MetaTalk posts tagged with askme

$5 wasted?

leotrotsky — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 09:35:57 -0800

You can't use 2nd account to get around 7 day wait period on AskMe? I was under the impression that one of the things you bought with your 5 dollar sockpuppet account was the ability to post questions with that account. Are you guys actually checking IPs or credit cards or something?

That's 602.920 US dollars or 420.566 Euros! (thank you, pleasure to entertain you, tip your waiter, etc.)

NikitaNikita — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 09:12:46 -0800

With the new year around the corner, and recently noticing that Mefites have burned 490,834 calories, traveled 2,364 miles, and lost 378 pounds, I figure it's a good time to ask: Is there interest in some sort of MetaFilter weight loss/exercise challenge? (Meta-fitter? Har. Har. Sorry.) I did some MetaTalk archive searching last night, and found that this has been alluded to before in terms of crapmatic's pony request of diet.metafilter.com (summary: no.), as well as jbickers setting up a group on Gyminee, which is now the daily burn, apparently. And, of course, the topic of weight loss/exercise motivation comes up frequently in AskMe, not just exercise and eating well for weight loss, but for depression and other health related matters... SO! 1) Anyone interested in some sort of challenge? 2) Has anyone used Gyminee/Daily Burn? (I just joined.) Should we keep with it and do some sort of challenge on there? Or is there another site to use which is better? (I know some of us work in the metric system, and I don't know if DB has conversions available.) 3) Ideas on how to set up such a challenge are welcomed. (goals, timeline, etc.) I realize that there are running and cycling related challenges on other sites, but I'm imagining something closer to the stats tracked on DailyBurn, with weight loss or burned calories as a goal. No intent on alienating our slimmer friends, but considering the widespread effects of obesity and metabolic syndrome, I figure it doesn't hurt to ask. yes, thanks to my mom, i watched the biggest loser reunion show last night. this may have something to do with it along with my recently rapidly expanding waistline.

Asking complex, multi-part questions on AskMe?

catquas — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 06:51:03 -0800

I have some pretty involved questions I am thinking of asking on Ask Metafilter. There is a lot of contextual information, which, the more people know, the better I feel their answers will be. If I put it all in one post, there would be a lot of interlinked questions. Is it better to put things all in one post, or to post a few different questions and provide links to the information in the other questions?

"Mom, Dad -- why did Metafilter name me ----- ?"

zizzle — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 09:26:32 -0800

So, this AskMe got me thinking about this and this. What did all of you MeFites asking for baby name help end up naming your babies?

Now we are six

jessamyn — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 07:47:13 -0800

Ask MetaFilter is six years old today-ish. The subsite that began without its own URL has grown into its own fully tagged, categorized (mostly) searchable archive of our little hive's collected wisdom. Just last month over 1900 users wrote questions and 5300 users gave answers. Here are a few questions from that first week or so... What is AskMetaFilter? Why is Kennedy looking down in his Official White House portrait? How to be the best at The Dreaded 20 Questions Gift. and the perennial favorite Is the coefficient of restitution of two particles a measure of the percentage of kinetic energy retained after a collision? Thanks to everyone who has participated over the years for helping AskMe be truly the best of the web. hat tip to tellurian for the heads up.

How to post anonymously?

digitalprimate — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 06:09:47 -0800

Where is the link on to how to post an anonymous askme? I looked, I swear. I'm swamped with work today and have an immediate personal issue I want to put in an askme but can't do it under my username. Anyone know where the link describing this process is? I know I saw it once, but can't find it now. Sincere thanks.

Mobile computer word-up!

parmanparman — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 20:30:38 -0800

My home computer is my Blackberry. Thank you so much for the "Mark resolved" link. It saves so much work!

All's well that ends well?

bigmusic — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 11:56:43 -0800

Many ask.metafilter questions don't have an "end" to the story. Which questions are you most curious about how they ended?

Is polling wrong even if helpful?

You Should See the Other Guy — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 23:43:15 -0800

When is a survey/polling type question okay on AskMe? I run a retail shop and we have an annual boxing week sale. I'd like to use AskMe to find out people's opinions on two different types of sales so that we can pick the one that satisfies the most people. Am I wrong in thinking this is a break of AskMe's guidelines as it's kind of a polling question, or am I misunderstanding the rule against such questions? Thank you.

... and then she kissed him

bonaldi — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 10:21:40 -0800

This AskMe question had all the hallmarks of a frustrating unresolved drama in-the-making ... but it's suddenly got a happy ending!

boys are like this and girls are like that

jabberjaw — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 19:10:52 -0800

Couch in the Ladies' Room. Am I the only one who thinks a chatfilter thread devoted to stereotyping and generalizing men and women is a bad use of AskMe? I'm more troubled that it's such a popular thread. What am I missing?

No English Help Please

PhoBWanKenobi — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 15:13:50 -0800

This question seems like homeworkfilter to me. As someone who's taught freshmen comp, this sort of editing was precisely the homework that my students were often given. Though the OP says he cleared it with Jessamyn, and that his questions are specific rather than "help me edit this", the questions are all actually pretty broad, particularly as he appends that he wants "general feedback about grammar etc." I appreciate that kylej is hoping to improve his essay, but I can't help but think that editing high school comp papers isn't a good ask of AskMe, and would hate to open the door to questions here being used as free editing help. I get the feeling that a bunch of the responders so far feel the same way, but kylej says to take it to metafilter, so here we are.

Does she owe him sex, too?

prefpara — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 20:18:57 -0800

This answer in a recent AskMe made me very uncomfortable. I know about "flag it and move on," but I don't actually think the answer breaks the guidelines. It didn't seem appropriate to turn the thread into an argument about it, so here I am. I think it's outrageous to say that in a relationship, the person whose salary is less "owes" housework to the other person, especially as the asker stated that she and her boyfriend work the same hours. In addition to that, the answer relies on questionable assumptions (e.g. "you chose not to invest as much time/money/effort into developing your human capital"). I think the overall feel of the answer (as well as the other answers by Jacqueline) is sexist. Frankly, this answer, and all of Jacqueline's answers in that question, make my blood boil. It feels to me like an attack on the asker. I disagree completely with all of it. I'm not sure if this is the kind of thing where I should just ignore it and accept that not everyone sees the world the same way that I do. If so, I apologize for making this post. However, I think that the perspective Jacqueline is sharing is actively harmful and just horribly wrong, and needs to be countered.

AskMe to Recent Ac

Netzapper — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 11:00:44 -0800

Could one's AskMe questions perhaps show up in Recent Activity? As it stands, to keep track of your own AskMe thread, you have to manually check it through your general activity. Since questions seem to remain open for a very long time, it's possible that people can provide an answer long after the question has faded into the vaulted halls of memory. Would it not be better if asking an AskMe question acted as if you'd posted in your own thread, thereby adding it to your recent activity and bumping it to the top whenever somebody replies? Yea, would this not be a very shiny and well-behaved pony?

AskMe answer makes it to reddit.

taumeson — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 05:49:36 -0800

The best AskMe answer ever recently made it to reddit. It was, of course, upvoted as the best answer.

Or, as a great bumper sticker once said, Safety Third!

grapefruitmoon — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:32:25 -0800

Safety First Filter: Can we not advocate actual death, please? There's a really great AskMe going about a poster's girlfriend and her safety for a stalker. There are excellent points made about guns and gun safety - which, do, of course mention that guns are primarily used to kill. And then there's this comment, which totally crosses a line for me and makes me wonder where the line actually IS in terms of community standards: "However, I just wanted to say re: the "killing a human" thing...sometimes people have to die. Make the decision to try to harm (kill!) me or someone I care about, and I will have no second thoughts about killing you." Yeah, I'm all for advocating for gun safety - especially as the OP is in the US where guns are legal, but it really bothers me to see actual DEATH advocated as a solution. Can we draw the line that a "helpful answer" does not include "actively advocating for the death of another human being?"

Well, I actually DID bump into Marcia Clark in a video store once...

hwyengr — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:34:02 -0800

This thread is no longer a question, but rather fodder for name-dropping The poster asked if her name dropping was annoying to others, others said it was, but she keeps doing more and more name dropping through the entire post. It's bordering on trolling.

Stop the pile-on nazis

desjardins — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 10:48:00 -0800

The answers to this question have just been a horrible pile-on and it needs to stop. Seriously, 50+ answers saying essentially the same thing? Can we use some restraint here?

Rules of Relationship Filter

battlebison — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 08:07:51 -0800

A few recent threads on MeTa have made me wonder, what's the stance on relationship filter questions in AskMe? I should maybe include a disclaimer: I don't like relationship filter-y questions. I feel like they take up more than their fair share of AskMe and often wish there were some negative tags feature, like "All but relationship-related posts". That said, I'm not trying to really shake things up or change things. I'm just looking for an official word on what the stance is so that I know what to flag and what are reasonable questions for me to ask. I've read the FAQ and I've searched the site but I haven't been able to find any official word as of yet. Maybe because exactly what defines "relationship filter" is kind of arbitrary? Or is it too polarizing a topic to try to regulate at this point? This could have been a private message to one of the mods, but I figured I'd make it public for any discussion or thoughts.

Possibly problematic posts?

serazin — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 13:42:51 -0800

A couple recent AskMes have left me a little confused about how to address problematic, but not intentionally offensive assumptions. this and this aren't intended to be sexist, but they incorporate a certain worldview that I found difficult to leave totally unchallenged. I flagged the first post, and left what was probably an unnecessarily sarcastic comment in the other. I don't really think either should be deleted, I more think each poster might benefit from a short note saying why some readers might take issue with the post. I might just send a memail message along these lines, but I wonder generally if other people have ideas for how to usefully and non-confrontationally address this kind of thing.

AskMe Etiquette

zarq — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 17:19:59 -0800

Making recommendations against a physician or business on AskMe? In this post, anonymous is looking for a gastroenterologist. I had a terrible experience with a gastroenterologist in NYC a few years back, who failed to test for or diagnose an underlying gallstone problem while treating my esophageal reflux. Wound up in the hospital for emergency surgery. I don't have an axe to grind, but do think anonymous might benefit from a mild warning about the physician, with a "ymmv" disclaimer, of course. Is it kosher to do that in the thread? Obviously, I can't MeMail anonymous.

Please take it easy

Blazecock Pileon — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 14:14:42 -0800

If you can, please kindly refrain with the judging anonymous in this AskMe thread. Just a personal request to cool it just down a notch. The asker seems to understand enough to acknowledge the mistake he made and probably would be better off with factual answers.

Jessamyn tells all!

ocherdraco — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 08:51:06 -0800

An interview with Jessamyn West: lifeguard, librarian, mod. "AskMe anything, in moderation." At The Big Interview.

Timezone bug in Ask?

Pinback — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 16:41:47 -0800

Timezone bug in Ask? There appears to be a problem with the user time offset setting & AskMefi. Currently, my local & system time is 9.38am, and my user timezone is set to +17hrs (Aust east coast, no DST) from server time. Mefi, Meta, Music & Jobs posts & comments all show correct local times (e.g the most recent post in Mefi shows for me as October 6 @ 6:33am), but Ask doesn't seem to reflect my timezone properly - the time in the header bar is OK, but posts and comments (e.g. this one I made a few minutes ago) show without the offset i.e. "posted by Pinback at 4:17 PM on October 5", instead of "posted by Pinback at 9:17 AM on October 6". Anyone else seeing this?