Am I missing something?

December 3, 2002 9:20 AM

Am I missing something? John Gilmore and Cory Doctorow are asking us to harass total strangers by phoning them at home. [more inside]
posted by y6y6y6 to Etiquette/Policy at 9:20 AM (31 comments total)

Why? Because they live near John Poindexter, and we don't like John Poindexter. Perhaps I'm dense, but this seems like a juvenile prank rather than protest. Do we want Metafilter to be used for grassroots harassment campaigns? This certainly is something interesting on the web, and I hadn't seen it before. But admitting someone has done nothing wrong and then giving us their home phone and telling us to call it is just wrong.
posted by y6y6y6 at 9:20 AM on December 3, 2002

it seems like a tradition, however ugly, on metafilter to root out personal information on trolls and others who bother us. pulling phone numbers and addresses from WHOIS records, searching directories using given names, and so forth. the thread seems like an extension of that trait. i thought the thread was in poor taste.
posted by moz at 9:29 AM on December 3, 2002

Agreed. But why start a MeTa thread about it, when that exact argument is already being addressed in the original thread?
posted by Yelling At Nothing at 9:29 AM on December 3, 2002

Clarification: that's in response to y6, not moz. Bad taste though it might be, it's an interesting follow up to a story that may have a serious effect on the internet. I don't see anything wrong with posting it.
posted by Yelling At Nothing at 9:30 AM on December 3, 2002

But why start a MeTa thread about it, when that exact argument is already being addressed in the original thread?

because the topic of posting personal information on a thread on metafilter, as opposed to in general on the internet, is what this thread should mainly focus on.
posted by moz at 9:40 AM on December 3, 2002

Well, Matt can delete that part if he sees fit, as he's done in the past... the two links in the thread divulge it well enough for me.
posted by crunchland at 9:42 AM on December 3, 2002

i just got off the phone with john poindexter, and he say's y6y6y6 is a big poopy-head.
posted by quonsar at 9:52 AM on December 3, 2002

Actually I was just wondered what the hell was going on from a policy standpoint. I know we aren't suppose to post people home phones in a post or comment. But can we do it by proxy? and is there some double standard here? I happen to like John and Cory, but I suspect that if the link called for us to phone the neighbors of Noam Chomsky or Lawrence Lessig the thread would be pulled by now.

Someone is basically calling for us to break the law here. Where do we draw the line. A protest march is one thing, asking us to harass strangers is another.

And Mr F'ing Pooyhead to you pal.
posted by y6y6y6 at 9:56 AM on December 3, 2002

I dropped the phone number, and I'm leaning towards dropping the post entirely.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:57 AM on December 3, 2002

I'm leaning towards dropping the post entirely.

*nudge*
posted by timeistight at 10:00 AM on December 3, 2002

So I dropped it, because I think the neighbor thing was in bad taste and people actually phoning up people to harrass them is a bad idea.

The idea is funny, the execution is a little coarse.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 10:03 AM on December 3, 2002

the mefi boobs have won again.
posted by crunchland at 10:05 AM on December 3, 2002

pobrecito, crunchland.
posted by moz at 10:18 AM on December 3, 2002

1) I'd be all for phoning, even neighbors, if it was part of a protest movement with goals, responsible leadership, and some chance of changing anything. I just don't see that here. I'm happy to hit the streets and even get arrested to protest TIA. But I don't want to be lumped in with this juvenile prank.

2) With Metafilter becoming so agenda oriented over the last year or so, do we need to worry about posts which are clearly calls for civil (or uncivil) action? Do we allow Metafilter to be part of a grassroots movement? Could Matt even stop that? Do we allow everything or do we agree on minimum standards? Or maybe we've already set the standard with this deletion?
posted by y6y6y6 at 10:25 AM on December 3, 2002

the mefi boobs have won again.

Maybe one of you artistic types could Photoshop us up a logo.
posted by timeistight at 10:26 AM on December 3, 2002

can't we keep the personal flames, and contact information where it belongs? On slashdot.org, where the crazy geeks can run with it?
posted by blue_beetle at 10:27 AM on December 3, 2002

Well, admittedly, I felt a little conflicted, since just yesterday, I was bemoaning the mob mentality and personal investigating starting in this thread. But I rationalize the duality of it by citing the differences between locking up a browser instance, and collecting vast quantities of information on all of us in a central database.. I can see how that might make some of you uncomfortable which was the whole effing point ..

But, never mind. No bitterness here. After all, we have more important things to think about, like singing horses and the search for graphics dealing with eyes and keyholes to persue.
posted by crunchland at 10:42 AM on December 3, 2002

"which was the whole effing point"

And it's an excellent point. The execution is the silly part.

Our government is *still* holding people, including US citizens, without charge over the 9/11 attack. They are doing so based solely on profiles. Using profiles they rounded up thousands. The TIA is a machine for flagging people based on profiles using grocery bills, travel plans and website visits.

Make people understand *that* and maybe you'll foment change. Pranks like the phone call thing will only foment giggling. More protest, less Beavis and Butthead.
posted by y6y6y6 at 11:02 AM on December 3, 2002

Protesting government overreaching via silly, juvenile pranks has a hallowed history.
posted by luser at 11:07 AM on December 3, 2002

Metafilter: The Boobs Have Won Again.
posted by Yelling At Nothing at 11:12 AM on December 3, 2002

Hoffman and Rubin were about organizing and bringing about real change. Having heard them both speak I suggest that they would have loved Metafilter but critisized the phone prank.
posted by y6y6y6 at 11:54 AM on December 3, 2002

"Just curious: I posted Wanda Hudak's phone number in a thread regarding her vile "25-cent bullet" comment; now it is gone."


My two cents: it's cool to delete the phone number but I'd like the now number-less thread to stay up, it does make some interesting points. Also, the Hudak post stayed up, there's a precedent
posted by matteo at 12:34 PM on December 3, 2002

I suggest that they would have loved Metafilter but critisized the phone prank.

Hey, just like you! Go figure. And the organizers of this prank are NOT "about organizing and bringing about real change?" Evidence of that?
posted by luser at 12:42 PM on December 3, 2002

Well, something akin to the real practice of freeping--harassing people--seems no good and an obvious nonstarter.

Anyway, I saw the perfect tagline on a telephone pole poster today:

Solving the world's problems one beer at a time.
posted by y2karl at 1:08 PM on December 3, 2002

I refuse to equate "organizing" with what amounts to a forwarded memo urging people to prank call someone. To use my favorite mefi troll - If you can't see the differnce, I don't know how to help you.

And simple reason leads me to the conclusion that this wouldn't bring about change. Poindexter and Co. will only see it as a prank. And the personal info divulged has nothing to do with TIA so I don't see how that could educate anyone about the issue. Go to Boing Boing and read the comments. The link confuses the issue. It makes people think TIA is about privacy, which it isn't.
posted by y6y6y6 at 1:10 PM on December 3, 2002

Such a terrible thing, because it's okay to telephone someone at home to try to sell them some crap they neither want nor need, but not okay to call about a real and significant issue.

Go, capitalism!
posted by rushmc at 6:33 PM on December 3, 2002

It makes people think TIA is about privacy, which it isn't.

Are you drunk, sir?
posted by rushmc at 6:34 PM on December 3, 2002

Well, there are such things as grassroots movements, even those that start with a simple idea on the internet... if nothing else, to raise people's awareness of an issue.

I didn't seriously think anyone would even try to dig up personal info about Poindexter, let alone pick up the phone to make prank phone calls. The whole reason for my posting it was so that people would think about how scary the TIA concept really is, by personalizing it. (And honestly, I completely glossed over the points about making the phonecalls, myself. Regrettably, I should have linked to the newspaper article that was referenced in the page I linked to instead. It would have been a more effective post. My mistake.)

But to persist in stubbornly harping on the prank phonecall aspect is obtuse and just obscures the real point.
posted by crunchland at 7:57 PM on December 3, 2002

Worst. Namby-pamby hand-wringing. Ever.

I can understand the logic behind editing the FPP, but not Y6's hysterical misreading of the article.
posted by subgenius at 11:39 PM on December 3, 2002

The phone calling issue isn't one for me. But advocating:

"[t]hose with access to DMV and criminal records databases, credit card records, telephone bills, tax records, birth and death and marriage records, medical records, and similar personally identifiable databases could combine their information publicly to assist in the demonstration. "

could be a big issue. I have access to several databases but I am also legally prevented from disclosing the data in them. I know people in similar positions who have lost jobs and faced legal action for disclosing such data.

Cool idea, flawed execution.
posted by DBAPaul at 4:00 AM on December 4, 2002

the mefi boobs have won again.
Maybe one of you artistic types could Photoshop us up a logo.

Maybe we can get a top to go along with that Meta-thong. Or are we a topless community? I would think 2 dollar(coin) size pancakes and some thread should do.
posted by thomcatspike at 11:12 AM on December 4, 2002