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'oh life, how i have dreaded you,' said rhoda, 'oh, human beings, how i have hated you! how you have nudged, how you have interrupted, how hideous you have looked in oxford street, how squalid sitting opposite each other staring in the tube! now as i climb this mountain, from the top of which i shall see africa, my mind is printed with brown-paper parcels and your faces. i have been stained by you and corrupted. you smelt so unpleasant too, lining up outside doors to buy tickets. all were dressed in indeterminate shades of grey and brown, never even a blue feather pinned to a hat. none had the courage to be one thing rather than another. what dissolution of the soul you demanded in order to get through one day, what lies, bowings, scrapings, fluency and servility! how you chained me to one spot, one hour, one chair, and sat yourself down opposite! how you snatched from me the white spaces that lie between hour and hour and rolled them into dirty pellets and tossed them into the wastepaper basket with your greasy paws. yet those were my life.I think that's that.
'but i yielded. sneers and yawns were covered with my hand. i did not go out into the street and break a bottle in the gutter as a sign of rage. trembling with ardour, i pretended that i was not surprised.'
In short - The policy is that there is no policy.
The longer version:
I'm just a lover of MetaFilter. I'm not an official spokesperson. I don't have any special insight into what Matt wants. For the most part Matt hasn't approved, or even dignified with a response, any of the "MeFi policy" opinions I've made over the years. Many people here rightly take me to task for my long-winded pontificating about what MetaFilter is or should be. I don't speak for anyone but myself.
I'm just an attention grabbing member (pun intended) with some strong opinions. And I admit right up front that this gives me no more credibility that the 3000+ other active users here. I'm wrong a great deal of the time. Consider me helpful at your peril.
But here's what I think - I think political posts are fine as long as they meet the following criteria:
1) Their volume doesn't crowd out the new, interesting, wouldn't have seen otherwise, best-of-the-web stuff. A few political gems are good. More than a few gets ugly real quick.
2) They do indeed cover something new and noteworthy. We have a habit of beating these topics into the ground. Having more than one post about something political here is wankery. This isn't a discussion board. It's a place for new things, new ideas. That's the ideal anyway.
3) It's not an op-ed, offers facts rather than rumor, and at least makes an attempt to be fair and balanced. A political thread is bound to turn into a screaming match at some point. We don't do these topics well. At the very least a political thread should be, on it's face, worth the bother.
4) Any agenda or ax-grinding is kept to a minimum. Burning down your own thread by starting things off with a few gas cans tossed in the fire is bad. Please don't make MetaFilter your blog/soapbox.
5) You understand your thread is on borrowed time. If Matt sees it and it's not pure gold, he'll certainly consider deleting it. If it gets deleted, please just get over it. Seriously. Don't try posting it again with new links. Don't drag it into MetaTalk so we can say the same things we've said about every other deleted political post.
We want to learn something new from a political post. We want to gain some insight into those who sit on the other side of the fence. We want a thought provoking discussion. Please try and *not* make a post that you know will just turn into a name-calling slap fight.
So when engaging in one of these political posts:
1) Try to keep "shut up", "fuck off", "just like a liberal", and "just like a conservative" to a minimum. If all you have to offer to the debate is a snarky put-down, please don't. We know you're mad. We know you hate them/us. We know it's hard. Please be constructive. Please?
2) Don't shout down the other side. The only way these political threads have any value is if we get to hear both sides. If it's just the usual suspects agreeing on the usual talking points then it's not worth the bother. If you can't have an open mind, or offer a reasonable rebuttal. Please don't comment.
3) Yell at your cat. Pound your head on your keyboard. Piss on your floor. Go ahead. Do it right now. Wasn't that silly? Didn't you look like an idiot? Are you laughing at how foolish that was? So please don't do the same sort of thing in your comments. Very few of us are actually in grade school. We can act like adults.
Matt has said many times about political threads that it isn't what he wanted MetaFilter to be about. He's said that he doesn't like them. He's said that he's tempted to ban them altogether. But he's also said the sometimes they're pretty good. At the end of the day it seems his desire to avoid rules and policy have won out.
He lets them be posted in moderation. Many people here seem to think even that level of "censorship" is wrong. But to my thinking this is a bit selfish. Matt's the host, and he'd be perfectly within his rights to kill the site off at any time. The least we can do is learn to accept his SOP for political posts - They exist in a grey area, and if they aren't done well they're likely to get deleted.
These aren't rules. You won't get any rules. That's a good thing.
posted by y6y6y6 at 10:06 AM on November 24, 2004