Silent Moderation? March 26, 2018 2:04 PM   Subscribe

I was reading this post and left the page after a couple comments had been posted. Returning a few minutes later, both comments (from 2 separate users) were gone. Was this moderator initiated, or did I miss something (a new post made in its place)?
posted by bastionofsanity to MetaFilter-Related at 2:04 PM (26 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite

Just me deleting a couple things, yeah. It's a hard topic right out of the gate and there was a small chain of comments that were turning into an immediate scrap, so I nixed and am watching it close. That's often how moderation at the start of threads about charged topics goes; we'll nix early stuff and watch, and often not leave an explicit note unless it's turning out to be a consistent "people just can't leave this alone" sort of situation rather than just a one-off issue of a comment landing on the wrong foot.
posted by cortex (staff) at 2:07 PM on March 26, 2018 [8 favorites]


Thank you for the explanation.
posted by bastionofsanity at 2:15 PM on March 26, 2018 [1 favorite]


I'm guessing that my deletion was probably because it was, although civilized, a reply to a deletion worthy comment. I totally agree with both (and one subsequent deletion after I flagged something else).

So, yea, business as usual I suppose?
posted by RolandOfEld at 4:17 PM on March 26, 2018


I would like to side note that I personally do not like little aside/jab/hint from an unrelated comment about some taboo topic here. I won't venture to guess what that's about but I don't like the veiled or maybe snarky way it was plopped in there. Obtuse at best, risky at worse. Like a drunken drive-by 'Hodor!' or something.
posted by RolandOfEld at 4:22 PM on March 26, 2018 [13 favorites]


Like a drunken drive-by 'Hodor!' or something.

...this is....a delightful mental image.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 8:01 PM on March 26, 2018 [7 favorites]


...this is....a delightful mental image.

Thanks, if folks from my part of the world know anything it's shouting jovial and, at times less than jovial, things out vehicle windows.

... and Roll Tide.
posted by RolandOfEld at 10:07 PM on March 26, 2018 [3 favorites]


if folks from my part of the world know anything it's shouting jovial and, at times less than jovial, things out vehicle windows.

Throw yourself into the road, darling! You haven't got a chance!
posted by flabdablet at 5:38 AM on March 27, 2018 [3 favorites]


I was surprised that first comment stayed. It's just general "this is how I feel about nazis" and has nothing to do with the article.
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 6:31 AM on March 27, 2018 [5 favorites]


Looking at it again now, I'm pretty meh on that comment as well, and I think in a quieter moment (a) it'd have been flagged quicker and (b) I'd have nixed it without much pause. I agree with its sentiment (as do, judging by the favorites on it, a lot of other folks, and not much surprise there) but it doesn't really tie into the actual article, nor do any key bits of conversation in the thread rely on it, so I've pulled it now.

At the time, I was already putting out three fires at once before anybody got around to flagging it; just plain lost in the mess of both hotter things in that thread and things popping off elsewhere on the site, unfortunately.
posted by cortex (staff) at 12:25 PM on March 27, 2018


I don't know why exactly, but I can't stop thinking of Silent Moderation as either the prequel or the sequel to Silent Running.
posted by JanetLand at 6:28 AM on March 28, 2018 [1 favorite]


War eagle
posted by hydrobatidae at 9:13 AM on March 28, 2018


Oh well: thanks for the explanation I suppose. Still don't know what I did wrong. Was it the reference to Diocletian? Too soon no doubt
posted by AillilUpATree at 9:15 AM on March 28, 2018 [1 favorite]


Still don't know what I did wrong.

....so, here's the thing.

You know how when you see a lady with a really big belly, and you are fairly certain that she's pregnant, you still keep your mouth shut about it unless she flat-out offers the information that she's pregnant, and don't ask anything like "so when's the baby due" because there's still that tiny chance that you're wrong, and it would look sucky?

Nazis are kind of the opposite of that, where even if you are reasonably certain there's a good chance that the people who committed an act of violence against a Jewish person aren't Nazis, it makes more sense to keep that opinion to yourself until the police or whoever have actually confirmed that "this wasn't a hate crime at all, we found it was a personal grudge from her nephew" or something, because saying things like "but we don't know that they WERE Nazis" makes you look kind of like a jerk.

Pregnancy and Nazis are just kind of things that you hold your tongue about until the people directly involved or investigating confirm what's the what.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:32 AM on March 28, 2018 [5 favorites]


What? I didn't say anything about Nazis, or pregnancy for that matter. I quibbled about the use of the term 'persecuted minority' as a description of Muslims in France.

But thanks for the etiquette lesson. Sheesh.
posted by AillilUpATree at 10:14 AM on March 28, 2018 [1 favorite]


Oh gosh - my sincere apologies, then, I thought you were claiming to have made the comment in that thread that touched things off. (I couldn't go back and check whether that were the case.)

So, I basically did the very thing (made an assumption) that I was saying not to do and that sucks and I'm sincerely sorry.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 10:20 AM on March 28, 2018 [3 favorites]


...until the police or whoever have actually confirmed that "this wasn't a hate crime at all, we found it was a personal grudge from her nephew" or something...

Just to be clear, the police have confirmed no such thing. Mrs. Knoll, a Holocaust survivor, was stabbed 11 times. Her apartment was then set on fire, and her body was burned. According to her granddaughter's post on facebook, none of her possessions survived the fire. They could retrieve nothing to remember her by.

The authorities are investigating it as an anti-Semitic hate crime.

Which is a surprise, considering that they took months to say the murder of the retired Kindergarten teacher last year was a hate crime. Sarah Halimi had been thrown out a window by a man who yelled "God is great" when he did it, but hey, let's be absolutely sure.
posted by zarq at 10:25 AM on March 28, 2018 [5 favorites]


No harm done. I was a bit further down the thread so it's an understandable mistake.
posted by AillilUpATree at 10:32 AM on March 28, 2018


AillilUpATree - just restating a general skepticism about whether Muslims are badly treated in France isn't really a constructive way to engage in what's already a charged thread in a bunch of directions. It's not a great place to get into a thing over what exactly 'persecuted' means or whatever.

And as usual let's not dig in to the topic of the thread in here, zarq; let's stick to the blue with that, and keep this thread for site/moderation questions.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 10:41 AM on March 28, 2018 [2 favorites]


I did no such thing. And I do think that accurate language matters in such a discussion.

But whatever. If people just want to sing the familiar old tunes, that's ok with me.

Are Muslims discriminated against in France? Undoubtedly. Are they persecuted? Not even close.

Over and out.
posted by AillilUpATree at 11:22 AM on March 28, 2018 [2 favorites]


And as usual let's not dig in to the topic of the thread in here, zarq; let's stick to the blue with that, and keep this thread for site/moderation questions.

No problem.
posted by zarq at 11:42 AM on March 28, 2018


Discrimination is a subset of persecution, it's even codified as such in the legal framework of many countries, including the US. In fact, it's one of the criteria for refugee status.
posted by zombieflanders at 12:17 PM on March 28, 2018 [8 favorites]


That's a pretty ugly thread (aside from subject matter), and I'm not sure how to express it.

But attempting to use utterly unfocussed anger at France and French Muslims to say something worthwhile about a brutal hate crime is a real way to make the thread pretty unpleasant.
posted by ambrosen at 1:50 PM on March 28, 2018 [3 favorites]


I'm disturbed at the nasty attack on ChuraChura, who quite clearly was talking about Jews and Muslims in a general sense and not a "both sides-ism" statement. I don't know if it was just a simple misunderstanding, or a xenophobic and Islamophobic barb, but either way it's a big turd sitting in the thread.
posted by zombieflanders at 5:35 PM on March 28, 2018 [2 favorites]


Deleted! The system works.
posted by zarq at 9:17 PM on March 28, 2018 [3 favorites]


A couple of times I have posted some nonsense at the beginning of threads which has been summarily deleted without comment. In this, I am glad to be saved from myself at my worst.

Just another note to say that yes, I think this happens more at the starts of comment threads because then deletion does not leave any sort of weird gap to be explained.
posted by solarion at 10:39 PM on March 30, 2018


I think it's also because the first few comments, and sometimes even the first, can set the tone for the whole thread.
posted by Too-Ticky at 3:49 AM on March 31, 2018


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