thread about abortion aborted

December 19, 2002 1:52 PM

the making of an abortion. nuff said.
posted by quonsar to Etiquette/Policy at 1:52 PM (36 comments total)

nuff said, but you forgot the "discuss amongst yourselves"...
posted by Wulfgar! at 1:59 PM on December 19, 2002

christ, that was certainly shite.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 2:11 PM on December 19, 2002

Oh, I read it as "disgust among yourselves" and thought to myself that that was where this was surely going to end. Come on mathowie, put it out of our misery before it gets rabid.
posted by dg at 2:15 PM on December 19, 2002

I was going to ask for the poster's head on a spike, but in the past he seems to have posted relatively non-inflammatory topics. Momentary lapse of judgment? Just couldn't keep quiet anymore about a deeply held personal belief? Certainly he didn't think that this link would pass muster after all his time on MeFi? Or is it like, "If I can just save one soul before my post is deleted, then I will have won." If so, yikes.
posted by vraxoin at 2:24 PM on December 19, 2002

And with that crisis narrowly averted its time for the abortion of this Meta thread. It can join its brother the Kottke thread.
posted by dgaicun at 3:06 PM on December 19, 2002

Please: BOYCOTT THE POLITICAL THREADS!
posted by timeistight at 3:15 PM on December 19, 2002

I started showing deleted posts, with a reason why they were cut.

Hopefully there are less metatalk posts in the future wondering why I deleted something, though I have a feeling some folks might use it to someday prove I have a track record or bias or something.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 3:43 PM on December 19, 2002

Wow! Cool. You must be having workaholic withdrawl from the creative Commons launch.
posted by timeistight at 3:52 PM on December 19, 2002

Matt, that's a good feature, and if someday someone attempts to prove that you are bias, there are enough of us to provide evidence to the contrary.
posted by riffola at 3:55 PM on December 19, 2002

matt, you are of course right. sooner or later someone will. and so what? i assume users delete as easily as posts! :-)
posted by quonsar at 4:02 PM on December 19, 2002

Don't worry about bias - anyone who says that you are biased isn't paying attention.

Great idea keeping the deleted posts as examples of how NOT to behave - this may also stop some of the crap coming out when threads seem destined for the MeFi recycle bin. Anything you say can and will be held up as evidence, even after the thread is gone :-)
posted by dg at 4:12 PM on December 19, 2002

Great idea keeping the deleted posts as examples of how NOT to behave

What would you think of showing struckout deleted threads on the main page?
posted by timeistight at 4:17 PM on December 19, 2002

timeistight, deleted posts should not be shown the frontpage. As a matter of fact even the comments should not be shown in the thread, just the topic, and why it was deleted.
posted by riffola at 4:26 PM on December 19, 2002

You may be right. I wonder what others think.
posted by timeistight at 4:30 PM on December 19, 2002

What riffola said, doubled. It's a very useful feature and the FAQ link is a great idea. More explanation or mollycoddling than this I cannot imagine anyone would ask for. Thanks, Matt.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 4:30 PM on December 19, 2002

I was thinking more of public shaming than mollycoddling, Miguel, but I can see this isn't going to fly.

And thanks again mathowie, for the early Christmas presents. If there was any justice in the blogosphere you'd be cashing Andrew Sullivan's cheque.
posted by timeistight at 4:39 PM on December 19, 2002

As a matter of fact even the comments should not be shown in the thread, just the topic, and why it was deleted.

that's true, but sometimes the comments are the reason for the deletion, like "deleted because everyone resorted to petty namecalling"

No?
posted by mathowie (staff) at 4:40 PM on December 19, 2002

That is what I meant - people will think twice if their handiwork is going to be permanent.
posted by dg at 4:53 PM on December 19, 2002

Didn't we just have a similar post on this?

But it wasn't deleted.

See the difference in the way it was posted for discussion?
posted by thomcatspike at 5:33 PM on December 19, 2002

This is a good feature. Thanks Matt.
posted by ashbury at 6:22 PM on December 19, 2002

I'm confused...if the post is deleted from the front page, how will people see it and a) benefit from understanding why it was deemed inappropriate and b) not repost the same thing (a la the vibrating broom)? How will anyone who didn't actually participate in the thread benefit from this?

What am I missing here?
posted by rushmc at 6:24 PM on December 19, 2002

rushmc,

I think Matt should put a link to lofi up in the titlebar, for that purpose.
posted by dgaicun at 6:26 PM on December 19, 2002

rushmc, it's an improvement over what was there before, which didn't explain anything and just said "this was deleted for various reasons."

In the future, the hope is that people that see their post disappear will look for the page (which you can get to directly by typing in the URL) instead of creating a new post to metatalk to emailing me every time it happens. Also, everything that gets linked here or talked about will remain visible.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 7:34 PM on December 19, 2002

let me just say this..

seeing as at least 2 out of 3, or the last 2, of my FPP's have been deleted. I will go back to the lighter route of posting.

If I could post now, here's some material.

Playboy Centerfolds Are Less Curvaceous (I envy the researchers who got that job)

I'm drawing a blank on other material to post. Unless there is a demand for College Football links.

I'll just make a note to not cover any current issue, or anything close to being current (that still means I can do FPPs on Prohibition and the Silver Standard, right?)
posted by RobbieFal at 8:38 PM on December 19, 2002

RobbieFal, the point of the site is to find interesting links above all else. Try looking beyond the wacky news section or news sites in general for things to post here, and you'll probably meet with some success.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 8:52 PM on December 19, 2002

rushmc, it's an improvement over what was there before, which didn't explain anything and just said "this was deleted for various reasons."

I agree.

the hope is that people that see their post disappear will look for the page (which you can get to directly by typing in the URL) instead of creating a new post to metatalk to emailing me every time it happens.

Okay, so it is primarily aimed at the posting transgressors themselves. That answers my question, though many commenting here seem to view it otherwise.

Also, everything that gets linked here or talked about will remain visible.

I don't know what this means...things discussed in MetaTalk? Presumably only a small proportion of MeFi readers read MeTa, and probably not the audience that it would be most helpful to reach. To me, it would be a lot more useful to have a "Deleted Posts" listing page that contained only the post itself (no comments) and your reasons for deletion (in the same succinct format you have chosen), with a link to this page at the top of the main page, so that someone who notices a disappearing post could check to see its fate (or, if they didn't happen to notice it, could just scan the page from time to time to get a feel for what kinds of bad posts were being made and axed). To me, that would be close to ideal from all perspectives.

I do realize, however, that this probably would require considerably more work on your part, which may make it an unappealing solution.
posted by rushmc at 10:21 PM on December 19, 2002

More than the work it makes, it would create a shit post graveyard which I'm pretty sure Matt has said a few times he'd like to avoid as some people would work to get on it.
posted by willnot at 10:49 PM on December 19, 2002

some people would work to get on it

Count on it! Virtually every attempt at a comprehensive listing of bad examples that I have ever seen resulted in a competition to get on it.
posted by mischief at 11:11 PM on December 19, 2002

Whoah.
posted by eddydamascene at 2:13 AM on December 20, 2002

mischief's right: anything one attempts to do will end in failure. Let's do nothing.
posted by yerfatma at 3:56 AM on December 20, 2002

Instead of/ in addition to a link to lofi in the title bar, how 'bout a
<link rel="alternate" title="Lofi" href="http://lofi.metafilter.com/" />
for Mozilla?
posted by yerfatma at 3:59 AM on December 20, 2002

I started showing deleted posts, with a reason why they were cut.

[this is good]
posted by walrus at 7:51 AM on December 20, 2002

I'm not putting up a link to lofi anywhere.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 8:54 AM on December 20, 2002

Are there any filter settings on Metafilter to automatically weed out obvious crap such as this?

Well, it seems Matt has responded to my question. Had I known he was so efficient, I would have asked for this long ago. Thanks.
posted by GhostintheMachine at 9:31 AM on December 20, 2002

That's great stuff (not the abortion post--the reason why things were deleted box).
posted by Fabulon7 at 10:32 AM on December 20, 2002

I'm not putting up a link to lofi anywhere.

That's not what I was suggesting, but nevermind.

How about a user preference setting to show/not show deleted posts, and then mark them with a tag that would allow them to be sorted this way?
posted by rushmc at 5:04 PM on December 20, 2002