MetaTalk

Every few days, I look over at the US politics sidebar on the front page, and see ""Let me tell you this right now, Donald J. Trump ain't going anywhere." On one hand, I feel a certain amount of glee looking at that headline and thinking "well, that was WRONG" - on the other hand, I think "I could have gone all day without even thinking about him if I hadn't looked over there." [more inside]
posted by jordemort on Apr 25, 2021 - 8 comments

In addition to the ~biweekly megathreads, the 2016 DNC saw four daily threads with 12,536 total comments, plus a 1,598-comment VP thread for literal potato Tim Kaine. This cycle there are no megathreads, and a grand total of *checks notes* zero posts or comments on either the DNC or VP nominee Kamala Harris, a charismatic woman of color with a complex record who may potentially lead the nation for a dozen years if everything breaks her way. I know the megathreads were a burden, but this seems sub-optimal, especially given the desire on the site and in society generally to spotlight women leaders, black voters, and the push for criminal justice reform. [more inside]
posted by Rhaomi on Aug 18, 2020 - 295 comments

During the 2016 US election cycle, we experimented with moving US politics discussion to a catch-all megathread model: focusing almost all discussion of the topic to large omnibus threads posted every week or two. The resulting megathreads have been a valued thing for many people, and a lot of work and care has gone into them from posters and commenters to try and help them be a functional part of the MeFi posting mix. But the threads have always posed significant challenges, and the time has come when we need to make a fundamental change. [more inside]
posted by cortex on Jul 23, 2019 - 611 comments

"Life is like politics: 10% getting things done. 90% exploiting loopholes." That's the summary of a classic Peanuts strip, now colorized. This is the latest hyucking hyuck thread.
posted by filthy light thief on Apr 23, 2019 - 74 comments

So our first experimental Hyucking Hyuck thread worked out pretty well, and then a month went by and it closed. So: here we are with round two! This is a dedicated space for riffing and jokes, designed in particular to take some strain of the overcrowded US politics catch-all threads. [more inside]
posted by cortex on Feb 17, 2019 - 196 comments

Over in the Hyucking Hyuck thread, MysticMCJ proposed the idea of a US politics megathread challenge coin as a physical symbol of, er, whatever this all is. People got into the idea, and a quick straw poll having shown sufficient interest to potentially make production worthwhile, here's a space for those interested in the idea to talk about it. [more inside]
posted by zachlipton on Jan 29, 2019 - 130 comments

It's experiment time! We're going to try to have a parallel thread to the Fucking Fuck series, where people can post their politics jokes, one-liners, favorite Twitter snark, etc. [more inside]
posted by restless_nomad on Jan 17, 2019 - 884 comments

The US political cycle is creeping into the beginning of the 2020 primary season, and that means we need to talk about avoiding the stuff that has gone badly on MetaFilter in previous election cycles. That means folks making a collective effort to avoid the worse discussion dynamics we've seen in the past, and it means the mod team pushing hard when folks aren't succeeding at that effort. [more inside]
posted by cortex on Jan 13, 2019 - 467 comments

I thought that it might be good to have a place for people to share links/contact information/registration/locations etc. related to voting. The 2018 U.S. Midterm elections are just around the corner (Tuesday November 6, 2018). This isn't the place to talk about #potus45, we have our mega-threads for that. But this is a good reminder to remember to vote, to make sure you're registered, and to get out there and let your voice be heard.
posted by Fizz on Oct 15, 2018 - 26 comments

Aka the anti–fucking fuck thread. I remember we had some threads soon after the 2016 election where Mefites shared their efforts toward making the world a better place, and I would love to do it again, especially since I could use some inspiration to get my butt moving as midterms approach! [more inside]
posted by sunset in snow country on Oct 4, 2018 - 109 comments

Hey folks, big discussion time. We're going to be making some changes on how U.S. political discussion plays out on MetaFilter, to try and make sure it remains available as a useful resource in a way that isn't as unsustainable as the current approach has been. I’ll lay out some concrete steps we’re taking, and some general thoughts, below. This is detailed but important and I appreciate you taking the time to read through it. [more inside]
posted by cortex on Nov 28, 2017 - 464 comments

Okay, someone made a (possibly throwaway) comment in one of the POTUS45 threads that it would be interesting to see how the comments/content of the threads had changed since the election. I got my teeth into that, and after some playing with the HTML of the threads with VBA and Access, I now have a headache. As well as that I've got a database with 48 threads, 139,882 comments (including the posts themselves as a comment), 9,230,306 words, 2,193,898 favourites and 46,692 links. Some charts and stats inside. Let me know if there's other stuff you're interested in. [more inside]
posted by MattWPBS on Sep 1, 2017 - 101 comments

There's a small discussion at the end of the May 30th U.S. politics thread (starting here) about when the megathreads should be "rolled over" into a new thread. Let's talk about that, and whatever else folks want to talk about with respect to the megathreads. [more inside]
posted by anonymous on Jun 6, 2017 - 244 comments

The biggest change in the way that mefites participate on the blue in years has been the rise of US politics megathreads. We have had several discussions of the qualitative impact of them, but it occurred to me that it might be useful to dig into the infodump and see what quantitative picture might emerge. I think my findings are worth sharing - while a quantitative analysis on its own can't tell us whether the megathreads are a good thing or not, there are several negative trends regarding community engagement and participation that are happening in close concurrency with the rise of the megathreads. [more inside]
posted by strangely stunted trees on Mar 27, 2017 - 435 comments

Must we have questions like this? It comes across as "We're all smart grownups here, and, of course, all smart grownups know that Bush SUCKS! Help me convince my poor, stupid, brainwashed friend that I'm right, which we all know I am." [more inside]
posted by Autarky on Sep 14, 2008 - 33 comments