Was it because I said "gramps"?

March 9, 2012 3:31 PM

This post was deleted for the following reason: This is a terrible thing that happened but that doesn't make it a great thread for MetaFilter.

No disrespect here, but can you speak of why "that doesn't make it a great thread for MetaFilter"? I can understand if it was an Israel/Palestine post (where I don't see much being added except more fuel in an inferno) but I just don't see it here. Thanks, in advance.

posted by karathrace to Etiquette/Policy at 3:31 PM (69 comments total)

Because nothing good will come of this except a giant shitshow of outrage and offense?
posted by liketitanic at 3:34 PM on March 9, 2012 [3 favorites]

Speaking as someone who may have posted in the thread the most, it was admittedly mostly speculation. There was nothing substantial to talk about.
posted by michaelh at 3:36 PM on March 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

Let's turn it around. What about that post made it great?
posted by carsonb at 3:37 PM on March 9, 2012 [7 favorites]

Because nothing good will come of this except a giant shitshow of outrage and offense?
posted by liketitanic

This, exactly.
posted by blaneyphoto at 3:40 PM on March 9, 2012

Unfortunately, there wasn't much to be added except more fuel in an inferno.
posted by wikipedia brown boy detective at 3:43 PM on March 9, 2012

Because nothing good will come of this except a giant shitshow of outrage and offense?

That's 80% of what we do here.
posted by Mick at 3:44 PM on March 9, 2012 [8 favorites]

Wasn't a good post but neither is 14 Year Old Buys House in Florida.
posted by Foci for Analysis at 3:44 PM on March 9, 2012 [19 favorites]

Speaking as someone who if he had the spare cash would register a bunch sock puppets solely to flag the shit out of posts like that, MetaFilter is not your social-outrage-o-the-day blog. The fact that there is some confusion on that point merely makes me more irked about the too many that are allowed to stand.

MetaFilter is simple. Go find cool things on the web. Create coherent posts on them. Post them.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 3:45 PM on March 9, 2012 [12 favorites]

We regularly delete stuff we feel falls under "outragefilter" about some horrible thing happening somewhere. It leads to a lot of hot threads where everyone is pretty pissed, but there's almost never much we can do about it and it leads to fights, account closings, etc.

This was a horrible thing, but a huffington post article just a few paragraphs long was short on details. I think this could be a post for mefi if there was more background and it was more like an examination of what took place that day instead of just here's an outrageous thing, let's all flip out.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 3:46 PM on March 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

Yes. "Kid shot to death" threads with added "This guy is also acting like a jerk" aspect just are setups to get a lot of people pissed off without a lot of actually talk about. Yes it sucks that this happened. Yes we get that it's upsetting. But there's not a lot of there there storywise it's just a really crappy thing that happened, in a small gated community in the US.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 3:48 PM on March 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

It didn't seem as though the thread was adding any more insight or value to the story, which is generally the purpose of MetaFilter. Something terrible happened. What else is there to say?
posted by KokuRyu at 3:49 PM on March 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I would have flagged that, had I not been doing non-computer things. I mean, what useful discussion could possibly grow from that? What interesting thing was displayed?
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:50 PM on March 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

Because nothing good will come of this except a giant shitshow of outrage and offense?

Isn't discourse between members on a topic, even a controversial one, 'good'?

I think this could be a post for mefi if there was more background and it was more like an examination of what took place that day instead of just here's an outrageous thing, let's all flip out.

But there's not a lot of there there storywise it's just a really crappy thing that happened, in a small gated community in the US.

Ok, cool. Thanks, moderators.
posted by karathrace at 3:57 PM on March 9, 2012

It's nothing more than GRAR!!! filter and has been all over the Internet. It's neither new to anyone who reads online, nor worthy of any discussion except THAT'S TERRIBLE. . There are plenty of places where a news story like this allows people to get their outrage on. Try there instead.
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 3:59 PM on March 9, 2012

Something terrible happened. What else is there to say?

Well, it does rather appear that something terrible is happening, also. There appears to be prima facie evidence for murder (with likely defences, admittedly) that appears to be being ignored by the responsible authorities. I don't know if that is entirely accurate, or if there is more relevant information available about it, and it is quite possible that the thread might have been useful to me in that respect. Heat and light can coexist, and sometimes one generates the other. I would prefer the post to have stood.
posted by howfar at 4:12 PM on March 9, 2012 [3 favorites]

MetaFilter: Here's an outrageous thing, let's all flip out.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 4:17 PM on March 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

Next time, Starbuck, let Kat make the post, ok?

There are old posters and there are bold posters, but there are old, bold posters.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:27 PM on March 9, 2012

I think there were a lot of interesting things to discuss about that incident, including the potential for a rise in vigilantism as police budgets continue to come under pressure all over the country; the relationship between police, gated communities, and vigilantes; the difficulties the public is now experiencing getting access to "public" records such as 911 tapes and police videos; and the apparently ineradicable racism we continue to see in law enforcement at all levels in the US.

However, I do think it's reasonable to delete FPPs where the links are too thin to support such discussions, as mathowie suggested was the case here.
posted by jamjam at 4:31 PM on March 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

That's 80% of what we do here.

I come here for the other 20%.
posted by Devils Rancher at 4:33 PM on March 9, 2012 [18 favorites]

Isn't discourse between members on a topic, even a controversial one, 'good'?

This isn't a "controversial" topic — we're all bound to agree that getting shot for walking around sucks. And there isn't much "discourse" bound to emerge as a result.
posted by argybarg at 4:50 PM on March 9, 2012 [3 favorites]

karathrace, you'd think with that username you'd be a fan of Constitutional carry
posted by the man of twists and turns at 4:54 PM on March 9, 2012

Brandon, I think you missed a 'no' in there, otherwise the aphorism doesn't work.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 6:00 PM on March 9, 2012

Tell Me No Lies writes "Speaking as someone who if he had the spare cash would register a bunch sock puppets solely to flag the shit out of posts like that, "

that's not what sock puppets are for and would probably result in said puppets, at a minimum, being banned.
posted by Mitheral at 6:43 PM on March 9, 2012

karathrace: "I can understand if it was an Israel/Palestine post (where I don't see much being added except more fuel in an inferno) "

Data point: Quite a few I/P threads initiate productive and creative discussions and are not deleted. We've seen ample evidence that with careful framing and some deeper content, they can actually be good posts that don't turn into massive flamewars.

And as mentioned above, when a post is about something colossally crappy that's happened, it needs to give the community more to talk about than "look at those assholes."
posted by zarq at 6:54 PM on March 9, 2012

Isn't discourse between members on a topic, even a controversial one, 'good'? --- Only if there is a give an take. No one is pro-shooting teenagers, are they? What is there to discuss?
posted by crunchland at 7:34 PM on March 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

Isn't discourse between members on a topic, even a controversial one, 'good'?

Mathowie said: "It leads to a lot of hot threads where everyone is pretty pissed, but there's almost never much we can do about it and it leads to fights, account closings, etc.". That sound good to you? Sounds shitty to me. Why would you want that?
posted by mendel at 7:35 PM on March 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

I'm just sad it was closed before someone could reference burbclaves, but we've already had that exact Snow Crash reference in the robotic cheetah thread this week, so I'm just being greedy.
posted by radwolf76 at 7:35 PM on March 9, 2012

The lady boardmember of my HOA gave me a weird look when I told her that we all live in a "gated yuppie ghetto."
posted by Burhanistan at 7:41 PM on March 9, 2012

Pony request: Can we have a new section of the site called ShitFilter? It can be a place where users can post sad or infuriating stories. Comments are not allowed.
posted by KokuRyu at 8:01 PM on March 9, 2012

THE MODS ARE CLEARLY IN THE POCKET OF BIG SKITTLES WAKE UP PEOPLE
posted by dhammond at 8:26 PM on March 9, 2012 [1 favorite]

ShitFilter.... I have one of those...it's great until you have to clean it.

I would suggest that the job falls to the most junior mod
posted by HuronBob at 8:35 PM on March 9, 2012

Pony request: Can we have a new section of the site called ShitFilter?

Nope. You have the rest of the internet.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:23 PM on March 9, 2012 [26 favorites]

register a bunch sock puppets solely to flag the shit out of posts like that

that's not what sock puppets are for and would probably result in said puppets, at a minimum, being banned.

Can I still use them to post softball AskMe questions so that my main account can rack up Best Answers?
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 10:08 PM on March 9, 2012 [2 favorites]

Aww, thanks for trying to stick up for my post. It probably should have waited until the 911 tapes came out, the police formally announced they are never going to charge him with anything, and their investigation is complete. And maybe if there were riots.

The Oscar Grant post had graphic video.
The Aiyana Jones post was basically 2 links, she was 7 years old.

It probably would have had a better chance if I'd put both of those as previously, but fuck that's depressing. To eliminate anybody's wondering, the information was timely, and I thought it should be shared, and the post before it offered an incredible juxtaposition. 14 year old white girls can buy houses like it's a game, while people who look like me get shot in the chest for walking down the street.

Pretty much everywhere I've seen the article posted, people were saddened and disgusted, and it's an eye opener for people who don't really think walking while black is a real thing. The kicker to me, was that it wasn't even the police this time. Not even an undercover officer. Neighborhood Watch, man. Neighborhood watch.

Sorry for the poor quality post, and R.I.P. Trayvon.

.
posted by cashman at 10:34 PM on March 9, 2012 [31 favorites]

To eliminate anybody's wondering, the information was timely, and I thought it should be shared, and the post before it offered an incredible juxtaposition.

I actually almost posted a Meta when I saw the two posts together -- something along the lines of, "What the f*** is happening in Florida?" For a few laughs. But then I read ...

14 year old white girls can buy houses like it's a game, while people who look like me get shot in the chest for walking down the street.

And I'm damned glad I didn't.
posted by philip-random at 11:14 PM on March 9, 2012

Cashman, your post was not worse than the ones you point out, and they would both normally be deleted for the same reasons. The Aiyana Jones post was made in the middle of the night, pre-night moderation. The Oscar Grant post was posted on the Monday after New Year's weekend (2009), which means moderators were probably visiting people/returning from holidays/tired, whatever.

Sometimes things are overlooked because mods are sick, or out of town, or at lunch, or something else is taking up a ton of attention, or some combination of such factors. 100% consistency 100% of the time is just hard to achieve is all.

Anyway, the issue with posts that are just links to something terrible that happened is that we struggle with trying to maintain a balance with news posts, since we aren't a news site, and don't want to be primarily a news/political site, so we try to allow newsy things to have their place here by emphasizing the filter part of Metafilter more, and hope that the news and political posts (especially when they are about difficult or controversial subjects), will tend to be the sort that will help people to understand issues better or otherwise present material that adds value in some way, beyond just pointing out something enraging and horrific.
posted by taz (staff) at 12:00 AM on March 10, 2012

I'm happy the Grant and Jones posts weren't deleted!!
posted by Danila at 12:15 AM on March 10, 2012 [4 favorites]

The Aiyana Jones post was made in the middle of the night, pre-night moderation. The Oscar Grant post was posted on the Monday after New Year's weekend (2009), which means moderators were probably visiting people/returning from holidays/tired, whatever.

So are you saying the grant and jones posts should have been deleted but weren't because of oversights? Ugh.
posted by delmoi at 4:56 AM on March 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

Mefi was the way I found out about Oscar Grant and the ensuing discussion provided a lot of enlightening background. Personally I'm glad for some of the news posts because they lead me to a deeper understanding of what happened. Perhaps not in this case, but overall. Eventually you get someone who says "Okay, I live here, and here's what's really going on…"
posted by desjardins at 6:02 AM on March 10, 2012 [4 favorites]

So are you saying the grant and jones posts should have been deleted but weren't because of oversights? Ugh.

They were both honestly kind of messes, the Jones one a bit more so. I think both thing were post-worthy, but as is the case with a lot of "this bad thing happened recently" posts on mefi I feel like the Grant post for example could have waited a few days until there was more of the stuff that got discussed and linked to in the thread readily available to go in the post itself and a bit of time for more folks to maybe make the transit from shocked-angry to at least considered-angry about it.

The distinction between "this is something we agree is bad" and "this is something that makes a great mefi post" is one that very much exists and sometimes its ignored in posting and that often goes badly. It's totally understandable for people to be upset about shit that is upsetting but that is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for it being a post to the front page. Sometimes the local conditions mean a not-so-great post-qua-posts ends up being the post we end up with, and so it goes and not a great big deal ultimately, but it's not a good idea to mistake "this thread ended up being informative/letting people know about A Thing That Happened" for "this is a good post for Metafilter".
posted by cortex (staff) at 6:41 AM on March 10, 2012

Well for me it's not just about being upset but more about wanting to talk about it here and see what other people have to say about it. I'd been waiting all day for Trayvon Martin to show up here because I do want to know what the community thinks, not just about what happened then but what continues to happen and what is really going on. There are a lot of potential areas for discussion.

However, I do agree that a good post with interesting links makes for a better discussion. Or it should. Sometimes people don't really read the links anyway, especially with hot button issues. In spite of that, there are lots of political things that seem to pass the bar here even though people get upset and just say the same things over and over again. This is something of a political issue as well, right?

I've been reading a lot about this case and there are some sources I know may come up with some great articles or perspectives. It's so new to mass awareness that those sites haven't written anything yet, and also there is still too much unknown. I'm reading so much about it that I think I am more likely to come across something I think is truly interesting and well-written and introduces some ideas, and I would want to post it here. I personally do not look for things to post to Metafilter. I wait until I feel compelled to share something and this has only happened a couple times (with me actually doing it once).
posted by Danila at 6:54 AM on March 10, 2012 [4 favorites]

14 year old white girls can buy houses like it's a game

I think it's pretty much certain that there aren't many 14 year old white girls that can buy houses. And it's also pretty much certain that for every 14 year old white girl who can do that, there are a hundred that are homeless, and thousands that are living in pretty dire housing conditions.

So can we leave this level of talk out please?

And no, I'm not white.

If you want to talk about how a small minority of *people* have so much wealth that their kids can buy houses, be my guest. Though that is not really news either, and probably not a topic that Mefi "will do well".
posted by philipy at 7:07 AM on March 10, 2012 [2 favorites]

I'm reading so much about it that I think I am more likely to come across something I think is truly interesting and well-written and introduces some ideas, and I would want to post it here.

I bet it'll get left up and will look forward to it.
posted by the young rope-rider at 8:27 AM on March 10, 2012

Danila, I think that if you are following a story and find great articles or perspectives from the sites you know about, I absolutely urge you to make a post. That's how we find both great sites/writers to follow, and deeper understanding of what's happening in the news.

I am not an anti-news person for Metafilter, and have said so many times... but I agree that news posts here need to be more than a "plucked from the headlines" sort of thing. In worst case scenarios, the posts just link to Horrible Thing That Happened in a way that is meant for people to feel outraged... and lacking any greater examination or analysis, and no way to change the Horrible Thing, posters vent their anger and frustration against each other, picking apart slight sins of phrasing or treating any doubts or conjectures as enemy actions, etc. Everyone's angry and attacking each other.

In the best case scenario for these sorts of posts, the information is presented in an objective, evenhanded way, and we learn not only about the Horrible Thing (even assuming we need to learn about it, and it's not on every news site), but there is some perspective offered, or background, or some information about efforts to counteract Horrible Thing... Or maybe a wider view of a specific isolated incident – or the reverse, a well presented, insightful first-hand anecdote of a similar situation. Or historical or statistical data, or introductions to groups that monitor situations/organization/individuals that perpetrate/are at risk for Horrible Thing, etc.... and people are able to discuss more than how enraged they are, and also perhaps avoid venting their frustration on fellow members, or just engaging in grotesque revenge fantasies.

It's excellent when comments can lead to a more nuanced understanding of the story, and we have a lot of people here who are really good at making that happen – but it happens more and better in the proper growth culture, which in our case is an FPP that encourages inquiring, thoughtful participation as much as possible.
posted by taz (staff) at 8:35 AM on March 10, 2012 [2 favorites]

I think it's pretty much certain that there aren't many 14 year old white girls that can buy houses. And it's also pretty much certain that for every 14 year old white girl who can do that, there are a hundred that are homeless, and thousands that are living in pretty dire housing conditions.

If you want to talk about how a small minority of *people* have so much wealth that their kids can buy houses, be my guest. Though that is not really news either, and probably not a topic that Mefi "will do well".

There was a 60 minutes piece about homeless kids, also in Florida. One of the kids they focused on was a 13 year old girl.

The thing about the 13 year old house flipper -- That may not have actually come from a rich family. Back during the housing bubble, anyone could get into that game (remember Casy Serin) because anyone could get credit. Her parents were house flippers, and she started doing this craiglist thing in order to be able to save up the cash. Her contribution was only $6k. It was an opportunity that was available to her because of what her parents happened to do for a living, but not because they were necessarily spectacularly wealthy -- they just happened not to get destroyed by the collapse. Her mom put in another $6k, but that's not too much for an investment where you expect to earn back the interest.

Her parents could easily have been middle class, or even lower middle class.
posted by delmoi at 9:00 AM on March 10, 2012

I guess what I don't understand is the difference between this and that post on the front page right now about the people who filed bankruptcy with medical expenses but filed a lawsuit against the healthcare reform law. It's a link to a news article about people who have done something this community will almost universally hate them for and that's what happens. Lots of the posts here are just like that - "look at these right-wingers being stupid/evil". The Martin case to me has as much significance as these people apparently do. I am not trying to pick on that post and since mathowie commented in it I doubt it's going anywhere anyway. Is it that they are allowed because they are more overtly political whereas this just seems like a crime case to some here?
posted by Danila at 9:38 AM on March 10, 2012 [3 favorites]

Is it that they are allowed because they are more overtly political whereas this just seems like a crime case to some here?

Specifically posts about gun violence, murdering of kids, and abuse of authority are on one of the "MetaFilter doesn't do this well" list and the post was linking to a GRAR HuffPo article and was really thin on details. So many people didn't seem to see a larger issue to discuss that was raised in the post and the premise of the post was "This really terrible thing happened"

The health insurance post is an hour old, it hasn't really made it on to our radar, it's a weekend and maybe isn't attracting the same eyeballs in terms of flaggers and also people showing up to rage in the thread. It's really difficult to do the "Why did this post stay and this post go?" discussion because contextually there are a lot of things that go into that, we use mod discretion based on past performance of similar threads, phrasing of the post a whole bunch of things.

I get that it's frustrating when they seem like similar "look at these assholes" post but to me there's a depth to the free rider issue generally that is more apparent. Whenever you talk life/death stuff you get a more visceral immediate reaction than you get with policy wonk stuff, so to me they're different.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:48 AM on March 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

but to me there's a depth to the free rider issue generally that is more apparent

I have a serious problem with this but since I can't explain why this issue is deep and not just a random incident I guess I'll wait until someone does a better job and explains it somewhere on the web and maybe then it can be posted here. What happened to Trayvon Martin is becoming a major thing and quite frankly the LA Times article in the insurance post is not some deep or insightful article. It seems to me like a convenient link so the incident can be discussed. I flagged it but I don't really care if it goes or not. There are lots of posts just like that here, especially in election years. I honestly don't see how they are deeper and they're usually links to news articles. I don't see the Martin story as just being of local interest or not linked to deeper issues.
posted by Danila at 9:58 AM on March 10, 2012 [2 favorites]

I have a serious problem with this but since I can't explain why this issue is deep and not just a random incident I guess I'll wait until someone does a better job and explains it somewhere on the web and maybe then it can be posted here. What happened to Trayvon Martin is becoming a major thing and quite frankly the LA Times article in the insurance post is not some deep or insightful article.

The difference, surely, is that the insurance post takes place against the backdrop of landmark national legislation that is being bitterly politically and legally contested. The lead private plaintiff in Florida v. HSS is going to be the individual face of PPACA opposition to the Supreme Court, not just some random uninsured schmuck.

The killing of Trayvon Martin is tragic, maybe criminal, and probably attributable in no small part to black/white relations, but there's not really any reason to think his killing is going to play into a watershed moment on a national issue.
posted by planet at 10:45 AM on March 10, 2012

I guess what I don't understand is the difference between this and that post on the front page right now about the people who filed bankruptcy with medical expenses but filed a lawsuit against the healthcare reform law

I understand the difference, but they both should have been deleted as news/political filter.

Ladies and gentlemen, I remind you of your roots with the Best Of MetaFilter page. Examples of what MetaFilter can and should be.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 10:58 AM on March 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

I agree that the discussion here is excellent and often results in a lot of good insight into current events, but surely it's obvious that this isn't a news site or a general discussion site? If it were either of those things, it would be a very different place.

High-quality discussion can, and does, come from low-quality posts; but the number of potential low-quality posts is vast relative to high-quality posts and were standards relaxed, the total number of posts would increase greatly. The result would be that the potential for high-quality discussion would be fragmented across all those low-quality threads, greatly diluting it, and greatly reducing the value of the site as a whole.

So even if one doesn't agree that the primary value in MetaFilter is found in the posts themselves, but rather believes that it's in the resulting discussion, setting high-standards for posts is still vital because the quality of the posts act as a sort of anchor for the quality of the discussion.

The issues involved in the Trayvon post are vital and are very worthy of discussion here—but those issues are involved in ten or more news stories that could be posted every day to MetaFilter and were those stories posted every day here, there wouldn't end up being much good discussion of those issues...it would be lost in the noise. Rather, what those issues deserve is a high-quality post that brings them to the table, something that links together these regular tragedies, more explicitly points at these issues, and generally acts as a lodestone for the potential high-quality discussion about these issues that most of us believe they deserve and we'd like to see and perhaps participate within.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 11:26 AM on March 10, 2012 [1 favorite]

Mick: "Because nothing good will come of this except a giant shitshow of outrage and offense?

That's 80% of what we do here."

The other 20% is snark.
posted by symbioid at 11:43 AM on March 10, 2012

Mick: "Because nothing good will come of this except a giant shitshow of outrage and offense?

That's 80% of what we do here."

Speak for yourself.
posted by Splunge at 1:46 PM on March 10, 2012 [2 favorites]

Ladies and gentlemen, I remind you of your roots with the Best Of MetaFilter page. Examples of what MetaFilter can and should be. --- That's what Metafilter was, 6 years ago. I would like to think we'd be able to do better than that now. We have the technology.
posted by crunchland at 2:38 PM on March 10, 2012

The results of the December best post list looked similar, but the list was shorter so I went with that one.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 4:20 PM on March 10, 2012

The health insurance thread should have been killed for its stupid snarky little post title more than its content.
posted by Talez at 11:57 PM on March 10, 2012

Plate of beans.
posted by neuron at 9:55 AM on March 11, 2012

The health insurance thread should have been killed for its stupid snarky little post title more than its content.

Not unlike this one.
posted by y2karl at 5:19 PM on March 11, 2012

> Not unlike this one.

Yeah, that's just weird.
posted by Burhanistan at 5:21 PM on March 11, 2012

Tell Me No Lies: " I understand the difference, but they both should have been deleted as news/political filter."

There's no auto-ban on either newfilter or politicalfilter. The survival bar isn't even set particularly high for those posts.
posted by zarq at 8:19 PM on March 11, 2012

Meant newsfilter, of course.

Newfilter is another thing entirely.
posted by zarq at 8:20 PM on March 11, 2012

There's no auto-ban on either newfilter or politicalfilter. The survival bar isn't even set particularly high for those posts.

Tell me about it.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 10:16 PM on March 11, 2012

Above: So can we leave this level of talk out please?

From Today: "Benjamin Crump, the Martin family’s attorney, filed a public records lawsuit last week seeking the 911 recordings for the night of the shooting. Crump said people with access to the tapes told him Zimmerman made a comment about Martin’s race during the call said said he had no intention of letting the youth get away because, “they always get away.”"

So, no. I'm sorry if this reality is distressing to you. It's distressing to me too, but I'm no longer in the place where I ignore it, try not to mention it for fear of making people feel uncomfortable, or try to reword and revise and it's-anything-but-race it away.
posted by cashman at 8:06 PM on March 12, 2012

Specifically posts about gun violence, murdering of kids, and abuse of authority are on one of the "MetaFilter doesn't do this well" list

is there any place that "does these issues well"?
posted by bearette at 8:07 AM on March 13, 2012

cashman: " So, no. I'm sorry if this reality is distressing to you.

I don't think this is a matter of distress. Or the mods silencing all conversation on a topic.

I think it's that the community and mathowie decided long ago that they would prefer MeFi not be used as a soapbox. "You need to see this very important thing and we should all do something about it!" posts are problematic for several reasons. One of which is that they can cause flamewars and flameouts. So if a post is thin and there isn't much more to talk about in a thread than "look at these assholes" the mods try to nip them in the bud before they ignite.

It's distressing to me too, but I'm no longer in the place where I ignore it, try not to mention it for fear of making people feel uncomfortable, or try to reword and revise and it's-anything-but-race it away."

You do understand that you're not being silenced, here, yes? You can always make a better post that fits into the site ethos a bit better. Considering your extensive posting history you'd no doubt make an excellent one.

I sympathize. I really do. I've had posts I cared about that didn't survive for similar reasons. But I think setting a high standard for incendiary post topics is one of the better things about this community.
posted by zarq at 8:45 AM on March 13, 2012

Oh no, what I was responding to was that particular comment essentially saying "don't make this racial" as if I was "making" it anything.

The post was rightfully deleted in my view and I hope I made it clear that I was 100% okay with the deletion by stating the ways it could have been a better post.
posted by cashman at 8:52 AM on March 13, 2012 [2 favorites]

Oh. Doh!

My mistake. :)
posted by zarq at 10:28 AM on March 13, 2012

It's all love, zarq!
posted by cashman at 11:36 AM on March 13, 2012 [1 favorite]

:)
posted by zarq at 11:39 AM on March 13, 2012