It's going to start feeling lk bngbngs cmmnts n hr f y kp ths p

December 8, 2010 3:47 AM

Cortex, why is it not alright to comment on what I read in the comments that you deleted?

And now you've deleted my comments on them twice. I can understand that you didn't take kindly to the original "fuck you for deleting my comments" but to have deleted my comments after I've edited them is a bit frustrating. You've asked me to take this to MetaTalk, so here it is: how were my comments worthy of censorship? I'm *not* the person who bought an account just to post a long personal attack. I just had one small comment that got deleted, and then I reported in brief on what you deleted... and got deleted.

Maybe you deal with this sort of thing all day long, but it's come off as heavy handed to me.

Am I allowed to post my comments here in MetaTalk without censorship?

And, because I have to ask: Is this Jacob Appelbaum a personal friend of yours? Is that why you deleted my comment(s)?

posted by Catblack to MetaFilter-Related at 3:47 AM (142 comments total)

Related thread
posted by yaymukund at 3:50 AM on December 8, 2010

*farts loudly*
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 3:51 AM on December 8, 2010 [10 favorites]

Cortex, why is it not alright to comment on what I read in the comments that you deleted?

I would guess that the comments were deleted because they were off-topic or otherwise broke the guidelines. So further comments which respond to those deleted comments are also going to be off-topic, or not really relevant anymore once the original comments are deleted. I wouldn't take it personally.
posted by Infinite Jest at 3:54 AM on December 8, 2010

If you want to ask cortex something, you should use email, memail, or some other technology to contact him. If you want to drag me (and everyone else) into it, maybe you should provide a bit more context.
posted by GeckoDundee at 3:56 AM on December 8, 2010 [8 favorites]

Cortex, why is it not alright to comment on what I read in the comments that you deleted?

Partly because I'm trying to keep a thread from going super-weird right out of the gate, and explicitly dragging back out the content of the deleted stuff makes that a lot harder.

Partly because you weren't just commenting on what you read, you were also having a metacommentary argument about moderation in the blue and that's pretty much always a "no, you need to write us an email or take it to metatalk if you want to discuss that" situation.

Metatalk is here specifically so folks can talk about stuff that doesn't really make sense as part of a thread itself. You should have come here straight off the bat. If we were talking about censorship, my response would not be "go start a public discussion in the appropriate part of the site", it would be banning you and pretending this never happened. Tired jibes about Boing Boing (you clearly do not know my position there) do not make it otherwise.

I do not know or know pretty much anything about Appelbaum and had to check the link in the post to figure out his username. Weird out-of-the-gate ranty derails in mefi threads do not need to be about people I know to get deleted as bad commenting; I have no idea what ezpeel's issue is with Appelbaum and I don't really care so long as it doesn't mean angry manifestos chucked into threads.
posted by cortex (staff) at 3:56 AM on December 8, 2010 [9 favorites]

It's not very clear what you mean here, but it looks like you responded to comments that got deleted, and so your comments were also deleted? If that's the case, this is normal, because it wouldn't make sense to leave responses to comments that are no longer there in the thread. Otherwise the rest of the thread would be all "Huh?" and "did something get deleted?" rather than discussion of the post.
It's happened to me, when part of my comment was a response to something that got deleted and the other part was an invaluable, insightful contribution to the discussion of the topic at hand; I was a bit upset but in the larger scheme of things it's just pearls before swine anyway.
on preview: Cortex, shouldn't you be sleeping?
posted by nowonmai at 3:59 AM on December 8, 2010

You do not have what you call 'free speech' here.

And if you insist on using the word "censorship" they will accuse you of "conspiracy craziness".
And if you don't use the proper etiquette they will correct you on that in order that your original complaint is lost in the discussion.

This will probably be dele.....
posted by AuntieRuth at 4:00 AM on December 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

Ruthless.
posted by pracowity at 4:06 AM on December 8, 2010 [8 favorites]

I think the original comment was a bit heavy handed, but it was a valid counterpoint to the idea that this Jacob guy is a superhero. Now all we're left with is...well nothing. Which is unfair and misleading actually, which is not a good place to be.
posted by Duug at 4:06 AM on December 8, 2010

This callout is pretty bizarre. I mean you've been here for two years, so you should know that cortex's deletion is pretty much par for the course. If you worked hard on the deleted comments, you might ask the mods to retrieve them and then you could edit them (removing the derail-y stuff) and repost?
posted by yaymukund at 4:06 AM on December 8, 2010

Good morning, cortex. Hope you have a nice day.
posted by jbickers at 4:15 AM on December 8, 2010 [46 favorites]

This callout only seems bizarre because it lacks the context provided by the deleted comments.
posted by Ardiril at 4:18 AM on December 8, 2010

Thank you all for the replies. I appreciate the discussion. I was just a little (perhaps understandably) tiffed that my comments just disappeared. If you'd messaged me "hey, play nice" I would have understood. But yes, I can see how the mefi FAQs say "hey, play nice" multiple times. It was just the sudden absence of my comment(s) that caused alarm.

I can totally understand your actions, Cortex, and I can see how I was being an ass. My apologies.

I can also see how the original rant (that was not by me at all) would have derailed the discussion of the fpp -- but also, as the fpp refers to a 'superhero' I thought that it was a mighty juicy toppling of the fpp's mythbuilding. I just wish it was still in my cache, it was clearly from someone with a grudge against that guy.
posted by Catblack at 4:23 AM on December 8, 2010 [5 favorites]

Now all we're left with is...well nothing.

Now what we're left with is people having every right to contribute substantively to that thread in a non-ranty way, regardless of their opinions, negative or positive, about the dude. Weird brand-new-account ranting and metacommentary not so okay. This is pretty basic stuff around here. Catblack's already gone back to the thread and jumped in with the not-obviously-in-the-wrong-place portion of his earlier comment, so that works out well.

And if you insist on using the word "censorship" they will accuse you of "conspiracy craziness".

No, if you use some predicatable Orwell reference in an email to the mods and then another user references the same reference in jest specifically because it's a predictable thing people trot out when complaining on the internet, and then you accuse the mods of spreading your email around because clearly that's the only way anyone could have guessed you might react to a deletion with "thought police!", you will get told that you are inventing a conspiratorial element that does not exist.

Cortex, shouldn't you be sleeping?

Yep, but every once in a while it doesn't work out that way.

I can totally understand your actions, Cortex, and I can see how I was being an ass. My apologies.

No sweat, it happens. I do get where you're coming from as far as the framing of the post, there's just better ways to tackle that then what originally happened in the thread.
posted by cortex (staff) at 4:27 AM on December 8, 2010 [3 favorites]

To clarify, I had made a small comment on some (new) one's ranty personal attack, ("whoa, bet you could google some of that to verify it") which had got deleted, and then I posted about what I'd read that was in that ranty personal attack, and that got deleted, but I was being a bit of an ass about it. So I posted here.
posted by Catblack at 4:35 AM on December 8, 2010

Open the pod bay doors, Cortex.
posted by doublehappy at 4:36 AM on December 8, 2010 [2 favorites]

You do not have what you call 'free speech' here.

I am far-left-shading-into-unhinged on the topic of civil liberties, but I genuinely don't understand why this in any way controversial or surprising. The government is who promised us free speech. Matt is not the government. There is literally nothing else to discuss on the the subject of free speech and Metafilter. There are a million things to discuss on the subject of community standards, moderation, openness, courtesy, etc. That's why we have Metatalk. But if you don't understand how those are different from free speech, you are confused.

Also, good on you for apologizing, Catblack.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 4:41 AM on December 8, 2010 [17 favorites]

Yes, but seriously. You do practice censorship here.

And you do work in concert to control what's said and how it's said.

We even have to agree on gender neutrality here so that we don't offend the confused.

Wasn't that the point of Orwell? What you call tired and predictable, others call classic.
If you don't agree with the "party line", you can't be a good Mefite. Isn't that how cults operate?
posted by AuntieRuth at 4:42 AM on December 8, 2010

Ruth, I've found that most of the mods' "censorship" is only in the interest of keeping discussions from spinning irretrievably out of control into pointless arguing.

Setting aside the fact that "censorship" is only something governments can do -- and the fact that private groups can do whatever the hell they want within their own circles -- the notion of "censoring" things is based on what a given society or community finds objectionable or permissible. There are some things that this given community, called "Metafilter," finds objectionable. The mods enforce the rules of that society, and by paying your five dollars you agreed to abide by those rules. These rules can be changed, but only if the will of the society agrees to it. Until then...the mods are just enforcing the law which you agreed to abide by when you signed on.

Our government does that. Does that make our government "a cult"?

Moreover, I'm presuming that you're upset because a comment of yours got cut -- presumably, others in the community found that comment objectionable. Do they not deserve their rights as well?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:48 AM on December 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

AuntieRuth: "Yes, but seriously. You do practice censorship here."

No, it isn't. "Censorship" implies that someone is being silenced for what they believe; it is an alarmist and inaccurate accusation. Plenty of people on this site are capable of making appropriate ideological arguments that might clash with the majority, and these comments still stand. This underlines the inaccuracy of the "censorship" charge.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 4:55 AM on December 8, 2010 [4 favorites]

Probably this and it's related Metatalk thread.
posted by SyntacticSugar at 4:56 AM on December 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

Damn it.
posted by SyntacticSugar at 4:57 AM on December 8, 2010

If you don't agree with the "party line", you can't be a good Mefite. Isn't that how cults operate?

Metafilter isn't a cult, it's a culture. So yes, we have community-driven standards of what acceptable and unacceptable behaviors are. There's nothing sinister about that.
posted by padraigin at 4:57 AM on December 8, 2010 [8 favorites]

You do practice censorship editing here.

I think that's what you meant. I mean, at its essence, that's what Metafilter is: an edited version of the web.

If you want a completely unedited, unmoderated forum, I know of several newspaper comment pages you could visit.
posted by armage at 4:58 AM on December 8, 2010 [4 favorites]

AuntieRuth, just relax, sit back, and have some of this nice kool-aid I mixed up for you.
posted by Salvor Hardin at 5:00 AM on December 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

Y'know, just after I posted this MetaTalk, my cable modem went out. I sat here for about a minute doing my best Joe Cocker face thinking I'd been IP banned from MeFi. This account may be 2 years old, but I've been reading the big blue since it started.
posted by Catblack at 5:11 AM on December 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

You go back to sleep now Maw Maw.
posted by nomadicink at 5:13 AM on December 8, 2010

Hey di....nk, the only item in your shopping cart is a very dull little brain
posted by AuntieRuth at 5:21 AM on December 8, 2010

Hi AuntieRuth.
Welcome to the Internet.
The best way to grasp the basics of etiquette on a website, and more so in a privately owned website, is to think of it as a place, say, a restaurant for example.

There are all kinds of implicit rules in a restaurant. You don't pay attention to them because you have known them for so long, but you abide by them.

You can't sit on the ground in a restaurant, you have to use a chair.
You can't pee in a restaurant, you have to use the bathroom.
You can't climb on tables in a restaurant, it's not allowed.
You can't help yourself in a restaurant: waiters are paid to do just that.
You can't smoke in a restaurant. Not anymore. Rules have changed.

So, is any of these rules a case of censorship? Of course not. They are rules of of the house. In MetaFilter, these house rules are very well explained in the Guidelines and in the FAQ. Read them.

You are welcome.
posted by bru at 5:22 AM on December 8, 2010 [25 favorites]

Nah, you won't get IP blocked. jessamyn prefers hellbanning people.
posted by graventy at 5:22 AM on December 8, 2010

it's not little!
posted by nomadicink at 5:25 AM on December 8, 2010 [14 favorites]

So someone created an account just to post an apparently over-the-top rant against Jacob Appelbaum?

Huh.
posted by mediareport at 5:27 AM on December 8, 2010

FYI though, Jacob Applebaum is an alien 5th columnist, Knights Templar Armor Polisher and Bigfoot-abettor. Just so we're clear.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 5:44 AM on December 8, 2010

If you don't agree with the "party line", you can't be a good Mefite. Isn't that how cults operate?

You don't actually know anything about cults, do you? Or censorship.

Head on over to the comments section of a newspaper, or a site like gizmodo, reddit, or boingboing and write a comment that would break their guidelines. Watch it get deleted/dsmvwlld. There. Now you have been censored on other parts of the internets, and by other cults! Feel better?
posted by rtha at 5:47 AM on December 8, 2010 [3 favorites]

I can totally understand your actions, Cortex, and I can see how I was being an ass. My apologies.

You obviously don't understand MetaTalk. Them's fightin words!
posted by blue_beetle at 5:52 AM on December 8, 2010

Them's fightin words!

Quick, someone get on the piano (the pianey is also acceptable)! It's fightin' time!
posted by Ghidorah at 5:54 AM on December 8, 2010 [2 favorites]

Draw!
posted by pracowity at 6:03 AM on December 8, 2010

Wasn't that the point of Orwell?

Not really, no. Perhaps you should reread 1984 if you're confused.
posted by OmieWise at 6:03 AM on December 8, 2010 [2 favorites]

The idea that only official, government censorship is censorship is one of those American things.

But - like whether you think heliocentrism is something rather misleading or just something that requires a bit of coordinate shifting - whether it is a shrivelled conception of the domain of the issues involved in assessing appropriate freedom of expression in the face of various manifestations of power or just a thing like the funny way they pronounce "herb" it's... Oh, never mind: It's censorship, but not as you know it.
posted by hawthorne at 6:05 AM on December 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

If you don't agree with the "party line", you can't be a good Mefite.
Of course you can, but we only allow factions in the six months prior to a full Party Congress. Otherwise you can fuck off into exile with the rest of the Trotskyist-fascist wreckers.
posted by Abiezer at 6:09 AM on December 8, 2010 [2 favorites]

You mean I've been standing in the wrong line this whole time?
posted by Sailormom at 6:13 AM on December 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

May I interrupt for a moment to say that as of December 8, 9:16 AM EST, the Yule Goat has not been set on fire.
posted by marxchivist at 6:13 AM on December 8, 2010 [7 favorites]

Ooooh! Is this the thread where the dissidents rise up and throw off our oppressive, liberal overlords? Somebody page Crabby Appleton! The revolution is ON!
posted by charred husk at 6:14 AM on December 8, 2010 [2 favorites]

the Yule Goat has not been set on fire.

I'll be right back.
posted by Ghidorah at 6:16 AM on December 8, 2010 [5 favorites]

(_(
/_/'_____/)
"  |      |
   |""""""|

posted by pracowity at 6:17 AM on December 8, 2010 [2 favorites]

Today is an interesting day to be an Internaut.
posted by clearly at 6:18 AM on December 8, 2010 [4 favorites]

So did the person who bought an account to rant against the subject of the original metafilter post minutes after it went up get banned?

I have never seen that one before. Life is a box of chocolates Forrest &c.
posted by bukvich at 6:20 AM on December 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

We even have to agree on gender neutrality here so that we don't offend the confused.

I hate to be the one to do this, but this is kind of offensive. I'm not confused about my gender, thank you very much, but other people frequently are.
posted by wayland at 6:24 AM on December 8, 2010 [9 favorites]

If someone would paraphrase the myth busting commentary I'd be grateful.
posted by By The Grace of God at 6:25 AM on December 8, 2010

Yeah, Hawthorne, I can agree with you there. I think there's something built into the American cultural DNA where we think "ah, free speech is delineated in the Bill of Rights, therefore censorship must need to happen at the same level of authority". That doesn't mean I begrudge the mods their deletions; a lot of noisy nonsense (which is not commentary on any participants in this thread) ought to be expunged.

AuntieRuth: "Wasn't that the point of Orwell? What you call tired and predictable, others call classic. "
What? No, that's lazy and petulant. Metatalk's existence is a strong argument against Metafilter being Orwellian. Another argument against is the mod's willingness to address people's concerns in a forum rather than, say, putting a bee cage on complainant's heads.
posted by boo_radley at 6:26 AM on December 8, 2010 [3 favorites]

Bees would make Metatalk a lot more awesome.
posted by kmz at 6:30 AM on December 8, 2010

The only thing Mefi censors is jerk-itude, which is fine.
posted by r_nebblesworthII at 6:31 AM on December 8, 2010

Oh, never mind: It's censorship, but not as you know it.

Dude, if we were talking about, I dunno, Google manipulating their search results to "disappear" sites, that would be one thing. Large corporations hold government-like powers. But Metafilter? Metafilter is not a huge corporate power.
posted by kmz at 6:34 AM on December 8, 2010

Censorship is the act of preventing you from saying something. You're perfectly welcome to say whatever you want on your own blog or in other places. Matt doesn't have to provide you a platform to say whatever you like on Metafilter.

Equally, the NY Times doesn't have to publish an article you send them; if you come to my house and start ranting like Fred Phelps I'll ask you to leave, etc. Those things aren't censorship.
posted by Infinite Jest at 6:40 AM on December 8, 2010 [3 favorites]

AuntieRuth: "You do not have what you call 'free speech' here. "

You were probably joking, and Horace covered this pretty well upthread, but this is one of my big pet peeves: You do not have, nor should you expect, the freedom to say whatever you want on Metafilter. This is somebody else's house, and they get to make the rules, period. That they open those rules for public display and discussion is a wonderful courtesy, but not a requirement. If you want the ability to say whatever you want whenever you want, you'd be advised to GYOB.
posted by l33tpolicywonk at 6:49 AM on December 8, 2010 [6 favorites]

I'll be glad when the holidays are over, everyone gets a bit crazy this time of year....
posted by HuronBob at 6:50 AM on December 8, 2010 [2 favorites]

dsmvwlld

R thy rlly stll dng tht, nd ds "y" cnt?
posted by Rock Steady at 6:54 AM on December 8, 2010

AuntieRuth, no one wanted you to use gender neutrality in your post in order to, as you say, not offend the confused.

In fact, no one asked you to use gender neutrality at all, they just told you the obvious: all men are not the same, so asking for "a gift for a man" is simply not enough info for users to answer the question in anything other than the most abstract terms.

Ask for a gift for a specific man, and you're fine.

Also, if you wanted to talk about the generic gifts trotted out by novelty companies as "for men", you could always go to Metachat, where chatfilter like that is perfectly acceptable.

And we have all gone over this before, in the Metatalk thread dealing with your deletion. But you are still holding a grudge.

At what point do you realize that you are taking this all far too personally? Think about it: you are logging in to a site to complain about the site policies three weeks after having one question deleted.

Doesn't that seem a bit excessive even to you?
posted by misha at 6:57 AM on December 8, 2010 [11 favorites]

I'll be glad when the holidays are over, everyone gets a bit crazy this time of year....

WHY WERE YOU LOOKING AT ME WHEN YOU WROTE THAT?!
posted by nomadicink at 6:57 AM on December 8, 2010 [5 favorites]

I finally understand that Homage to Catalonia was really about deletion policies online. At last! That books has puzzled me for years.
posted by Astro Zombie at 7:02 AM on December 8, 2010 [6 favorites]

Cortex once deleted a comment in Mefi just to watch it die.
posted by Zed at 7:03 AM on December 8, 2010 [20 favorites]

Anyone got any jimson weed?
posted by Burhanistan at 7:03 AM on December 8, 2010

Aaah my nose itches so bad!
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 7:16 AM on December 8, 2010

Never mind, I scratched it.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 7:16 AM on December 8, 2010 [3 favorites]

Censorship is the act of preventing you from saying something. You're perfectly welcome to say whatever you want on your own blog or in other places.

I always see this defense trotted out when someone complains about being silenced all their lives, and I don't like it much. It implies there _are_ opinions we don't like on metafilter, but it's ok because people who hold them can go air them somewhere else. This is a very poor interpretation of the moderation policy, and frankly just validates the original complaint.

I don't think a substantial, reasonably civil argument for any position on any topic would get deleted outright in any part of the site if it was presented in good faith. A personal attack, derail, content-free insult or stunt comment might be, but this is not a matter of unwelcome opinion --- just poor social behavior.
posted by Dr Dracator at 7:22 AM on December 8, 2010

AuntieRuth, as far as I can tell, your position is:

1) The mods deleted your chatty AskMe.

2) You made the mistake of cracking open a big ole MeTa about the matter and then were surprised /angry when nearly everyone regarded you as a total flibbertigibbet.

3) All of this is offensive, because every stray thought that pops into your head is worthy of prime MeFi real estate, where it shall be burned irrevocably into the memory of the internets for all time, regardless of what the site's rules and customs may be. And anyone who dares suggest otherwise is trying to SILENCED YOUR WHOLE LIFE
posted by hermitosis at 7:35 AM on December 8, 2010 [6 favorites]

It implies there _are_ opinions we don't like on metafilter, but it's ok because people who hold them can go air them somewhere else.

Fair point. I certainly wasn't intending to imply that. In the case of Metafilter it's more 'there are ways of expressing those opinions which aren't appropriate on Metafilter'. As you say in your second paragraph. Perhaps my comment reads better as 'you can start your own blog and be as abusive, de-raily or stunty as you like, but on MeFi there are different standards, and being held to those standards is not censorship'.
posted by Infinite Jest at 7:35 AM on December 8, 2010 [2 favorites]

cortex ate my babby.
posted by special-k at 7:41 AM on December 8, 2010 [4 favorites]

i am truly sorry for your lots
posted by Burhanistan at 7:43 AM on December 8, 2010 [8 favorites]

Yes, but seriously. You do practice censorship here.

By the strict definition of censorship, this is true.

And you do work in concert to control what's said and how it's said.

This is not exactly true. You're implying a form of censorship that doesn't really exist here.

On the Blue, comments and posts that start flamewars get deleted. Personal attacks are often also deleted. Comments that simply derail a thread are not often deleted, unless they start a flamewar or are a personal attack. Posts that are framed more objectively and don't cause flamewars usually survive no matter their topic.

On the Green, comments that don't answer the question being asked are deleted. Certain posts may also be deleted, if they don't fit the sharply defined AskMe guidelines. This is done to ensure that AskMe remains a helpful tool for those who use it.

On the Gray, posts may be closed for a variety of reasons. But comments are almost never deleted here, and posts are deleted extremely rarely.

We even have to agree on gender neutrality here so that we don't offend the confused.

This is a diverse, global community that includes folks living on six continents who have a variety of social values. The mods job is to keep the peace, and make sure things run smoothly. But that's not really what this is about, is it?

AskMe has a very specific purpose, and the post you're still smarting about had problems which have already been explained by the mods and multiple members of this community. If you need further clarification on that, why not ask them (or us) directly? Or if you have specific questions, why not ask them of the community? Making snide, contextless comments about censorship that aren't accurate seems like a waste of your and our time.

Wasn't that the point of Orwell? What you call tired and predictable, others call classic.

This ain't Room 101, and we save the flesh-devouring rats for special occasions.

Can you point to a specific instance of exception-less site-wide censorship?

If you don't agree with the "party line", you can't be a good Mefite. Isn't that how cults operate?

What party line? Define it, please. What exactly are the mods demanding that we agree with, other than that we work together to form a community that isn't filled with trolls and people being nasty to each other?
posted by zarq at 7:45 AM on December 8, 2010 [7 favorites]

You have to love Lady Gaga, for one. Woe unto he who dare meh at her shining image, for you shall face re-education.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 7:48 AM on December 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

Dear Asking MetaFilters:
I require a list of satisfactory gifts for an Earth human (Homo sapiens). Gender unknown.
They like "things" but dislike "stuff".
COMMENCE ANSWERS.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 7:49 AM on December 8, 2010 [24 favorites]

Cortex once deleted a comment in Mefi just to watch it die.

Yes and then the poster came back and, not seeing her/his dear little comment, she/he writhed in agony about not knowing how it died. Dear MetaTalk, did you see my comment die? Did it suffer much? What were its last words?

The same minus the drama: it is a bit like when we after a long day in another city came back to the train station of our city and my daughter's bike was gone. It feels so very much like it should be there, yet somehow it fails to be. So you turn around in helpless fury and try to find someone responsible. If it was crooks, damn the crooks. If it turns out that the police took the bike because it was stupidly placed: even more blasphemy about the police state we have to live in...

Only, deleted comments aren't really like stolen bikes. Every deletion I got made me to go into the kitchen and make me some coffee instead; sign to get up from my desk, is all.

[and then this endless bickering over words. With recent discussions about "racism" still fresh in my mind, it boggles the same to find that people seem unable to see the straw-puppet trick pulled here. You put out a word that everyone can have a good shriek at, in the hope of creating reality where it doesn't belong. Let the mods do their work instead, for Pete's sake]
posted by Namlit at 8:00 AM on December 8, 2010

I ran
Jacob's code
That was on
the harddrive

And that
you had probably
downloaded
as a tarball

Forgive me
It was fun
but old
and hard to Make
posted by zippy at 8:05 AM on December 8, 2010 [6 favorites]

What party line?

Conga Line, of course!
posted by nomadicink at 8:10 AM on December 8, 2010

cortex ate you babby because he was up in the middle of the night working. Why would you deny cortex sustenance? Are you some kind of commie?
posted by rtha at 8:10 AM on December 8, 2010

"You have to love Lady Gaga, for one. Woe unto he who dare meh at her shining image, for you shall face re-education."

I happened on a lady gaga video the other day, and spent some time pausing it and actually looking at who she is... Sometimes we regret our decisions.
posted by HuronBob at 8:11 AM on December 8, 2010

Mods job.
Mod's job.
Mods' job.
Modjob.
MODDJOB.

Now all they need are metal, razor-edged bowler hats and we'll be able to rob Fort Knox of 15 billion dollars in gold bullion and....

Uhhhh.... nothing, nothing. Nevermind. Please forget I ever mentioned it.
posted by zarq at 8:12 AM on December 8, 2010 [3 favorites]

Aunt Ruth, do you want your $5 back? Because I will send it to you gladly, or to a charity of your choice.

This is mathowie's coffeehouse. Anybody's welcome if they chip in $5 to pay the staff. If you're sitting on the table or throwing spitballs at the espresso machine, the staff comes around and either clears up your mess silently or tells you to cut that shit out.

You're welcome to sit on the tables and throw spitballs in your own home, or anywhere else you find table-sitting, spitball-throwing ridiculous gender essentialism that was outdated in 1960 and your other most favorite stuff tolerated.

People behaving, and being encouraged to behave, in ways the management finds appropriate and respectful isn't a "cult" here anymore than it is at your local restaurant.
posted by Sidhedevil at 8:16 AM on December 8, 2010 [3 favorites]

I quite deliberately the whole thing.
posted by flabdablet at 8:18 AM on December 8, 2010

I like discussion here better than anywhere else because there is a culture, there are rules, there is an entry fee to discourage both drive-by reactionary sign-ups or serial sign-ups for crummy commenting, and because there is professional moderation, and I only need spend minutes reading comments on Reddit or Digg or YouTube or Yahoo Answers or a bunch of other places to be reminded on the difference that makes. If you don't like how these things impact discussion here you can go post on any of the zillions of open-sign-in, lightly or non-moderated forums out there. You can go ask your question on Yahoo Answers. Oh but the discussions there are a bunch of numbnutted gibbering chaos? Your Yahoo question only gets a tiny handful of answers most of which are dumb or wisecracks? Q.E.D., pal.
posted by nanojath at 8:20 AM on December 8, 2010 [3 favorites]

OH LOOK SISYPHUS THERE GOES YOUR ROCK AGAIN
posted by Sidhedevil at 8:22 AM on December 8, 2010 [28 favorites]

Who are you calling SISY?
posted by zippy at 8:24 AM on December 8, 2010

So did the person who bought an account to rant against the subject of the original metafilter post minutes after it went up get banned?

Nope, not as far as I can tell. They're on our watchlist which doesn't mean much except that we'll keep a slightly closer eye on them.

I don't think a substantial, reasonably civil argument for any position on any topic would get deleted outright in any part of the site if it was presented in good faith. A personal attack, derail, content-free insult or stunt comment might be, but this is not a matter of unwelcome opinion --- just poor social behavior.

This is pretty much how we feel. There is a point at which people who are belaboring their unpopular opinions will probably be asked why they choose to be someplace where they fight with people all the time, but that's okay and part of the whole thing. I feel slightly weird about how this sort of thing works in the larger world sometimes -- why are you in America if you hate capitalism so much? is the one I rub up against sometimes -- but membership in MetaFilter is not only totally voluntary it affords you almost no advantage in the real world over being a part of any other online community. Accordingly, we do not feel that keeping you from being ranty or abusive or bullying or racist is in any way limiting your real world choices for ... anything.

This is, of course, an overgeneralization, but the reason free speech is such a big deal in the larger world, one of them, is that access to things like public education and public spaces and right to redress of government and all of that could be limited or impinged upon, your life options could be limited, if you were unable to speak freely. That's against the rules as we see them in the US [more or less, I know there are edge cases, please do not make this thread about Wikileaks] at least in principle.

I don't know how to say it without seeming sort of crappy but you don't have the same rights on MetaFilter. I'd go so far as to say you don't have the same rights on almost any web site on the internet that isn't yours. We can get into a big discussion about censorship vs editing vs selection vs I don't know what, if people want to, but it's not a surprise that this website has rules and guidelines to anyone who posts here. We do extensive work with people who have a hard time understanding the guidelines if they are making a good faith effort to interact here.

There's no free speech at my house either, even thogh I defend it aggressively in my library-workplace. Let the librarian jokes commence.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:29 AM on December 8, 2010 [12 favorites]

man i'm just happy that quonsar is back. this place was getting stuffy.

next campaign: BRING BACK OPTIMUS CHYME
posted by Baby_Balrog at 8:32 AM on December 8, 2010 [6 favorites]

This is mathowie's coffeehouse

WOOHOO! I always knew that $5 membership would pay off some day.

I'd like a Venti Caramel Macchiato, please. With non-fat milk.

*places mug on cd-rom tray.*

*waits for creamy sweet deliciousness*

*waits*

*waits patiently*

*taps foot*

*waits*

*waits impatiently*

*reads magazine*

*waits*

*checks email*

*waits*

Damn, the service here SUCKS!

Hey, I have a pony request....
posted by zarq at 8:35 AM on December 8, 2010 [10 favorites]

Dear Asking MetaFilters:
I require a list of satisfactory gifts for an Earth human (Homo sapiens). Gender unknown.
They like "things" but dislike "stuff".
COMMENCE ANSWERS.

Follow up:

XX Chromosome human received gift with auditory response "you shouldn't have," and is currently shedding fluid from light sensors while sequestered in sleeping chamber of domicile and refuses ingress or egress queries.

Please hope.
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:39 AM on December 8, 2010 [8 favorites]

Let the librarian jokes commence.

You know what would have been awesome in the Alien movies? If Ripley was a librarian.

Ripley: Just tell me one thing, Burke. You're going out there to destroy the old cataloguing system, right? Not to study. Not to bring back. But to wipe it out.

Burke: That's the plan. You have my word on it.

Ripley: All right, I'm in.

posted by nomadicink at 8:40 AM on December 8, 2010 [10 favorites]

You're going out there to destroy the old cataloguing system, right?

Bullshit, Ripley would never support RDA.

(That joke will be hilarious to the two people who get it.)
posted by Horace Rumpole at 8:42 AM on December 8, 2010 [6 favorites]

Ripley would never support RDA.

AH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

actually I don't get it but I am sure I would find your explanation hilarious

I require a list of satisfactory gifts for an Earth human

You'll be happy to know we brought back the dancing santa on the AskMe "ask a question" page.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:46 AM on December 8, 2010 [5 favorites]

I just noticed this:

You may ask another question in: 2 days, 22 hours, 52 minutes, and 37 seconds.

I've wanted that pony for a long time.

THANK YOU!

Ummm.... can I have one for the Blue, too? :)
posted by zarq at 8:49 AM on December 8, 2010

Someone should smuggle all these deleted comments out to Wikileaks.
posted by idiomatika at 8:51 AM on December 8, 2010 [2 favorites]

Aren't there Mefites on all seven continents?
posted by Riki tiki at 8:52 AM on December 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

Oh, that's COOL! I forgot about that.
posted by zarq at 8:52 AM on December 8, 2010

actually I don't get it but I am sure I would find your explanation hilarious

RDA is the new set of cataloging rules that is replacing AACR2, and it is widely detested by old skool catalogers. Luckily, I got out of cataloging just in time to not have to learn it.

In retrospect, I may have oversold the hilarity.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 8:55 AM on December 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

"...the thing is, we don't know what censorship looks like."
Censorship, censorship, censorship, possibly The Censor-ship, multiple censor-ships. Sensor-Ship. Not censorship.
posted by infinite intimation at 8:56 AM on December 8, 2010

I would like the last word.
posted by WPW at 8:56 AM on December 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

I finally understand that Homage to Catalonia was really about deletion policies online. At last! That books has puzzled me for years.

It's the acronyms that mess me up: Am I rooting for GYOB, or should I back SLYT even though they're just Stalinist puppets, and why were FTFY such jerks?
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:58 AM on December 8, 2010 [3 favorites]

I would like the last word.

Yeah, well, good luck with that shit around here...
posted by OneMonkeysUncle at 9:07 AM on December 8, 2010 [2 favorites]

Bullshit, Ripley would never support RDA.

MANIFESTATIONS

"They're coming outta the expressions. They're coming outta the goddamn expressions! Let's book!"
posted by cog_nate at 9:12 AM on December 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

You can't smoke in a restaurant. Not anymore. Rules have changed.

Not in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, or South Korea.

Come on over! Smoke 'em if you got 'em!
posted by Meatbomb at 9:18 AM on December 8, 2010

jessamyn: "Let the librarian jokes commence."

How Many Librarians does it take to change a light bulb? Just five. One changes the light bulb while the other four form a committee and write a letter of protest to the Dean, because after all, changing light bulbs IS NOT professional work!

OK, enough rote material, here's an original for you:
How Many Librarians does it take to change a light bulb? Good question, let me look that up.
posted by boo_radley at 9:27 AM on December 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

How many librarians does it take to change a light bulb?

None. We must archive the bulb in its original state.
posted by Zed at 9:30 AM on December 8, 2010 [6 favorites]

The best way to grasp the basics of etiquette on a website, and more so in a privately owned website, is to think of it as a place, say, a restaurant for example.

We went to the Philly Pizza Co. and ordered some hot tea. The waitress said "Well, no, we only have it iced." So we jumped up on the table and shouted "ANARCHY!!!"
posted by AkzidenzGrotesk at 9:33 AM on December 8, 2010 [13 favorites]

The other week I was considering a rewrite as "Hipster Girl", but I couldn't get past

One Saturday I rode my Schwinn to Williamsburg

before it started to seem like a hopelessly bad idea.
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:46 AM on December 8, 2010 [6 favorites]

The Yule Goat....still not on fire
posted by lakersfan1222 at 9:50 AM on December 8, 2010

Can we have a banner if the yule goat gets set on fire?
posted by boo_radley at 10:04 AM on December 8, 2010

My aunt Ruth had the Christmas-gift problem solved--everybody got a Tupperware container of homemade fudge, year after year after year, no exceptions. Ah, I miss her.
posted by box at 10:08 AM on December 8, 2010 [3 favorites]

They're on our watchlist which doesn't mean much except that we'll keep a slightly closer eye on them.
posted by jessamyn

Don't let her fool you my ever vigilant brothers and sisters, when you click Preview, be SURE to reject the popup that asks permission to perform a "Javascript Enhanced Patdown."
posted by haveanicesummer at 10:08 AM on December 8, 2010 [2 favorites]

Bullshit, Ripley would never support RDA.

(That joke will be hilarious to the two people who get it.)

Oh hi! Unfortunately, the reason I know RDA is because we're a test site and the head of cataloging is currently freaking the freak out about it. You picked a good time to get out of the biz.

posted by librarylis at 10:10 AM on December 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

They're on our watchlist which doesn't mean much except that we'll keep a slightly closer eye on them.

Si ves snark, di snark.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 10:20 AM on December 8, 2010

Go back to Boing Boing, then, dude.
posted by koeselitz at 10:21 AM on December 8, 2010

We even have to agree on gender neutrality here

hehehehe

sheshesheshe?
posted by Bernt Pancreas at 10:30 AM on December 8, 2010

jejejeje

Because I am an egotist.

(I originally typed that as "egotits" which is probably what Mel Gibson would call me.)
posted by Sidhedevil at 10:33 AM on December 8, 2010 [9 favorites]

> Bullshit, Ripley would never support RDA.

I, for one, welcome our new FRBR-based overlords.

I can finally burn my AACR2 binder!
posted by needled at 10:33 AM on December 8, 2010

You'll be happy to know we brought back the dancing santa on the AskMe "ask a question" page.

Optimal response located. Gyrating mythical gift-human's suggestion is acceptable.

COMMENCING PURCHASE OF 6.78 x 109 BOXES OF THINKGEEK CAFFINATED MARSHMALLOWS.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 10:35 AM on December 8, 2010 [3 favorites]

Who are you calling SISY?

When I get a kitten I am totally naming it Sissy-Puss. And it will play with the most adorable ball of twine FOR ALL ETERNITY.
posted by joe lisboa at 10:42 AM on December 8, 2010 [21 favorites]

(Seriously I want a kitten. And I am a male human. There, the question answered itself.)
posted by joe lisboa at 10:44 AM on December 8, 2010

Jessamyn: They're on our watchlist

METAFILTER HAS A WATCHLIST???????????? ORWELLIAN! CULTIAN!

which doesn't mean much

OH
posted by Avenger50 at 10:54 AM on December 8, 2010

You know who else has a watchlist?

Poor Man's Watch Forum.

I figured I'd mention it, since it's the holiday season and all.
posted by box at 11:34 AM on December 8, 2010

We're all on the neighborhood watch list.
posted by pracowity at 11:46 AM on December 8, 2010

This thread was very amusing. I encourage you all to keep it up, as I enjoy being entertained in this manner.

AuntieRuth, you seem to carry a great amount of "doesn't quite grok internet-community culture" along with a helping of "major grudge over having been silenced all your life".

But that Christmas-gifts-for-men question was a total stinker. Like, "I had barbecued pork with broccoli and garlic sauce, and also some forcemeat and a big glass of buttermilk last night for dinner, and this morning, I made this!" stinker. It was a picture-perfect example of chatfilter.

And the women question was even worse. And you later admitted that you posted it because you thought it was "an interesting philosophical problem." This is explicitly NOT what AskMe is for—which you obviously understand since you've been a member 3+ years and have an otherwise-fine AskMe history.

So, why do you sit around stalking MetaTalk waiting for a place to jump in and rage against the machine? Don't do this.

You were in the wrong on the man-gift and "women fight like this, amirite?" questions. Not "you were wrong in my opinion", but you were in the wrong based on MeFi site rules. This is a pretty objective marker.

But otherwise, you seem to bring an interesting, helpful, and not-too-common perspective to MetaFilter, and the site will be better for having you in it... if you can just admit where you've made mistakes, or at least lay off the censorship/conspiracy ranting and quit nursing this grudge. It's tiresome, and people are going to write you off as a cranky old curmudgeon (if they haven't already).

Alright! *clap clap* The rest of you: back to work with the lulz. Move along. Stop dilly-dallying.
posted by pineapple at 11:46 AM on December 8, 2010 [2 favorites]

The other week I was considering a rewrite as "Hipster Girl", but I couldn't get past

One Saturday I rode my Schwinn to Williamsburg

before it started to seem like a hopelessly bad idea.

Here is a whole "Hipster Girl" thing! And another one!

I think you made the right call.
posted by dogrose at 11:48 AM on December 8, 2010

The other week I was considering a rewrite as "Hipster Girl"

If you write it and put it on Music I will buy you a pizza.

What's hipster pizza? Obscure ethnic food? Stouffer's french bread pizza that costs $8? I couldn't decide.
posted by Rock Steady at 12:25 PM on December 8, 2010

...the mod's willingness to address people's concerns in a forum rather than, say, putting a bee cage on complainant's heads.
posted by boo_radley at 6:26 AM

You say that like those are two different things, boo.

But as I feel jessamyn pointed out in an extremely illuminating recent comment, they're not:

...I assure you one of the reasons this site works as well as it does is because all the mods are basically allergic to drama. Seriously, we just do not start, continue, or encourage drama. That said, if there are site issues like people unhappy with deletions it's better to have that discussion in public than over email. We've always had a few users that do the sort of "work the ref" angle where they'll harangue us over email about policy but won't do that in public because it's easier to yell at one of us over email than do that in MetaTalk where there will be a lot of people telling them they're out of line. That is an ungood thing and at some point we have to tell people "you need to bring this to metatalk, this is a community policy issue not my unilateral decision" and sometimes they do and sometimes they don't. Most deletions are us enforcing community policies, some of them are judgment calls on our part. All of them are open to discussion.

Similarly in this case it seems like it was helpful to eschatfische to see the community response to his assertions, not just the mods saying "no, because I'm the mod."

Plus, flat out we do not have time to engage in back and forth email with a ton of users who want to have this discussion with us. We dislike form letters. We don't want to send them. It's totally against the rules for us to send out form letters with no reply-to address, but if people reply then we'd be pretty duty bound to write them back. Carrying on five discussions a day about individual comment deletions is impossible with the staffing levels we have and the interest we have in making the work we do more or less transparent. I'm not sure where the idea that MeTa threads are "extra work for everyone" comes from, they're significantly less work than saying the same thing over and over to ten or twenty different people some of whom will not be particularly receptive to it. ...

As I think this comment acknowledges (if there are site issues like people unhappy with deletions it's better to have that discussion in public than over email. We've always had a few users that do the sort of "work the ref" angle where they'll harangue us over email about policy but won't do that in public because it's easier to yell at one of us over email than do that in MetaTalk where there will be a lot of people telling them they're out of line.), the bee cage is one of the essential underlying strategies of Metatalk.

That may be regrettable, but I don't see any way around it. My experience here has convinced me that outraged or whiny complaining would overwhelm this site completely save for its terror of the formidable Metatalk swarm.

But I do think the stinging could stand to be a little more reflective and a lot less reflexive than it has been lately.
posted by jamjam at 12:33 PM on December 8, 2010

The other week I was considering a rewrite as "Hipster Girl", but I couldn't get past

One Saturday I rode my Schwinn to Williamsburg

before it started to seem like a hopelessly bad idea.

But by the time you got to "You and me, we'll dress like Minnie Pearl" and realized that you could just keep that line the same, it would've all been worth it.
posted by 23skidoo at 12:42 PM on December 8, 2010 [2 favorites]

the bee cage is one of the essential underlying strategies of Metatalk.

Our userbase includes a large number of people who have dissatisfactions, for whatever reason. Part of the reason MeTa exists is so that people who feel the need to voice these dissatisfactions have a place to do that which doesn't destroy every thread on every topic [see: Boy Scouts for a recent example]. Sometimes this means people are grouchy and snarky. Usually it does NOT mean a pile-on. Some people have a lower tolerance for disagreement than we feel is helpful on a community website.

So we-as-mods try to define and support a middle ground where people aren't total assholes to each other but where they can disagree and hammer out issues of personality and policy here. To some people any disagreement in public seems like a bee cage. To other people unless they can get the object of their dissastisfaction to wail and rend garments, they do not feel that they have made their point. If everyone walks away feeling a little "gee that didn't totally go my way" [including us] that's probably for the best.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 12:55 PM on December 8, 2010 [5 favorites]

No dancing dradel and menorah?
posted by lee at 1:42 PM on December 8, 2010

the bee cage is one of the essential underlying strategies of Metatalk

It doesn't work so well if you're trying to chat up the neighbors, however.
posted by scody at 1:53 PM on December 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

What the hell is a bee cage. You can't keep bees in a cage.

Anyway, speaking of bees and cages...
posted by EndsOfInvention at 2:01 PM on December 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

man i'm just happy that quonsar is back. this place was getting stuffy.

seconded.
posted by sgt.serenity at 2:12 PM on December 8, 2010

EndsOfInvention: "What the hell is a bee cage. You can't keep bees in a cage."

I've waited so long to post this image here.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 2:16 PM on December 8, 2010 [34 favorites]

Dammit Marisa, I swore I would never laugh at an animated gif.

Has MetaFilter jumped the shark yet?
posted by doublehappy at 5:24 PM on December 8, 2010

I don't know how to say it without seeming sort of crappy but you don't have the same rights on MetaFilter. I'd go so far as to say you don't have the same rights on almost any web site on the internet that isn't yours. We can get into a big discussion about censorship vs editing vs selection vs I don't know what, if people want to, but it's not a surprise that this website has rules and guidelines to anyone who posts here.

If anyone is honestly still having trouble with this, perhaps it could be stated that each and every poster has the same FREEDOM of speech as they did when they logged in, but the owners and operators of MetaFilter have no OBLIGATION to provide people with means to archive and disseminate their speech. You are still perfectly free to send emails, post webpages to your Comcast account, whatever. The mods cannot, nor do they have any desire to, prevent you from doing any of these things. It's a private service they offer and they retain all rights over deciding how to run it. The fact that they have agreed to archive and disseminate certain speech in the past - perhaps even yours - just does not impose any obligation to do so again in any particular instance.
posted by rkent at 5:58 PM on December 8, 2010 [1 favorite]

Baby_Balrog next campaign: BRING BACK OPTIMUS CHYME

He was back for a little more than two weeks, then disabled his account :(
posted by mlis at 6:45 PM on December 8, 2010

Ll.
posted by beschizza at 9:49 PM on December 8, 2010

AuntieRuth: "You do not have what you call 'free speech' here. "

Over the last 10 years on my own forums, I've had to ban people on occasion. 2 of them have trotted this phrase out (as well as one person who said "the internet is a free place! You don't have a right to ban me!"). The things you don't realize are that A. the default boilerplate in most forums (yeah, all that stuff you don't read but just click I Agree) says that if you sign up, you agree to follow the rules and B. I'm paying $$$ per year to keep the site online, and I am not paying to let people insult me or be outright mean to others.

Metafilter is one of the best-moderated sites I know and in fact, I've asked for moderation advice from the mods at least once. That said, you can't please everyone all the time and sometimes as moderators (of our own respective sites), we have to realize that there will be angry users who don't like our policies. But most users are nice people.
posted by IndigoRain at 1:49 AM on December 9, 2010 [2 favorites]

You can't smoke in a restaurant. Not anymore. Rules have changed.

Not in Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, or South Korea.

Come on over! Smoke 'em if you got 'em!

And don't forget Missouri. You can still smoke in a restaurant here too.

*sigh*
posted by slogger at 8:20 AM on December 9, 2010

armage: "You do practice censorship editing here.

I think that's what you meant. I mean, at its essence, that's what Metafilter is: an edited version of the web.

If you want a completely unedited, unmoderated forum, I know of several newspaper comment pages you could visit"

That's cruel and unusual punishment.
posted by Splunge at 3:00 PM on December 9, 2010

This is somebody else's house, and they get to make the rules, period. That they open those rules for public display and discussion is a wonderful courtesy, but not a requirement. [...] This is mathowie's coffeehouse. Anybody's welcome if they chip in $5 to pay the staff.

Statements like these squick me even if it is difficult to articulate precisely why that is. Obviously it is hard to quibble with the fact that they are, when it comes down to brass tax, technically true. Mathowie owns the site. If he wanted to, he could turn it off tomorrow. Or ban people randomly. Or do any number of things. But I feel strongly that arguments from first principle like this may be technically true but are none-the-less quite misleading. Because it doesn't adequately or accurately convey how Metafilter works, how the culture here is developed, or how rules are created and maintained.

Metafilter isn't ruled by fiat. That's not a "courtesy", it's a fundamental part of what makes the place different. There are well-known sites I could name which take "This is our home and not yours, you are here on our sufference, and we can and will do whatever we want in terms of moderation or behavior and if you don't like it, leave". That is a fundamental tenet of a certain guide to moderation which made the rounds a while back. And it simply doesn't represent Metafilter. Trust me, I do not function well in places like that and things tend to End Badly.

It may be easier to tell people (as in this thread) that is true of Metafilter and it may achieve the desired result of getting them to understand they can't just post whatever the hell they want and expect to never have comments deleted, but it fails to capture the genus loci of Metafilter.
posted by Justinian at 4:12 PM on December 9, 2010 [2 favorites]

My feeling is that MetaFilter is a true synergy. That is, the parts make a greater whole. And the whole is better than any other type of group that is considered a whole. On the interwebs at least. And who knows, considering the meetups that I have been to, it works for actual physical contact as well.

The catalyst (if I may continue the conceit of my silly analogy) of this synergy are the moderators. They are the platinum sponge that allows the chemicals that we are to combine and interact in a beautiful display of reasoned thought and sometimes explosive argument.

The mods don't change. They are the noble metal that we pass through and are, sometimes combined in harmony. Sometimes in a violent reaction. And sometimes they effect us in ways that we don't like. Regardless, the mods are adamant. We change for them in subtle ways.

This is not a bad thing. If the mods reacted with us in a harsh way the whole balance would be changed.

Then we would be, different. In a bad way.

Or perhaps, like Cortex, I need sleep.

Sorry.
posted by Splunge at 8:22 PM on December 9, 2010

The other week I was considering a rewrite as "Hipster Girl", but I couldn't get past

One Saturday I rode my Schwinn to Williamsburg

A Hipster would be IN Williamsburg already, so no need to bike there...
posted by sweetkid at 2:12 PM on December 10, 2010