MetaTalk

Hey. It's cortex. We don't usually do this sort of thing, but: this US election is a couple weeks away and is really important for the future of the US and for the world. We're four years into creeping authoritarianism and outright regressive bigotry from the President and the GOP. If you're in the US, it's really important that you vote Biden/Harris and get Trump the hell out of office. Vote early if you can. There's state-by-state voting information available from vote411 and Ballotpedia.
posted by cortex on Oct 20, 2020 - 302 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

Time to kick open another Hyucking Hyuck thread, for riffing and jokes and misc. non-hollerin' overflow from politics discussion on the blue. [more inside]
posted by cortex on May 23, 2019 - 79 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

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

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