I can understand wanting to delete all news threads entirely. 'Cuz, you know, this isn't a friggin' current events blog.We always have news posts. Should there be a bias towards certain kinds of news over others? My last FPP was fairly "news-y" (albeit 'good' news if you don't like Zynga) and well received.
This presupposes that mefi is a news outlet rather than a general interest community blog where sometimes newsy stuff gets posted. We're not sanitizing any news by nixing not so great posts about news (good or bad, but honestly pretty overwhelmingly it's bad news that people post), we're mixing posts that seem like they're not great for this place.Yeah, I disagree. "Sanitize" just means cleaning, or making something more palatable. Removing posts that are crap in general would fit the definition, but of course that's fine. The problem is that the rules you guy are using causes an emergent phenomenon that biases the news that does get posted. Just like how the NYT, supposedly, told a reporter it wasn't "news".
Unlike the NYT, we are not a news agency, and the question is not whether or not it's news. I do not know how much clearer this can be: an argument that a post should stick around because it's core subject "is news" is a non-starter, much as I understand some folks would like that to be otherwise.I'm not saying "it should stay because it's news", but rather the criteria used to determine which news stories stay and which go introduces is an systematic bias, which I don't think is a good bias to have. I guess the particular post wasn't that great, but I'm not a fan of the pattern.
"However the site also has its own goals or mission and this isn't to be a place where people just talk about the news of the day. Sometimes they do, sure, but it's not the main purpose of the site. The main purpose of the site is sharing cool stuff you found on the web that you'd like to discuss with other people."is a surprising gaff -- a significant proportion of threads and total comments of all threads come directly from "news of the day", and such threads which link to news sources from newspapers, magazines, journals, and blogs which discuss "news" are a significant chunk of your stake-holders and "community".
If you're planning to post a story to MetaFilter that is part of a longstanding, often-discussed topic (Israel/Palestine, the Iraq war, how stupid Republicans are, etc.), think hard about whether the site you're linking to actually has anything new to say on the topic. (Wiki)Policy is publicly discussed and debated here on MetaTalk, as we're doing now, and any changes are announced here. It's not secret, and it's not based on whim.
axegrindfilter - you posted on a hot-button topic that you frequently post about and/or used heavy-handed editorializing language. (from the list of common deletion reasons in the FAQ)
It all begins with the manuscript. Here’s a scenario attributed to Henry Kissinger. When he was Secretary of State, one of his aides was responsible for a writing assignment that had to be completed by the next day. The aide assured his boss that the report would be on his desk first thing in the morning.My point is not that the mods are deleting things without reading them. My point is, they rarely delete something and say "You can't talk about this here." Almost always, they delete something and say "This is not good enough. Make a better post and submit it tomorrow."
The next day, the aid kept his promise. However, later that same day, Kissinger called the aide into his office and asked him to rewrite it.
The aide took the report in hand and went about rewriting it; the next day, he proudly handed the work to Kissinger. Again, later that afternoon, Kissinger gave the report back to the aide with the instructions to rewrite it.
This back and forth went on for several more times. Finally, on this particular draft of the report, the aide, weary from all the work, said: “Here is the report, Mr. Secretary. This is the best I can do; I can’t make it better.”
Kissinger took the report, and then looked up at the aide, saying: “Good, now I’ll read it.”
You get the point, I trust.
