LPP wall of shame February 8, 2002 6:23 AM   Subscribe

Yo! Matt and other interested parties... I've noticed a lot of deleted FPP posts lately. Ever thought of saving some of them on their own page (with comment function disabled) so people can see real-world examples of what not to post, or where people who like that stuff can take a look?
Think of em as LPP's - last page posts.
This is a stupid idea, isn't it... where's my coffee?
posted by FreezBoy to Feature Requests at 6:23 AM (7 comments total)

I think this isn't a bad idea at all, but rather than make it an automated thing, how about:
Make a page out of selected examples of deleted posts, and link to it from the guidelines page ("click here to see example of posts that were deleted"). I think it would certainly help illustrate the guidelines.

If you do this, I would also remove the poster's name -- not cool if it becomes a hall of shame.
posted by malphigian at 6:30 AM on February 8, 2002


It would have to be a static page with no interaction. Part of the reason "bad" threads get deleted is so they don't waste DB resources.
posted by starvingartist at 7:13 AM on February 8, 2002


"not cool if it becomes a hall of shame." - this was a big factor in previous discussions about archiving deleted posts...

something else to consider is that having a published list of 'innapropriate posts' would make it hard for matt to exercise discretion when deleting - picture arguments along the lines of "why is this post still here? last week you deleted *my* thread about fred durst having sex with goats"
posted by sawks at 7:28 AM on February 8, 2002


starvingartist - right, that's why I suggested that the comment function be disabled.

sawks - good point! I guess what I pictured was just a static page where bad posts go to die and interested parties could still check out links that aren't frontpage-worthy. Of course I forgot what the Mefi community is really like and didn't fully consider the ramifications.

*sigh*
posted by FreezBoy at 7:39 AM on February 8, 2002


FreezBoy: We're already choking on MetaChat--we don't need MetaCrap.
posted by Carol Anne at 7:44 AM on February 8, 2002


I've mentioned it before, but when you create a space on a site specfically to reduce a behavior of some sort, you also indirectly create a home for it, a permanent place. Imagine there's a post graveyard, at an easy-to-get-to URL. The post graveyard is empty and has an infinite supply of space for deleted posts. Could you see a demand setting up to fill the place? How long would it take before someone wants the right to claim they're "king of the shitpile" and purposely starts posting crap? I'd say it'd be all of week before someone would try such a thing.

sawks is also right. There are obvious deleltes, then those less so. People don't want to debate the obvious, whenever anyone hears a rule, they want to know about the edgecase incidents, because that's where the interesting stuff happens. When I delete stuff that is "too mean" what is the least amount of petty meanness you can put in a post and get away with it? When I delete stuff for just being too stupid, what do you think the minimum intelligence levels are required of posts here?

I don't delete all that often, and I don't want to spend my time debating supreme court style cases with everyone.

When I ax something, it's to create a higher quality site in the post's absence. I'd like to keep doing it that way.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 10:54 AM on February 8, 2002


I somewhat agree that having deleted posts stick around permanently to haunt the site is a bad thing, but I wonder if you could have the post itself available for an additional week or two after it's deleted. The reason is that deleted posts are often discussed in MeTa, and sometimes, I have no idea what the discussion is about without seeing the original post. If you wanted to discourage people posting just to get their name in lights, so to speak, then remove the posted by by-line when you (temporarily) preserve the static post.
posted by EatenByAGrue at 3:29 PM on February 8, 2002


« Older Give the gaddamned snide comments a break!   |   Server busy or unable to fulfill request Newer »

You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments