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

I'd argue that maintaining separate single-topic threads for the impeachment discussion and the whistleblower discussion doesn't make sense and isn't working very well. Thoughts?
posted by diogenes on Sep 25, 2019 - 88 comments

The megathreads have been decommissioned, and many members of the subcommunity that has grown up around them have expressed that the return to normal Metafilter-style threads for political discussions will not fill the same role that the megathreads did. Let's discuss our options for finding a new space for this subcommunity to continue. [more inside]
posted by biogeo on Jul 25, 2019 - 179 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

I was hoping we could make a place to talk about the humanitarian crisis at the U.S. border and private prison facilities, help each other with the best information and resources, and maybe talk about if people are going to the MoveOn Protest/Rally July 2 or the Indivisible one on July 13 (or is that just Chicago)? Or know of other plans? [more inside]
posted by Glinn on Jul 1, 2019 - 28 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

Title says it all. Dude has been heroic in keeping the community fully informed during this intense campaign season (as he has many times before), and I couldn't find an appreciation post for him, so this is it. Thank you, Chrysostom! You are truly doing all of us a service every day.
posted by GrammarMoses on Nov 3, 2018 - 68 comments

Can we discuss doing another reset of expectations for the POTUS45/politics megathreads? I have been following the megathreads more or less obsessively ever since the election, and, like many others, have found them an extremely valuable resource for information regarding Trump-related stuff. I still do; however, these days I skim/sift through them pretty quickly, looking for the scarce wheat amongst the abundant chaff. While doing so, I get frustrated and find myself going into fits of flagging (Hi Mods!). [more inside]
posted by littlecatfeet on Sep 17, 2018 - 87 comments

Initially envisioned as an Ask post about sign slogans, I'm switching to a MetaTalk post to encompass anyone's need for ideas around signs, organizing, strategies, post-rally experiences, etc. for this weekend's (June 30, 2018) Families Belong Together rally.
posted by achrise on Jun 25, 2018 - 111 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