One of these things is not (apparently) like the other. November 1, 2011 4:39 AM   Subscribe

Is seems curious to me that this post was deleted for editorialising while this post remained.

The first post doesn't really have any editorialising. "Why does this keep happening?" is a question, with an assertion ('this keeps happening') wrapped up in it. It does appear to keep happening, so there's that.

The second post made no pretense at getting the other side of the story (eg from Columbia) and apparently misrepresented Dodik's position. It presented one side's assumption of what transpired ('they refused entry to everyone with a Bosnian surname') as fact.

Both posts are borderline newsfilter, but the second is more clearly outragefilter. There was no problem in the discussion of the first but the second had comments removed from the OP who clearly wasn't happy with the amount of outrage that was generated.
posted by unSane to Etiquette/Policy at 4:39 AM (77 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite

You overlooked the editorializing impact of the ironic quotes around the word "lost" in the body and "missing" in the post title of the deleted one. Plus, it should probably go in the current OWS thread.
posted by crunchland at 4:45 AM on November 1, 2011 [1 favorite]


While i think there may be a legitimate discussion to be had about the Columbia post, bringing the other one into it is a red herring. The two posts are very different, and moderation doesn't work like that anyway. It's case by case, not a statement that one post is good and one bad because one got deleted and the other didn't.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 4:54 AM on November 1, 2011 [2 favorites]


That was a question in the vein of "When did you stop beating your wife?"

Hint -- That means it's not really a question.
posted by Etrigan at 4:56 AM on November 1, 2011 [2 favorites]


This is just a crazy guess but maybe one of those posts was picking up more flags than the other.
posted by 6550 at 5:02 AM on November 1, 2011 [1 favorite]


"Why does this keep happening?" is a question, with an assertion ('this keeps happening') wrapped up in it.

Which makes it editorializing.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:05 AM on November 1, 2011 [2 favorites]


Well, for one thing, the function of Metafilter is not to post a link to a brief news story and ask members to explain why it is/keeps happening. If someone is posting news, it's up to them to craft a more compelling post and provide the links that explain or give background to what is happening.
posted by taz (staff) at 5:05 AM on November 1, 2011 [8 favorites]


Seems like apples and oranges to me too, as you say in your headline. Personally I'm no fan of rhetorical questions like "why does this keep happening," because jeez, yeah. Together with the ironic quotes, like crunchland says, this seems to be pretty a straightforward case.

The second example is posted by someone who seems to be heavily involved in the topic, as transpires more and more in-thread. So s/he receives a mod comment about getting too answer-happy, keeps silent for a while and then gathers everything s/he wants to say in a longer comment, the one you're getting your quote from.
Sooo, technically, that's not the post, but the poster doing stuff down-thread. Perhaps the mods have simply not yet had the time to work with that comment, perhaps they don't wanna. Flagging helps. "Other" as in 'trigger-happy OP'.
posted by Namlit at 5:07 AM on November 1, 2011


Which makes it editorializing.

Not really. Editorializing is the assertion of an opinion in the body of a post, not the assertion of a fact. For example:
Tom Cruise is an actor.
is not editorializing, while
Tom Cruise is a wonderful actor.
is editorializing.

I'm certainly not defending the first post as a great post, but it seems a lot less bad to me than the second.
posted by unSane at 5:13 AM on November 1, 2011


Tom Cruise "made" another movie.

Why does this keep happening?
posted by inturnaround at 5:15 AM on November 1, 2011 [37 favorites]


The MF Global thing is a pretty big deal in the finance world. I didn't think the editorializing was over the top, and generally I think this place is normally echo chamber-y when it comes to "Wall Street is Evil". I don't think it should be in an OWS thread because it really isn't related.

If its deletable its because its sort of a lame post, whereas there is actually a pretty good post in the MF story (Corzine ex-Governor, ex Goldman CEO's attempted return to glory/build a mini-Goldman imploding)
posted by JPD at 5:16 AM on November 1, 2011 [3 favorites]


imploding because of a bet on the Eurozone. Its like buzzword bingo
posted by JPD at 5:17 AM on November 1, 2011 [3 favorites]


The whole 'why does this thing keep happening?' is what bitched it, I'd say.
posted by h00py at 5:20 AM on November 1, 2011


Because it's a call to arms. Get your grah on here! Instead of just letting people read it and then come to their own conclusions.
posted by h00py at 5:23 AM on November 1, 2011


Well, for one thing, the function of Metafilter is not to post a link to a brief news story and ask members to explain why it is/keeps happening.

True, but the one thing that makes the frequent links to brief news stories on the front page bearable, for me at least, is when we do have some inhouse expert who's willing to give us the skinny on what the real story is. Which is more about the failures of journalism than what Metafilter ought to be, perhaps, but still.

That said, asking as unSane seems to be doing here, for (something approaching) perfect consistency in these matters, well: that's not going to happen, and that's just fine.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:30 AM on November 1, 2011


Yes, the members adding deeper insight and more links is great, but the poster still needs to try to put together something better than "Here's some news; discuss!" or, as in this case, "Here's some news; wtf?".

To be clear, the Dodik post is problematical as well, as it developed. The poster was really angry and posting in order to express his/her fury about a situation, which is, as they say around here, "suboptimal" – but this wasn't clear until their comments began to pile up. But it did provide some links and background about a situation that might be of interest, while the other didn't.
posted by taz (staff) at 5:37 AM on November 1, 2011 [2 favorites]


It's so weird to have a mod weighing in at this hour. WHAT HAPPENED TO OUR UNADULTERATED FREE TIME!?
posted by gman at 5:43 AM on November 1, 2011 [2 favorites]


I know, right? Even I'm kinda weirded out.
posted by taz (staff) at 5:48 AM on November 1, 2011 [10 favorites]


Hi, taz!
posted by h00py at 5:49 AM on November 1, 2011


:) hi hi.
posted by taz (staff) at 5:56 AM on November 1, 2011


The second example is posted by someone who seems to be heavily involved in the topic, as transpires more and more in-thread.

Which should also make it worthy of deletion. It's bad practice to put up an FPP for the reason that the person who posted it wants to express their opinions about it. An FPP that is thinly veiled GYOB post is pretty much the same thing as editorializing in the FPP.
posted by three blind mice at 5:59 AM on November 1, 2011 [1 favorite]


Yes, the members adding deeper insight and more links is great, but the poster still needs to try to put together something better than "Here's some news; discuss!" or, as in this case, "Here's some news; wtf?"

Most assuredly.

Although no news posts at all, with or without fleshing out? Now that would be the best thing of all! LIKE CHRISTMAS EVERY DAY FOR WONDERCHICKENS YOUNG AND OLD Lawn, kids, etc.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:07 AM on November 1, 2011


Everything is news to someone.
posted by h00py at 6:10 AM on November 1, 2011


News to me!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:12 AM on November 1, 2011


DOH
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:12 AM on November 1, 2011 [1 favorite]


'Tom Cruise' 'is' an 'actor.'
posted by box at 6:14 AM on November 1, 2011 [1 favorite]


three blind mice, this wasn't really apparent from the post, but more from the comments, and I think the hope was that discouraging the poster from threadsitting would help keep things from becoming a platform for his/her outrage.

My problem is that there is a comment there right now that I deleted then undeleted because it was mostly a response to very specific questions posed by another commenter after cortex asked the poster to cool it. I don't really know what to do with that, so I'll let cortex make that call.
posted by taz (staff) at 6:18 AM on November 1, 2011


taz, you're alright.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:22 AM on November 1, 2011 [4 favorites]


Not really. Editorializing is the assertion of an opinion in the body of a post, not the assertion of a fact.

The front-page-of-mefi formulation of editorializing is as much about the injection of personal narrative into a post as it is about the injection of personal opinion; we need folks to try not to use the front page as a place to soapbox in a policy-position sense and we also need them to try not to use it as essentially a personal chatroom.

The deleted post reads pretty much exactly how I'd expect it to if someone was griping on their blog or (adjusting for character count) on twitter, which is fine on their blog or on twitter but not so much on the front page. That can still be kind of okay in a neutral context sometimes—if you're just posting about a neat-ass thing you found, being a little bit effusive isn't the end of the world (though it may make people think you're a goddam spammer), but in the presentation of "here is a bad thing" type content it's especially problematic.

The Dodik post was bumpy as framed but better put together generally as expected mefi style goes; I talked to Tarumba a bit explicitly about not using the front page to argue about something and about not mixing it up super heavily in their own post, which they acknowledged and immediately eased off after. Not a perfect thread, but we worked on it a little bit and all in all it seemed to go okay.

"Why THIS one but not THAT one" type questions are hard to answer, because two posts are rarely functionally identical; even with superficial similarities in some respects they tend to be a lot different in others, and beyond that any two mefites are going to have different subjective feelings about the quality of one vs. the other or the degree to which they're bothered or pleased by whatever ideological or editorial notes a post sounds.

So just as a general thought about this stuff, I think it's probably better to approach a question like this in terms of just stating what it is that you did/didn't like/dislike about a specific post or deletion that's bothering you rather than framing it against some other notional opposite example; that lets the conversation be more about the specifics of the case or cases and less about trying to suss out where the equivalency holds up and where it falls apart.
posted by cortex (staff) at 6:24 AM on November 1, 2011 [3 favorites]


My problem with the Dodik post was that it contained hidden editorializing, in the sense that it presented exactly one side of the story while posing, in its explicit formulation, as a fairly neutral post 'put together generally as expected mefi style goes'. I think letting this kind of thing stand is dangerous and doesn't do MeFi any favours. I know it got flags and I know other mefites were upset about it behind the scenes but decided not to make a rumpus.

It certainly was not 'hey look at this neat thing I found on the web', as Jessamyn put it in the deletion of the other post.
posted by unSane at 6:41 AM on November 1, 2011 [2 favorites]


I think it was the "?!" that really pushed it over the line.
posted by hermitosis at 6:48 AM on November 1, 2011 [2 favorites]


Well, again, I'm not going to try and exhaustively deconstruct the parallels and orthogonalities of the two posts; it'd be tedious and unrewarding, since the two posts weren't put up on mefi in intentional opposition in the first place, and jessamyn's deletion reason text for the second post was about the second post, not the first one.

I think it's totally fine to go into the Dodik post and talk about why you think it's problematic. Even if you think it's a bad post, you can make good conversation about it and help make it clear where you are coming from in having a critical reaction to it.

In practice, it did not get more than a few flags and we heard from exactly one person about it. If people dislike a post but decline to either flag or let us know about it by other means, we can't do anything with that information. And hidden editorialization isn't great but it's something that if it's going on in a problematic way we need people to actually communicate: we're not and can't be expected to be domain experts on every subject and it is in fact helpful to have "hey, this may not look obviously problematic but here's why I think is" put out there explicitly and promptly rather than "man, that sucked, why didn't you delete it" days after the fact.
posted by cortex (staff) at 6:49 AM on November 1, 2011


I think it's totally fine to go into the Dodik post and talk about why you think it's problematic.

Really? That seems like a Meta to me. I (mostly) stayed out of that thread because it seemed like a classic case of FIAMO.

it is in fact helpful to have "hey, this may not look obviously problematic but here's why I think is" put out there explicitly and promptly rather than "man, that sucked, why didn't you delete it" days after the fact.

I flagged the post and made two comments in the thread that it was one-sided.
posted by unSane at 7:12 AM on November 1, 2011 [1 favorite]


Really? That seems like a Meta to me.

Matter of degree and restraint, really. If really all you want to talk about is why and how the post-as-a-post or the poster-as-community-actor needs attention, yeah, straight to Meta. So e.g. "this post is a problem and should go" is Metatalk material.

If you want to talk about the other/missing/undersold aspects of the subject of the post, that's fine for the thread and is arguably the best remedy available for some sort of imbalance in the presentation of the post itself. "There's this whole other thing going on here that bears attention; let me explain what I understand about the situation the post is discussing" is totally at home in the thread itself.

I flagged the post

Appreciate it.

and made two comments in the thread that it was one-sided.

Using nine words total and without talking at all about the how or the why of it. Which you're not obliged to do or anything, but that's not an example of anything that helps us understand the actual meat of the objection. Again, we cannot read minds and we need people to actually substantially address the things they are thinking (whether in an in-thread-appropriate way or via the contact form or in Metatalk) if we're going to be able to use that information.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:25 AM on November 1, 2011


Hey - I made a post that I though was non-news filter-y and non-editorializing. Lemme know if it's not kosher of course
posted by JPD at 7:29 AM on November 1, 2011 [1 favorite]


Looks totally solid, JPD.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:33 AM on November 1, 2011


The shame of it is, I know exactly why it keeps happening, but now JPD's made a fleshed-out post no-one going to buy my story about the lizards.
posted by Abiezer at 7:48 AM on November 1, 2011 [6 favorites]


Lemme know if it's not kosher of course

Looks fne. The deleted post was definitely in the "make a better post" category and not in the "don'tpost about this to MeFi" category which is what I told the OP when they emailed me about it last night.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 7:50 AM on November 1, 2011


Using nine words total and without talking at all about the how or the why of it.

Right, because that seems like de facto threadshitting - posting early in a thread in a derail about how that's only one side of the story. When I've done this before my comments have been deleted. My comments were deliberately short but they said very clearly 'this is one sided' and 'what about Columbia's side of the story'. I was half expecting them to be deleted. However, they weren't content free. If I had gone into more detail it would have ended up as a fight about the post as opposed to the matter under discussion. The OP was already being fighty in the thread and I had no wish to stoke that further. Someone else commented that Dodik's position was being misrepresented.

I'm not trying to armchair quarterback this but short of opening a MeTa, which I hate doing, I'm not sure what else I could have done. Another MeFite didn't open a MeTa on it because s/he was afraid of being perceived as cantankerous. Part of the reason I didn't make more of a stir of it was that I felt fairly sure the post would be deleted, but by the time I realized it wasn't it seemed too late.

The current environment on MeFi has gotten me very cautious about what I post in circumstances like these. By the same token I really hate memailing mods or posting MeTas as we all have better things to do.
posted by unSane at 8:09 AM on November 1, 2011


Often I find that posting a "Hey what about the other side of the story like this or this or this. Don't you think that also adds to this situation we're seeing?" and adding a bunch of links can come across as not unfriendly and can spur useful discussion instead of seeming like a "I don't like this" sort of comment. So you don't attack the person making the post, you don't just show up int he thread saying "I don't like this" you look like you're interested in becoming part of the conversation and you look like you've done some work. Maybe people won't pick up on it and decide to talk about it for whatever reason, btu you can then feel that you've made a good faith effort to look at more of the picture.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:16 AM on November 1, 2011 [3 favorites]


I agree with that, Jessamyn. Unfortunately in this case there was absolutely nothing on the web about Columbia's side of the story -- I looked. A whole bunch of blogs had picked up on the Bosniak association's version of events but no-one seemed to have gotten a response from Columbia. My scepticism arose from the fact that what the Bosniaks said Columbia did would have been a massive legal no-no -- excluding people from an event purely on the grounds of their ethnicity. I also didn't and don't know anything like enough about the guy who spoke to know why Columbia felt he was an important speaker to feature. So I didn't have anything to contribute apart from the fact that it was clearly a one-sided account of events.
posted by unSane at 8:22 AM on November 1, 2011 [1 favorite]


One cited both sides of an issue. The other said "why does this keep happening?"
posted by Ironmouth at 8:28 AM on November 1, 2011


One cited both sides of an issue.

No, it didn't.
posted by unSane at 8:35 AM on November 1, 2011 [1 favorite]


I'm not trying to armchair quarterback this but short of opening a MeTa, which I hate doing, I'm not sure what else I could have done.

I hear you, and I want to be clear here that I'm not saying you did anything wrong, I'm just tryin to be clear that there are more options available for good ways to take active steps on this than actually got used in this case.

Opening a Metatalk thread is one of the things you can do; you're not obliged to but it's one of the standard feedback/metacommentary mechanisms for the site. Writing to us about it at the contact form is a less risky proposition if you're worried about getting or starting grief with a Metatalk thread, and you can totally tell us in detail what's on your mind about a post in an email without it being a problem.

If there's no good way to broach it in thread—whether because you know you're too annoyed to do it well at that moment, or because you're not sure you'll walk that line effectively in general, or because the substantial stuff you'd want to bring into your commentary isn't ready-to-hand at—then, yeah, not broaching it in thread is the right decision. It just doesn't leave us with something we can look at when glancing through a flagged thread and be like "ah, I see what they're talking about."
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:43 AM on November 1, 2011


cortex, the issue here is that the Dodik post was obviously, blatantly one-sided. And the OP was sitting the thread and had an obnoxious attitude. Most of the time, in that situation, the thread gets deleted and maybe the OP is given the option to try again, or maybe someone else who can be more objective posts something. That didn't happen in this case, though. Why not?

And why would anyone want to post a polite, respectful dissent to an impolite, crappy post? If I were inclined to dissent, I wouldn't be pleased about having to do so in that context, as if I were supporting the post by trying to improve the quality of the thread discussion.

Bottom line, unsane was right to point out the blatant bias of the post and (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates was right to point out that the OP's most inflammatory charge was bullshit. And if you're going to delete any post at all with the rationale that it's "editorializing", that post should have been gone so fast it would make your head swim.
posted by Crabby Appleton at 9:36 AM on November 1, 2011 [1 favorite]


And why would anyone want to post a polite, respectful dissent to an impolite, crappy post?

Because you'd be making things better and not making them worse? I know it's tough to ignore people's bad manners in these sorts of situations but we can demonstrate repeatedly, that giant fights can often be avoided or at least significantly toned down when someone decides to make the decision to not engage and/or not continue to up the ante. So reasons for doing this might be becase you like it here, because you want to have a conversation with other reasonable people, because you have a personal values system that priorotizes harmony or because you don't want to be That Guy/Gal who obviously knows better and can't seem to moderate their own behavior.

Not everyone is up for this and some people are just literally not in control enough of their emotions to be able to do this. People also have different goals for what they want ot get out of MetaFilter, but I think most of us would like to have discussions about topics that interest us. And being able to do that is facilitated by not letting discussions turn into "fuck you no fuck YOU" fights. And that is within everyone's control. We told Tarumba to cool it and they did. I wasn't even really around when most of that was going down so I'll defer to cortex's judgment but it wasn't immediately obvious to me, this morning, that the post people are talking about was clearly one-sided. We can argue about whether I am clueless or not.

I'd also like to suggest that if you are making a post to MeFi and decide to include the WTF tag, you may not have the requisite distance from the topic to give it a good showing. Unless you are posting about Marc Marn.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 10:00 AM on November 1, 2011 [2 favorites]


"because you have a personal values system that priorotizes harmony

I don't have that. I have a personal values system that prioritizes truth and the pursuit thereof.
posted by Crabby Appleton at 10:10 AM on November 1, 2011


cortex: ""Why THIS one but not THAT one" type questions are hard to answer"

No, they aren't. These questions only come up from people who refuse to believe that MetaFilter as basically a community that responds organically and dynamically to a) the larger sentiment of its readers and b) the judicious (and hell, occasionally capricious) minds of its moderators. Somehow, they remain convinced that MetaFilter must be behaving according to a set of rules, and if only those rules are set in stone and more comprehensively understood, then there will never be any question of whether a post is acceptable or not, because you can simply punch it into an algorithm which returns either "Yes" or "No".

In short, then answer to "Why THIS but not THAT" is Because..

And yeah, some people are very uncomfortable with that kind of situation, but there we are.

In this case, I think there was a big difference. The thing is, "News" is something of a misnomer. Technically, "Conservative Politician turns out to be (gay|adulterer|pervert)" is news, but it is hardly new. MetaFilter is about being exposed to new things not to news.

Neither story is that new in itself. There have probably been almost as many instances of "Controversial speaker visits University; protest group protests" as "Corporations are corrupt". However, I think we can all agree that in the recent weeks, the idea of financial institutions being kind of crappy has been on the forefront of discourse, so we really don't need another post on it. The Columbia post could have been presented in a more neutral way, but at least it provided context and had more potential. The other was little more than a "[THIS THING] sucks, amirite?"
posted by Deathalicious at 10:29 AM on November 1, 2011 [3 favorites]


Aside from links to background information, the two main links in the post were to www.bosniak.org, not exactly an unbiased source.

It uses the "denier" smear.

Subsequent comments in the thread by the OP highlighted his contempt for the notion of presenting anything resembling a balanced view.

MetaFilter doesn't need to be an outlet for propaganda (for one side or the other). I may not be familiar with all the nuances of the issues, but I can recognize propaganda when I see it.
posted by Crabby Appleton at 10:31 AM on November 1, 2011



Crabby Appleton: ""because you have a personal values system that priorotizes harmony

I don't have that. I have a personal values system that prioritizes truth and the pursuit thereof.
"

It's possible to present the "Truth" without being a dick about it.
posted by Deathalicious at 10:32 AM on November 1, 2011


MetaFilter is about being exposed to new things not to news.

I'm going to politely disagree while pointing out that what is new varies from person to person. I could make a post about X subject, 'cause I've know about it for years, while that same information might be new to you. To take it a step further, the subject could be history based and not even recent, but still still or old based on the person.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:34 AM on November 1, 2011 [1 favorite]


Maybe instead of allowing a wtf tag, one should introduce a wtf flag, just to allow people to get [whatever] it [is] out of their systems.

I mean isn't it pretty simple? Dodik made a one-sided post. Topic is kind of grar-inspiring so that's critical, but not entirely over the edge.

He then goes all hovery and even more one-sidedy later on. Which is the point where people would perhaps want to post some arguments to demonstrate said one-sidedness, or some documentation (or whatever), or add to the discussion with some remarks about what they think or whatnot. It typically seems not a scenario for one-liners, not because they smell like threadshitting but because for a reader who is not entirely on top of the topic, like myself, it would be fantastic if someone would come and actually show me the other side of the argument.
posted by Namlit at 10:35 AM on November 1, 2011


And yeah, some people are very uncomfortable with that kind of situation, but there we are.

That's probably because their personal values system includes the notion of fairness.

And perhaps the wiggle room you're so fond of has beneficial effects, but also, inter alia, gives plenty of scope for the mods' political biases to operate pretty freely.
posted by Crabby Appleton at 10:49 AM on November 1, 2011


One of the things about this job that is consistently fascinating to me from a sociological perspective, if at the same time consistently frustrating from a personal perspective, is the way in which people manage to locate the various political biases I secretly have, even on subjects about which I have basically zero interest or when someone else has already independently ferreted out my secret and opposite bias in a previous bout of mind-reading.
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:12 AM on November 1, 2011 [8 favorites]


Yeah, those neural implants really helped. Thanks for the DIY kit Meatbomb!
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 11:14 AM on November 1, 2011


I explained why the post was obviously one-sided. Do you disagree, cortex? jessamyn?

If you disagree, please tell me why I'm wrong. If you don't disagree, please tell me why the post wasn't removed.
posted by Crabby Appleton at 11:24 AM on November 1, 2011


Hey UnSane, I was the OP for the post you didn't like. I have to admit I was FURIOUS when I posted it, and that's the lesson that I learnt. I will never ever make a post in a weird emotional state of mind.

I however did look for "the other side" but Columbia had not said anything (that was kind of the point), and there were no other sides to be found. Even the incident itself was only mentioned in a couple of links when I was trying to do research.

It is a subject that's very close to my heart, and I admit that I may not have been the right person to post it, if it should have been posted at all, but I don't think I editorialized.

I also apologize for posting a shitload of comments and snapping at people who didn't get as furious as I was.
posted by Tarumba at 11:27 AM on November 1, 2011 [1 favorite]


And perhaps the wiggle room you're so fond of has beneficial effects, but also, inter alia, gives plenty of scope for the mods' political biases to operate pretty freely.

Just because you have your name doesn't mean you have to live up to it. You make it very clear on your profile that you really don't think Metafilter is living up to the vision you have for the site.

But you're the freedom fighter here, Crabby. Free us all from the tyranny of moderation!
posted by inturnaround at 11:27 AM on November 1, 2011 [1 favorite]


Honk off, Bozo.
posted by Crabby Appleton at 11:29 AM on November 1, 2011


If you don't disagree, please tell me why the post wasn't removed.

It wasn't removed because we made a mod decision and didn't remove it. Not a lot of flags and honestly didn't appear on our radar until people started flagging Tarumba's responses in the thread. So, through your explanations, the post appars one-sided. Okay. That alone is not a reason to remove a post, and certainly not days later. There's no obligation to be objective or present all sides of an issue, there's an obligation to not make crappy posts that have a bunch of fight-starting editorializing language. And I didn't personally entirely understand what the post was about at a quick glance and I figured if it was bogus the community would point us in that direction. They didn't. I agree the "denier" bit in the title is problematic. All we have is our after-the-fact explanations and you'll either be happy with them or not. You're not. There aren't a set of absolute rules here. We didn't remove it because the various things that were wrong with it didn't add up to the decision to delete it, on our end.

I have to admit I was FURIOUS when I posted it, and that's the lesson that I learnt.

For the record, for you and everyone else, this is rarely a good reason to make a post to MetaFilter and I wish you'd exercised some restraint.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 11:33 AM on November 1, 2011 [1 favorite]


If you disagree, please tell me why I'm wrong. If you don't disagree, please tell me why the post wasn't removed.

I hear you that you feel like it was obviously, slam-dunk-delete one-sided; I can appreciate that that's your read but I personally know nothing about the situation myself and didn't get any kind of detailed "these are the specific reasons why I feel like it's problematically one-sided" stuff from you when you wrote the other day. I kept half an eye on the thread, asked Tarumba to cool it at the time, and left it at that for mefites to talk out the situation as they saw fit. It wasn't a perfect post, but we gave it a chance and it didn't turn into a trainwreck. Good enough for me at the time.

If you are searching for truth or discursive justice or whatever in the sense that everyone around you will make the decisions you wish them to make, you are in for a let-down. We do what we can with the resources we have and the help we get from the community, but we'll never make everybody happy or handle every situation to any one person's satisfaction. Making your peace with that and dealing with it in some kind of positive way is what I would suggest, but obviously that's your call and if you're personally inclined to continue hanging around looking for opportunities to grump I certainly don't expect to dissuade you.
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:40 AM on November 1, 2011


Thanks, jessamyn. Thanks, cortex.
posted by Crabby Appleton at 11:42 AM on November 1, 2011 [1 favorite]


Unfortunately in this case there was absolutely nothing on the web about Columbia's side of the story

then what are we doing here? this meta came off like the OP was purposefully obscuring the other side of the story to promote the one side - but even you admit the other side is a whole lot of crickets. should the OP have said "columbia has failed to respond"? that would then be telling the full extent of the other side of the story as it's been presented from the other side.
posted by nadawi at 12:07 PM on November 1, 2011


I think what you're missing here that the Dodik post is alleged to have had hidden editorializing. The other post was the kind of thin, single-link news story that gets deleted all the time here.

The mods aren't omniscient, and their time isn't infinite. They can't be expected to be knowledgeable about every subject, read every article someone links to, listen to every song, watch every video, search the web for additional information about every subject someone makes a post about and determine if the OP linked to the best possible sources on a subject or if the collection of sources linked to are one-sided or biased.

They delete obvious stuff. They're usually not going to investigate further unless the post gets flagged a lot or unless someone writes to them about it (and they shouldn't be expected to).

Other stuff gets hashed out and discussed in the thread. This happens all the time in science news threads, where the initial links are frequently hyperbolic and wrong. (That's probably a subject for another MeTa discussion, actually.) If you have a problem with something that won't be obvious to the moderators if you just flag it, you need to use the contact form and tell them what your problem is.

MeTa exists, among other reasons, as a place to discuss and criticize mod policy. But this comes across as criticizing the mods for not being God. They're not, and they're not going to be, and there's no script that pb can write that will fix that.

So, yeah, tl;dr, realize the site is moderated by humans, and actually talk to them if there's something non-obvious they need to look at.
posted by nangar at 12:14 PM on November 1, 2011 [1 favorite]


should the OP have said "columbia has failed to respond"?

There's no evidence they were ever asked to respond, by anyone.

Taking one party's word in a dispute like this, where the behaviour alleged would, if true, lay Columbia open to a massive civil rights lawsuit, smells really weird.
posted by unSane at 12:30 PM on November 1, 2011


Tom Cruise "made" another movie.

Why does this keep happening?


Because he's a wonderful actor.
posted by philip-random at 4:59 PM on November 1, 2011


And perhaps the wiggle room you're so fond of has beneficial effects, but also, inter alia, gives plenty of scope for the mods' political biases to operate pretty freely.
posted by Crabby Appleton at 1:49 PM


Pursuit of truth my ass. You should really have left this site, which you are so very disappointed in, a long time ago. Please leave. Or at least let this comment provoke you to flameout. You are a drain on this community and contribute, literally, nothing.

MeFi: 0 posts


Kindly fuck the fuck off already.
posted by lazaruslong at 5:13 PM on November 1, 2011 [1 favorite]


Metafilter: It's possible to present the "Truth" without being a dick about it.

And why would anyone want to post a polite, respectful dissent to an impolite, crappy post?
Because that's how civil, thoughtful discussions happen.

I agree that the deleted post was delete-worthy. Single Link News Post to a story that's widely reported, with a "let's discuss" thrown in.
The undeleted post - maybe it was borderline, maybe it should have been deleted. It's an interesting topic, not well-reported, at least where I live, and I suspect the links to Bosniak.org let most MeFites know that it's not bias-free content. Cortex's comment puts it quite well.

And then, just when I'm feeling pissy about the plethora of Why was this deleted? Why isn't MetaFilter perfectly moderated? The mods are picking on me/him/her/us. I want my Free Speech. comes this. Well, that's all right, then. I like this, too. Could do without the F the F off already.
posted by theora55 at 5:19 PM on November 1, 2011


Could do without the F the F off already.
posted by theora55


Nope.

Go read that jackasses' contributions and say it again. If you can, you're a better human than me. The fact that he hasn't been banned yet is indicative that our mods have the patience reserves of good parents and the thick skin of scary dinosaurs. That dude is a tumor.
posted by lazaruslong at 5:24 PM on November 1, 2011 [1 favorite]


He's our tumor. Quit with the fuckoff talk please.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 5:26 PM on November 1, 2011 [2 favorites]


Okey dokey.
posted by lazaruslong at 5:27 PM on November 1, 2011


Wow, tumor of those comments and I'll be whimpering in a corner.
posted by Crabby Appleton at 5:28 PM on November 1, 2011


And this is why I hate opening MeTas.
posted by unSane at 5:42 PM on November 1, 2011


I said, because Tom Cruise is a wonderful actor.
posted by philip-random at 5:49 PM on November 1, 2011 [1 favorite]


Brandon Blatcher: "MetaFilter is about being exposed to new things not to news.

I'm going to politely disagree while pointing out that what is new varies from person to person. I could make a post about X subject, 'cause I've know about it for years, while that same information might be new to you. To take it a step further, the subject could be history based and not even recent, but still still or old based on the person.
"

Absolutely. I didn't mean the ideas had to be new in terms of being recent, but new in the sense of novel. An ideal FPP, in my mind, presents the reader with things they haven't encountered yet, as opposed to, "Well, here's more of the same."

Excepting kitty videos, of course.
posted by Deathalicious at 8:52 PM on November 1, 2011


I'll just be honking off whilst being a Bozo then.
posted by inturnaround at 9:42 PM on November 1, 2011


I'll just be honking off whilst being a Bozo then.

Don't think of it as honking off, think about it as prioritizing the pursuit of truth.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 8:34 AM on November 2, 2011


METAFILTER: Don't think of it as honking off, think about it as prioritizing the pursuit of truth.
posted by philip-random at 9:11 AM on November 2, 2011


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