September 15, 2001

11:44 AM

The link/comment ratio for some new users is all over the place, as are a lot of other behaviors such as overly-lengthy front page posts (not to mention basic respect and tolerance for people's views)

posted by lucien to etiquette/policy at 11:44 AM (5 comments total)

Unfortunately, a lot of new users aren't including emails either so there's no way to get in touch with them should you wish to (unless you are Matt, of course)

Is this another case of "things are different at the moment, normal rules may not apply" (Because I can see a case for that, really) At some stage though, could all of this start to become problematic as these users seek to continue the behaviors learnt during this stage? That they will consider this the norm and become perhaps justifiably annoyed when it's pointed out that it isn't?
posted by lucien at 11:45 AM on September 15, 2001

FBeach is a bad example -- he has been a member since January 2000 and has only posted one link since the attacks.
posted by rcade at 11:53 AM on September 15, 2001

They are good quality links also. Actually my mistake is that I intended to use his user info to illustrate the use of over-long front page posts, and I made the mistake of assuming that people who had been using MeFi for that long don't post up extra-long front page posts, and do provide emails, which obviously is a stupid assumption to make. Anyway, point taken.
posted by lucien at 12:43 PM on September 15, 2001

Point taken, lucien. I've added my email and ICQ and urge others to do so.
However, a large proportion of what appear to be purely personal asides, specially ethical and technical, are often useful(and preemptive!)to a lot of other members.
There is an interesting thread on MeTa about the pros and cons of including email addresses - somewhere.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 11:58 PM on September 15, 2001

Thanks for the feedback Miguel. I actually think that it would be good if there were two places to add your email, one for Matt, which would be an ISP or "official" email which you could conceal from the rest of the community, and the other a free email with hotmail or whatever that you have no qualms about giving out.

rcade, I'm not sure that the length of time a person has been registered at MeFi is always a good indicator of how much they have used it, and how familiar they are with the community and the way it works. Mostly it's a good indicator, but not always.
posted by lucien at 5:05 AM on October 7, 2001