why was this post deleted? February 22, 2002 2:29 PM Subscribe
For the sake of review, and so that we may all learn from the past in hopes of making a better future, why was this post deleted?
It was a followup to an already borderline "wacky news" link, and it was loaded with pointless haiku, so it is gone.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 2:48 PM on February 22, 2002
posted by mathowie (staff) at 2:48 PM on February 22, 2002
Though Matt may not laugh
I was having lots of fun
Pointless? I'm sorry.
posted by ColdChef at 2:55 PM on February 22, 2002
I was having lots of fun
Pointless? I'm sorry.
posted by ColdChef at 2:55 PM on February 22, 2002
Yeah, god forbid that we should take away precious bandwidth from all the fascinating political flamebait that got posted today.
posted by MrBaliHai at 4:10 PM on February 22, 2002
posted by MrBaliHai at 4:10 PM on February 22, 2002
Hmm. Can someone explain which post it was? it, uh, got deleted....
posted by Ufez Jones at 5:25 PM on February 22, 2002
posted by Ufez Jones at 5:25 PM on February 22, 2002
It was referring to a cow running amok in Cincinnati, and it was accompanied in the comments by several haikus.
posted by insomnyuk at 5:41 PM on February 22, 2002
posted by insomnyuk at 5:41 PM on February 22, 2002
Another post just got zapped. Something about further restricting MeFi. Matt used to not zap MeTa posts. The more they change the more they stay the same.
posted by ZachsMind at 5:52 PM on February 22, 2002
posted by ZachsMind at 5:52 PM on February 22, 2002
I believe it's also the first time Matt has closed a thread.
posted by riffola at 6:15 PM on February 22, 2002
posted by riffola at 6:15 PM on February 22, 2002
There have been something like four posts deleted today. I cannot imagine that Matt is in a very good mood. I think it might have something to do with MetaTalk getting out of control. Recently its been like a train wreck. I can't NOT watch what's been going on. MetaTalk has definitely morphed into something different than what it was meant to be. I don't think that today is a very good day to discuss any of this though.
posted by xammerboy at 6:32 PM on February 22, 2002
posted by xammerboy at 6:32 PM on February 22, 2002
There have been something like four posts deleted today. I cannot imagine that Matt is in a very good mood. I think it might have something to do with MetaTalk getting out of control. Recently its been like a train wreck. I can't NOT watch what's been going on. MetaTalk has definitely morphed into something different than what it was meant to be. I don't think that today is a very good day to discuss any of this though.
Definitely. Maybe matt should shut down the servers for a week, a mandatory MeFi/Ta holiday if you will, until people gather their senses.
posted by Ufez Jones at 6:46 PM on February 22, 2002
Definitely. Maybe matt should shut down the servers for a week, a mandatory MeFi/Ta holiday if you will, until people gather their senses.
posted by Ufez Jones at 6:46 PM on February 22, 2002
Maybe violent topic drift is also a problem. . .
As far as I can tell, this thread required no further comments than Matt's.
posted by Su at 7:55 PM on February 22, 2002
As far as I can tell, this thread required no further comments than Matt's.
posted by Su at 7:55 PM on February 22, 2002
Threads have been closed before, and the disappearance of MetaTalk threads isn't new #1 #2.
posted by rcade at 4:53 AM on February 23, 2002
posted by rcade at 4:53 AM on February 23, 2002
If the practice is offensive to you, crunchland, no one is keeping you here.
posted by rcade at 6:57 AM on February 23, 2002
posted by rcade at 6:57 AM on February 23, 2002
Ah, so it's "Metafilter, love it or leave it?"
posted by crunchland at 9:12 AM on February 23, 2002
posted by crunchland at 9:12 AM on February 23, 2002
Ah, so it's "Metafilter, love it or leave it?"
This isn't a public forum, crunchland. You have no inherent right to free speech on this site. Crunchland.com is available to just as many eyeballs as this one. No one is silencing you.
posted by jpoulos at 9:16 AM on February 23, 2002
This isn't a public forum, crunchland. You have no inherent right to free speech on this site. Crunchland.com is available to just as many eyeballs as this one. No one is silencing you.
posted by jpoulos at 9:16 AM on February 23, 2002
...but criticism of Matt, judging by the emails I've received this morning, will not be tolerated?
posted by crunchland at 9:26 AM on February 23, 2002
posted by crunchland at 9:26 AM on February 23, 2002
Matt has the right not to be bashed on his own site. Just as, if I attacked you (on a guestbook, for example) on your site, you'd have every right to delete it. I don't know the content of your criticism or these emails, but Matt can do what he wants. Feel free to post any criticism of anyone on your own site.
posted by jpoulos at 9:33 AM on February 23, 2002
posted by jpoulos at 9:33 AM on February 23, 2002
judging by the emails I've received this morning, will not be tolerated?
What are you talking about? Criticize me all you want, I was just trying to clean up some of the chat bs on this site yesterday. Crunchland, you started 1 or 2 threads I deleted (I forgot) because they didn't really say much worth discussing, and I knew if more threads were up, people would be more inclined to comment, whether or not they had something to say about the site.
jpoulos, I have no problem with anyone "bashing" me on the site, but I hope they do it in a constructive way, or they come out looking like an ass.
I didn't "censor" anyone yesterday, I was trying to kill pointless conversation on the site. Crunchland, I know for a fact one of your posts was to the effect of "woo! a closed thread, how about that!" Now, what, if anything, is there for anyone to say about that? And what kind of thoughtful meta-meta commentary is there to say?
I created MetaTalk to rid MetaFilter of all the meta conversations, the stuff about how a post was or wasn't good, how a user was or wasn't being good, etc. I didn't make MetaTalk to be a place to discuss MetaTalk. There's so much fluff here that I'm going to be pretty liberal in my deleting of threads over the next week. Read the top line of the metatalk home page, above where the threads start. If a post doesn't follow that, I'm going to ax it. Otherwise, the rampant chattiness of MetaTalk and the perceived "oh it's ok to talk and talk and talk here because it's not like we're messing up MetaFilter" will continue to take over.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 10:15 AM on February 23, 2002
What are you talking about? Criticize me all you want, I was just trying to clean up some of the chat bs on this site yesterday. Crunchland, you started 1 or 2 threads I deleted (I forgot) because they didn't really say much worth discussing, and I knew if more threads were up, people would be more inclined to comment, whether or not they had something to say about the site.
jpoulos, I have no problem with anyone "bashing" me on the site, but I hope they do it in a constructive way, or they come out looking like an ass.
I didn't "censor" anyone yesterday, I was trying to kill pointless conversation on the site. Crunchland, I know for a fact one of your posts was to the effect of "woo! a closed thread, how about that!" Now, what, if anything, is there for anyone to say about that? And what kind of thoughtful meta-meta commentary is there to say?
I created MetaTalk to rid MetaFilter of all the meta conversations, the stuff about how a post was or wasn't good, how a user was or wasn't being good, etc. I didn't make MetaTalk to be a place to discuss MetaTalk. There's so much fluff here that I'm going to be pretty liberal in my deleting of threads over the next week. Read the top line of the metatalk home page, above where the threads start. If a post doesn't follow that, I'm going to ax it. Otherwise, the rampant chattiness of MetaTalk and the perceived "oh it's ok to talk and talk and talk here because it's not like we're messing up MetaFilter" will continue to take over.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 10:15 AM on February 23, 2002
Ah, so it's "Metafilter, love it or leave it?"
I'm just spelling out what should be obvious to you, since you've been running your own online community since 1993. Matt exercises his editorial judgment on this site to remove some posts. Contrary to what ZachsMind said here earlier, deletions in MetaTalk are nothing new.
I think Matt's pretty fair-minded about his removal of posts from this site, explaining his decisions publicly whenever he's asked.
However, if you're one of the tools who thinks that his behavior amounts to "censorship," despite the fact you do exactly the same thing on Crunchland, it seems odd for you to keep coming here. It reminds me of an old Dick Van Dyke show gag:
posted by rcade at 12:56 PM on February 23, 2002
I'm just spelling out what should be obvious to you, since you've been running your own online community since 1993. Matt exercises his editorial judgment on this site to remove some posts. Contrary to what ZachsMind said here earlier, deletions in MetaTalk are nothing new.
I think Matt's pretty fair-minded about his removal of posts from this site, explaining his decisions publicly whenever he's asked.
However, if you're one of the tools who thinks that his behavior amounts to "censorship," despite the fact you do exactly the same thing on Crunchland, it seems odd for you to keep coming here. It reminds me of an old Dick Van Dyke show gag:
Mel: "I didn't come here to be insulted."
Buddy: "Oh, where do you usually go?"
posted by rcade at 12:56 PM on February 23, 2002
Obviously, the answer is that I must be some kind of masochist. Since you bring the fight to my doorstep, I guess I should make a defense, rather than letting it just drop.
Since you asked, the deletion of a message on my bbs is an extremely rare occurance. There are no judgement calls about whether a message is pointless or not. It used to happen, at most, about once a year ... most certainly not on a daily basis, as it occurs here. Your linked example goes back 2 years, and since then, the board policy has changed, putting the onus on any offended person and the message poster to work it out, since users on my bbs have the ability to edit or delete their own messages.
The policy was changed because I didn't want to get caught in the quagmire of deciding what messages should be killed. I won't make the decisions about what topics are good or bad, or which authors are naughty or nice.
Of course, we don't have the onslaught of users there that are here, and I guess that makes all the difference. Compared to the traffic Metafilter gets, my BBS is just a rural backwater. Just as the techniques of Andy Griffith would never work in the Bronx, I was wrong to even hint that Matt should follow the similar tactics that we've managed to successfully use for the last 10 years.
So of course, Matt is entitled to do anything he wants, and justify it however he needs to. We have very different views about how to treat the people who use our sites. And, admittedly, I never would have cared enough to say it had I not been bitter about having one of my own messages deleted in his spree.
As for why I keep coming here, you raise an excellent point about the abuse. Why does anyone?
posted by crunchland at 2:48 PM on February 23, 2002
Since you asked, the deletion of a message on my bbs is an extremely rare occurance. There are no judgement calls about whether a message is pointless or not. It used to happen, at most, about once a year ... most certainly not on a daily basis, as it occurs here. Your linked example goes back 2 years, and since then, the board policy has changed, putting the onus on any offended person and the message poster to work it out, since users on my bbs have the ability to edit or delete their own messages.
The policy was changed because I didn't want to get caught in the quagmire of deciding what messages should be killed. I won't make the decisions about what topics are good or bad, or which authors are naughty or nice.
Of course, we don't have the onslaught of users there that are here, and I guess that makes all the difference. Compared to the traffic Metafilter gets, my BBS is just a rural backwater. Just as the techniques of Andy Griffith would never work in the Bronx, I was wrong to even hint that Matt should follow the similar tactics that we've managed to successfully use for the last 10 years.
So of course, Matt is entitled to do anything he wants, and justify it however he needs to. We have very different views about how to treat the people who use our sites. And, admittedly, I never would have cared enough to say it had I not been bitter about having one of my own messages deleted in his spree.
As for why I keep coming here, you raise an excellent point about the abuse. Why does anyone?
posted by crunchland at 2:48 PM on February 23, 2002
If a more hands-off policy works for you, great. My only real objection is to the use of the term "censorship," which is thrown around all the time on the Internet, as if there's a right to speak freely on someone else's dime.
I've done the same thing out of bitterness myself, when I couldn't get a message posted for more than 10 minutes on Scripting News a few years ago, before he finally banned my account and called me a couple of really choice names.
In retrospect, it was pretty stupid for me to subject myself to Dave's editorial control if I didn't agree with his judgment. And claiming to be a victim of censorship was the icing on the cake.
posted by rcade at 6:43 AM on February 24, 2002
I've done the same thing out of bitterness myself, when I couldn't get a message posted for more than 10 minutes on Scripting News a few years ago, before he finally banned my account and called me a couple of really choice names.
In retrospect, it was pretty stupid for me to subject myself to Dave's editorial control if I didn't agree with his judgment. And claiming to be a victim of censorship was the icing on the cake.
posted by rcade at 6:43 AM on February 24, 2002
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posted by ColdChef at 2:48 PM on February 22, 2002