FREE BOXES!!

January 31, 2005 3:08 PM

C'mon folks. I don't mean to break up the fun, but yea...
posted by Witty to Etiquette/Policy at 3:08 PM (67 comments total)

Party pooper.
posted by knave at 3:11 PM on January 31, 2005

Ordering a few boxes will fix that frown...
posted by chasing at 3:22 PM on January 31, 2005

Next "great" FPP? Air is FREEEEEEE! Get some for your friends!
posted by fenriq at 3:23 PM on January 31, 2005

I don't mean to break up the fun

Isn't that, like, your raison d'etre?

Why you no like the boxes?
posted by cosmonik at 3:23 PM on January 31, 2005

I wonder if this were Friday anyone would have complained...
posted by Specklet at 3:29 PM on January 31, 2005

Free Boxes, what a socialist idea. In a good, Republican-run ountry none of this crap should ever happen. It must stop immediately.
posted by Arch Stanton at 3:30 PM on January 31, 2005

Hey, witty's just trying to think outside the box here.
posted by jonmc at 3:32 PM on January 31, 2005

Dumb looks are still free.
posted by Smart Dalek at 3:38 PM on January 31, 2005

I'm not complaining... just trying to do the "right thing".
posted by Witty at 3:55 PM on January 31, 2005

Did you misspell "right wing"?
posted by walrus at 3:56 PM on January 31, 2005

"Best of the web" is so fluid. I spent all day on the internet saying "blah blah blah" to everything, but I perked the hell up at free boxes. It was the best thing on the web for me today.

I'll go take my medicine now...
posted by goatdog at 4:00 PM on January 31, 2005

Fair enough, Witty, and apologies for poking fun at a legit (though perhaps unecessary) callout.
posted by cosmonik at 4:04 PM on January 31, 2005

I wouldn't have complained in the least if this had been a Friday post even though I've had it pointed out to me that the guidelines for Friday posts are the exact same as the rest of the week.

I like the free boxes just fine, only this isn't new or news, the PO has been giving these boxes away for years.
posted by fenriq at 4:07 PM on January 31, 2005

I'm pissed that everyone knows about it now. Bastards.
posted by puke & cry at 4:23 PM on January 31, 2005

And you.
posted by walrus at 5:10 PM on January 31, 2005

For shame!
posted by Hildago at 5:11 PM on January 31, 2005

the guidelines for Friday posts are the exact same as the rest of the week

Exactly. It's only the brains of some members that deteriorate on Friday.
posted by rushmc at 5:20 PM on January 31, 2005

"I like the free boxes just fine, only this isn't new or news, the PO has been giving these boxes away for years."

Well, I didn't know about it, smarty-boots.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 5:28 PM on January 31, 2005

GUYS! The post office is giving away FREE BOXES!!!!!!11111!!!!!!

what?
posted by yhbc at 5:33 PM on January 31, 2005

My silence is quite pleasant ...
posted by walrus at 5:33 PM on January 31, 2005

MetaFilter: We Have Boxes
posted by falconred at 5:36 PM on January 31, 2005

I would like to know my comment was deleted.

This comment editing is getting ridiculous. Since when do the site admin(s) pick and chose which comments they like?

I mean, Christ, if you are going to axe my comment, at least make sure you axe the one quoting it.
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 5:38 PM on January 31, 2005

does this replace FreeQuonsar?
posted by Hands of Manos at 5:57 PM on January 31, 2005

Steve, as somebody who's been there, I'm advising you take it in stride and mellow out a bit.
posted by jonmc at 5:57 PM on January 31, 2005

In other news: Where is q?
posted by Quartermass at 6:01 PM on January 31, 2005

Please please go a little lighter on the delete-mallet. It's unwieldy, and hits hard.
posted by cosmonik at 6:17 PM on January 31, 2005

Are we forbidden from linking to Freequonsar now?

ENSLAVE QUONSAR!!!
posted by euphorb at 6:26 PM on January 31, 2005

See, the problem is that if enough people mention quonsar, the FPPer could justify adding the Quonsar tag and...
posted by grateful at 6:36 PM on January 31, 2005

Please please go a little lighter on the delete-mallet

A little???? I think The Mads need to see a professional to help them get over their recent delete-hammer obsession.
posted by John Kenneth Fisher at 6:45 PM on January 31, 2005

Jessamyn is new as an administrator, but she's always been a fairminded poster and commenter so I'm willing to let her feel her oats a bit.

And Steve, I didn't see the deleted comment so I can't really say whether it had it coming, but as somebody who's had your back numerous times, and as someone who's melted down publicly and is digging himself out of a hole because of it, I'm advising you to let it slide.
posted by jonmc at 6:49 PM on January 31, 2005

It was just a link wasn't it?
posted by walrus at 6:53 PM on January 31, 2005

jonmc, S@L's deleted comment consisted solely of the words "FREE" and "QUONSAR" and a link to a commercial domain also containing those words. And unless I've missed something somewhere else, he doesn't seem to be melting down about it.
posted by me3dia at 6:58 PM on January 31, 2005

OK, my bad. He seemed upset. Disregard.
posted by jonmc at 7:01 PM on January 31, 2005

I would like to know my comment was deleted.

I neither deleted your comment, nor the word from the middle of your sentence.
posted by jessamyn at 7:06 PM on January 31, 2005

So we can free Tibet, but not qUONSAR?

Where's the justice?
posted by cosmonik at 7:13 PM on January 31, 2005

1. jessamyn wins!
2. This callout is retarded. If you have a problem with the free boxes thread you seriously need to remove the vibrating three-pronged terror wang from your ass and go frolic in a field somewhere. Some good meadow-skipping could do some people here a lot of good. I didn't know about the free boxes. It was funny. I smiled.
3. Witty, you know, your mom is 100% about the free boxes, you really need to stop bringing your personal issues into Metatalk.
4. Oh snap!!!!111
posted by Kleptophoria! at 7:15 PM on January 31, 2005

jessamyn: You pointing out my grammatical mistake surely cuts me down to size!
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 7:18 PM on January 31, 2005

S@L Beware, or jessadmyn will delete you!
posted by page404 at 7:26 PM on January 31, 2005

jonmc: Thank you for you're concern. I do not want to appear to be melting down, so I'm sorry if I do.

I might not be as shocked to come back to a thread and find a comment deleted if I had posted something offensive or even highly confrontational. But it was a joke, in a goofy of a thread:

FREE BOXES!
FREE BOXERS!
FREE QUONSAR!

So I find it very odd that in that thread, where the comment was not out of place, that it got the axe. And maybe it is my imagination, but as of late it seems that the admin(s) have been, more than removing disruptive comments, actively pruning and editing the site. That is not cool.

page404: OHES NOES! There is no room for dissention in John Ashcroft's Alberto Gonzales' AmeriaKKKa!
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 7:32 PM on January 31, 2005

I had my first comment "disappeared" in that thread. It was snarky, so I suppose that I can't blame the disappearer.
posted by exlotuseater at 7:34 PM on January 31, 2005

It was "Best of the Web, baby, Best of the Web." just in case you were wondering.
posted by exlotuseater at 7:35 PM on January 31, 2005

Any thread that brings these gems back is ok in my book.
posted by Space Kitty at 7:56 PM on January 31, 2005

My and a couple other innocuous comments disappeared from a thread awhile back, well before jessamyn made assistant manager. Either mathowie has instituted a policy of random (or not so random) deletions or there's a glitch in the system.
posted by me3dia at 8:14 PM on January 31, 2005

There's 21k+ users; surely one of them is insane enough to test ColdChef's resolve?
posted by cosmonik at 8:16 PM on January 31, 2005

Is anyone investigating the technological issue(s) behind the recent rash of disappearing comments, or are we just supposed to pretend that it isn't happening?
posted by rushmc at 8:27 PM on January 31, 2005

I am not here this is not happening. *closes eyes and holds hands over ears*
posted by exlotuseater at 8:30 PM on January 31, 2005

"Is anyone investigating the technological issue(s) behind the recent rash of disappearing comments, or are we just supposed to pretend that it isn't happening?"

Are we supposed to pretend what isn't happening?
posted by mr_crash_davis at 8:32 PM on January 31, 2005

Any post that can send me to Seussville so that I may create sentences that go "Knox in box on clocks on Fox in Socks in box" is a good post.
posted by dame at 8:40 PM on January 31, 2005

Save your worrying for when members start randomly disappearing.
posted by cosmonik at 8:43 PM on January 31, 2005

Hold on a sec... someone's knocking at my door.
posted by exlotuseater at 8:56 PM on January 31, 2005

Save your worrying for when members start randomly disappearing.

At which point, PANIC.
posted by arto at 9:11 PM on January 31, 2005

*gulp*
posted by rushmc at 9:42 PM on January 31, 2005

/me calls ahead to the ER for a stomach pump
posted by trondant at 9:55 PM on January 31, 2005

S@L: If you scroll down the Free Quonsar page, there is a strangely photoshopped version of the goatse pic. Maybe that was why your post got axed?
posted by LarryC at 10:02 PM on January 31, 2005

I'm a very new user, but a long-time lurker (I kept checking the "New User" link, only to be disappointed, again, and *sob* again).

Having lurked for a while, a large part of the charm of Mefi -- for me anyway -- is the idiosyncrasies of its users. For me, the comments are often as or more interesting than the links to the "best of the Web".

Some users take a while to "get": e.g., the first several times I read Quonsar's comments, I thought, "what a trolling ass" -- I really wondered what he was doing here.

But after a while, I came to realize that Quonsar -- whatever else he is -- was being a very very subtle humorist, in many of his comments employing an incisive situational irony.

But since it probably takes ten or so Quonsar comments to "get" this, I wonder if, with the current zeal to delete "bad" comments, if a Quonsar would be given the slack required to develop his schtick.

My point is, not every poster's intent is immediately obvious, and what on the face of it may seem a comment worthy of deletion, may in fact not be.

Given that bandwidth is relatively cheap, and that reading or skipping a comment isn't really that onerous, perhaps it's better to delete with a much lighter hand, lest a too strict policy results in self-censorship by commenters and a more stultifyingly "correct" atmosphere here at mefi.

Let's endeavor to keep mefi whimsical, even if it means tolerating jokes that don't come off or snark that isn't as insightful as it may have been intended.

It's that whimsy that kept this noob coming back, even when I couldn't post, month after month.
posted by orthogonality at 10:18 PM on January 31, 2005

I've been holding my tongue because I can't be positive if a) I have simply failed to hit "post" for some comments, and b) that I am being affected by a kind of mob paranoia, but I feel like I've had comments come up missing as well, and like rushmc, I'm wondering if we need to be looking at something funky happening with the site, possibly perpetrated by evildoers, Iranians, or SpongeBob SquarePants.
posted by taz at 10:51 PM on January 31, 2005

stevie, jessamyn/mathowie didn't like your self-portrait in the snow, simple as that. deal with it.
posted by matteo at 4:32 AM on February 1, 2005

your self-portrait in the snow

You really are more dense than I thought.
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 4:49 AM on February 1, 2005

This callout was worth it to watch the vein in S@L's forehead alone.
posted by mek at 5:41 AM on February 1, 2005

Shhh, guys, look, just shut up about the whole S@L thing, OK? If we keep talking about it, he might figure out that we actually all are out to get him...
posted by mkultra at 6:24 AM on February 1, 2005

Well, since Jessamy just said she hasn't been deleting comments in MeFi, it was Matt who yanked your (I'm sure hilarious in context) "FREE QUONSAR" crack, Steve.

Given the work that went into creating tags and the unhelpfulness of Quonsar's game with them (well-meaning or not), I think you have to be either a jerk or fool to turn Matt's lack of appreciation of "free quonsar" jokes at his site into a crying jag about how awful the moderation's suddenly gotten.

Come on, Steve. Grow up.
posted by mediareport at 7:09 AM on February 1, 2005

Er, jessamyn.
posted by mediareport at 7:10 AM on February 1, 2005

mek, matteo, steve's overreacting, sure, but I, for one, would appreciate it, if you didn't seize absoultely every opportunity to make fun of him. A little consideration goes a long way toward keeping this place more peaceful.
posted by jonmc at 7:15 AM on February 1, 2005

I laughed out loud when I saw "Free quonsar."
posted by knave at 7:47 AM on February 1, 2005

I still haven't figured out Witty's point of this callout. "Right thing"???
posted by mischief at 9:04 AM on February 1, 2005

I thought the "Free quonsar" comment was funny, and I hope it wasn't deliberately deleted. It's hard to know these days.

Also, I think Witty's callout was perfectly in order. I cringed when I saw the original post, which was not even remotely the Best of the Web and which was calculated to cause trouble for an institution that is trying to provide a useful service. Anybody who actually went to the trouble of ordering hundreds of boxes (or even ten) just because they were FREE!1!!!!! has the mentality of a fourth-grader and should be put in a corner until they learn their lesson.

/grumpy grandpa
posted by languagehat at 12:04 PM on February 1, 2005

Metatalk is the best of the web. Seriously. I love this shit.
posted by Kleptophoria! at 3:18 PM on February 1, 2005