Troubled by the disappearance of parts of the conversation

November 23, 2005 8:24 AM

I am a bit troubled by the disappearance of some comments in this thread. How do others feel about the altering of a record of a conversation?
posted by mania to Etiquette/Policy at 8:24 AM (43 comments total)

I’m interested in the ethical considerations made in altering a thread. While I have no doubt the comments added nothing to the conversation, where does the line get drawn when deciding to remove a comment or let it stand? How do these requests get handled? How often does it happen? Does anyone else feel a little queasy about this practice?
posted by mania at 8:25 AM on November 23, 2005

Every post is a beautiful and unique snowflake, and its destruction is a crime against humanity.
posted by darukaru at 8:27 AM on November 23, 2005

Especially that one.
posted by darukaru at 8:28 AM on November 23, 2005

I woke up to a ton of flags on a comment that said something like "Please remove this comment and the one before it" which I did. There had been a flagged "paging parisparamus" comment that the two comments were responding to which I also removed. Other than that I almost never touch comments in MeFi or MeTa proper unless they're inline-gaping-anus pictures or the poster specifically requests it. More information about how flagging works is on the wiki.
posted by jessamyn at 8:42 AM on November 23, 2005

insert snoopy cartoon here
posted by andrew cooke at 8:42 AM on November 23, 2005

I've posted my opinion on this subject in the thread itself (before checking to see that there was a Meta thread). But really, we've gone over this hundreds of times: It's not that comments shouldn't be deleted, it's that there should be a record of it happening. Matt claims that would lead to people asking what happened there, but once again, that's exactly what happens with things as they are now!

And that's the last time I'll repeat my opinion on this at least until 2006.
posted by soyjoy at 8:49 AM on November 23, 2005

Inline-gaping-anus pictures???? Thank you for setting the bar somewhere, at least. I think I'll skip breakfast now, thanks.
posted by leftcoastbob at 9:02 AM on November 23, 2005

leftcoastbob, don't tell me you're not familliar with goatse man? Oh man, if not, forget I said anything. Don't go searching for it.
posted by lyam at 9:13 AM on November 23, 2005

leftcoastbob: "Inline-gaping-anus pictures???? Thank you for setting the bar somewhere, at least. I think I'll skip breakfast now, thanks."

I don't think there should be any absolutes, ever. I mean, occasionally an inline gaping anus picture is an important method of debate. You know, discourse.
posted by Plutor at 9:21 AM on November 23, 2005

Or for tubgirl. Definitely don't search for tubgirl. If you were to go to google and search for tubgirl, you would regret it.

Yes, sir, searching for tubgirl would be a regrettable move.
posted by cortex at 9:22 AM on November 23, 2005

My fundament was flagged. I've moved on.
posted by If I Had An Anus at 9:22 AM on November 23, 2005

I have decided that I don't give a shit about comment deletions. Just a datapoint.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 9:23 AM on November 23, 2005

I agree with soyjoy. Strongly.
posted by timeistight at 9:25 AM on November 23, 2005

"I have decided that I don't give a shit about comment deletions."

Yah, I don't care, too.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 9:28 AM on November 23, 2005

Matt claims that would lead to people asking what happened there, but once again, that's exactly what happens with things as they are now!

Yup. Reminds me of how, when I get into discussions of anarchism, my interlocutor invariably thinks to overcome me with the following devastating blow: "But, if there's no goverment, people will go around robbing and killing each other!" I look at them and wait, but they never seem to get it without having it spelled out for them.
posted by languagehat at 9:51 AM on November 23, 2005

admins - itching to delete some comments? Here's 40 and counting that could be gotten with a single blow.
posted by soyjoy at 10:22 AM on November 23, 2005

"But, if there's no government, people will go around robbing and killing each other!"

Government is not the cure to society's ills, but merely one of those itsy, bitsy band-aids applied to a hemorrhaging wound.

I came to see the light of anarchy by way of objectivism, btw.

Anyway, back to 'comment deletion 101' ...
posted by mischief at 10:22 AM on November 23, 2005

There are tools that will show (if you viewed the thread prior to the deletion) where comments were deleted.
posted by orthogonality at 10:30 AM on November 23, 2005

There's actually no depth to the ethical conversation about this.

Matt does as he pleases. That is the long and short of the ethical system at work.

The fact is that most agree this makes for a better website most of the time (with some notable dissent in general and several specific instances of considerable dissent, by many - including myself).
posted by scarabic at 10:32 AM on November 23, 2005

Does anyone else feel a little queasy about this practice?

*projectile vomits*
posted by quonsar at 10:37 AM on November 23, 2005

(if you viewed the thread prior to the deletion)

LOL. Someone really does need to attend Comment Deletion 101.
posted by soyjoy at 10:38 AM on November 23, 2005

feel better, q?
posted by raedyn at 10:40 AM on November 23, 2005

Heh. But life in the state of nature is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.
posted by klangklangston at 10:43 AM on November 23, 2005

Unless you're Rousseau, when it's all of those things but also awesome.
posted by klangklangston at 10:43 AM on November 23, 2005

mischief: I came to see the light of anarchy by way of objectivism, btw.

Sounds like having a Scientologist epiphany after a DUI.
posted by fleacircus at 11:18 AM on November 23, 2005

God I hate feeling out of the loop just because I have a life and can't check Metafilter every half an hour.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 11:31 AM on November 23, 2005

Mathowie and Jessamyn: wouldn't it be a good idea to note that a comment has been deleted? Just something small like this:

Comment by [user] deleted by [admin].

And, if needed, a brief reason for the deletion.

Sorry if this has been discussed to death before.
posted by Termite at 11:58 AM on November 23, 2005

Termite, if the comment wasn't shown, that would merely draw more attention to a deletion. Keeping them around degrades the site, so the best compromise is to remove the pointless, noisy, off-topic comments completely.

Seeing half a dozen "comment deleted" lines in a controversial post would probably dissaude anyone from adding anything to it.

I know it seems like a sucky compromise, but other options seem worse. It sounds like in this specific case, the deletions were really minor and nothing helpful or on-topic.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 12:04 PM on November 23, 2005

Maybe we could have a page (cesspool.metafilter.com) where ONLY the deleted comments and posts would be visible (in no particular order). When a user gets banned, Mathowie could just forward them (on login) to that page to suffer an eternity of pedantic nonesense.

But then again, I don't really care. I don't care so much that I am willing to quite vocally express my lack of opinion to all who will listen.
posted by blue_beetle at 12:49 PM on November 23, 2005

Unless you're Rousseau, when it's all of those things but also awesome.

AAA+++ WOULD READ THIS COMMENTER AGAIN

A stronger objection to anarchy: "If we didn't have a government and an army, what would stop our neighbors from invading and tearing off swathes of territory?"

Canada annexes the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, Mexico reclaims the Southwest, China declares Hawaii a Chinese protectorate....

Abolishing your government only works if everyone else does the same. Otherwise it's like that Dilbert cartoon:

Dogbert: I wish everyone in the world could learn to live in peace and harmony, giving up violence completely.
Dilbert: That's a beautiful sentiment, Dogbert.
Dogbert: That way, I could take over the entire world with a butter knife.
posted by russilwvong at 2:38 PM on November 23, 2005

Heh. I can't tell if you're making fun of me or Rousseau... (His views liberally adapted from his essay On the Origins of Inequality).
posted by klangklangston at 4:02 PM on November 23, 2005

It's nice that "inline gaping anuses" are out of bounds, but the presence of the two modifiers is a bit troubling.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 4:15 PM on November 23, 2005

Seeing half a dozen "comment deleted" lines in a controversial post would probably dissaude anyone from adding anything to it.

On what planet?
posted by timeistight at 4:51 PM on November 23, 2005

klangklangston: I thought it was just a really funny comment. Made me laugh, anyway.
posted by russilwvong at 5:28 PM on November 23, 2005

Not to beat this into the ground, but contrary to how some are proposing it, we don't need to know WHOSE comment was deleted by WHOM, only the fact that a comment was deleted. That would make all the difference.

It could be something as inobtrusive as a HR tag, width=200 or so, where the comment (or, if necessary, any number of consecutive comments) got deleted. It would be a simple "scar" in the thread. If people were curious they could email people who had commented around the scar and see if they could get an answer. But starting conversations or Meta threads about scars would bring the timeout hammer or whatever.

Or we can keep it like it is and have the ongoing confusing of users, thread derailing and MetaTalk threads about it.
posted by soyjoy at 7:39 PM on November 23, 2005

Jessamyn sometimes leaves little notes to that effect in AskMe threads where comments have been deleted.
posted by Gator at 7:53 PM on November 23, 2005

I see no value in placing markers to show where comments were deleted. Hollow, distracting HRs sprinkled here and there to show where excrement once lay? No thanks. Read lofi if you're interested in the unedited version.

Bear in mind why comments get deleted. We're not talking "please inform me when you have ripped a page out of my diary." We're talking " please leave a post-it note on the side of a building where you have just erased a "fuck your mother" graffito.
posted by scarabic at 8:21 PM on November 23, 2005

Read lofi if you're interested in the unedited version.

I may be wrong, but I don't think you can get deleted comments from lofi.
posted by timeistight at 9:23 PM on November 23, 2005

Ahem. Newby here, not entirely immersed in the culture, perhaps it's not my place to comment? That said, I am a member of communities where comment deletion is a somewhat common event. Some communities permit post/comment deletion by admins as well as by the poster; others only allow admins the authority to delete. Regardless, a notice that the comment had been deleted appears in its place, referenced as being deleted by the poster or an admin. This does lead to derails, where the discussion centers around the deleted comment, instead of the substance of the original post. I do think that this community would generally view that as a bad thing.

As it happens, I was around when those comments and subsequent deletions occurred, and so what happened makes total sense to me. I know why those comments were posted, and why they were deleted because I was present and actively involved in reading those threads when the events happened. The problem arises when members don't see them in the context in which they occurred. They read the thread later, see all these "comment deleted by admin" scars, and wonder what the hullaballoo was. Subsequent readers can place more emphasis on the deleted content than the original posters did.

There is a valid argument to be made for the idea that you shouldn't post anything you wouldn't want to subsequently appear on a job interview. Sadly, we are all of us fallible, a good manager recognizes these missteps, and helps us back on our feet, usually without anyone noticing.

As an admin myself, my own philosophy has been to allow anything short of hate speech or personal attacks on other members. Naturally, this lackadaisical approach leads to accusations of unfairness from every political spectrum. Post deletion is a tricky business though, it requires a fine hand. I am personally amazed at how much tolerance Matt and Jessamyn have for the incredible amount of silly cack that goes on around here. however the very idea that any post on here is somehow sacred is just a laughable conceit . For those who think this way, get over yourselves, seriously.

On that note, one of the things that I've noticed around here is that that too many members here seem to forget just how HUGE this community is, and how much work is involved in trying to keep 26,000 dip-sticks from completely imploding.
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 9:51 PM on November 23, 2005

Seeing half a dozen "comment deleted" lines in a controversial post would probably dissaude anyone from adding anything to it.
I doubt it, and would it really be so awful if it did? They can decide whether or not they want to comment based on what has happened in the thread. Deceiving people into commenting where they normally wouldn't have is not really a positive effect.

I don't actually see the merit of deleting any non-gotse comments from MeFi at all. AskMe and MeTa threads have a static purpose. MeFi threads are just for discussion, based on the thread.
But of course, conversations branch off, so it's not like they need to stay on topic.
posted by Count Ziggurat at 12:53 PM on November 24, 2005

"Inline-gaping-anus pictures????"

leftcoastbob - the inline and gaping shouldn't be hyphenated if that helps your breakfast any.
posted by nthdegx at 11:37 PM on November 24, 2005

Thanks to all for the discussion. I would vote to leave any comments that don't fall under the "anus umbrella", or hate speech. I like to know that karl can fly off the handle every one-in-two-hundred posts and doesn't get to ask the have his remarks removed.

I like my Metafilter unfiltered.
posted by mania at 6:54 PM on November 25, 2005

MetaFilter: 26,000 dip-sticks imploding
posted by deborah at 7:43 PM on November 27, 2005