Winamp Dies, which post shall die as well? November 20, 2013 11:48 AM Subscribe
I was making a huge post on the newly announced death of winamp, and unfortunately, wcfields beat me to the punch...
Normally I don't care whether my stuff gets deleted, but I want to argue the case that mine has more research and linkage dumped into it, but I guess we'll see which thread takes off if one hasn't already been deleted by the mods right now.
Either way, I'm QQing...
haha - ok - i didn't know how urgently you do that stuff :) Thanks though.
posted by symbioid at 11:56 AM on November 20, 2013
posted by symbioid at 11:56 AM on November 20, 2013
Why don't the mods have a merge thread button on their MiFi-control-station?
posted by sammyo at 12:52 PM on November 20, 2013 [5 favorites]
posted by sammyo at 12:52 PM on November 20, 2013 [5 favorites]
Possibly answering silly question seriously, but:
1. A post is an individual piece of work; it was put together by the user whose name appears in the byline, and merging the content of two posts to a single byline would be a pretty stark violation of that expectation, for both reader and poster. So merging post content is right out.
2. A thread is a sequential list of comments, one following the other with the premise that everything that comes after a given comment is a response to and written in the context of only that which came before it. So merging the comments of two threads violates expectations of the context in which comments from either were written.
Deleted near-simultaneous dupes aren't super common; cases with substantial active conversation in both threads are vanishingly rare. So we don't have any kind of meaningful incentive to add a new process that'd involve violating those expectations in the points above. Every now and then some comments or links get left behind because of a deletion, and that's just something to make one's peace with.
posted by cortex (staff) at 1:02 PM on November 20, 2013 [5 favorites]
1. A post is an individual piece of work; it was put together by the user whose name appears in the byline, and merging the content of two posts to a single byline would be a pretty stark violation of that expectation, for both reader and poster. So merging post content is right out.
2. A thread is a sequential list of comments, one following the other with the premise that everything that comes after a given comment is a response to and written in the context of only that which came before it. So merging the comments of two threads violates expectations of the context in which comments from either were written.
Deleted near-simultaneous dupes aren't super common; cases with substantial active conversation in both threads are vanishingly rare. So we don't have any kind of meaningful incentive to add a new process that'd involve violating those expectations in the points above. Every now and then some comments or links get left behind because of a deletion, and that's just something to make one's peace with.
posted by cortex (staff) at 1:02 PM on November 20, 2013 [5 favorites]
For a second I thought this was an obit post for a mefite named winamp.
posted by rtha at 1:12 PM on November 20, 2013 [25 favorites]
posted by rtha at 1:12 PM on November 20, 2013 [25 favorites]
Why don't the mods have a merge thread button on their MiFi-control-station?
The temptation to build unholy FPP centipedes would be too great.
posted by Dr Dracator at 1:36 PM on November 20, 2013 [3 favorites]
The temptation to build unholy FPP centipedes would be too great.
posted by Dr Dracator at 1:36 PM on November 20, 2013 [3 favorites]
Why don't the mods have a merge thread button on their MiFi-control-station?
Tuvix. Tuvix is why.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 2:19 PM on November 20, 2013 [14 favorites]
Tuvix. Tuvix is why.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 2:19 PM on November 20, 2013 [14 favorites]
TS: QQ or ;_;
posted by klangklangston at 2:27 PM on November 20, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by klangklangston at 2:27 PM on November 20, 2013 [1 favorite]
Why don't the mods have a merge thread button on their MiFi-control-station?
Haven't you heard about crossing the streams?!
posted by 4ster at 2:41 PM on November 20, 2013 [2 favorites]
Haven't you heard about crossing the streams?!
posted by 4ster at 2:41 PM on November 20, 2013 [2 favorites]
I was in the middle of a thread merge and ended up with six fingers on one hand.
posted by The Whelk at 3:27 PM on November 20, 2013 [3 favorites]
posted by The Whelk at 3:27 PM on November 20, 2013 [3 favorites]
two threads were in the closet making babies and i saw one of the babies and the baby looked at me
posted by elizardbits at 3:43 PM on November 20, 2013 [16 favorites]
posted by elizardbits at 3:43 PM on November 20, 2013 [16 favorites]
This thread needs a new skin.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 4:05 PM on November 20, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 4:05 PM on November 20, 2013 [1 favorite]
It puts the lotion on the thread skin.
posted by The Whelk at 4:09 PM on November 20, 2013 [2 favorites]
posted by The Whelk at 4:09 PM on November 20, 2013 [2 favorites]
That's not lotion. Or skin.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:14 PM on November 20, 2013 [1 favorite]
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:14 PM on November 20, 2013 [1 favorite]
I had to go to Urban Dictionary to find out what QQ was.
Please. Don't make me do that again. :shudder:
posted by potsmokinghippieoverlord at 4:18 PM on November 20, 2013 [2 favorites]
Please. Don't make me do that again. :shudder:
posted by potsmokinghippieoverlord at 4:18 PM on November 20, 2013 [2 favorites]
I had to go to Urban Dictionary to find out what QQ was.
Me too and I'm still not... sure...?
posted by sm1tten at 5:09 PM on November 20, 2013 [1 favorite]
Me too and I'm still not... sure...?
posted by sm1tten at 5:09 PM on November 20, 2013 [1 favorite]
Cortex, thanks, it was actually a somewhat serious rhetorical question in a flip guise. I've browsed enough metatalk that I knew it was not a direction of interest here, but I'd also noticed a fair number of dupe threads that had substantial added content in the post and in comments when not caught immediately. I don't actually want to argue with your points, but collaboration could be a reasonable possibility and while some threads have a dialog or multiple intertwined dialogues, many are quite independent comments independent of each other.
posted by sammyo at 6:35 PM on November 20, 2013
posted by sammyo at 6:35 PM on November 20, 2013
And hey the occasional "Tuvix" thread could have mind blowing possibilities.
posted by sammyo at 6:36 PM on November 20, 2013
posted by sammyo at 6:36 PM on November 20, 2013
Well, they way I see it, (a) we can have active collaboration between multiple users up front if they're into that sort of thing and want coordinate it for whatever reason (though note that this basically never happens and so worrying about it in the fraction-of-never subcase of deletions of simulposts is not really likely to pay dividends), and (b) folks are always welcome to use their best judgement about whether and how to manually port over their comments from the unluckier of two threads when this sort of thing happens (and that porting-over of comments does in fact happen on occasion).
So, again, it's not so much that the idea is fundamentally bad—I'm not trying to suggest it is, at all, and in fact some sites have made an effort specifically to use rehoming/merging as part of their thread-management process—but that it doesn't really make sense within the Metafilter rubric because it violates general community expectations about how this specific place works.
Also, it really bothers me for some reason that that Tuvix link was marked as already visited for me. YES FINE I HAVE A STAR TREK PROBLEM, WEB BROWSER, YOU DON'T HAVE TO RUB IT IN MY FACE.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:19 PM on November 20, 2013 [4 favorites]
So, again, it's not so much that the idea is fundamentally bad—I'm not trying to suggest it is, at all, and in fact some sites have made an effort specifically to use rehoming/merging as part of their thread-management process—but that it doesn't really make sense within the Metafilter rubric because it violates general community expectations about how this specific place works.
Also, it really bothers me for some reason that that Tuvix link was marked as already visited for me. YES FINE I HAVE A STAR TREK PROBLEM, WEB BROWSER, YOU DON'T HAVE TO RUB IT IN MY FACE.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:19 PM on November 20, 2013 [4 favorites]
It'd be cool to have collaboration tools- if nothing else, a place to post "I'm working on a post, anybody got any links that would go well with what I've got so far?"
posted by Pope Guilty at 8:48 PM on November 20, 2013
posted by Pope Guilty at 8:48 PM on November 20, 2013
Like, the ideal would be some kind of Google Docs-style thing with change tracking and versioning but I like to dream.
posted by Pope Guilty at 8:51 PM on November 20, 2013
posted by Pope Guilty at 8:51 PM on November 20, 2013
I hate when this happens, and have had the displeasure of experiencing it several times over the years. I typically make more involved posts, and when you've spent a lot of time on something you clearly don't want to see it go *poof*. But the other option is basically saying, "My post is clearly superior to yours, nyaah." Which feels super-shitty to say, even if it happens to be true (i.e., long post vs. SLYT). I don't really know a solution for it, though, apart from swift mod judgments -- the collaboration thing is a nice idea, but seems like it would happen in practice rarely if at all, especially in breaking news situations where lots of people are rushing to post about the same item.
posted by Rhaomi at 12:00 AM on November 21, 2013
posted by Rhaomi at 12:00 AM on November 21, 2013
Could there be a mod policy to put a link to the deleted post as the first comment of the undeleted one in these situations?
posted by Ned G at 6:38 AM on November 21, 2013
posted by Ned G at 6:38 AM on November 21, 2013
There might be cases where merely closing the dupe rather than deleting made sense.
No need to thank us for explaining this kind of stuff btw, cortex.
posted by Segundus at 7:43 AM on November 21, 2013
No need to thank us for explaining this kind of stuff btw, cortex.
posted by Segundus at 7:43 AM on November 21, 2013
Could there be a mod policy to put a link to the deleted post as the first comment of the undeleted one in these situations?
We don't insert comments out of order; we do generally suggest that the poster of the deleted post repost stuff as a comment themselves in the standing thread, and beyond that often folks will toss a link to the deleted on in unprompted.
There might be cases where merely closing the dupe rather than deleting made sense.
There might be, but there haven't been enough and frequent enough cases like that over the years to justify actually changing the functionality of the front page to accommodate the close-but-don't-delete case, not least because of the above people-can-still-link-to-deleted-posts thing making it sort of moot.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:09 AM on November 21, 2013 [1 favorite]
We don't insert comments out of order; we do generally suggest that the poster of the deleted post repost stuff as a comment themselves in the standing thread, and beyond that often folks will toss a link to the deleted on in unprompted.
There might be cases where merely closing the dupe rather than deleting made sense.
There might be, but there haven't been enough and frequent enough cases like that over the years to justify actually changing the functionality of the front page to accommodate the close-but-don't-delete case, not least because of the above people-can-still-link-to-deleted-posts thing making it sort of moot.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:09 AM on November 21, 2013 [1 favorite]
I had to go to Urban Dictionary to find out what QQ was.
Please. Don't make me do that again. :shudder:
One of my favorite lines on the show I work on was cut from the show, but it involved the host talking about using urban dictionary, acting all clueless about it, and the correspondent shouting "NO! NO! THE URBAN DICTIONARY IS NOT THE DICTIONARY YOU THINK IT IS!"
posted by nevercalm at 12:31 PM on November 21, 2013 [1 favorite]
Please. Don't make me do that again. :shudder:
One of my favorite lines on the show I work on was cut from the show, but it involved the host talking about using urban dictionary, acting all clueless about it, and the correspondent shouting "NO! NO! THE URBAN DICTIONARY IS NOT THE DICTIONARY YOU THINK IT IS!"
posted by nevercalm at 12:31 PM on November 21, 2013 [1 favorite]
Cortex, do you have any stats on abandoned posts? Like, maybe last month, how many people were working on a Lou Reed obituary at the same time as alexoscar but ultimately didn't pull the trigger once they saw they had been beaten to the punch? It seems like obituaries are one instance where overlaps are common enough to be expected.
The new post flow already alerts posters about potential duplicates. But only potential duplicates that occur in the past. As far as I know it doesn't monitor potential duplicates in real time. But it could! The system could cross-check the drafts in progress and alert folks of potential overlaps. Like: "symbioid is also working on a Winamp post, maybe you two would like to coordinate?" Essentially catch the problem before it happens rather than waiting until after.
I know that you're not trying to encourage newsfilter but it'd be nice to have a mechanism that encourages reflection rather than a winner-take-all race to hit the "Post" button.
posted by Jeff Howard at 1:11 PM on November 21, 2013
The new post flow already alerts posters about potential duplicates. But only potential duplicates that occur in the past. As far as I know it doesn't monitor potential duplicates in real time. But it could! The system could cross-check the drafts in progress and alert folks of potential overlaps. Like: "symbioid is also working on a Winamp post, maybe you two would like to coordinate?" Essentially catch the problem before it happens rather than waiting until after.
I know that you're not trying to encourage newsfilter but it'd be nice to have a mechanism that encourages reflection rather than a winner-take-all race to hit the "Post" button.
posted by Jeff Howard at 1:11 PM on November 21, 2013
We don't have any stats on abandoned posts or comments, no. The site doesn't actually store post or comment content until it's proper posted; stuff in the preview process just exists ephemerally. And while I agree it'd be technically possible to make changes to that flow to make it possible to check for real-time collisions between posters based on keyword or tag matching, it's, again, such a low-frequency and low-stakes problem that that kind of reworking and complicating of the process hardly seems justified.
I know that you're not trying to encourage newsfilter but it'd be nice to have a mechanism that encourages reflection rather than a winner-take-all race to hit the "Post" button.
Deleting particularly rushed or crappy posts is that mechanism, basically.
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:55 PM on November 21, 2013
I know that you're not trying to encourage newsfilter but it'd be nice to have a mechanism that encourages reflection rather than a winner-take-all race to hit the "Post" button.
Deleting particularly rushed or crappy posts is that mechanism, basically.
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:55 PM on November 21, 2013
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posted by cortex (staff) at 11:53 AM on November 20, 2013