MetaTalk posts tagged with news

Deleting Damascus

Whitall Tatum — Sat, 04 May 2013 21:24:34 -0800

I would like to discuss whether or not this post warranted deletion. I would like to begin by saying that while I am a new user, I've been reading for a long time, and am well aware that MeFi is generally not the place for breaking news stories. That being said, I have two major points of contention regarding why this post was deleted: 1. This post is not exactly breaking news. I believe that the value of this post is in the two linked videos of the bombing, which offer an entirely unique perspective on the Syria/Israel/Iran situation. The sheer authenticity of these videos -- by this I mean the fact that these videos seem to be shot by civilians, not journalists -- is something that, in itself, I think a lot of people here would have truly appreciated. Secondly, as I explicitly stated in the post (via the NYT), what we are witnessing here is an ongoing trend: Israel has attacked Syria before, and we know exactly why. It is not as if this post was "breaking news" in the sense that it was opening a slew of unanswerable questions. 2. Originally, I was planning on making a SLYT post, containing only a link to the first linked video. I was questioning whether this was MeFi appropriate, so I sent an email to the Mods asking their opinion. This is the response that I received: "It's a striking video, but without context really isn't going to make a good post. If you can figure out the backstory and find some links to give it that context, then it'd work, but otherwise I'd let it go." Please understand, I sincerely respect the Mods here, and mean no disrespect by pointing this out. However, I did exactly what was suggested: I added two (yes, "breaking") articles for context, and the second video which I found from the WP article (which, in my opinion, gives the post that much more "strength"). Again, I do not mean to come off as rude: but I find the fact that the post was still deleted to be incredibly disingenuous. All of this being said, I am submitting a Meta Talk question as I'd like to know what I could have done differently: Is there any way I could have better contextualized the videos? Did my wording of the post not place enough emphasis on the videos -- did they not come across as the main "focal point" of the post? Thank you all.

Business Insider thinks mathowie is "this guy"

Mad_Carew — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 12:03:37 -0800

Here's What Happened When This Guy Accidentally Asked 1,138 People To Connect On LinkedIn I apparently don't read the names of the people involved when I skim articles, but about 5 paragraphs in it mentions MeFi, so I looked back to see if I could figure out the user name, which I did… Congrats on being "this guy", mathowie.

What would Bill do?

TheNewWazoo — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 13:49:20 -0800

So, I neglected to favorite a user's comment pointing to a certain Easter Egg they buried in a news website before they left the job there. This "feature" led to a page which collected all the articles about what proposed legislation intended to do ("Bill would..."), to hilarious results. Can anyone point me to it?

The Joy of FPPing

Wordshore — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 10:06:41 -0800

To people who have done this; why did you create Front Page Post(s) on MetaFilter? The motivations are interesting in themselves, and may also provide positive reasons for people to cross the rubicon from lurker to poster. It's an activity which takes a variable amount of time, from a single link cat video post, to a multi-screen, multi-linked complex. There is no monetary or career-enhancement reward for posting. There's (arguably thankfully) no shiny gamification 'badges' for posting many times on MetaFilter. As the poster you are, in a sense, putting your head "above the parapet". And it is very unlikely (tho' guess not impossible?) that posting to MetaFilter will ultimately result in you "getting laid". So, what have been the motivation(s) for you to post. Were they different depending on the nature, subject matter, of the post? Were they different from posting on e.g. online newspaper comment sections, community blogs, other sites where people link to and discuss online content? Was it to illuminate something you think should have a wider audience? To provoke debate, be the catalyst for comment? To highlight something negative you think people need to be aware of? To make people happy(er) with something cute? To digitally shout out "OMG!" at some news, event, happening in the world? Or did you take an intrinsic pleasure in creating the post (the "inner librarian" concept); editing it, doing the research, refining it for the particular audience which is MetaFilter? Or post to become more immersed, "meshed" into the MetaFilter network/community? Or to altruistically add to a "sum of MetaFilter community knowledge". Or, for regular posters, is the motivation to post more of a reflex reaction to encountering something interesting online? Or some other motivation(s) for why you dedicated the time and effort to creating a specific post? Related: Jessamyn's comment about mini-bibliographies.

Dharun Ravi just rolled snake eyes.

Sticherbeast — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 12:06:34 -0800

Update on the Dharun Ravi / Tyler Clementi case: he has been found guilty on all counts.

PopSciFilter

nangar — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 11:59:49 -0800

Standards for science news posts? Thin breaking-news posts and single-link op-eds are routinely deleted here. I'd like to suggest that we apply similar standards to science news FPPs. Initial reports about scientific research in the popular media are frequently misleading and hyperbolic. FPPs about a scientific paper should at least include a link the an abstract of the actual paper, and preferably the paper itself, if it's available. (Not too infrequently, authors of academic papers post copies on their website. It's not too difficult to Google the names of the authors to see if there's a pdf available.) Often it's much better to wait a bit. If a recently published paper attracts a lot of interest in its field, science bloggers who've read the paper and do research in that area will usually start writing about it within a week or so. I'm hoping that a policy of flagging and deleting thin science news posts, as currently applies to regular NewsFilter, will give better science news posts linking to more informed commentary a better chance of existing on MeFi.

News feed for comment links on mefi

MechEng — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 19:48:20 -0800

A lot of good links on the blue, green and grey. But some of the better links are buried in the comments section of ask mefi, or even front page. Is there any easy way to have a list of all of the links on mefi as they get posted in comments section come up in a news feed? This could be done through mefi, or third part site. Facebook has a feature to search for links only in posters. It would be neat to see a list of all of the links that get posted in real time to mefi (or any other site for that matter), both front page, back page, and all comments. This would give you a bit of the walking through a library and grabbing a random book feel to the internet. Noting that a gem could be found for every 10 you don't like. Bonus if some sort features were added to the list, (example by mefi page found on, # of favorites, timeline, most clicked [if this is being tracked]) Apologies in advance if someone has already asked the same thing. Flag and take down if someone has.

A Gay Girl Missing in Damascus

Astro Zombie — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 12:01:23 -0800

Amina Arraf, author of the "A Gay Girl in Damascus" blog (previously), is missing. From the blog: Earlier today, at approximately 6:00 pm Damascus time, Amina was walking in the area of the Abbasid bus station, near Fares al Khouri Street. She had gone to meet a person involved with the Local Coordinating Committee and was accompanied by a friend. Amina told the friend that she would go ahead and they were separated. Amina had, apparently, identified the person she was to meet. However, while her companion was still close by, Amina was seized by three men in their early 20’s. According to the witness (who does not want her identity known), the men were armed. Amina hit one of them and told the friend to go find her father. One of the men then put his hand over Amina’s mouth and they hustled her into a red Dacia Logan with a window sticker of Basel Assad. The witness did not get the tag number. She promptly went and found Amina’s father.

How to Get a Real Education

converge — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 23:19:35 -0800

Cortex made The Atlantic Wire. Planned Chaos indeed.

If it bleeds, it leads.

Cool Papa Bell — Thu, 24 Mar 2011 18:37:16 -0800

I'm beginning to wonder if MetaFilter is becoming like local television news, in that it's painting a distorted picture of how bad things really are. You all know the saying -- "if it bleeds, it leads." Local TV news becomes a calvacade of murder, crime, car accidents and abuse, when actually, murder rates are down and things are kinda nice, comparatively speaking. Recent posts on the front page have been about: * Joe Arpaio and Steven Seagal * Idiot Alaskan militias * Kerfluffle over gay wizards * The Koch brothers * Microsoft suing competitors for piracy * Proposed UK health reforms that may have bad effects (emphasis mine) IMO, that's a lot of overheated chaff in the midst of otherwise excellent wheat, and all of it with a bent toward "oh noes the sky is falling" about politics and culture. In many regards, the sky is falling. But this ain't it.

Speculative News Posts Shouldering Out Legitimate News Posts

chimaera — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 11:52:24 -0800

Should speculative posts always become the canonical Mefi thread? This post, based on a great deal of speculation about an upcoming NASA press conference was full of noise and jokes. Sprocket did a decent job framing the post, but the timing was such that it was simply impossible to have a good, constructive, and educational discussion about something that was at the time highly speculative. Because of this, the actual news, when it came out, prompted a post based on the actual news. That post was deleted because, earlier, a post that was a far FAR less illuminating thread full of jokes and noise happened to take precedence. I think it's a shame that a legitimately huge biology and astrobiology story (ATP in the Krebs cycle of these organisms being replaced by Adenosine Tri-Arsenate, the entire replacement of Phosphorus with Arsenic in a bacterium) is going to be mostly lost on Mefi because a speculative thread (which ended up full of noise and jokes and guesswork) will stand as the canonical thread.

Follow-up on Tiller murder trial.

grapefruitmoon — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 09:47:56 -0800

As a follow-up to the thread on the murder of Dr. Tiller: Scott Roeder has been found guilty of first-degree murder. (I didn't think there was a way to make this into a proper post for the blue, but also thought a lot of MeFites would be interested in this follow-up.)

Why no airplane terrorist post?

granted — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 14:41:58 -0800

I'm curious about why nobody posted anything to the front page about the foiled terrorism attempt on the 25th. I know that this site has a complicated relationship with newsfilter-type posts, but traditionally, huge national/world events override any distaste for that sort of thing. After the story broke I visited Metafilter expecting to find a 200-comment discussion, but there was nothing. I thought perhaps someone had made a single-link newsfilter post that had been deleted, but nope. I checked the archives to see if previous, similarly noteworthy terrorism attempts were posted, and they were; in fact the shoebomber was so OMG! that the poster didn't even bother to include a link because it wasn't "on any of the websites yet." True, in those days we were younger and dumber and more lacking in impulse control, but it's odd that an almost identical event doesn't even merit a mention today. Why didn't I post it, you ask. Well, I thought somebody else would. Also, I only had enough time to put together a single-link newsfilter thing and people around here get all mean about that, so I thought I'd wait for someone else to either do a better job or take one for the team. And then later, when I did have time, it had been long enough since the event that I started to worry that maybe there was some reason for its absence that I didn't know about. Which is why I'm posting this, instead of that. In short, I was afraid. Anyway, basically, I was disappointed not to see it because this site has better discussions than anywhere else on the web and I've been spoiled. So, any thoughts as to why it wasn't posted?

rant at 11

stupidsexyFlanders — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 14:31:59 -0800

It's lazy, it's snarky, it's the smug, knowing older brother of "meh," and half of you are getting it wrong. News at 11. It's FILM AT 11, morans. We get it -- you saw it coming, you're shocked!, you've been there, you've done that, you're bored to tears. If you really need for us to understand how foolish we are to stare slackjawed at whatever you're dismissing, at least take the time to get the cliche right. If I'm a local anchor, and I tease a story by giving you the headline, I'm not going to end with "News at 11" -- I just told you the news. What I'm teasing is the film, which I have NOT shown you. FILM AT 11. Christ.

Is MeFi the new digg?

subaruwrx — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 12:12:26 -0800

What are the rules for posting to MeFi? Ive noticed that many posts are news articles and many of the op/ed posts get snarked or berated for not being newsworthy... I thought this was "best of the web"? I for one will read digg if I want news and MeFi if I want to find interesting web articles...

Full -text search indexes go!

mathowie — Thu, 11 May 2006 21:29:06 -0800

So I finally got around to researching full-text search indexes for the database server today. I whipped up some indexes (that are updated hourly) and ran some tests: searches using the indexes were 5-10x faster than the old way. So I brought back tag and post search for logged in users on the search page.

Consider this a test for the next few days, as I would like to bring search back in all sorts of ways (searching a user's posts, favorites, etc), and hopefully this doesn't kill the database server like it has in the past.

Bad newsfilter post.

TedW — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 08:09:50 -0800

This is why single link newsfilter posts are bad.

Should MetaFilter have another section called MetaNews?

parallax7d — Mon, 28 Nov 2005 19:46:38 -0800

Should MetaFilter have another section called MetaNews to keep the geopolitical stuff separated from the quirky best of web stuff?

Web 2.0 detectives on MetaFilter

juggernautco — Sat, 02 Jul 2005 15:48:32 -0800

If you ever find yourself trying to explain what Web 2.0 is all about, here's a quiet, excellent example you can point to. A random web user encounters a breaking news story about a man accused of kidnapping, (apparently) did some rudimentary searching, used a free and useful web archive and search tool, and pointed any interested parties within a certain community of web users to a cached version of the suspect's weblog, which reveals a wealth of interesting if chilling information that moves the narrative of our knowledge forward long before any word of it reaches common news aggregators. Once the new information is there, some chafe is posted but more wheat is added to the story. It may all end up being hooey-- not the weblog of the suspect. But this example of normal people using freely available tools to contribute to the collective knowledge will remain.

Following the posting guidelines

Steve_at_Linnwood — Thu, 28 Apr 2005 12:06:06 -0800

I guess we are not even going to pretend to follow the guidelines for posts anymore.

Readability of MeFi as compared to other popular sites.

mathowie — Sun, 24 Apr 2005 09:11:47 -0800

Readability Results for http://www.metafilter.com:
Gunning Fog Index 10.70

Typical Fog Index Scores:
6 TV guides, The Bible, Mark Twain
8 Reader's Digest
8 - 10 Most popular novels
10 Time, Newsweek
11 Wall Street Journal
14 The Times, The Guardian
15 - 20 Academic papers
Over 20 Only government sites can get away with this, because you can't ignore them.
Over 30 The government is covering something up

We're just like Time and Newsweek!

newsfilter

mathowie — Fri, 06 Aug 2004 16:29:49 -0800

NewsFilter!

Potential tool for newsy post obsessed Mefites...

monju_bosatsu — Thu, 17 Jun 2004 10:55:53 -0800

Obviously, given Seth's latest tirade, many of use are tired of the volume of newsy posts. Heck, even I've complained about it before, although I've long since given up on voicing my complaints. However, there is a new tool over at TodaysPapers.com that I think could be useful for diverting some of the discussion. Look, it even finds the news for you! No need to wait for a post, just jump straight to the discussion! It's also virtually empty, and ripe for a takeover by the MeFi newsies. Please?

Newsfilter as FPPs

Outlawyr — Tue, 30 Mar 2004 07:28:18 -0800

Predictions: I just noticed the news, "White House to Let Rice Testify in Public" on AP. How long until this becomes an FPP. Doesn't it seem lately that every piece of news is getting posted? Where does one draw the line between news that should be an FPP and news that shouldn't

How News Travels on the Internet

thomcatspike — Wed, 10 Mar 2004 10:28:27 -0800

How News Travels on the Internet; Source -> Meta News -> MiFi - shorthand for MetaFilter, blogging on crack (all users can post?). Not accepting accounts. Currently #8 on DayPop top 40.