye
posted by ocherdraco at 8:58 PM on October 30, 2009

Cornhole! I am Bungholio!! BunnnnngHOLIO! Would you take me to lake Titicaca?
posted by not_on_display at 9:04 PM on October 30, 2009

Etruscan Well
posted by not_on_display at 9:23 PM on October 30, 2009

Goodies (in a pic-a-nic basket, boo-boo)
posted by wendell at 10:32 PM on October 30, 2009

Hell-mound.
posted by team lowkey at 2:52 AM on October 31, 2009

Johnsonbone, mofofo.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:23 AM on October 31, 2009 [1 favorite]

Lake Titicaca.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 8:58 AM on October 31, 2009

Man Boleyn
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:00 AM on October 31, 2009 [2 favorites]

Opossum hideout
posted by UbuRoivas at 5:50 PM on October 31, 2009

Possum hidDAMMIT
posted by cortex (staff) at 5:53 PM on October 31, 2009

Relax-a-cizer.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 6:59 PM on October 31, 2009

Stuff & Nonsense
posted by wendell at 7:05 PM on October 31, 2009

Tea in Hay
posted by carsonb at 9:46 PM on October 31, 2009

Uranus
posted by Rumple at 10:17 PM on October 31, 2009

VaFuckinGina
posted by BitterOldPunk at 1:37 AM on November 1, 2009

ILLEGAL! I am reporting this to the terrestrial mods.
posted by Meatbomb at 1:56 AM on November 1, 2009

We're on it. Also: weenie.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:12 AM on November 1, 2009

Xenu's Lair
posted by Rumple at 9:10 AM on November 1, 2009

Yesterday.
posted by box at 9:13 AM on November 1, 2009

Zipperbait
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:31 AM on November 1, 2009

* (asterisk, Vonnegut's)
posted by not_on_display at 2:17 PM on November 1, 2009

Bossa nova.
posted by box at 8:16 PM on November 1, 2009

Cotton Candyck
posted by Rumple at 8:26 PM on November 1, 2009

Denver "Nugget"
posted by dersins at 10:08 PM on November 1, 2009

E-meter.
posted by box at 9:14 AM on November 2, 2009

Feed trough
posted by not_on_display at 3:54 PM on November 2, 2009

Galaxie 500/LTD
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 3:57 PM on November 2, 2009

Hairy and the Hendersons
posted by cortex (staff) at 3:59 PM on November 2, 2009

Innies and Outies
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:53 PM on November 2, 2009

Jumping Jack Flash
posted by dersins at 5:00 PM on November 2, 2009

Klang! Klang's ton!
posted by zarq at 5:26 PM on November 2, 2009

Little Shop of Horrors.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 5:29 PM on November 2, 2009

Nutty Buddy
posted by dersins at 5:35 PM on November 2, 2009

Neville Chamberlong
posted by cortex (staff) at 5:36 PM on November 2, 2009

Oh snap-- in your face, cortex!
posted by dersins at 5:37 PM on November 2, 2009

Puppy Hitler
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 5:37 PM on November 2, 2009 [2 favorites]

Queville Chambershutupdersins
posted by cortex (staff) at 5:38 PM on November 2, 2009 [4 favorites]

Raining Florence Henderson In Your Dreams.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 5:45 PM on November 2, 2009

Something Something SOMETHING!
posted by oneswellfoop at 6:02 PM on November 2, 2009

Undula
posted by ocherdraco at 6:27 PM on November 2, 2009

Vast wasteland.
posted by box at 7:12 PM on November 2, 2009

Wendell's... well... end.
posted by oneswellfoop at 7:12 PM on November 2, 2009

Yak yogurt yum-yum.
posted by box at 7:52 PM on November 2, 2009

Zed's head baby, Zed's head.
posted by iamkimiam at 8:19 PM on November 2, 2009

OK, when I blow this whistle, everyone is going to stop doing this illegal thing: 1, 2, 3, TWEET!
posted by Meatbomb at 8:54 PM on November 2, 2009

Amber waves of grain
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 8:58 PM on November 2, 2009

Bomb of Meat
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:02 PM on November 2, 2009 [1 favorite]

Country Matters
posted by ocherdraco at 9:09 PM on November 2, 2009

Dainties
posted by dersins at 9:11 PM on November 2, 2009 [1 favorite]

Eeyore
posted by Rumple at 9:22 PM on November 2, 2009

Fuck you, Meatbomb.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 9:29 PM on November 2, 2009

Gordion naughty
posted by Rumple at 9:57 PM on November 2, 2009

hamburger hootie
posted by cjorgensen at 10:00 PM on November 2, 2009

Inner beauty
posted by flabdablet at 10:18 PM on November 2, 2009

Jerk seasoning.
posted by box at 6:27 AM on November 3, 2009

Lois Loin
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:00 AM on November 3, 2009

Mandrake root.
posted by box at 8:11 AM on November 3, 2009

Nubbins
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:08 PM on November 3, 2009

Official secrets
posted by flabdablet at 6:26 PM on November 3, 2009

Pudendumdum
posted by Rumple at 6:54 PM on November 3, 2009

Quince
posted by ocherdraco at 7:04 PM on November 3, 2009

Rhubarb Pie, Bee bop a roobah.
posted by not_on_display at 7:11 PM on November 3, 2009

Sticky wicket.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 7:25 PM on November 3, 2009

together,
Like to a double cherry, seeming parted,
But yet an union in partition;
Two lovely berries moulded on one stem;
posted by ocherdraco at 7:31 PM on November 3, 2009 [1 favorite]

OK, OK, hey I am a fun guy too, and it's completely understandable that you want to just do one more round. But honestly, it isn't like I am coming down on you or anything, but this is totally illegal. I am not ratting you out to the authorities because it makes me feel good.

Don't think just because cortex and jessamyn are playing that makes it all right. You can be sure that when matthowie gets my report there will be MULTIPLE trips to the woodshed. There will be egg on faces. People will be eating their hats, eating crow. Humble pie, bitter fruit, etc.

Last chance guys. I won't rat out those of you who immediately stop, and sincerely apologize for the bad thing you have done.

1, 2, 3... TWEET!
posted by Meatbomb at 9:08 PM on November 3, 2009

Penis and Vagina!
posted by iamkimiam at 11:58 PM on November 3, 2009

Queynte and Willy!
posted by flabdablet at 3:41 AM on November 4, 2009

Rocky and Bullwinkle!
posted by box at 6:49 AM on November 4, 2009

Terry and the Pirates

(wait... what are we doing here? Meatbomb's frakking loud whistle totally distracted me)
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:38 AM on November 4, 2009

Union Jackhole
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:41 AM on November 4, 2009

Violet Blew
posted by dersins at 9:49 AM on November 4, 2009

Wally and the Beaver.
posted by box at 9:50 AM on November 4, 2009

Xanadewdrop
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:23 AM on November 4, 2009

yes
posted by not_on_display at 12:31 PM on November 4, 2009

ZAM BONY
posted by dersins at 12:33 PM on November 4, 2009

yot yob
posted by Rumple at 12:53 PM on November 4, 2009

xob a ni kcid
posted by dersins at 12:58 PM on November 4, 2009

Watergate
posted by cortex (staff) at 12:59 PM on November 4, 2009

uoy skcuf
posted by Rumple at 1:13 PM on November 4, 2009

tnuc
posted by ocherdraco at 1:14 PM on November 4, 2009

race car
posted by cortex (staff) at 1:26 PM on November 4, 2009 [1 favorite]

Queequeg.
posted by box at 1:38 PM on November 4, 2009

poob ytteb
posted by Rumple at 1:42 PM on November 4, 2009

oplip
posted by not_on_display at 1:51 PM on November 4, 2009

no parts
posted by not_on_display at 1:53 PM on November 4, 2009

mega gem
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 1:58 PM on November 4, 2009

lid of fad
posted by not_on_display at 2:05 PM on November 4, 2009

Maybe I didn't make myself clear, the illegal thing I need you all to stop doing is this "alphabet game". So, for example, you should not now make a comment that starts with the letter "N".

Let's make MetaFilter a place for signal, not noise.
posted by Meatbomb at 4:32 PM on November 4, 2009

kan it, meatbomb
posted by cortex (staff) at 4:34 PM on November 4, 2009

Jesus H. Shatner, cortex, kan't you even spell?
posted by dersins at 4:41 PM on November 4, 2009

i can haz cheezburger. IN MY BUM.
posted by Rumple at 4:45 PM on November 4, 2009

Igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary.
posted by box at 4:45 PM on November 4, 2009

I am really happy to see you have decided to stop this destructive bad thing, guys, thank you!
posted by Meatbomb at 4:45 PM on November 4, 2009

Happy, Grumpy, Forgetful, Elvis and Doc.
posted by box at 4:48 PM on November 4, 2009

Christ, what a dwarfhole
posted by dersins at 5:02 PM on November 4, 2009

Great googly moogly.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 5:08 PM on November 4, 2009

Fucking Meatbomb!
posted by iamkimiam at 5:14 PM on November 4, 2009

Dirk Benedict played 'Faceman' on The A-Team. Meatbomb, you are no Dirk Benedict!
posted by box at 5:37 PM on November 4, 2009

Cool, I guess now we're playing "Let's Everyone Insult Meatbomb!"
posted by ocherdraco at 7:22 PM on November 4, 2009

Bombastic Meat, amirite?
posted by Rumple at 7:39 PM on November 4, 2009 [1 favorite]

I know it's kind of out of order, but...

Beatable Meat.
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:46 PM on November 4, 2009

Aaah - carne bomba that's what I like.
posted by adamvasco at 7:11 AM on November 5, 2009

Batter
posted by not_on_display at 8:46 AM on November 5, 2009

Catcher.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 8:59 AM on November 5, 2009

Designated I'd Hit Itter
posted by Rumple at 9:00 AM on November 5, 2009

Elder Berries
posted by Rumple at 9:15 AM on November 5, 2009

Fanny Packer
posted by Miko at 9:29 AM on November 5, 2009

Google Whacker
posted by dersins at 9:49 AM on November 5, 2009

Holey Cooters
posted by Rumple at 9:50 AM on November 5, 2009

Inbox
posted by oneswellfoop at 10:45 AM on November 5, 2009

Jujubes
posted by Miko at 2:33 PM on November 5, 2009

Kisses
posted by not_on_display at 3:31 PM on November 5, 2009

lumps, my lovely lady
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 3:40 PM on November 5, 2009

Man Or Astro-glide?
posted by dersins at 3:44 PM on November 5, 2009

Octopeeny
posted by UbuRoivas at 4:26 PM on November 5, 2009

Nooooooooooooo!!!
posted by UbuRoivas at 4:26 PM on November 5, 2009

Oh yeah.
posted by dersins at 4:39 PM on November 5, 2009

Princesses Lay Ya
posted by dersins at 4:39 PM on November 5, 2009 [1 favorite]

Quick Brown
posted by Rumple at 10:20 PM on November 5, 2009

Ronald Rogaine
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:26 PM on November 5, 2009

Sniffers
posted by clorox at 10:33 PM on November 5, 2009

Tonya Hardon
posted by cortex (staff) at 6:49 AM on November 6, 2009

Unsightly Halloween Costume.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 6:52 AM on November 6, 2009

Velvet Glove.
posted by box at 6:57 AM on November 6, 2009

W
posted by iamkimiam at 7:25 AM on November 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

Yule Log
posted by Rumple at 7:59 AM on November 6, 2009

Zamboner.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:08 AM on November 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

Butts lull
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:19 AM on November 6, 2009

Durkheim.
posted by box at 9:27 AM on November 6, 2009

Eager Beaver
posted by Rumple at 9:45 AM on November 6, 2009

Go Go Dancer
(or Go Go Gopher)
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:22 AM on November 6, 2009

Hairy Caray
posted by not_on_display at 12:00 PM on November 6, 2009 [1 favorite]

Ipanenema
posted by Rumple at 6:19 PM on November 6, 2009

Jumpin' Jack Off
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:58 PM on November 6, 2009

Kiss from a Hose
posted by Rumple at 10:04 AM on November 7, 2009

Miss Muffet
posted by palliser at 11:42 AM on November 7, 2009

nut_on_display
posted by dersins at 11:55 AM on November 7, 2009 [1 favorite]

on_display
posted by Rumple at 12:06 PM on November 7, 2009 [1 favorite]

Pitt the Younger
posted by Kattullus at 12:48 PM on November 7, 2009

Q-balls
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:18 PM on November 7, 2009

Rebus.
posted by box at 6:01 PM on November 7, 2009

Seating Area.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 6:02 PM on November 7, 2009

Tip jar
posted by iamkimiam at 7:18 PM on November 7, 2009

Urea Heap
posted by Rumple at 10:31 PM on November 7, 2009

VJJ (when referring to the orifices of a former MTV Video Jockey)
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:23 PM on November 8, 2009 [1 favorite]

Willy Wonka's Chocolate Fucktory
posted by Rumple at 4:59 PM on November 8, 2009

YourTube
posted by Miko at 7:45 PM on November 8, 2009

Zoroasster
posted by Rumple at 11:42 PM on November 8, 2009

Zorro's ass—hers?
posted by ocherdraco at 11:47 PM on November 8, 2009

ass to ass
posted by dersins at 10:42 AM on November 9, 2009

badonkadonk
posted by not_on_display at 1:40 PM on November 9, 2009

Covered by clean underwear, just in case I get hit by a bus.
posted by Rumple at 2:05 PM on November 9, 2009

Dangling participle.
posted by box at 2:26 PM on November 9, 2009 [1 favorite]

Everybody's got one.
posted by Obscure Reference at 7:19 PM on November 9, 2009

Fondle-ly yours,
posted by not_on_display at 7:42 PM on November 9, 2009

Grundlemeef
posted by ocherdraco at 9:23 PM on November 9, 2009

HURFBURGER
posted by not_on_display at 9:43 PM on November 9, 2009

iPud
posted by carsonb at 10:15 PM on November 9, 2009

Junkalope
posted by Rumple at 10:43 PM on November 9, 2009

That's it fuckos, no more mister nice guy, it's fucking hammer time.

I tried to pretend that you had stopped, and was so pleased to see a 12 hour delay in this thread when viewing recent activity yesterday. "Finally they have seen the error of their illegal ways," I said to myself. "Maybe I won't need to ban anybody after all," I said.

OK, you had your chance and now it is over. You had to keep pushing. So, fuckos, you want to see what the Astral Mod does when he gets pushed too far?

Everyone who has participated in this thread is banned. Permabanned. Not just from MetaFilter, and not just from the Internet.

You are all banned, for LIFE, from ever using a computer or other networked device again.

Here is what I need from all of you, immediately.

1. Print out a paper copy of this comment right now.
2. Once it has finished printing, turn off your computer.
3. Dispose of your computer, PDA, iPhone, etc.
4. Hand write a letter to me, promising that you will never again use a computer, a handheld network-capable device, or in any other way connect to the Internet or any other electronic network.
5. Have a friend who has not been permabanned scan this letter and email it to me (email in profile)

You might be thinking that last step kind of burdensome. Why scan and email it when it could easily be mailed by surface post? Well, I am a vengeful mod when my wrath has been stirred, and I just want to rub your noses in the fact that I have NOT been banned, and am still enjoying all of the convenience that electronic communication has to offer.

So, for most of you: goodbye, forever. Or maybe see you in real life. Good luck, and no hard feelings.
posted by Meatbomb at 1:56 AM on November 10, 2009 [4 favorites]

krumpet
posted by From Bklyn at 4:24 AM on November 10, 2009

Lollipop, meat
posted by not_on_display at 6:59 AM on November 10, 2009

Meatbore
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:37 AM on November 10, 2009

>O<
posted by not_on_display at 8:24 AM on November 10, 2009

:P
posted by Rumple at 9:23 AM on November 10, 2009

Roger Wilcox
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:45 AM on November 10, 2009

Singularity.
posted by box at 10:02 AM on November 10, 2009

Top o' the moanin' to ya
posted by dersins at 10:03 AM on November 10, 2009

Under my Thumb
posted by Rumple at 10:24 AM on November 10, 2009

Very weird shit going on in recent activity-- this thread just tripled up in there, then went back to normal after a couple of refreshes.
posted by dersins at 10:26 AM on November 10, 2009

Xanthe. Xander. Xenophobia. If only I could think of something witty starting with an X.
posted by rjs at 12:38 PM on November 10, 2009

Yellow cake
posted by not_on_display at 12:44 PM on November 10, 2009

Zamboobies!
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 12:47 PM on November 10, 2009 [2 favorites]

Aural canal
posted by Miko at 12:49 PM on November 10, 2009

Boozambies!
posted by dersins at 12:56 PM on November 10, 2009

Crème de Men
posted by cortex (staff) at 1:03 PM on November 10, 2009

Dork.
posted by box at 1:27 PM on November 10, 2009

Extrovert.
posted by From Bklyn at 2:11 PM on November 10, 2009

Greater Metropolitan Region
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:27 PM on November 10, 2009

Handlebar mustache prong.
posted by Kattullus at 4:37 PM on November 10, 2009

I must make a correction: that should have said "Greater Metrosexual Region"
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:55 PM on November 10, 2009

Kant's kunt
posted by From Bklyn at 11:18 PM on November 10, 2009

Leaky faucet
posted by Rumple at 11:56 PM on November 10, 2009

Mighty mouse.
posted by rjs at 10:18 AM on November 11, 2009

Nincompoopchute
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:20 AM on November 11, 2009

Priapic Slide
posted by dersins at 10:51 AM on November 11, 2009

Quiznodes
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:57 AM on November 11, 2009

Rootie tootie.
posted by box at 12:03 PM on November 11, 2009

Slithy toves.
posted by ocherdraco at 12:21 PM on November 11, 2009

Toasty Torpedo

(in response to cortex's Quiznodes)
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:50 PM on November 11, 2009

Unplumbed depths
posted by flabdablet at 7:01 PM on November 11, 2009

victuals pronounced vittles goddamn
posted by Kattullus at 7:19 PM on November 11, 2009

Wacky Packs!
posted by oneswellfoop at 7:51 PM on November 11, 2009

Xanadu
posted by Miko at 8:56 PM on November 11, 2009

Zzzzzzzzzzzzip.... [PLUNK]
posted by not_on_display at 9:24 PM on November 11, 2009

Antipodes.
posted by flabdablet at 10:41 PM on November 11, 2009

Business; BIG Business
posted by oneswellfoop at 10:46 PM on November 11, 2009

clacker
posted by flabdablet at 11:08 PM on November 11, 2009

date
posted by flabdablet at 11:08 PM on November 11, 2009

eminence
posted by flabdablet at 11:09 PM on November 11, 2009

flatulence
posted by From Bklyn at 11:13 PM on November 11, 2009

goaltender
posted by Rumple at 11:48 PM on November 11, 2009

holes in one
posted by flabdablet at 12:34 AM on November 12, 2009

Ice Ice Boobie
posted by cortex (staff) at 12:39 AM on November 12, 2009

Jumpin' Jehosafat
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:58 AM on November 12, 2009

Knee-trembler
posted by Abiezer at 1:23 AM on November 12, 2009

La Traviata
posted by Rumple at 10:53 AM on November 12, 2009

Metropolitan Museum of Ass
posted by dersins at 10:55 AM on November 12, 2009 [1 favorite]

Noodly appendage
posted by Miko at 10:59 AM on November 12, 2009

One Swollen Foop
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:14 AM on November 12, 2009

Pants Pants Revolution
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:30 AM on November 12, 2009 [2 favorites]

Quaint Overload
posted by Rumple at 1:06 PM on November 12, 2009

Stocking Stuffer
posted by not_on_display at 1:40 PM on November 12, 2009

Reverse Curve!
posted by not_on_display at 1:41 PM on November 12, 2009

'Quimpment
posted by carsonb at 2:48 PM on November 12, 2009

Prostate of the union
posted by dersins at 2:52 PM on November 12, 2009

onomatopeer
posted by Rumple at 10:10 PM on November 12, 2009

NO ONO
posted by iamkimiam at 10:59 PM on November 12, 2009

*mirror*
posted by UbuRoivas at 3:02 AM on November 13, 2009

Little Prince.
posted by box at 6:10 AM on November 13, 2009

King Dong
posted by dersins at 11:28 AM on November 13, 2009

Juice Newton
posted by not_on_display at 12:47 PM on November 13, 2009

iJunk (for Apple fans)
posted by oneswellfoop at 6:38 PM on November 13, 2009

Girl Scout Cookie
posted by ocherdraco at 8:58 PM on November 13, 2009

Fool's Gold
posted by Rumple at 9:33 PM on November 13, 2009

Extentions
posted by oneswellfoop at 10:52 PM on November 13, 2009

Danzig Danza
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 10:53 AM on November 14, 2009

Cirque du Soleil.
posted by box at 11:12 AM on November 14, 2009

Bilabial fricative.
posted by dersins at 11:25 AM on November 14, 2009

And....
posted by dersins at 11:25 AM on November 14, 2009

Back it up frontwise again.
posted by dersins at 11:25 AM on November 14, 2009

Cootie Catcher.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 11:33 AM on November 14, 2009

Damned Torpedo
posted by Rumple at 1:05 PM on November 14, 2009

Eggs Benedict
posted by not_on_display at 3:29 PM on November 14, 2009

Frottage Cheese
posted by carsonb at 4:04 PM on November 14, 2009

Huevos Rauncheros
posted by cortex (staff) at 4:25 PM on November 14, 2009

I'm not sure what it is, but I know I've never put one of those there before.
posted by not_on_display at 7:50 PM on November 14, 2009 [1 favorite]

Kid Rocks
posted by Rumple at 11:49 PM on November 14, 2009

MetaFlirter
posted by Rumple at 12:17 AM on November 15, 2009

Naugahyde
posted by From Bklyn at 2:07 AM on November 15, 2009

Once I think I saw one, but I'm not really sure it was what i thought it was.
posted by not_on_display at 5:37 AM on November 15, 2009

Pop'n'Fresh
posted by Miko at 7:17 AM on November 15, 2009

Quinola, The Resources of by Ballsac, Honoré de, 1799-1850
posted by carsonb at 10:44 AM on November 15, 2009

Schmoopy
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:57 PM on November 15, 2009

United Hairlines
posted by Rumple at 9:24 PM on November 15, 2009

Venus, delta of
posted by rjs at 10:52 AM on November 16, 2009

Whack a Mole
posted by dersins at 11:04 AM on November 16, 2009

X-Rated by the Motion Picture Association of America
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:43 PM on November 16, 2009

Abracagrabya
posted by cortex (staff) at 2:59 PM on November 16, 2009

Big Mattress, The
posted by not_on_display at 9:54 PM on November 16, 2009

Doin' it wrong
posted by From Bklyn at 5:26 AM on November 17, 2009

El Kabong.
posted by box at 6:11 AM on November 17, 2009

Fucking
posted by dersins at 7:54 AM on November 17, 2009

Hambone.
posted by box at 8:55 AM on November 17, 2009

I can't believe it's not butthole
posted by Rumple at 9:32 AM on November 17, 2009

Jerk Chicken
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:27 AM on November 17, 2009

Mangini.
posted by box at 12:51 PM on November 17, 2009

los testículos
posted by not_on_display at 8:25 PM on November 17, 2009

....nuts.
posted by not_on_display at 8:25 PM on November 17, 2009

Peenies from heaven
posted by Abiezer at 6:26 AM on November 18, 2009

Quicktime.
posted by box at 11:41 AM on November 18, 2009

Rowdy Roddy Pipe
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:47 AM on November 18, 2009

Sad sack
posted by dersins at 12:43 PM on November 18, 2009

TRS-80 Color Compooter
posted by cortex (staff) at 12:46 PM on November 18, 2009

Ubu, sit!
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:01 PM on November 18, 2009

Vacillate
posted by dersins at 2:04 PM on November 18, 2009

Where's Dildo Now
posted by cortex (staff) at 2:11 PM on November 18, 2009

Xyloporn
posted by dersins at 2:15 PM on November 18, 2009

Zombie Bait
posted by Rumple at 2:48 PM on November 18, 2009

Aoxomoxoa.
posted by box at 4:34 PM on November 18, 2009

Big Bang and the Dark Matter Band
posted by Rumple at 4:46 PM on November 18, 2009

Camper Van Jelly Roll Over Beethoven
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:58 PM on November 18, 2009 [1 favorite]

Dead Can Dance. Can, get it?
posted by box at 7:41 PM on November 18, 2009

(You know, the krautrock band.)
posted by box at 7:43 PM on November 18, 2009

Fistful of Hang 'Em High.
posted by box at 7:44 PM on November 18, 2009

Etta James Gang of Four
posted by BitterOldPunk at 7:44 PM on November 18, 2009

Fruit Bats for Lisa Lashes.
posted by Kattullus at 9:20 PM on November 18, 2009

Gaga (may or may not be a Lady)
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:54 PM on November 18, 2009

It's all over when the fat lady sings.
posted by ocherdraco at 10:40 PM on November 18, 2009

Josie and the Pussy Cat Power Trio
posted by Rumple at 10:51 PM on November 18, 2009

King Curtis Mayfield.
posted by box at 9:08 AM on November 19, 2009

Michael Jackson Fivehole
posted by Rumple at 11:37 AM on November 19, 2009

Neutral Milk Hotel California Girls Against Boys Don't Cry Me a Riverdancing in the Dark Was the Night Ranger
posted by dersins at 12:29 PM on November 19, 2009 [1 favorite]

Outback Steakhouse.

There, I did it. I participated in an alphabet game. And this is the 800th comment—not too shabby for a month-long initiation into the dark underbelly of MetaTalk.

I just wanted to pop in before this thread gets archived to thank everyone for your responses to the survey (219 so far; I'll close the survey tomorrow) and for your incredibly helpful comments in this thread. (Yes, I'm talking about the comments before the alphabet game got going.)

If you indicated that you want your responses connected to your MeFi username, I'll be contacting your through MeFi Mail in the next few weeks to confirm that you are who you said you are. And I may be contacting a few of you for follow-up interviews or clarification about what you wrote.

And now, I'm off to that mystical place known as Data Analysis Mountain. With any luck, I'll be back in a few months, ready to share some pieces of my dissertation and have all of you tell me how I've completely missed the boat.
posted by lewistate at 1:30 PM on November 19, 2009 [5 favorites]

Have fun, lewistate. Looking forward to see what comes of it.

and for your incredibly helpful comments in this thread. (Yes, I'm talking about the comments before the alphabet game got going.)

Those latter comments were merely incredibly ordinal.
posted by cortex (staff) at 1:56 PM on November 19, 2009

Oh! I never finished the survey! I need to do that before it closes.
posted by ocherdraco at 2:12 PM on November 19, 2009

Prithee, take thy fingers from my throat; for, though I am not splenitive and rash, yet have I in me something dangerous. Just, y'know, fyi.
posted by dersins at 3:41 PM on November 19, 2009

Quick, get away from dersins, he has a spleen rash!
posted by cortex (staff) at 3:46 PM on November 19, 2009

Good luck with the dissertation, lewistate!

Also, you managed to shut down an alphabet game where Meatbomb failed...
posted by Kattullus at 6:11 PM on November 19, 2009

Rats! I missed that the alphabet game is still going on.
posted by Kattullus at 6:11 PM on November 19, 2009

stupid viking.
posted by UbuRoivas at 8:20 PM on November 19, 2009

silly teuton.
posted by iamkimiam at 8:56 PM on November 19, 2009

Teuton?!
posted by Kattullus at 4:19 AM on November 20, 2009

Uh oh! Ethnicity fight!
posted by dersins at 8:54 AM on November 20, 2009

tl;dr t-shirts are a little too inside-baseball for me, but I'd totally buy a Longboaters shirt. Or perhaps one of those long-brimmed caps.
posted by box at 9:31 AM on November 20, 2009

Virile Vikings
posted by adamvasco at 9:36 AM on November 20, 2009

Was geschieht hier?
posted by Rumple at 10:20 AM on November 20, 2009

Your mom certainly spelled xamboni with an x last night.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 10:26 AM on November 20, 2009