Not so delightful, apparently February 17, 2010 5:33 AM Subscribe
What could possibly have been the issue with this question that comments needed to be deleted?
Disapproving of the sinners doesn't seem to be mefites style, so what gives?
It would help if you told the rest of us what deleted comments you're talking about.
posted by Salvor Hardin at 5:53 AM on February 17, 2010
posted by Salvor Hardin at 5:53 AM on February 17, 2010
I know I flagged at least one answer that was basically "I'm not going to answer this, because I won't help an adulterer."
That's a shitty answer, not only because it's useless and you could instead just move on and give a real answer elsewhere, but also because there are plenty of non-adultery reasons for the question, such as both people still living with their parents.
posted by Forktine at 5:58 AM on February 17, 2010 [14 favorites]
That's a shitty answer, not only because it's useless and you could instead just move on and give a real answer elsewhere, but also because there are plenty of non-adultery reasons for the question, such as both people still living with their parents.
posted by Forktine at 5:58 AM on February 17, 2010 [14 favorites]
I don't know what the deleted comments were-there is a note from Jessamyn that a few were deleted. I can't imagine what they would be, that's why I'm asking...
From the comment dunkadunc made just before you, however, it does appear that there seems to be some judgemental assumptions happening, so perhaps it is mefites disapproval of the sinners after all.
posted by newpotato at 6:02 AM on February 17, 2010
From the comment dunkadunc made just before you, however, it does appear that there seems to be some judgemental assumptions happening, so perhaps it is mefites disapproval of the sinners after all.
posted by newpotato at 6:02 AM on February 17, 2010
What do you hope to accomplish with this Metatalk post?
posted by Kwine at 6:05 AM on February 17, 2010
posted by Kwine at 6:05 AM on February 17, 2010
He wants to judge people who are judging others.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:09 AM on February 17, 2010 [20 favorites]
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:09 AM on February 17, 2010 [20 favorites]
Presumably it's the word "illicit" that led people to assume that one of the trysters' was breaking someone else's trust. Maybe it was illicit for some other reason. Does that answer your question? If you remove "illicit" there's not much to object to, unless you're Against Sex.
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 6:10 AM on February 17, 2010
posted by chesty_a_arthur at 6:10 AM on February 17, 2010
I don't really see the point of this MeTa post either - the mods have done their job and the comments in question are gone.
Maybe it was the OP's use of the phrase "illicit tryst," although I assumed that might just be their way of describing a dirty ol' romp in the sack. I immediately had the same thought as Forktine - maybe they live with their folks/roommates/grandma/whatever.
posted by futureisunwritten at 6:12 AM on February 17, 2010
Maybe it was the OP's use of the phrase "illicit tryst," although I assumed that might just be their way of describing a dirty ol' romp in the sack. I immediately had the same thought as Forktine - maybe they live with their folks/roommates/grandma/whatever.
posted by futureisunwritten at 6:12 AM on February 17, 2010
I flagged the one Forktine mentioned - dunno if there were others, but that was a particularly useless answer.
posted by restless_nomad at 6:14 AM on February 17, 2010
posted by restless_nomad at 6:14 AM on February 17, 2010
Well, I think there most definitely ARE reasons that question could have been asked that didn't involve adultery, as forktine pointed out.
However, the way the question reads ("semi innocent encounters") ("illicit tryst") it does point pretty a couple people cheating on their spouses- and if Anonymous didn't want it to read that way (due to living with religious conservative parents, for example) they could have said something to that effect.
I can understand people in an AskMe saying "You really probably don't want to be doing this thing you're asking us how to do, at least the way you're currently going about it". Just dropping in and going "omfgz adulterers", however, isn't an effective or productive way of giving someone advice.
posted by dunkadunc at 6:16 AM on February 17, 2010
However, the way the question reads ("semi innocent encounters") ("illicit tryst") it does point pretty a couple people cheating on their spouses- and if Anonymous didn't want it to read that way (due to living with religious conservative parents, for example) they could have said something to that effect.
I can understand people in an AskMe saying "You really probably don't want to be doing this thing you're asking us how to do, at least the way you're currently going about it". Just dropping in and going "omfgz adulterers", however, isn't an effective or productive way of giving someone advice.
posted by dunkadunc at 6:16 AM on February 17, 2010
Before answering this question, first imagine the cheated-on spouses posting a tearful AskMe about dealing with the aftermath and how you would answer that.
posted by DU at 6:21 AM on February 17, 2010 [2 favorites]
posted by DU at 6:21 AM on February 17, 2010 [2 favorites]
Fucking is fine, but I have a problem helping anyone "do the dirty."
posted by milarepa at 6:26 AM on February 17, 2010 [8 favorites]
posted by milarepa at 6:26 AM on February 17, 2010 [8 favorites]
Before answering this question, first imagine the cheated-on spouses posting a tearful AskMe about dealing with the aftermath and how you would answer that.
Then don't answer the fucking question. Shrug and move on. Flag it. Send an upset email to the mods. Do just about anything, in fact, except to give judgmental and unhelpful non-answers.
posted by Forktine at 6:29 AM on February 17, 2010 [22 favorites]
Then don't answer the fucking question. Shrug and move on. Flag it. Send an upset email to the mods. Do just about anything, in fact, except to give judgmental and unhelpful non-answers.
posted by Forktine at 6:29 AM on February 17, 2010 [22 favorites]
There was the "I'm not going to answer" comment and a joke about it being mathowie's question, neither of which were remotely useful.
For any given question, the set of possible "answers" that bear deleting is always going to dwarf the set of actually productive answers. It's a product of people here generally being really good about respecting the guidelines that keeps the amount of random jokey/offtopic/metacommentary/combative stuff we have to remove from a thread to a minimum.
For all that, there's still going to be stuff we end up removing from this thread or that, regardless of whether or not it's controversial or whatever, and it's going to get deleted and sometimes we'll leave a note, but there's not really anything to say about it unless you have a specific issue with what went down. It's fine to drop us a quick line instead if you're wondering about something, but this sort of just-curious Metatalk thread isn't really that great of an idea, so I'm gonna close this up.
posted by cortex (staff) at 6:30 AM on February 17, 2010 [1 favorite]
For any given question, the set of possible "answers" that bear deleting is always going to dwarf the set of actually productive answers. It's a product of people here generally being really good about respecting the guidelines that keeps the amount of random jokey/offtopic/metacommentary/combative stuff we have to remove from a thread to a minimum.
For all that, there's still going to be stuff we end up removing from this thread or that, regardless of whether or not it's controversial or whatever, and it's going to get deleted and sometimes we'll leave a note, but there's not really anything to say about it unless you have a specific issue with what went down. It's fine to drop us a quick line instead if you're wondering about something, but this sort of just-curious Metatalk thread isn't really that great of an idea, so I'm gonna close this up.
posted by cortex (staff) at 6:30 AM on February 17, 2010 [1 favorite]
This thread is closed to new comments.
I can easily, easily imagine why people would think that sort of thing isn't OK.
posted by dunkadunc at 5:50 AM on February 17, 2010