Let's Discuss Marginally Illegal Questions

August 27, 2006 11:23 AM

This is the kind of borderline/gray area/marginally illegal question I love to see in AskMe.
posted by Rash to Etiquette/Policy at 11:23 AM (30 comments total)

What exactly are you calling out here? To me, the question reads like the kid bought some junk on a trip. I really don't think the kid is trying to smuggle goods into the country to set up shop on a street corner.
posted by ninjew at 11:27 AM on August 27, 2006

You don't like it? Flag it and move on.
posted by SenshiNeko at 11:29 AM on August 27, 2006

I don't think Rash is being sarcastic.
posted by euphorb at 11:31 AM on August 27, 2006

POST TO GREY != CALLOUT, even if that's how we like to play 'em.

Dear Rash:

How are you? I hope you are good. I am good too. By the way, explaining your metatalk posts is a good idea some times because we are easily frightened and confused around here. If you want to say some more about what this is all about, that's totally cool. If not, that's cool too. Either way, thanks in advance for the amusing inline .gif posts.

XOXO,
posted by cortex at 11:37 AM on August 27, 2006

Well, it is a callout in the sense that he is directing attention to a particular post. As you say, though, he is leaving at that, with no further explanation.
posted by ninjew at 11:46 AM on August 27, 2006

I don't think Rash is being sarcastic.

Well, who knows right? Who the fuck knows.

This is the kind of cryptic/wtf/borderline snarky callout I love to see in MeTa.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 12:05 PM on August 27, 2006 [4 favorites]

It's obvious that more of these kinds of posts as soon as possible.

I have a friend who wants to buy pot seeds from Amsterdam, and he's certified for medical marijuana in California-- Will the U.S. Postal Service find out, and if they do, what would they do??
posted by InfidelZombie at 12:10 PM on August 27, 2006

I do like this kind of thread. No sarcasm. How else would you find out how to navigate the grey areas? No official source ever confirms them, so anecdotes on here are the best substitute.
posted by smackfu at 12:11 PM on August 27, 2006

This one seems fishy to me. I couldn't figure out whether to flag it when I saw it, but this seems like a good place to mention it.
posted by owhydididoit at 12:15 PM on August 27, 2006

posted by loquacious at 12:45 PM on August 27, 2006

I want to learn how to score a Scid-II Diagnostic Interview. Any suggestions?
posted by econous at 1:16 PM on August 27, 2006

Of all the shady crap that's posted to AskMe this one is by far the most benign. He specifies he's got 3 of each thing - he bought some gifts for people or a few things for himself.. he's not trying to make a business of importing knockoff goods.

Even if he were, he'd be foolish to specify he's got 3 of each of these things because that would get him answers that wouldn't be at all helpful to his cause.

I think it's safe to say that this is one of the weaker / least valid callouts of an AskMe.
posted by twiggy at 1:19 PM on August 27, 2006

Er... Rash, care to comment?
posted by Stauf at 1:21 PM on August 27, 2006

Didn't seem sarcastic to me.

But it's like the story of the two blind men and the elephant, where one blind man reports an elephant giving a cheerful thumbs-up, but the other blind man describes a spittle-spraying demonic beast that exudes knockout gas from its rear then steamrollers all of our unconscious bodies to a pulp. The latter elephant really pisses me off.
posted by fleacircus at 1:24 PM on August 27, 2006

posted by sergeant sandwich at 1:45 PM on August 27, 2006 [1 favorite]

twiggy : "I think it's safe to say that this is one of the weaker / least valid callouts of an AskMe."

Well, in the sense that we don't know what Rash is trying to say. If we take him at his word, he's saying that this is the kind of question he loves to see, then it isn't a callout in the sense we usually think of, and the fact that the questioner is benign is probably a reason for Rash liking it.
posted by Bugbread at 2:13 PM on August 27, 2006

This thread is useless, and is not yet filled with enough animated gifs to provide compensatory entertainment value.


posted by killdevil at 2:13 PM on August 27, 2006

The irony of all this is that Rash may not have phrased this at all poorly. He may have really liked this question, because it is a grey-zone question that isn't some sort of shady trying-to-scam question or being-a-jerk-without-getting-caught question. In which case what Rash said is fine, and clear, and groovy. The problem is that so many other folks phrase their callouts in the form of sarcasm that when someone says something they may actually think, we can't recognize it as non-sarcasm.

And, if it is sarcasm, then Rash is just contributing to that problem.
posted by Bugbread at 2:15 PM on August 27, 2006

So Rash had better come back and clear up what he meant tell us he really did like the question.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 2:27 PM on August 27, 2006

MetaFIlter: Who the fuck knows.
posted by Duncan at 2:45 PM on August 27, 2006

This is the kind of cryptic/wtf/borderline snarky callout I love to see in MeTa.

I'm confused...
posted by timeistight at 3:15 PM on August 27, 2006

The problem is that he acted ... rashly.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 3:17 PM on August 27, 2006

posted by loquacious at 4:03 PM on August 27, 2006

Is that Ceiling Cat?
posted by Mid at 4:06 PM on August 27, 2006

bugbread has it exactly -- I'm not being sarcastic. Sometimes a pipe really is a pipe.

But I also like animated GIFs.
posted by Rash at 4:12 PM on August 27, 2006

I think you mean cigars, not pipes. Or, perhaps, a series of tubes, not pipes.
posted by MrZero at 5:31 PM on August 27, 2006

Mid, I do believe loq has shown us our new avatar obsession fetish, Pixel Pussy!
posted by rob511 at 5:38 PM on August 27, 2006

This is the kind of borderline/gray area/marginally illegal question I love to see in AskMe

Agreed. Thanks for the heads-up.
posted by exlotuseater at 6:46 PM on August 27, 2006

MrZero,
This is not a pipe.
posted by Bugbread at 6:03 AM on August 28, 2006

i have been looking for that cat taking the x box for years thank you loquacious! This thread seems so deteriorated punctuation doesn't seem nessisary

or spell checking.
posted by Brainy at 9:45 AM on August 28, 2006