moderated? and yet remains?

July 3, 2006 7:24 AM

This AskMe has been moderated? And yet remains?
posted by mzurer to Etiquette/Policy at 7:24 AM (24 comments total)

It is clear that some "off-topic" posts have been deleted, but this question is essentially a troll by proxy that has been discussed to death here and all the other internets I know about it. It dilutes the utility of AskMe.
posted by mzurer at 7:26 AM on July 3, 2006

It may have been asked to death, but I don't see how it is a troll by proxy.
posted by cortex at 7:26 AM on July 3, 2006

I characterize it as a "troll by proxy" becasue while Jimmy may be genuinely curious, no amount of disussion will change the mind of his friend. And if jimmy engages his friend in conversation, the friend will either come into the thead to argue, or will argue through jimmy. It is possible that jimmy will not post his friend's responses, and then I will be wrong.
posted by mzurer at 7:34 AM on July 3, 2006

Ah. I see what you mean, then.
posted by cortex at 7:36 AM on July 3, 2006

...and has been discussed to death here and all the other internets I know about it.

This has never been a reason for axing an axme post before. If it were, then there would only be one axme post about buying a digital camera/visiting washington dc/visiting NYC/etc. etc.
posted by crunchland at 7:47 AM on July 3, 2006

I was keeping an eye on that thread. While I agree that it looks like a troll by proxy post, I was going to give it a bit and see if it really did turn into some idiot argument, or if jimmy would say "thanks for the information, I'll go use these to argue with my friend"
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 7:47 AM on July 3, 2006

That's the one where your mom does a "pride down harsh" on you because she herself wants to live under a bridge, right?
posted by fleacircus at 7:57 AM on July 3, 2006

It dilutes the utility of AskMe.

Huh? Reasonable discussion of conspiracy theories "dilutes the utility of AskMe? That makes absolutely no sense.
posted by mediareport at 8:29 AM on July 3, 2006

While true that the standard of "OMG THE MILLIONTH TIME" is not one that has been applied in the past, I think there is a place for it.

I do not think that all discussions of conspiracy theories dilute AskMe, but I think this one does. I am not creating a universal theory of AskMe here, I just feel like this is just going to be a rehash, with a possibilty of train-wreck on the side.
posted by mzurer at 8:49 AM on July 3, 2006

I'm fine with conspiracy theories as long as they stay nice and contained in their own ignorable threads. What annoys me is when they pop up in otherwise viable threads, sorta like when your nice garden is overtaken by weeds which are then eaten by antelope which trample all over your garden and then reproduce and make baby antelope which then take up your entire yard and then eventually die because hey, thats what happens, and then the buzzards come which is pretty gross because buzzards are ugly and also theres the small fact of dead antelope in your backyard.
posted by Afroblanco at 8:55 AM on July 3, 2006

I just feel like this is just going to be a rehash, with a possibilty of train-wreck on the side.

Well then, be sure and stand clear. Try avoiding that kind of thread altogether if you have trouble keeping cool. Certainly don't whine for the question to be removed *in anticipation* of some sort of major disaster that hasn't happened yet, just because you've seen the question done to death elsewhere on the net and are fretting about what might happen.
posted by mediareport at 9:05 AM on July 3, 2006

You know who else thought this was a troll by proxy? Hitler.
posted by stet at 9:17 AM on July 3, 2006

Actually mediareport, posting in MeTa is keeping cool. Not as cool as "flag and move on," but also not as hot-headed as shitting in the thread. I'm a member of this community and I feel strongly about keeping AskMe useful. Your definition and mine may not align, so you should feel free to present counter-opinions. Please don't tell me to shut up.
posted by mzurer at 9:50 AM on July 3, 2006

I'm not telling you to shut up, I'm asking you to stop trying to encourage the deletion of perfectly fine AskMe questions.
posted by mediareport at 10:34 AM on July 3, 2006

Before you ask a question, please try searching for previous threads about your topic.

It's a rehash. Not perfectly fine. There is nothing new to be gotten. There is a vast corpus of information related to 9/11 both on MeFi and on the internet as a whole. I think the thread is basically at an end now, and oh look, there's nothing new in there!

Sure we could of just left it at 0 replies and ignored it forever but that's not as fun.
posted by public at 10:56 AM on July 3, 2006

At least it's been moderated to the point that reading it from the beginning doesn't really make sense anymore. That's like deleting the thread, only much more ridiculous.
posted by bingo at 11:15 AM on July 3, 2006

Just for the record, you shouldn't use MeFi threads as grounds for calling an AskMe a double. And while that general WTC conspiracy thread does cover it, particularly near the end, I can still understand why someone might ask the more specific question. I still fail to see how it "dilutes" anything about AskMe; the question is being answered well enough. mzurer posted *after* the pruning of some comments, apparently, so this thread makes absolutely no sense other than as an attack on the subject matter of the question, which strikes me as strange.
posted by mediareport at 11:21 AM on July 3, 2006

that general WTC conspiracy thread does cover it

...the general WTC AskMe thread, I mean...
posted by mediareport at 11:24 AM on July 3, 2006

Update: my friend now claims that mzurer was directly responsible for the destruction of WTC 7. He ran up to it and whined until it collapsed. I'm definitely taking that with a grain of salt, but I'll have my metatalk call-out ready should I happen to find anything else to support this theory.
posted by jimmy at 11:47 AM on July 3, 2006 [1 favorite]

FWIW, I found StickyCarpet's simple, unadorned description of what he saw to be quite remarkably persuasive, and a better answer to this question than about 99% of the obfuscatory blather one hears on both sides about this subject.
posted by George_Spiggott at 11:52 AM on July 3, 2006

Me too, George_Spiggot. SC's comment is really valuable. I learned a lot from reading that thread, which I had skipped with a roll of the eyes until mzurer re-directed my attention to it.
posted by jamjam at 12:15 PM on July 3, 2006

If only there was some way you could just flag and then not participate in any question you found useless or distasteful.

Your definition and mine may not align, so you should feel free to present counter-opinions.

You can both do yourself a rain dance if you're worried about your BBQ getting soggy too, it'll accomplish about as much. Jess and Matt decide what questions get deleted, not either of you.
posted by phearlez at 1:10 PM on July 3, 2006

Now that I'm back from my picnic, it seems like that thread is still going okay, pretty calmly actually.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 1:31 PM on July 3, 2006

Jimmy handled that pretty well.
posted by LarryC at 8:53 PM on July 3, 2006