Ashamed of our History?

May 20, 2011 3:01 AM

This post is bigger than Metafilter and should have stayed.
Kaycee Nicole would be 29 today...if she had ever actually existed
The events described were 10 years ago when this was a closed community, way before all us $5 noobs got let on Matt's lawn. Most of links provided were not linked in the orginal thread. I can understand the musingwhether this should be in blue or gray but it should be somewhere; the last three links show that this was the first of of something not now unknown ,so by definition this is historical update which has been permitted previously. The majority of Metafilter participents today were not members during that time and most of those who participated in that thread have moved on or have traded up a sockpuppet or two. Why are we ashamed of our own history?
posted by adamvasco to Etiquette/Policy at 3:01 AM (50 comments total)

No one is ashamed of it. That is a weird way to see it.
posted by the young rope-rider at 3:04 AM on May 20, 2011 [3 favorites]

Sorry, that came off as meaner than I intended. I get why you wanted it to stay and I think it's a valid question, but...ashamed?
posted by the young rope-rider at 3:12 AM on May 20, 2011

Man, Kaycee Nicole was ten years ago? Wow. I feel suddenly very, very old.
posted by running order squabble fest at 3:25 AM on May 20, 2011 [5 favorites]

If you felt this strongly, instead of posting to MetaTalk to complain, I think you should have reposted the whole thing here with credit to the Original Poster.
posted by oneswellfoop at 3:34 AM on May 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

Cortex seems to be in an anti-vampire mood.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 3:37 AM on May 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

Why are we ashamed of our own history?

I call this shameful history "favorites", but maybe an "ashamed of" tag could also be useful?
posted by three blind mice at 3:41 AM on May 20, 2011

The name on the masthead ain't HistoryFilter.
posted by londonmark at 4:08 AM on May 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

Yeah, that post should be placed here intact, where it will likely be a very fun one. Hope the OP does so.
posted by John Kenneth Fisher at 4:08 AM on May 20, 2011

I don't have a problem with the deletion as I think it is too MetaFilter centric for the blue. I also don't think it really needs posting here. I only joined in 2008 and I knew about the Kaycee Nicole episode just by spending time reading through MetaFilter's history. That option is available to others too. We've got a link to the deleted post up here now - reposting the entire thing seems a bit over the top.
posted by jonnyploy at 4:32 AM on May 20, 2011

I wrote a cranky comment but decided that wasn't right for the new, less growly wonderchicken 2.0. So instead I will say: me, I wasn't interested in all that then, and I'm still not very interested now that sort of internet detective squad action is fairly old hat. I will admit that I am often an outlier on these things.

That was a pretty meaty post, though.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 4:38 AM on May 20, 2011

Sure seems to me like a bad post for the Blue and a great post for the Gray. I wish Cortex had explicitly suggested that in his deletion reason, but I can't think of any reason the mods wouldn't feel the same way.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 4:39 AM on May 20, 2011 [2 favorites]

Yeah, put me down as another voice saying that this would've been a superb MetaTalk post, but a poor MetaFilter post. And let badgermushroomSNAKE make it.
posted by Kattullus at 4:44 AM on May 20, 2011

Why are we ashamed of our own history?

Why did you use this phrase? There's no evidence of any shame. No one is ashamed. If you think your argument is strong on its merits, you don't need to add hyperbolic manipulative text to your MetaTalk. If you think you must use hyperbole and cant to make your case, you should stay the fuck out of MetaTalk.

People wonder why MetaTalk is such a fighty place...a large part of it is because people, who want their concerns taken seriously and should know better, frame their posts with entitlement and whiny shitiness like this. Grow the fuck up!
posted by OmieWise at 5:05 AM on May 20, 2011 [3 favorites]

The whole Georgia O'Keefe charity art auction for lil' Nicole, what a waste of good intentions.
posted by buzzman at 5:11 AM on May 20, 2011

This post is bigger than Metafilter and should have stayed.

Stories that are bigger than MetaFilter can only stay if when you follow the money they go all the way to the top. If they are Chinatown, then we have to forget it, Jake.
posted by DU at 5:15 AM on May 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

I've been traveling and unable to get online, but yeah, I checked with the mods and got the ok to post the kaycee post to the grey. I'll do that as soon as I can get my hands on a working computer Instead of this phone.
posted by badgermushroomSNAKE at 5:21 AM on May 20, 2011 [2 favorites]

Definitely for the grey, not the blue.
posted by h00py at 5:29 AM on May 20, 2011

Oh, goddamn preview again!
posted by h00py at 5:30 AM on May 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

Wow. I do feel old now.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 5:44 AM on May 20, 2011

Yay! The upcoming grey version of the post means that I'll be able to use my extremely witty comment again.
posted by The Devil Tesla at 5:52 AM on May 20, 2011

I'm going to try and think of a witty comment between now and then.
posted by h00py at 6:14 AM on May 20, 2011

Someone should just copy the post to the wiki.
posted by Salvor Hardin at 6:14 AM on May 20, 2011

.
posted by terrapin at 6:15 AM on May 20, 2011

I missed the whole kerfuffle when it was happening, but I've never gotten the impression that metafilter is ashamed of this part of its history. What does that mean?
posted by rtha at 6:22 AM on May 20, 2011

Rarely is the question raised: is our children asking leading questions?
posted by octobersurprise at 6:27 AM on May 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

Why are we ashamed of our own history?

It was our first year of college. We did a lot of things we aren't proud of, ok? Let it go man, or those pictures of you in that certain situation will be posted up on Projects.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:27 AM on May 20, 2011 [2 favorites]

Don't worry, I am very ashamed, enough for each and every one of you, collectively but also in a group of individuals sense, on your behalves. My shame burns with the power of a thousand suns.
posted by Meatbomb at 6:33 AM on May 20, 2011 [2 favorites]

*Uses Meatbomb's shame to make smores*
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:37 AM on May 20, 2011 [3 favorites]

*uses Meatbomb's shame to grill shish kebabs*
posted by h00py at 7:26 AM on May 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

*uses Meatbomb's shame to fire up a freebase pipe*
posted by item at 7:35 AM on May 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

Yeah, sort of a moot point now, but it's not a "shame" thing, it's a "does this make any sense as a front page post" thing, the answer to which was no. badgermushroomSNAKE checked with us about a metatalk do-over, we were okay with that, and it happened.

Something that could be okay done different but isn't okay done the way it currently is gonna get deleted. There's not really another way for it to work here.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:58 AM on May 20, 2011

There's not really another way for it to work here.

Sure there is. I think the cabal should institute an exception system involving bribery on the blue, blackmail on the green, and extortion on the gray. Who's going to complain, given that there is no cabal? Sometimes things just happen for no reason.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 8:10 AM on May 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

It's an interesting part of MeFi history. This post is a good example of how the use of 1 word colors the whole post, and the thread goes in a direction the poster probably didn't intend. Metafilter, more than any site I visit, has a surprisingly acute sense of its history.
posted by theora55 at 8:24 AM on May 20, 2011

I was one of the people who flagged the story. Interesting it may have been, but there were almost no links that didn't point back to MetaFilter; all of the original content was gone. The only off-site content I could see was the "Münchausen by internet" definition. This was the perfect example of something that was perfect for the gray (where I favorited it) and not at all right for the blue.
posted by Deathalicious at 8:48 AM on May 20, 2011

deathalicious, you may not have clicked enough of the links. there were two nyt links, a link to the guardian, links to Sandra Mitchell's (archived) original posts, a link to an academic paper, and a link to a quite good roundup on kuro5hin. I won't argue that it wasn't heavy on mefi links or wasn't worthy of deletion, but it wasn't at all mefi-links-only
posted by badgermushroomSNAKE at 10:01 AM on May 20, 2011

Just wnt to posit that I, too, am in favour of the course of action taken. The post makes a lot more sense for MeTa than the blue. (And it's very well put together, too!)
posted by kaibutsu at 10:19 AM on May 20, 2011

'wnt' ~ 'want'. Desire is the root of all suffering.
Desire, and the lack of an edit window.
(note: I don't actually want an edit window.)
posted by kaibutsu at 10:21 AM on May 20, 2011

The events described were 10 years ago when this was a closed community, way before all us $5 noobs got let on Matt's lawn.

It's not as if the website was closed to nonmembers, just the ability to post. So...the FPP should stand so that people who regretting not being able to post in the original FPPs can still feel part of the story? Huh. I don't really get that.
posted by desuetude at 1:03 PM on May 20, 2011

Oh, I meant to comment on that... back then, IIRC correctly, signups were still open. I first started reading MetaFilter in February of 2001, but never signed up. Then, once I wanted to and sign-ups were closed, I cursed myself for not bothering to sign up. I'm pretty sure it was still open back then.
posted by Kattullus at 1:20 PM on May 20, 2011

I'm still here. The only thing I'm ashamed of is that one time I did a post about weblog junior high, two years after the fact. My shame on that, it continues apace.
posted by headspace at 1:29 PM on May 20, 2011

Kaycee Nicole would be 29 today...if she had ever actually existed.

But since she doesn't exist, how old is she really?
posted by Splunge at 2:11 PM on May 20, 2011

But since she doesn't exist, how old is she really?

*holds up an imaginary number of fingers* dis many!
posted by Deathalicious at 4:55 PM on May 20, 2011

So an FPP on the Blue on the tenth anniversary of very important part of MeFi history is bad (even though we do catscan every year), but packing up a bunch of MeFi.Projects as an FPP on the Blue means you're mod material?

Got it.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 5:28 PM on May 20, 2011

I think the cabal should institute an exception system involving bribery

What did i tell you about this, there is no cable to bribe.
posted by clavdivs at 5:55 PM on May 20, 2011

Rufe mihi frustra ac nequiquam credite amice
(frustra? immo magno cum pretio atque malo)
sicine subrepsti mi atque intestina perurens
hei misero eripuisti omnia nostra bona?
eripuisti, eheu nostrae crudele venenum
vitae, eheu nostrae pestis amicitiae.

-Gaius Valerius Catullus
posted by clavdivs at 5:59 PM on May 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

Splunge: "But since she doesn't exist, how old is she really"

She is i years old.
posted by pjern at 10:04 PM on May 20, 2011 [1 favorite]

Wouldn't she be 29i years old? Let's not equate the entire imaginary axis with a single number, after all...
posted by kaibutsu at 10:47 PM on May 20, 2011

Wouldn't she be (19i+10) years old?
posted by hattifattener at 11:02 PM on May 20, 2011 [2 favorites]

Just wanted to say that metatalk is a great way to discuss problems with the site, suggest or request features, get feedback on something, and flame out. But I don't see why it's the appropriate home for any and all stories that happens to include metafilter.

Why is this not okay for the blue again? It's not "meta." It's not about administering or changing the site or creating a dialog about how the site is being run. It's the best of the web. A similar post about reddit, slashdot, tumblr, or twitter would only be appropriate on the blue. This should be there too.

At least sidebar it when it gets reposted.
posted by jsturgill at 12:17 PM on May 21, 2011

It was already reposted yesterday, jsturgill.
posted by Kattullus at 3:10 PM on May 21, 2011