adding new information (inspired by WalMart shopper story)

December 5, 2003 11:27 AM

The story of the trampled Wal-Mart shopper was a a FPP post a few days ago. It turns out it might have been contrived. As I read the latest story, I felt that somehow the record had to be set straight on mf with this new information (I am an idealist, I suppose). But, at the same time, it certainly did not seem to be worthy of a new FPP. How does MF- as a community- handle retractions or new (conflicting) information without gumming up the front page with mediocre posts? Or is it not even worth worrying about?
posted by limitedpie to MetaFilter-Related at 11:27 AM (28 comments total)

Wish, not the woman being hurt but the callousness of people was true. Never had so many friends tell me; thom nice seeing on Thanksgiving but have to cut my visit short since I'm waking up at 3am to be shopping by 4am. Why? BECAUSE the sales...if you didn't buy when it was over priced then you still don't need it get it(subtract those that are "poor"). Shopping is like a Jerry Lewis movie these days...the comical shopping maddness which is fun for those whom people watch.
posted by thomcatspike at 11:50 AM on December 5, 2003

:: hats off to thom ::

(It's even better spoken aloud.)
posted by grabbingsand at 11:57 AM on December 5, 2003

How about posting the development/retraction in the original thread?
posted by liam at 12:12 PM on December 5, 2003

:: hats off to thom ::

indeed.

thomcatspike for president
posted by matteo at 12:14 PM on December 5, 2003

liam: very logical! And, notably, the always svelte mr_crash_davis did precisely this in the original thread-- as he wrote: "Not that anyone will see this now, but it looks like she may be a scam artist." Crucially, as he observes, who will see it when it is five days down the front page?
posted by limitedpie at 12:36 PM on December 5, 2003

The people reading about it, who still care? And if no one cares enough to continue reading after its off the front page, maybe it shouldn't have been posted in the first place.
posted by Orange Goblin at 1:20 PM on December 5, 2003

That's ridiculous, OG. The 'filter is ephemeral and no one has yet come up with a good way to update an existing thread that's more than a day old. Why bother to pretend otherwise?
posted by rushmc at 1:55 PM on December 5, 2003

When I heard that she is likely a scam artist, my first thought was, what would the Mefi community have to say about this? So I agree it would be nice if there was a good solution as to what to do to update posts that go in a new direction...

But, like everything else, I have no ideas.
posted by vito90 at 2:01 PM on December 5, 2003

handle retractions or new (conflicting) information without gumming up the front page with mediocre posts?

usually someone does whatever, and the rest carp about it. seems to work.
posted by quonsar at 2:22 PM on December 5, 2003

Well personally, I don't think its ridiculous. If I am interested in a post, I will comment on that post, and use the "my comments" option on the front page to keep track of it. If I am not interested enough to comment on a post, then I more or less don't care about reading it when it scrolls off the front page, if at all. And if stuff scrolls off too fast for you, you can always extend the amount of days you view. So unless you want big screaming red letters saying "THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED, READ IT NOW!!!", I don't see what the problem is. ;)
posted by Orange Goblin at 2:35 PM on December 5, 2003

Dreaming up more work for Matt (no need to thank me), it would be cool if a 3+ day old thread with unusually renewed activity could somehow be detected and linked on the front page. That would encourage people to post followups.
posted by rcade at 3:30 PM on December 5, 2003

I agree with rushmc. I'd never have known about this if the MeTa thread hadn't been posted, and it's obviously significant information. There should be a way to get it to people. But maybe this is as good a way as any (post a MeTa thread asking what to do about it).
posted by languagehat at 3:46 PM on December 5, 2003

Just post the update as a thread; we already get near-daily updates on some subjects, so I don't see the harm in a single update on this one.
posted by boaz at 3:54 PM on December 5, 2003

"usually someone does whatever, and the rest carp about it."
New metafilter motto!
posted by Blake at 4:05 PM on December 5, 2003

Dreaming up more work for Matt (no need to thank me), it would be cool if a 3+ day old thread with unusually renewed activity could somehow be detected and linked on the front page.

Except for the minor little detail that this feature already exists.
posted by dgaicun at 5:04 PM on December 5, 2003

If I am not interested enough to comment on a post, then I more or less don't care about reading it when it scrolls off the front page, if at all.

Except that this doesn't address the issue at ALL, which is updates to the topic/thread by other people, which by definition you cannot predict and therefore cannot watch for.
posted by rushmc at 5:37 AM on December 6, 2003

It does address the issue - if I don't care about reading a post, why do I care when its updated? If I do care, I'm following the post, and thus see when its updated.
posted by Orange Goblin at 5:51 AM on December 6, 2003

I think there's something in between those two. In this example, I would be interested in knowing the follow-up story, but I quit looking at the post, assuming there was no more to be said. So, I'm interested, but I'm not actively following the post.
posted by JanetLand at 6:07 AM on December 6, 2003

But you would be if you used the "my comments" or "recent comments" feature.
posted by Orange Goblin at 6:42 AM on December 6, 2003

"usually someone does whatever, and the rest carp about it."
New metafilter motto!

I second this.
posted by Blue Stone at 6:54 AM on December 6, 2003

Your assumption that I've commented in every thread I'm interested in is entirely wrong. I'm often very interested in threads in which I have not commented. Should people go about making pointless or repetitive comments simply so they can keep track of posts?
posted by jacquilynne at 7:11 AM on December 6, 2003

No, in that case they should use the "recent comments" feature instead of the "my comments" feature.
posted by Orange Goblin at 8:32 AM on December 6, 2003

OG, you sound like you're missing the point. If it were simply the continutation of the discussion, your methods would work just fine. The information Limitedpie is talking about drives the issue and the thread in a completely new direction. Like many it seems, I read the original, decided I didn't think it was very interesting and stopped reading it. I am interested once the discussion becomes less about how evil shopping is and more about how someone scams large companies, using the conception that Americans are bargain-obsessed animals on a rampage to save $9.99. If I read only MeFi/MeTa (after all, this information is all over a bunch of other sites), I'd not have known about this angle, had Limitedpie not brought it up here as a "policy discussion."

Personally, I think this information is new and different enough to warrant its own front page post. But perhaps a MeTa category called "Followups" or something would allow a posting like this without offending those who don't want followups on the front page?
posted by JollyWanker at 9:17 AM on December 6, 2003

What about an addendum addition to the front page sidebar? For the likely frequency of its use it would only need to show perhaps three entries at a time.

To prevent misuse (if people think this might be an issue) then perhaps only the original poster of the thread can post the addendum. This should be doable from a technical pov as each addendum will have to be directly linked to the thread in question anyway.

This way, if someone finds out some information is false they email the original poster, who I figure probably has some degree of responsibility for posting misinformation to begin with.

I don't think it's a big enough deal to warrant the kind of work needed to implement this, but if you want a solution...
posted by nthdegx at 10:37 AM on December 6, 2003

I don't think MeTa would be the right place for a Followups category. In fact, I don't think there is any way of implementing something that would satisfy everyone, so I think its really up to personal preference. Theres always going to be cries of "this should be in the post X days ago", and theres always going to be cries of "I'm not reading the post from X days ago". In conclusion: what quonsar said.
posted by Orange Goblin at 12:22 PM on December 6, 2003

The best solution I can think of would be a special tag that a person could add to a comment upon writing it that identified it as an "Update," with a sort selection added to the front page that listed threads containing update comments. That may be a fairly programming-intense solution, however, and therefore impractical.
posted by rushmc at 5:34 AM on December 7, 2003

Except for the minor little detail that this feature already exists.

Not the same thing. A single comment pushes an old thread briefly to the top of the recent comments list, but it's quickly lost among the more recent threads because they get more comments. It makes following up a 3+ day old thread largely pointless.
posted by rcade at 10:31 PM on December 7, 2003

A new thread, linking to the first thread and to the updated information, and clearly labelled as an UPDATE: would be my solution. That would make it easier for those still interested to rehash their positions, and those who aren't to either avoid it altogether or post a snarky comment.
posted by GhostintheMachine at 9:20 AM on December 8, 2003