Again with the quick hook December 14, 2006 6:13 PM Subscribe
Again with the quick hook on a chatfilter judgment call?
Post your answer here, I want to see what happens. *waits patiently*
posted by weretable and the undead chairs at 6:17 PM on December 14, 2006
posted by weretable and the undead chairs at 6:17 PM on December 14, 2006
"What the fuck is XYZs problem?" types of questions go badly. They're a hassle to moderate because people react to the tone and not to the content of the question and get all huffy. This question is not time sensitive and the OP can ask it again next week if they want to, perhaps the way limeonaire suggested. Phrasing matters.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:19 PM on December 14, 2006 [1 favorite]
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:19 PM on December 14, 2006 [1 favorite]
It's called bureaucracy, welcome to America.
posted by bob sarabia at 6:23 PM on December 14, 2006
posted by bob sarabia at 6:23 PM on December 14, 2006
I like roads.
posted by weretable and the undead chairs at 6:32 PM on December 14, 2006
posted by weretable and the undead chairs at 6:32 PM on December 14, 2006
Jess, Matt,
The reasons given for axing a thread usually sounds like you guys are drunk, high and about two minutes from having a nervous breakdown.
Thanks for the laughs.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:38 PM on December 14, 2006
The reasons given for axing a thread usually sounds like you guys are drunk, high and about two minutes from having a nervous breakdown.
Thanks for the laughs.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:38 PM on December 14, 2006
Roads? Where we're going, we don't need roads.
posted by brain_drain at 6:48 PM on December 14, 2006 [1 favorite]
posted by brain_drain at 6:48 PM on December 14, 2006 [1 favorite]
Are we there yet?
posted by Razzle Bathbone at 6:49 PM on December 14, 2006
posted by Razzle Bathbone at 6:49 PM on December 14, 2006
I am a Roads Scholar and available to answer all roads-related queries.
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 7:02 PM on December 14, 2006 [2 favorites]
posted by Kraftmatic Adjustable Cheese at 7:02 PM on December 14, 2006 [2 favorites]
This question is not time sensitive and the OP can ask it again next week if they want to, perhaps the way limeonaire suggested. Phrasing matters.
Ehhh ... Agreed. I getcha. Thanks.
posted by frogan at 7:07 PM on December 14, 2006 [1 favorite]
Ehhh ... Agreed. I getcha. Thanks.
posted by frogan at 7:07 PM on December 14, 2006 [1 favorite]
phrasing matters, please try again next week.
I love it! The way it was put, it was ranting. There is a great question in there, and it might get great answers, depending on who sees it next time, but "What the fuck takes so long?" is just rediculous.
Hell, put the WTF in a comment or something..
posted by Chuckles at 7:12 PM on December 14, 2006
I love it! The way it was put, it was ranting. There is a great question in there, and it might get great answers, depending on who sees it next time, but "What the fuck takes so long?" is just rediculous.
Hell, put the WTF in a comment or something..
posted by Chuckles at 7:12 PM on December 14, 2006
AMIRITE? AMIRITE? NOBODY EVER ANSWERS!
posted by Rhomboid at 7:50 PM on December 14, 2006 [2 favorites]
posted by Rhomboid at 7:50 PM on December 14, 2006 [2 favorites]
phrasing matters
True, and while I loves me a good snarky reason for deletion and appreciate what a drag it is to deal with crap posts, the rule also applies to the This post was deleted for the following reason: LOLLERSKATES!1+1=2!! R U AMIRITE AXEGRINDFILTER BYOBB's.
It's getting kind of tedious and sets a bad tone for AskMe as a whole exactly the same way a poorly phrased question or early derailing comment does for an individual thread.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:01 PM on December 14, 2006
True, and while I loves me a good snarky reason for deletion and appreciate what a drag it is to deal with crap posts, the rule also applies to the This post was deleted for the following reason: LOLLERSKATES!1+1=2!! R U AMIRITE AXEGRINDFILTER BYOBB's.
It's getting kind of tedious and sets a bad tone for AskMe as a whole exactly the same way a poorly phrased question or early derailing comment does for an individual thread.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:01 PM on December 14, 2006
It's getting kind of tedious and sets a bad tone for AskMe
I think removing a WTF question with a reason for deletion that includes the word "please" is actually pretty okay tonewise.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:13 PM on December 14, 2006
I think removing a WTF question with a reason for deletion that includes the word "please" is actually pretty okay tonewise.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:13 PM on December 14, 2006
Wow...I guess it's pedantic things like that which cause otherwise simple tasks to become such drawn-out undertakings.
Thank you lime. :-)
And I think AlliKat was snarkily hinting that her question had been answered. Bad form.
posted by deborah at 8:14 PM on December 14, 2006
Thank you lime. :-)
And I think AlliKat was snarkily hinting that her question had been answered. Bad form.
posted by deborah at 8:14 PM on December 14, 2006
I have been wondering something and I hope you can help me out.
Let's assume Captain Kirk and a caveman have teamed up to fight a large group of evenly mixed polar bears, brown bears and black bears, and Kirk's phaser had a limited charge.
To make it more simple - say 15 of each bear and only enough phaser charge to kill a total of 20 bears with one shot each and no chance to miss. Let us also assume the caveman has some skill at killing bears but can only take one at a time and his odds are 50/50 with a large spear. Say the bears have 8d life and the spear does 2d damage. The bears do 4d +2 damage. The caveman has a loincloth with an ac of 6 and the bear hide has an ac of 5. Also you have one scroll of Sacrifice Redshirt in Kirk's pocket.
I forgot what I wanted to know. Oh, how would the battle turn out?
posted by weretable and the undead chairs at 8:15 PM on December 14, 2006 [1 favorite]
Let's assume Captain Kirk and a caveman have teamed up to fight a large group of evenly mixed polar bears, brown bears and black bears, and Kirk's phaser had a limited charge.
To make it more simple - say 15 of each bear and only enough phaser charge to kill a total of 20 bears with one shot each and no chance to miss. Let us also assume the caveman has some skill at killing bears but can only take one at a time and his odds are 50/50 with a large spear. Say the bears have 8d life and the spear does 2d damage. The bears do 4d +2 damage. The caveman has a loincloth with an ac of 6 and the bear hide has an ac of 5. Also you have one scroll of Sacrifice Redshirt in Kirk's pocket.
I forgot what I wanted to know. Oh, how would the battle turn out?
posted by weretable and the undead chairs at 8:15 PM on December 14, 2006 [1 favorite]
Actually though, this might answer some questions if it was a serious question to begin with and not just venting over being stuck in traffic.
posted by weretable and the undead chairs at 8:21 PM on December 14, 2006
posted by weretable and the undead chairs at 8:21 PM on December 14, 2006
Weretable: You'll get more answers if you replace "Captain Kirk" with "me" and "a caveman" with "my girlfried".
Jessamyn: Please is the magic word, but sarcasm in caps is what people remember.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:26 PM on December 14, 2006
Jessamyn: Please is the magic word, but sarcasm in caps is what people remember.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:26 PM on December 14, 2006
dammit now i am googling road construction. and deciding that most states have really shitty information on their highway projects.
alright. people, in my previous post replace "Captain Kirk" with Alvy and "a caveman" with a fried girl. thanks.
posted by weretable and the undead chairs at 8:31 PM on December 14, 2006
alright. people, in my previous post replace "Captain Kirk" with Alvy and "a caveman" with a fried girl. thanks.
posted by weretable and the undead chairs at 8:31 PM on December 14, 2006
No, you're twisting my words around! /Principal Skinner
How fried are we talking here?
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:40 PM on December 14, 2006
How fried are we talking here?
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:40 PM on December 14, 2006
If you were a traffic cop, Jessamyn, I'd swear the chief'd given you a monthly ticket quota or turn in your badge. I guess there must be some intrinsic pleasure in deleting which escapes me.
This is an absurd deletion. It's a good question, albeit a hard one which rather baffled at least a couple of our better answerers, and the tone of the question captures the frustration people feel when they're sitting in traffic. I would think anyone who wanted a site not quite as dull as the background color here in MetaTalk would count that in its favor, not against it.
If people "react to the tone and not the content of the question and get all huffy," so what? There is nothing offensive in this post, and if someone thinks there is, you ought to have the judgement to see that they are mistaken and ignore the flag.
posted by jamjam at 8:48 PM on December 14, 2006
This is an absurd deletion. It's a good question, albeit a hard one which rather baffled at least a couple of our better answerers, and the tone of the question captures the frustration people feel when they're sitting in traffic. I would think anyone who wanted a site not quite as dull as the background color here in MetaTalk would count that in its favor, not against it.
If people "react to the tone and not the content of the question and get all huffy," so what? There is nothing offensive in this post, and if someone thinks there is, you ought to have the judgement to see that they are mistaken and ignore the flag.
posted by jamjam at 8:48 PM on December 14, 2006
The AMIRITE reasons for deleting need to stop. It's stupid. No excuses. Knock it off.
posted by boo_radley at 8:55 PM on December 14, 2006 [1 favorite]
posted by boo_radley at 8:55 PM on December 14, 2006 [1 favorite]
"I forgot what I wanted to know. Oh, how would the battle turn out?"
What's the bears THAC0?
By the by, Jamjam's absolutely wrong. The only problem in the deletion was not getting to it fast enough, thus leading to Frogan's am-I/aren't-I answering problem.
posted by klangklangston at 9:00 PM on December 14, 2006
What's the bears THAC0?
By the by, Jamjam's absolutely wrong. The only problem in the deletion was not getting to it fast enough, thus leading to Frogan's am-I/aren't-I answering problem.
posted by klangklangston at 9:00 PM on December 14, 2006
"What the fuck is XYZs problem?" types of questions go badly. They're a hassle to moderate because people react to the tone and not to the content of the question and get all huffy.
By all means then, it's the questions that fail to sufficiently pre-coddle the douchebags that have to go, not the douchebag answers or the actual douchebags. Expecting - or forcing - the clientèle to simply walk on by something that has a tone that offends them rather than shitting all over the thread is just too much.
posted by phearlez at 10:28 PM on December 14, 2006 [1 favorite]
By all means then, it's the questions that fail to sufficiently pre-coddle the douchebags that have to go, not the douchebag answers or the actual douchebags. Expecting - or forcing - the clientèle to simply walk on by something that has a tone that offends them rather than shitting all over the thread is just too much.
posted by phearlez at 10:28 PM on December 14, 2006 [1 favorite]
MetaFilter: drunk, high and about two minutes from having a nervous breakdown.
posted by kirkaracha at 10:30 PM on December 14, 2006
posted by kirkaracha at 10:30 PM on December 14, 2006
By all means then, it's the questions that fail to sufficiently pre-coddle the douchebags that have to go, not the douchebag answers or the actual douchebags.
But what if the asker is being a douchebag? What I mean is that the person best able to answer this may perhaps be a road construction worker themselves. In that case, pre-emptively implying that they're lazy good-for-nothing and demanding "what the fuck takes so long?" hardly seems conducive to getting a civil, well-informed response.
posted by vacapinta at 10:42 PM on December 14, 2006
But what if the asker is being a douchebag? What I mean is that the person best able to answer this may perhaps be a road construction worker themselves. In that case, pre-emptively implying that they're lazy good-for-nothing and demanding "what the fuck takes so long?" hardly seems conducive to getting a civil, well-informed response.
posted by vacapinta at 10:42 PM on December 14, 2006
Terribly phrased questions like that should always be deleted. AskMe has a pretty good quality overall and there is no reason to allow questions that are so angry in tone that they are begging for bad responses or angry responses from the very people you need answering your question to begin with.
It is something that a worthwhile question could be made from and if some person that actually worked as an engineer in road planning were to pop in, it might be interesting. After spending some time Googling earlier and finding very little useful information aside from what I already knew, I almost posted a question on some more particular aspects of the subject. But I figured it would be seen as a joke so I didn't.
posted by weretable and the undead chairs at 10:56 PM on December 14, 2006
It is something that a worthwhile question could be made from and if some person that actually worked as an engineer in road planning were to pop in, it might be interesting. After spending some time Googling earlier and finding very little useful information aside from what I already knew, I almost posted a question on some more particular aspects of the subject. But I figured it would be seen as a joke so I didn't.
posted by weretable and the undead chairs at 10:56 PM on December 14, 2006
It's called bureaucracy, welcome to America any place with a government.
Fixed that for ya. :) Here in Dublin, they're adding an extra lane on each side of the M50. I've lost track of how long it's taking them, but it seems like it's been going on since I got here (September 2005), at least.
posted by antifuse at 1:38 AM on December 15, 2006
Fixed that for ya. :) Here in Dublin, they're adding an extra lane on each side of the M50. I've lost track of how long it's taking them, but it seems like it's been going on since I got here (September 2005), at least.
posted by antifuse at 1:38 AM on December 15, 2006
I think removing a WTF question with a reason for deletion that includes the word "please" is actually pretty okay tonewise.
Well, like you said, phrasing matters, so including "please" doesn't make it all better. boo radley nailed it, IMO.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:36 AM on December 15, 2006
Well, like you said, phrasing matters, so including "please" doesn't make it all better. boo radley nailed it, IMO.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 2:36 AM on December 15, 2006
I work for a road construction/maintenance company. This may have been the first AskMe that I could answer in a professional capacity but I never got the chance :(
PS - the reason roadworks take so long is that the clients always specify stupid stuff like "you can only work on this section of roadway between 6:59am and 7:00am on the third Tuesday of the month".
posted by EndsOfInvention at 3:32 AM on December 15, 2006
PS - the reason roadworks take so long is that the clients always specify stupid stuff like "you can only work on this section of roadway between 6:59am and 7:00am on the third Tuesday of the month".
posted by EndsOfInvention at 3:32 AM on December 15, 2006
I agree that "please" does not erase sarcasm, and engaging in sarcasm when performing a moderation encourages snark elsewhere. There's more than enough already. Please don't encourage it.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 3:57 AM on December 15, 2006
posted by Kirth Gerson at 3:57 AM on December 15, 2006
In the time it took to type this, South Korea built 23 new roads.
Lazy fuckin' yanks.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 4:30 AM on December 15, 2006
Lazy fuckin' yanks.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 4:30 AM on December 15, 2006
I hear the Chinese are building the largest dam in the world.
posted by fixedgear at 5:05 AM on December 15, 2006
posted by fixedgear at 5:05 AM on December 15, 2006
By the by, Jamjam's absolutely wrong.
Well, yeah, that's obvious, but I'm hoping Jamjam will get so angry and frustrated that a flameout will ensue. (I'm deliberately capitalizing the username to encourage anger and frustration.)
posted by languagehat at 7:00 AM on December 15, 2006
Well, yeah, that's obvious, but I'm hoping Jamjam will get so angry and frustrated that a flameout will ensue. (I'm deliberately capitalizing the username to encourage anger and frustration.)
posted by languagehat at 7:00 AM on December 15, 2006
"What the fuck is XYZs problem?" types of questions go badly.
In fact, it's not a valid question at all, despite the misleading presence of a question mark. Rants-thinly-disguised-as-questions, such as this one, should be deleted. (Here's another rant-thinly-disguised-as-a-question; why it was not deleted, I don't know, but it should have been.)
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 7:46 AM on December 15, 2006
In fact, it's not a valid question at all, despite the misleading presence of a question mark. Rants-thinly-disguised-as-questions, such as this one, should be deleted. (Here's another rant-thinly-disguised-as-a-question; why it was not deleted, I don't know, but it should have been.)
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 7:46 AM on December 15, 2006
The question should have been deleted, but snarky deletion reasons like that are just baiting newbies and pissing off most of the regulars. It should stop.
posted by muddgirl at 7:51 AM on December 15, 2006 [1 favorite]
posted by muddgirl at 7:51 AM on December 15, 2006 [1 favorite]
By the by, Jamjam's absolutely wrong.
Well, yeah, that's obvious,...
Happy to be the occasion of yet another chance for you to belabor the obvious, languagehat, it seems to give you such pleasure. And thank you, Klang, I've been trying to achieve an absolute for so long now "absolutely wrong" is looking like my best shot.
posted by jamjam at 9:09 AM on December 15, 2006
Well, yeah, that's obvious,...
Happy to be the occasion of yet another chance for you to belabor the obvious, languagehat, it seems to give you such pleasure. And thank you, Klang, I've been trying to achieve an absolute for so long now "absolutely wrong" is looking like my best shot.
posted by jamjam at 9:09 AM on December 15, 2006
I think Jess and Matt are worried that AskMeFi is starting to become useless - since so many questions are asked every day. If too many questions are asked, no one will ever get the answers they're looking for - as questions drift off the screen too quickly.
Therefore, they're trying to improve the quality and relevance of the site by nuking questions in order to keep the number of questions on the fp down.
AMIRITE?
posted by Baby_Balrog at 12:34 PM on December 15, 2006
Therefore, they're trying to improve the quality and relevance of the site by nuking questions in order to keep the number of questions on the fp down.
AMIRITE?
posted by Baby_Balrog at 12:34 PM on December 15, 2006
Let's assume me and my girlfriend have split up to fight a large group of evenly mixed communication problems, past-relationship baggage and batshitinsane neuroses, and I only had one question a week.
posted by Methylviolet at 12:34 PM on December 15, 2006
posted by Methylviolet at 12:34 PM on December 15, 2006
AMIRITE?
Yes. And I'm working on the snark thing.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 12:40 PM on December 15, 2006
Yes. And I'm working on the snark thing.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 12:40 PM on December 15, 2006
Sounds like jessamyn is taking nice lessons from the UK Sun:
RECENT articles in this column may have given the impression that Mr Sven Goran Eriksson was a greedy, useless, incompetent fool. This was a misunderstanding. Mr Eriksson is in fact a footballing genius. We are happy to make this clear.
Example courtesy this fine FFP.
posted by landis at 1:03 PM on December 15, 2006
RECENT articles in this column may have given the impression that Mr Sven Goran Eriksson was a greedy, useless, incompetent fool. This was a misunderstanding. Mr Eriksson is in fact a footballing genius. We are happy to make this clear.
Example courtesy this fine FFP.
posted by landis at 1:03 PM on December 15, 2006
Wow, Jessamyn; effective, moving, and funny all at the same time.
posted by jamjam at 2:24 PM on December 15, 2006
posted by jamjam at 2:24 PM on December 15, 2006
has not
been censored today.
watch very closely for the removal of this post
posted by boo_radley at 3:30 PM on December 15, 2006 [1 favorite]
You no longer sound drunk or high or near a nervous breakdown. But I suspect a shiv is hidden somewhere, JUST IN CASE.
Thank you.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:13 PM on December 15, 2006
Thank you.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:13 PM on December 15, 2006
I'm working on the snark thing.
I like the old ones better.
posted by dg at 7:09 PM on December 17, 2006
I like the old ones better.
posted by dg at 7:09 PM on December 17, 2006
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posted by frogan at 6:15 PM on December 14, 2006