Hamburgering RASSMUSSEN opinion poll data

August 1, 2010 6:37 PM

The bias problems with Rassmussen have been discussed and mocked by the lefty blogosphere for years. This year, after an article in Politico, there seems to be a growing consensus among the MSM punditocracy that unless there are polls by other firms that can confirm Rassmussen's data; you shouldn't use them as your primary source for opinion polling.

A comment by adipocere in "Democracy is stronger than this.", prompted me to write the following:

Rassmussen polls are a serious problem for their right-wing bias. this has been reported through netroots blogs for years but it wasn't until Politico wrote about it earlier this year and only from the context of congressional races that the punditocracy was forced to deal with this issue.

Nate Silver's take tries to be "fair and balanced" but he's right on point when he says: they have a knack for issuing polls at times which tend to dovetail with conservative media narratives.

Jonathan Chait goes right to the point:

Rasmussen polling occupies an odd place in the political culture. In the conservative world, it is the gold standard. If you go to a conservative set on basically any random day, you'll see somebody touting a Rasmussen poll. Here is John McCormack at the Weekly Standard touting a poll showing huge support to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Here is Peter Wehner at Commentary doing the same. Rasmussen frequently asks unusual polling questions that produce results almost certainly calculated to demonstrate public support for the conservative position. (Here's one example of a loaded Rasmussen question.) Rasmussen has become a right-wing celebrity. He's the author of a conservative book. This fall he is a featured guest on National Review's cruise, along with other conservative luminaries.

Part of Rasmussen's celebrity status derives from the fact that even his polls on commonly-asked questions skew strongly toward the conservative position.

and then there's Harry Enten's hard-core pollster take on the issue.

The moral of my comment? NEVER EVER ACCEPT A RASSMUSSEN POLL FROM A RIGHT-WINGER unless there are polls by other firms that can confirm Rassmussen's data. Because when it comes to social or political issues (not electoral races), Rassmussen only exists to re-inforce hard-core neocon talking points with the patina of objectivity and "science" bestowed by the word "poll".

and with that note: Carry on [...]

i don't know if it would be appropriate to ban Rassmussen polls as a reliable primary source for opinion polling. first amendment and all that. yet i truly believe their opinion polling is akin to concern trolling and merits serious /HAMBURGERing.

especially since it seems that many people on the site take their polling seriously enough to not question any potential bias on their claims that an alleged majority of New Yorkers are against Córdoba House. i mean, seriously, did they run that poll in GOP friendly neighborhoods only?

and that's the problem: they don't have to tell us which boroughs and neighborhoods they ran the poll. they easily could have done this on a slice of Queens bordering with Long Island, just to get any majority to fit their bias.

and boy, do their opinion polls fit the FOXNEWS frame of mind.

ugh.

posted by liza to MetaFilter-Related at 6:37 PM (75 comments total)

Also, where are my damn sardines?
posted by selfnoise at 6:42 PM on August 1, 2010

I'm not sure it's clear what you mean by 'HAMBURGERing'.

Can you explain why you made this post without using weird terms like that?
posted by carsonb at 6:42 PM on August 1, 2010

Can you explain why you made this post without using weird terms like that?
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 6:47 PM on August 1, 2010 [6 favorites]

I see that you have reproduced your comment from the MeFi thread here, but I'm not really sure if I follow what we're supposed to be doing with it. Are you asking for a moratorium on Rassmussen polls across all of Metafilter? That usually doesn't work out.
posted by donnagirl at 6:49 PM on August 1, 2010

@carsonb : sorry dude. /HAMBURGER is used to denote sarcasm in a comment. in this case, am using to mean that any Rassmussen poll should automatically be treated with sarcasm and contempt unless there's data from another polling firm vindicating them. why? because their opinion polls are consistently skew to the extreme right.
posted by liza at 6:50 PM on August 1, 2010

I got quite sick of seeing Rasmussen poll after Rasmussen poll being touted by the usual outlets throughout the healthcare debate last year, so I decided to do a little experiment. I took all of the presidential approval numbers from the RealClearPolitics polling archive, copied them into an Excel file, and graphed the results (expressed as the net approval rating for Obama -- approval % minus disapproval %). Make of it what you will.

I still don't see why this merits a MetaTalk post, but liza's complaints about Rasmussen are not baseless.
posted by Rhaomi at 6:50 PM on August 1, 2010 [5 favorites]

adipocere's point was that the MeFites participating in that thread weren't necessarily representative.

Your point is that Rassmussen polls are not representative either.

DULY NOTED.
posted by carsonb at 6:51 PM on August 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

@donnagirl : brought to metatalk because i saw several people treating the Cordoba House poll Rassmussen ran as gospel of what NYCers truly want to happen downtown.

to make myself clear: i don't believe moratoriums or bans are effective. i honestly don't think they work. but given how their polls consistently slant not just to the right but the extreme right, they ought to be immediately treated as concern trolling. they're really not a realible source for opinion polling (unless you work at FOXNews).
posted by liza at 6:54 PM on August 1, 2010

"i don't know if it would be appropriate to ban Rassmussen polls as a reliable primary source for opinion polling."

I don't think it would be appropriate at all. Polls on all sides are frequently flawed and I wouldn't know where to stop drawing that line. It's the responsibility of the reader(s) to evaluate the source.
posted by vapidave at 6:55 PM on August 1, 2010 [2 favorites]

I parsed this as "Rasmussen has a clear right-wing bias so (since we're all committed leftists here) I know I can't outright suggest a ban, but I'm hoping it'll come if we have a discussion about it. Also, long live the revolution!"
posted by StrikeTheViol at 6:59 PM on August 1, 2010 [2 favorites]

A comment by adipocere in "Democracy is stronger than this.", prompted me to write the following:

Rassmussen isn't the only poll that found a significant number don't like the building be used an Muslim type education center.
posted by nomadicink at 7:00 PM on August 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

adipocere wasn't knowingly propagating bad data—they admitted that poll was found after ten seconds of googling. Your refudiation (YES!) of the source doesn't diminish the contention that the informal poll of MeFites in that thread isn't representative, and is subject to self-selection bias.

It's good to note that Rassmussen polls are tainted/biased in their own way as well. But there's probably a way to do it that doesn't frame an unwitting user as the baddie. This is the sort of situation where your message would greatly benefit from you taking a calm, distanced approach. Fiery, breathless denunciations only get people het up about the way you're going about things.
posted by carsonb at 7:00 PM on August 1, 2010

@StrikeTheViol: as long as it is after 10am and a long and tasty brunch.

as to banning, nah not really. but treat it as concern trolling whenever one of their opinion polls is either quoted of posted? yes please :)
posted by liza at 7:02 PM on August 1, 2010

OK, so you're not asking for a ban, but I'm still unclear on what this MeTa is about. Did you want to talk about Rassmussen here instead of on MeFi? Suggest a policy? Right now it kind of seems like you just wanted people to see your lengthy comment. I get that you care, but what is this thread for?

There's also already a MeTa a couple threads down about that same MeFi post, so it could very well be that people are going to be weary of the topic regardless of your goal.
posted by donnagirl at 7:02 PM on August 1, 2010

@carsonb, honey, if you look at my comments, that's like asking me to write as a different person. that's why i leave the topic to the experts like Nate Silver and Harry Enten. am just here passing along their wisdom. clumsily? sure, maybe; but they're the experts.
posted by liza at 7:04 PM on August 1, 2010

something something MSM punditocracy something
posted by monju_bosatsu at 7:05 PM on August 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

Rasmussen's latest finding confirms that 72% of MeFites hate @ replies.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 7:10 PM on August 1, 2010 [17 favorites]

urble burble message medium something something

If you wanna do an exposé on Rassmussen, write it up, gather the links, and post it to the front page of MeFi. This is a useless thread in MeTa.
posted by carsonb at 7:10 PM on August 1, 2010 [3 favorites]

Darlin'.
posted by carsonb at 7:10 PM on August 1, 2010

Rhaomi, maybe Rassmussen's just precient?

Kidding, kidding, but my inner sophist just couldn't resist.
posted by resiny at 7:11 PM on August 1, 2010

carsonb (and am leaving the @ out) : i really don't think this is a front page MeFi post. and if it is useless, let the mods decide. i just believe Rassmussen's credibility as a source of opinion polling needs to be addressed. that's all.
posted by liza at 7:15 PM on August 1, 2010

That was the very first thing that came up in a search for "new york mosque poll." I searched for a poll because, somehow, there was this the idea that a show of hands from New York MeFites was somehow ... accurate. In a site with a heavy self-selection bias, the idea that the people who happened to be around this morning would have their finger dead on the pulse of New York seemed to be something that might call for someone to ask the question, "Do we have some data on that?" Nobody else was doing it, so I did.

Which do you think is more accurate, a Rassmussen poll or a show of hands on MetaFilter? Which one has a more defensible methodology?

If you presented a paper and had a Rassumessen poll in it, someone could critique your paper for that. Hell, I would. If you presented a paper and said, "Oh, these people on this forum said so," they'd just ... hand your paper back to you silently and stare at you until you left the room.

I noted, clearly, "That was my first attempt, about five seconds on Teh Goog. Are there more?" That was an invite for someone, anyone, to find a better poll. I was obviously open to that. The idea was that, hey, if we want to talk about What New York Feels, let's find some actual data.

Don't just tell me that Rassmussen sucks, either A) show me a better poll or B) be sincere in saying that folks showing up to comment in thread is necessarily more precise than Rassumussen.

You saw "That was my first attempt, about five seconds on Teh Goog. Are there more?" right?
posted by adipocere at 7:17 PM on August 1, 2010

and if it is useless, let the mods decide.

Pfft. I mean, they get the final say of course, but the whole Purpose of MetaTalk is to hash out what is and what isn't an appropriate post by all of us here. In my blessedly allowed opinion, if you don't think this is strong enough to stand up as a post on the blue, then your next option is to do what you did in the thread where it's relevant. Which you did.

Taking it over here was unnecessary and furthermore not a very good way to get the word out on Rassmussen.
posted by carsonb at 7:20 PM on August 1, 2010

I think carsonb and I are on the same path. We're asking you, what's this for? It's not just a placeholder waiting for Mod Input, so we may as well talk about something. Also, calling people "honey" is not a way to help them appreciate your quirky writing style.
posted by donnagirl at 7:28 PM on August 1, 2010

The Rasmussen results are from a poll of 500 people living in New York state, not New York City or the borough of Manhattan. It may be somewhat accurate (Rasmussen's house effect does lean conservative), but I think it isn't terribly relevant to the question of what people in NYC want.

I don't care if people keep citing Rasmussen polls here, but it's worth pointing out her or in thread that they may not always give reliable and relevant results.
posted by maudlin at 7:29 PM on August 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

This is a bullshit MetaTalk post, and a bullshit claim. Rasmussen has a house effect, they're modeling the electorate differently than the rest of the demographic community. They run biased questions and biased phrasing on particular questions, but they're not making shit up like Research 200 was.

Here's more Nate Silver:

Rasmussen's election polling has tended to be quite accurate in the past. Nor, incidentally, has their election polling has a particularly strong house effect in the past; it is something new to the 2010 cycle. But that's OK; each election cycle features different dynamics in terms of turnout and motivation, and what might be smart assumptions in one cycle won't necessarily carry over to the next.

Now, what you do need to be aware of is that Rasmussen's opinion is one among many. They might turn out to be right -- but so might all of the other pollsters who have a different opinion about the electorate. If you're running a news organization and you tend to cite Rasmussen's polls disproportionately, it probably means that you are biased -- it does not necessarily mean that Rasmussen is biased.

posted by anotherpanacea at 7:31 PM on August 1, 2010 [3 favorites]

@anotherpanacea:

The full take from Nate Silver is that they can be trusted close to elections but have a strong tendency to post manipulative polls at any other time to drive narratives. They produce an outrageous poll that drives a talking point putting one candidate ahead and so as not to look inaccurate they get it right later.

You should be as wary of citing them as citing Breitbart, there is an agenda at work that doesn't hold clarity and accuracy as an essential priority.

Their poll presents 58% opposition, a strong majority. Quinnipiac puts it at 52%, barely a majority especially considering the margin of error. That is a big fucking difference.
posted by furiousxgeorge at 7:54 PM on August 1, 2010 [3 favorites]

I don't trust opinion polls at all, because it's utterly foolish to believe that something like a human being's opinion, their understanding and approach toward the world, can be quantified in a binary way. And opinion polls rely on those opinions being very simple, at least on some level, because otherwise a collection of a large number of opinions would be so complex as to be meaningless in the context of an infographic and a percentage point.

Will that suffice?
posted by koeselitz at 8:01 PM on August 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

MetaTalk: rejecting your reality and substituting my own since 2000.
posted by one more dead town's last parade at 8:20 PM on August 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

This just in: 84% of people think polls like this one cannot capture anything meaningful about the opinions of a population.
posted by Salvor Hardin at 8:28 PM on August 1, 2010

also, they push the leaners.
posted by Ironmouth at 8:39 PM on August 1, 2010

Invocation of a Rasmussen poll is in direct violation of Bodkin's Law.
posted by kuujjuarapik at 8:53 PM on August 1, 2010 [2 favorites]

i don't know if it would be appropriate to ban Rassmussen polls as a reliable primary source for opinion polling. first amendment and all that.

The First Amendment has nothing to do with it.
posted by Jaltcoh at 8:54 PM on August 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

liza: "but treat it as concern trolling whenever one of their opinion polls is either quoted of posted? yes please :)"

Broadly dismissing individual polls that may or may not be flawed with the moniker of "concern trolling" seems a bit heavy-handed and probably not the best way to parse the facts. It also strikes me as intellectually dishonest.
posted by dhammond at 8:55 PM on August 1, 2010 [2 favorites]

Ok, noted, Rassmussen polls suck.

Actually, I don't trust any polls. Even a theoretically unbiased telephone poll only gets the opinions from people who answer their phones. I've heard some actually call cell phones, but I'm not sure there are enough cell numbers out there compared to land lines that are on a pollster's list, anyway. The only people I know who answer their land lines when strangers call are my cranky, elderly, in-laws who refuse to get an answering machine, much less caller ID.

selfnoise, we're growing you some sardines in jelly right now
posted by zinfandel at 8:58 PM on August 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

When he himself might his quietus make with a bare Bodkin's Law?
posted by adipocere at 9:00 PM on August 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

Well, I learned something from this post -- and I'm very interested in determining bias in commonly-referenced sources-- so thank you for making it.
posted by zarq at 9:48 PM on August 1, 2010 [1 favorite]

Rasmussen frequently asks unusual polling questions that produce results almost certainly calculated to demonstrate public support for the conservative position.

Do you not not want healthcare reform, or do you not not not want healthcare reform?
posted by XMLicious at 10:49 PM on August 1, 2010 [3 favorites]

Rasmussen has a house effect, they're modeling the electorate differently than the rest of the demographic community. They run biased questions and biased phrasing on particular questions, but they're not making shit up like Research 200 was.

Statistical bias is still statistical bias, whether it is designing your hypothesis, your data collection, and your test to get a desired outcome, or just "making shit up" to get a desired outcome.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 11:46 PM on August 1, 2010

@people who use the @convention:

STOP IT.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 12:08 AM on August 2, 2010 [6 favorites]

Bodkin's Law
Bodkin was a prick and it needles me that his law gets quoted; it's punched full of holes and the intent is to drive home a point that in reality has only the slenderest of...er, run out of crap puns.
posted by Abiezer at 1:23 AM on August 2, 2010

I was not reading this thread, and thus would have missed this info about Rasmussen. MetaTalk is a good place to talk about the sources and tools we use to create posts.

This is a great use for MetaTalk and thank you for posting it, Liza. Don't let the usual dickheads get you down.
posted by Space Coyote at 3:14 AM on August 2, 2010 [3 favorites]

This is a fucking useless Meta thread about one person's opinion that should have been posted in the thread .
posted by nestor_makhno at 4:13 AM on August 2, 2010 [1 favorite]

Instead of banning Rassmussen maybe we can ban the word 'hamburger'.
posted by a womble is an active kind of sloth at 5:44 AM on August 2, 2010 [1 favorite]

Statistical bias is still statistical bias, whether it is designing your hypothesis, your data collection, and your test to get a desired outcome, or just "making shit up" to get a desired outcome.

A house effect is not the same thing as bias. In addition, most polling organizations refuse to restrict their polls to likely voters until September 1st, which means that in this particular midterm election, Rasmussen could be more accurate than the majority of pollsters that disagree using registered voters. The Republicans are really fired up and Democrats are disenchanted. From my perspective, that's unfortunate, but it doesn't mean that Rasmussen is biased: they're reporting a widely recognized phenomenon, using a model that all pollsters recognize is at least potentially more accurate than the "registered voter" model.

More to the point, the wide distinction between Rasmussen and other pollsters is a phenomenon born of this particular race. Historically, they've been within a point of the other polls. So if it does turn out to be a major error on their part, we'll all know in November. Which means we can't know until November.

(All that said, I wouldn't trust them on non-election polls, like the one liza is calling out: when it comes to non-testable claims like opinions that don't lead directly to voting behavior, it's appropriate to severely discount not only Rasmussen but several left-leaning pollsters as well.)
posted by anotherpanacea at 6:13 AM on August 2, 2010

MetaTalk is a good place to talk about the sources and tools we use to create posts.

It seemed enigmatic to me at first, but that's a valid point.

I think really though, trusting any single source for polling these days is probably going to introduce some sort of bias. Look at what Daily Kos just went through with Research 2000. (at least the refudiated what was happening when it was discovered)

Rassmussen seems to have skewed conservative by a few points at least since the 2000 election, though. It's been pointed out on the Tubes before, but some reasoning behind the bias is welcome.
posted by Devils Rancher at 6:48 AM on August 2, 2010

/HAMBURGER is used to denote sarcasm in a comment.

Funny, I define it as "this commenter is wasting my time with an artificial meme when if they damn well cared to indicate it was sarcasm they could have put /sarcasm at the end."

It's on the same order as that group of atheists who started calling themselves Brights because somehow that was better than calling yourself an atheist, a term with its baggage but everyone understood. While Bright was ultimately seen as insulting to anyone who wasn't a Bright (including agnostics), HAMBURGER is just a pointless, redundant fake meme made by people who wanted something to make them look, well, bright.

And I remind you -- sarcasm is 7 letters; HAMBURGER is 9.
posted by dw at 7:12 AM on August 2, 2010 [2 favorites]

What some cheese on that burger, dw?
posted by joe lisboa at 8:05 AM on August 2, 2010

/hamburger
posted by Joseph Gurl at 8:06 AM on August 2, 2010

Funny, I define it as "this commenter is wasting my time with an artificial meme when if they damn well cared to indicate it was sarcasm they could have put /sarcasm at the end."

It would be so much clearer if we would just bring back "Psyche!"
posted by Jaltcoh at 8:12 AM on August 2, 2010

It would be so much clearer if we would just bring back "Psyche!" -- NOT!!
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:26 AM on August 2, 2010 [2 favorites]

This is a bullshit MetaTalk post, and a bullshit claim.

I think it would make a nice FPP if it was de-rantified and filled in a bit more.
posted by fuq at 8:33 AM on August 2, 2010

Why is this here? There are some days I do not envy the mods.

Except I'm lying and it probably still rocks. But it rocks less on days like yesterday and today.
posted by Justinian at 8:44 AM on August 2, 2010

Rassmussen isn't the only poll that found a significant number don't like the building be used an Muslim type education center.

that link you provided makes a few distinctions that I think get lost in the shuffle a little bit.

-it claims a majority of americans disagree with building cordoba. ok, but the point in question in the original thread was what people in nyc think.
-it says a majority of new yorker voters disagree with building cordoba. bear in mind that that's new york state, not new york city. geographically speaking, a lot of new york is about as conservative as any red state. see the first bullet point.
-it says a more nyc citizens support it than are against it.

and that's kind of the crux, there. people seem to be using nyc citizens to make their hateful point about the cordoba center. and nyc citizens are not accurately represented by those claims. it's certainly not like there isn't debate about the topic, but on the spectrum of opinions on the topic, the citizens of new york city are somewhat closer to the "accepting it" side of things. acting otherwise is based largely in either ignorance, misinformation or possibly even willful dishonesty.

which, though I guess it's up to everyone else and the mods to decide how they feel about this meta post, makes me glad liza brought this up. I didn't know anything about Rasmussen, and I'm glad to learn that their data is heavily skewed toward the right. I don't think there's anything wrong with someone having looked up polls and come to the conclusion that Rasmussen's polls were representative. Without information like what liza provided how would anyone know? adipocere certainly isn't at any kind of fault. But still, I'm happy liza made this post for my own sake if nothing else.
posted by shmegegge at 8:58 AM on August 2, 2010 [2 favorites]

posting in this thread is dumb
posted by Mister_A at 9:32 AM on August 2, 2010

Is that like "this statement is a lie"?
posted by Justinian at 10:01 AM on August 2, 2010

When someone is more sarcastic in response to HAMBURGER is that HAMBURGLAR?
posted by ob at 10:36 AM on August 2, 2010

No, just typical.
posted by Babblesort at 11:09 AM on August 2, 2010

My girlfriend's niece was over this morning, so I got to watch Finding Nemo and Ratatouille without making up an crap excuses. If her parents would have stayed another hour or so I could have watched Wall-E too. I love Bank Holiday Mondays.
posted by Elmore at 11:38 AM on August 2, 2010

Why would you need to make up excuses to watch Pixar? Rassmussen says that 84% of respondents who don't like Pixar are ideologically identical to Pol Pot.
posted by Think_Long at 11:50 AM on August 2, 2010

I'm monocle-droppingly shocked at the negative response this thread's getting. Sure, "calling out" a particular source may be an untraditional use of the MetaTalk. Yet more than once today I saw in threads on the Blue people rebuking others for trusting too heavily in Wikipedia, and the veracity and reliability of eHow was pretty roundly thrashed in the recent content farms thread. This attention to reliability and veracity, I think, is a big part of the culture of this place - you have to back up your assertions with appeals to reason, rather than relying solely on faith or emotion... and if anyone doubts that, please reread the most recent (or many of the past) Meta threads about St. Alia.

So why all the hatin'?
posted by jtron at 12:17 PM on August 2, 2010

Speaking for myself, I wasn't hating so much as confused. SpaceCoyote cleared it up a little for me with "MetaTalk is a good place to talk about the sources and tools we use to create posts" but I'll be damned if I can find that in the actual post.
posted by donnagirl at 1:29 PM on August 2, 2010

A house effect is not the same thing as bias.

A "house effect" is bias, as described. As this term relates to Rasmussen, it is equivalent with, at least, sampling and systematic forms of statistical bias.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 1:33 PM on August 2, 2010 [1 favorite]

Incidentally, the Democracy Corps poll is conducted by the Democratic firm of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Reserch in collaboration with Democratic strategist James Carville. Yet the poll has a negative house effect of -1. Does this mean the Democracy Corps poll is biased against Obama? No. It means they use a likey voter sample, which typically produces modestly more pro-Republican responses than do registered voter or adult samples. Assuming that the house effect necessarily reflects a partisan bias is a major mistake.

Rasmussen has exactly the same issue: because they use a likely voter sample, they're not "biased," they're simply modeling a different (and more probable, hence, "likely") electorate than the other pollsters, who use registered voters until September 1st.
posted by anotherpanacea at 1:46 PM on August 2, 2010 [1 favorite]

but treat it as concern trolling whenever one of their opinion polls is either quoted of posted? yes please :)

How frickin' rude. How about we treat a suspect poll as a suspect poll and not cast aspersions on users who might not be hep to polling houses?
posted by Bookhouse at 1:53 PM on August 2, 2010 [1 favorite]

I'm kinda wondering why the massive pile-on of GRAR is occurring too. Unless it's leftover GRAR from the thread that liza references.

Anyhow, while Rasmussen is allegedly biased, I don't see any point in having some general rule that their polls are to be automatically dismissed out of hand.

It seems hard to believe that if a Rasmussen poll is cited that there won't be knowledgeable mefites around who will quickly add their two cents about its reliability as a source. Just as they usually do with any other source that's cited in a comment.
posted by blucevalo at 2:03 PM on August 2, 2010

Well, when it's on fire we are.
posted by carsonb at 10:34 PM on August 2, 2010

YOU! YOUR METATALK IS ON FIRE!
posted by koeselitz at 12:10 AM on August 3, 2010

What makes you think your sources are reliable?

52% of my brain cells say so.
posted by AElfwine Evenstar at 1:01 AM on August 3, 2010

Wow. A MeTa post without a single mod comment. The inmates are, if not running, at least lounging around the asylum unchaperoned...
posted by Joseph Gurl at 3:23 AM on August 5, 2010

What would you have them say here? Members can discuss site-related ideas without handholding sometimes.
posted by Devils Rancher at 7:05 AM on August 5, 2010

Nothing is now not on fire?
posted by fuq at 8:17 AM on August 5, 2010

What would you have them say here? Members can discuss site-related ideas without handholding sometimes.

I didn't say I wanted them here, just noticing it. It's rare. Humans notice things that are rare. If you ever encounter humans, you might also try it in order to gain their trust.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 2:03 AM on August 6, 2010

If you ever encounter humans, you might also try it in order to gain their trust.

Ha! Unlikely.

Wait, wut? Sorry I took that as a complaint and not an observation. My reading skills are... changeable.
posted by Devils Rancher at 6:41 AM on August 6, 2010

Ceci n'est pas une commentaire de modérateur.

Mars a besoin de femmes!
posted by cortex (staff) at 5:47 PM on August 6, 2010