What happens when someone appears on the FPP and doesn't like it?

August 9, 2011 9:54 PM

What happens when a link appears on the FPP and the content owner doesn't like it?

On a mailing list elsewhere, there is currently a discussion about a prolific blogger who is into the same subject as the mailing list (music-related) who seems to live by the mantra, "it is better to seek forgiveness than permission." He posts content without asking, and gets butthurt when someone asks him to remove it. This has caused many complaints about this person and blog. Someone in the discussion about said blogger posed this question:

I wonder how many people get pissed off at Boing Boing or Metafilter when someone links to their page and writes a blurb about it without their permission?

So, what's the answer, Mefites & Mods?

posted by luckynerd to Etiquette/Policy at 9:54 PM (30 comments total)

From a mod perspective there are two issues

1. Someone's content gets ganked and posted to MeFi via something else [someone's Tumblr, other grey-market site] and they're steamed about it. Depending on what the situation is, it's possible we'd close the post down. This doesn't happen very often, actually. We sometimes have people third-party pissed off about stuff that's linked from MeFi that's quasi-legit and that's always a tricky thing. We're very happy to talk to people and try to work things out with them

2. Someone gets their stuff linked to and discussion ensues that they may or may not be psyched about. We'll almost always offer to give them a free account if they want to come tell their side of the story. Sometimes this goes well, sometimes not so well. It can be sort of a set-up I'm afraid sometimes because people who show up pre-pissed off and don't know the culture here too well [as people wouldn't if they haven't spent any time here] can wind up not having the best discussion here. It's always great when the subject of a post shows up and is stoked about whatever, it's less great when the subject shows up and is angry, or worse, really freaked out and unhappy or litigous.

Then there's the AskMe situation where someone has a bad experience with a dentist/doctor/business person/whatever and bitches about it [in an appropriate thread] and the person finds that complaint and wants to do something about it. This can be tough because often the thread is closed, the complainer is pseudonymous and there's only so much we can do. We take this stuff on a case by case basis.

This sort of thing is one of the reason I have a bit of a "quit with all the grar" approach sometimes. Not only do I think that it just spreads general ill will, but it can also turn into these more far-reaching repercussions years later that we-as-mods need to finesse and manage. I don't think we've many long term enemies, but having those conversations with upset people is always not super simple.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 10:04 PM on August 9, 2011 [6 favorites]

My reaction? "It's the Internets, Goofy—that's how it works!"

Don't put anything on the internets you don't want everyone and your mother to see. Then natter on about.
posted by carsonb at 10:25 PM on August 9, 2011 [8 favorites]

Links are not content. Well, there's a philosophical argument there, maybe, but.

As carsonb suggests, if you put something on the internet and get exercised if someone else links to it, you don't understand the internet.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 10:27 PM on August 9, 2011 [7 favorites]

If you want complete control over discussion and criticism of what you publish, then it's probably best not to publish anything.

Which is harsh for all those goofy folk who don't understand the internet, and is somewhat stifling of innocent and naive creativity, but it's no different from the sort of social forces that we apply to people who create public art in other media. If your work sucks, you'll get mockery. If it really sucks, you'll get crockery.
posted by Ahab at 10:38 PM on August 9, 2011

I don't think we've many long term enemies..

Surely Scott Adams is one of these?
posted by vidur at 10:41 PM on August 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

I don't understand. Isn't the MetaFilter response in situation #1 a courtesy, while situations 2 and 3 are simply free speech in action (unless libel is involved...)? What am I missing?
posted by likeso at 10:48 PM on August 9, 2011

I'm not sure I'm understanding this. Links and ensuing discussion about a link is surely different than "content", by which I assume you mean that the blogger in question is posting some actual third party created work without permission (like an mp3 or an essay in its entirety for example). The first situation is a)how the internet works and b) how free speech works. The second is anything from rude to copyright infringement, depending on the situation. I don't see how one can compare the two at all.
posted by katyggls at 11:06 PM on August 9, 2011 [2 favorites]

Jess, there's a third case: a link gets posted to MeFi and the resulting spike of traffic brings down the site.

Sometimes that's because it overloads the site bandwidth. Sometimes it's because it exceeds the person's monthly allotment of traffic.

Generally, when a MeFi link brings down a site, the mods will delete it.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 11:58 PM on August 9, 2011

We sometimes have people third-party pissed off about stuff

Not just pissed off, but third-party pissed off.
posted by pracowity at 11:59 PM on August 9, 2011

They're meta-pissed off.
posted by five fresh fish at 12:03 AM on August 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

Better to be pissed off than pissed on.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 12:52 AM on August 10, 2011

Generally, when a MeFi link brings down a site, the mods will delete it
I never realized they were that powerful.
posted by adamvasco at 1:09 AM on August 10, 2011

I don't think we've many long term enemies..

Surely Scott Adams is one of these?

Probably, but only one, not many.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:17 AM on August 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

And I don't really want to see a list of the rest.

Not that anyone cares.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 4:18 AM on August 10, 2011

Vis a vis long-term enemies, what's the pay like? It's kinda been slow going at maxwelton industries, and we can branch out if this is a lucrative area to specialize in.
posted by maxwelton at 4:43 AM on August 10, 2011

I'd like an answer to the original question. Not "what do we do" but "how many". I can't imagine many people putting things on the Internet are miffed when those things are linked to.
posted by DU at 4:53 AM on August 10, 2011

Very little content, as such, from other websites gets posted to Metafilter. Linking to other things on the internet is what makes the net inter. I'm sure there are still people who get upset, as jessamyn outlines, but for the most part it seems like there's really very little they could be getting upset about.
posted by OmieWise at 5:30 AM on August 10, 2011

Is the pissed blogger the kind of guy who posts other people's stuff without crediting or linking to them? If I were a wizard, I'd put a curse on anyone who did that, so that every unattributed-content post of theirs turned into a Dilbert strip.

And it would always be the same Dilbert strip, forever. I'd specify the worst-ever Dilbert strip, but I don't know what it is and I'd really rather not read years of Dilbert to find out.
posted by Metroid Baby at 6:44 AM on August 10, 2011

Oppression is the same Dilbert strip, forever.
posted by edgeways at 9:17 AM on August 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

I propose an enemies list on the wiki. We need to know.

♫ the wonderful thing about the wiki is that anyone can edit it. ♫
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:28 AM on August 10, 2011 [5 favorites]

♫ the wonderful thing about the wiki is that anyone can edit it. ♫

I think now the wonderful thing about the wiki is that it inspired this little jingle.
posted by 6550 at 9:42 AM on August 10, 2011

I nominate myself as arch-nemesis. This means I reserve the right to shake my clenched fist at the heavens, roaring "Metafilter!", and have partial exclusivity to narrow my eyes and hiss "Metafilter!" as well.

In return, I will show up in the server cabinet after midnight, in a smoking jacket with a glass of congac and a pepper-pot pistol, and say darkly, "You didn't think you'd seen the last of me, did you?"
posted by Slap*Happy at 9:44 AM on August 10, 2011 [1 favorite]

♫ the wonderful thing about Wikis, is Wikis are wonderful things. ♫
posted by Crabby Appleton at 10:24 AM on August 10, 2011

And to be clear, I don't think that an enemies list is such an awesome thing, but that if you think it is, the wiki is yours for the editing.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 10:36 AM on August 10, 2011

Canonical enemies list.
posted by Chrysostom at 11:30 AM on August 10, 2011

Enemies lists are absolutely not awesome things. Nobody would want to be on Timothy McVeigh's enemies list in 1993, for example. There are some seriously sick fuckos out there; and likely as not part of the epilogue is quotations from neighbors and acquaintances "he was the last person in the world I would imagine doing something like that."
posted by bukvich at 11:48 AM on August 10, 2011

I maintain a frenemies list; it has various names angrily scrawled on Hello Kitty stationary with a pink glitter pen.
posted by cortex (staff) at 5:18 PM on August 10, 2011 [5 favorites]

Once you publish it's not yours any more. People will make of it what they will. Deal with it or don't publish.
posted by deadwax at 5:41 AM on August 11, 2011

♫ the wonderful thing about the wiki is that anyone can edit it. ♫

Is is supposed to be sung to the tune of "just a spoon full of sugar"? Or is it just a vague sing-song voice ?
posted by BurnChao at 2:28 AM on August 13, 2011

I think it's the Tigger song.
posted by five fresh fish at 8:32 AM on August 13, 2011