Sweating it September 7, 2005 6:25 AM   Subscribe

In this thread on ask.mefi, purpleporpoise asked me to defend my call-out. (More inside)
posted by oddman to Etiquette/Policy at 6:25 AM (16 comments total)

Well, purpleporpoise, the last paragraph of the first link of my response does, in fact, bring up the issue of body temperature and adjusting to heat. The question in the offending post references body sweat. So, yes, I do think that these questions overlap, quite a bit. So do at least a few others since many of the answers are focused on the sweat issue.

As to your other point, of course there are new ask.mefi users that come on the scene daily. Being new does not excuse them from searching the archives. (Which was, pretty much, my entire point.) Yes, people are allowed to post similar (even completely duplicate) questions but doing so just reduces the usefulness of ask.mefi. To be sure it is irritating, but more importantly, it makes ask.mefi significantly harder to use. The poster in question could have found similar discussions on the first page of the health listing. Does it seem to you that he even tried to do this?

Now, if the poster (he posted anonymously) had referenced those earlier (and fairly recent) links and asked for responses that did not duplicate the answers in those threads, I wouldn't have called him out. I have a healthy respect for due diligence. (I bet I'll come to regret that statement.) Acknowledging previous discussions is also a great way to make the experts responding to you aware of what you know already and allow them to build on that knowledge. It will not just make ask.mefi better in general, it will make the responses to individual posts better.
posted by oddman at 6:29 AM on September 7, 2005


Or you could have emailed them.
Or you should email them now anyway so they know to visit here.
posted by peacay at 6:36 AM on September 7, 2005


Bad cop. No donut.
posted by loquacious at 6:42 AM on September 7, 2005


So, the last 6 MeTa threads have been all about the bitching.

How about that?
posted by selfnoise at 6:44 AM on September 7, 2005


Delicious, bitches. Delicious.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:53 AM on September 7, 2005


I am Shaq and this post is a weak jump shot.
posted by KevinSkomsvold at 7:03 AM on September 7, 2005


Why is everybody mad about the cups?
posted by monju_bosatsu at 7:05 AM on September 7, 2005


Bad cup. No donut. Or coffee.
posted by loquacious at 7:30 AM on September 7, 2005


Well you can have coffee, just not in the Cup of Oppression. Maybe you'd like a mug?
posted by selfnoise at 8:01 AM on September 7, 2005


I love you, monju.
posted by Plutor at 8:04 AM on September 7, 2005


I'm all about the searching but having read the previous threads with great interest I can assure you that melorama's VERY useful (to me) post hits on information that wasn't in the old posts.

I'm inclined to agree with porpoise, within reason: AskMeFi has posting limits and after 30 days (hell, really after 2-3 days) there's no new traffic or contribution. New threads get new answers. I've lost count of the number of car repair & purchase threads I've seen duplicated and in many cases I understand: the person answering might realize the question has no valid differences from the old one but the poster might not realize that old advice is bang-on for them.
posted by phearlez at 8:43 AM on September 7, 2005


What happened to all the crullers? Did you kids eat them all?
posted by Smart Dalek at 8:44 AM on September 7, 2005


.|.
posted by NinjaPirate at 8:48 AM on September 7, 2005


Oddman - sorry, was busy last night.

I concede the point that you find the practice of not referencing previous posts with a similar topic annoying. I also appreciate that you referenced one of your previous answers which was marked as a 'Best Answer.'

I just didn't 'get' why you were harping on the submitter - even though the fact that the submitter was posting as anonymous which suggests that there was tacit approval for the post. In my mind, I (perhaps incorrectly) assumed that it was possible that you felt slighted that someone didn't see your previous 'Best Answer' post and benefit from that and I felt that you unfairly lashed out at the submitter. I'm sorry if my comment and comments have caused you distress.

Sometimes people have had a bad day, I'm absolutely positive that some of my bad days have (negatively) affected the quality of some of my posts here on Metafilter in the past, and I'm also pretty sure that I'll continue to have some posts of poor quality although I conciously try to recognize that when it happens and take a step back away from the keyboard - hopefully before hitting submit.

Why can't we all just get along?
posted by PurplePorpoise at 10:46 AM on September 7, 2005


Man, it's like watching 2nd graders cry in here.
posted by Edible Energy at 2:05 PM on September 7, 2005


Total .l.
posted by Mid at 6:20 PM on September 7, 2005


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