Followup material goes where now?

May 4, 2004 7:41 PM

Is MetaTalk a good place to point out that the verdict described in this thread was just overturned?

I often find follow-up material like this long after the original thread is gone. It doesn't seem worth a whole new FPP, but I do think that people who read the original post would want to know. FollowupFilterSidebar?
posted by alms to MetaFilter-Related at 7:41 PM (14 comments total)

yup. Updatefilter's what we need, for a lot of posts.
posted by amberglow at 7:49 PM on May 4, 2004

This is one nice feature of a standard UBB "post and it moves to the top" style message board. You could just post it to the ancient thread and it would jump right up.

I suppose not very practical for here though. Limited space on the FP.
posted by smackfu at 7:51 PM on May 4, 2004

What I find surprising is that Georgia has a misdemeanor statutory rape law.
posted by mischief at 7:58 PM on May 4, 2004

Smackfu, that is actually how it works if you sort your front page by recent comments when logged in, but threads close after a month (??) or so due to abuse.
posted by rafter at 8:03 PM on May 4, 2004

It would solve a lot of problems, but at the same time legitimate the use of Metafilter for breaking news, which seems to be contrary to policy.
posted by PrinceValium at 8:06 PM on May 4, 2004

What a relief to hear that there was some amount of good sense in Georgia. Thanks for the update!
posted by five fresh fish at 9:39 PM on May 4, 2004

I remember this well. I think a follow-up would have made a fine front page post in the Blue.
posted by scarabic at 11:14 PM on May 4, 2004

would it be technically difficult (ie too much work for Matt) to give the original poster of a thread administrator rights on that very thread?
that way he/she could avoid the 30-day limit (Matt's inevitable response to the cult thread BS, btw) and post a follow-up in the same thread, with a sidebar on the FP to warn people about new stuff
posted by matteo at 2:48 AM on May 5, 2004

Basicly, yes that would be a lot of work. And if Matt's going to commit that amount of work (or open up the codebase or switch to an open codebase so we can help along), there are better solutions I think. Not to mention that in structure it's much like the AskMeFi "question resolution" we hope to be getting once it comes out of beta. I'm not sure how much chance there is of MeFi, MeTa and AskMeFi ever getting merged and ran as instances from the same code though :-(.
posted by fvw at 3:15 AM on May 5, 2004

I think you should post this on the blue. Especially if you can find some other info, like local response from newspapers and what not. The case raised some interesting questions, as does the ruling from the higher court.
posted by dejah420 at 8:14 AM on May 5, 2004

there are many misdemeanor statutory rape statutes in US jurisdictions for pretty much this reason. statutory rape is generally predicated on the fact that one party to the act is under 18 but over 13 (sex acts/sex offenses against children under the age of 13 are generally covered by statutes other than the statutory rape ones) and does not necessarily require penetration. classifying all sexual contract with a person between the ages of 13-18 as a felony rape charge would have put most of us in prison in high school. that's also why lots of these statutes also grade based upon difference in ages of the parties.

the basic difference between a felony conviction and a misdemeanor conviction is that misdemeanors may only be punished with imprisonment in a city or county jail, rather than a penitentiary, (in georgia, the difference is crimes which carry prison terms of over a year are felonies; those under are misdemeanors) and the fine cap is lower for misdemeanors.

of course, the consequences of a felony conviction also include disenfranchisement, inability to practice certain professions and in certain crimes, eternal registration.

now, back to the conversation about where to follow-up. i think a new post, referencing the earlier one is fine. but i don't tend to read news posts, so i'm not sure it matters to me.
posted by crush-onastick at 8:19 AM on May 5, 2004

Another follow-up: East Texas man gets 11 years for cyanide cache
posted by homunculus at 10:39 AM on May 5, 2004

And another: Schiavo law struck down in FL
posted by amberglow at 1:53 PM on May 6, 2004

Maybe followups should be as easy as maintaining a followup thread that never goes off the front page.
posted by five fresh fish at 6:03 PM on May 6, 2004