This chatty non-question should be removed

December 31, 2004 1:08 PM

This chatty non-question should be removed from AskMetaFilter.
posted by gd779 to Etiquette/Policy at 1:08 PM (47 comments total)

Matt has repeatedly asked us to stop chatting on AskMetaFilter. Unlike MetaFilter proper, Ask is not a weblog-as-conversation: it is a tool for helping connect people who need help with people who can help them. If you don't need help, then your post to AskMetaFilter lowers the signal-to-noise ratio and makes the site less useful. Please limit AskMetaFilter to questions with which you need help from others.
posted by gd779 at 1:11 PM on December 31, 2004

That is chatty and not a question. I think it should be removed.
posted by The God Complex at 1:14 PM on December 31, 2004

I concur.
posted by Danelope at 1:15 PM on December 31, 2004

me too!
posted by keswick at 1:35 PM on December 31, 2004

Motion passed. Thread will be deleted. Next item on the agenda?
posted by Danelope at 1:41 PM on December 31, 2004

How is it different from the happiest moment of your life? Or, scratch inducing presents? Or how about naming your plants? And then there are the borderline AskMes, like the film commentary poll. And let us not forget the many "and why" AskMes.

I'm not disagreeing that the AskMe in question is innappropriate, but lets create a standard where none of these poll-type questions are allowed.
posted by Juicylicious at 1:41 PM on December 31, 2004

It's not different. Those all sucked, too.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 1:46 PM on December 31, 2004

It isn't any different than most of the ones you mentioned, which are also inappropriate on Ask MetaFilter and should be deleted.

I move to delete all of the threads to which Juicylicious linked.
posted by Danelope at 1:47 PM on December 31, 2004

And here I thought I was the only one who felt that way. I feel all warm and fuzzy now.
posted by Juicylicious at 1:48 PM on December 31, 2004

In 2005, I'm going to balance my checkbook every week and I'm going to lose 30 lbs!
posted by greasy_skillet at 1:48 PM on December 31, 2004

I move to delete all of the threads to which Juicylicious linked.

I concur. Meeting adjourned, unless someone has another order of business.
posted by The God Complex at 1:50 PM on December 31, 2004

I'd like to find more ways to link to Juicylicious. mrwawr.

But we can take care of that after the meeting.
posted by chicobangs at 1:53 PM on December 31, 2004

You're only saying that because Juicylicious is a really good-looking, articulate attorney who calls herself "juicylicious"; and who also writes a charming (but lately neglected) blog which displays a good eye for anecdotal detail and wit.

Oh. Right. Makes sense to me.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 1:57 PM on December 31, 2004

I have to agree, too. I find ask far less useful because of the clutter.
posted by absalom at 1:59 PM on December 31, 2004

The question that began this is not so good, it's true. But I'd like to stick up for social questions in general. They are a different class of question from the "hows," but they are helpful to some of us. For example, I find other people very befuddling fairly often and understanding how and why others make the choices they do is a greater resource for me than all the coding questions. Yet I don't bitch about those or the "help me remember" questions because I understand there are people who need those. Why not just share Ask.Me?
posted by dame at 2:00 PM on December 31, 2004

Why not just share Ask.Me?

Because I'm cold and heartless. There's a reason they call me "ice lark".
posted by The God Complex at 2:01 PM on December 31, 2004

I'm with dame on this one. I think that the solution to the clutter on ask.me will be in the new functionality Matt is implementing, not in reducing the number of questions. This particular question wasn't particularly stellar, but did you think we were going to avoid the inevitable New Year Resolution discussion? If anything, allowing the thread to remain prevents similar questions from being rehashed in the next few days.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 2:03 PM on December 31, 2004

I'm with dame as well. It's easy enough to scroll past questions that look uninteresting.

Also, let's not forget that Matt recently created the ability to post anonymously - I think that lends itself more to questions that are more personal, and not so much technical questions. If you look at recent posts, some members obviously feel a need that tool.
posted by vignettist at 2:16 PM on December 31, 2004

I'm torn, because on the one hand I hate the questions that are one step removed from "a/s/l?" but on the other hand, so many of the "information" questions are on the order of "What was the movie where the guy had a Weed Whacker instead of a hand?" and that hardly feels like "best of the web" to me either.

Note that I generally am delighted to answer those "What was the movie where...?" questions, but pretending that those are somehow "worthier" than "What are your New Year's resolutions" seems odd, to me, somehow.
posted by Sidhedevil at 2:21 PM on December 31, 2004

There's a reason they call me "ice lark".

I thought they called you The God Complex?

Now I'm confused
posted by kamylyon at 2:23 PM on December 31, 2004

a need for that tool...
posted by vignettist at 2:34 PM on December 31, 2004

Note that I generally am delighted to answer those "What was the movie where...?" questions, but pretending that those are somehow "worthier" than "What are your New Year's resolutions" seems odd, to me, somehow.

Good point. I think the original idea was that AskMe would provide information that the questioner could use in some fashion, but I'm not sure satisfying often idle curiosity (which is the case in both of the question types you cite) really fits that criteria. Also, people desire, require and use different types of information in different ways. I think it's a stickier issue than generally acknowledged.
posted by rushmc at 2:51 PM on December 31, 2004

I like the chattier type questions, and find the "Tell me about the movie I forgot the name of" stuff boring and cluttery. Can't we just have both? For reals, what's the problem?

(oh that's right, this is Metatalk. Crabbiness needs no justification.)
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 2:57 PM on December 31, 2004 [1 favorite]

Would "What does mrwawr mean?" be an appropriate AskMe?
Do I even want to know?
posted by Juicylicious at 3:03 PM on December 31, 2004

I feel that the "What was the movie/book where . . ." questions are generally legitimate AskMes. For example, the person who asked this question earlier today wanted to buy the books, but couldn't remember the names. It was information that she needed.

On preview: Yes, it's not too difficult to just scroll by AskMes that fall into any of these categories.
posted by Juicylicious at 3:25 PM on December 31, 2004

"Mwrawr" is an attempt to depict, orthographically, the tiger-purr that people often use to indicate that something or someone seems sexy.

Juicylicious, I don't think "What was the movie where..." is "illegitimate" at all, but it is pretty chatty and informal. I just don't see it as being somehow "better" than "What are your New Year's resolutions" or "What is your favorite cookie?"

If I don't feel like answering any of those, I scroll right on by, as you suggest.
posted by Sidhedevil at 3:37 PM on December 31, 2004

I dunno, it's kind of borderline in my mind. Not exactly appropriate, but then there is lots of precedent for similar stuff that didn't totally suck.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 3:39 PM on December 31, 2004

Mwar is the new Hubba-Hubba.
posted by Smart Dalek at 3:43 PM on December 31, 2004

Thank you sid & smartie. I thought it was an acronym.

I wasn't suggesting that anyone scroll. I was acknowledging that I should scroll and not join in a pile up. Then again, now that I know there's some purring going on, maybe pile ups will be more fun.
posted by Juicylicious at 3:53 PM on December 31, 2004

My mistake for posting the question - it stemmed from genuine curiosity from my part. I didn't consider the 'chatty' angle, or 'poll-type' angle, as I've seen other similarly non-controversial, conversational, questions go by without much incident. Now I know.

Sometimes I hit, sometimes I miss.

Sorry to all that I've offended :)
posted by seawallrunner at 4:31 PM on December 31, 2004

The difference between "What was the movie..." questions and "What's your favorite..." questions is that one has a definite answer. Of course, plenty of "valid" questions have no definite answer, so this isn't a precise metric with which to judge validity.

The problem I have with the "a/s/l" questions is that they end up getting 100 replies, yet no one really reads the replies... you just scroll all the way down and contribute your own 2¢. (Cue: "That's just you! I read all of them." to which I respond -- "Oh yeah, then how come there are so many duplicates?")
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 4:35 PM on December 31, 2004

Do AskMe posts that solicit paranormal anecdotes also fit into the 'chatty non-question' category?
posted by box at 5:50 PM on December 31, 2004

I like the question and the thread. A little more chatty social interaction like this could mean a little less snarking.
posted by LarryC at 6:06 PM on December 31, 2004

STOP reading CHATTY posts and STFU
posted by BMF at 6:38 PM on December 31, 2004

It is social, but Matt seems to tolerate those on a limited basis. But it's also a recent double post (Dec 16). Yeah, I started the last one. Yeah, I was informed that it wasn't cool to do social threads. One of the who did so also answered the question I posed. Go figure.
posted by Doohickie at 12:49 AM on January 1, 2005

I know I'm late to the party on this thread, but I really wanted to chime in on as this issue is something that I feel strongly about (I've been thinking about starting a MeTa thread of my own about it for a couple of weeks, but chickened out).

I object to the poll questions unless the poster makes a clear case as to why he/she wants the information. Otherwise it's turning AskMe into AskMeme

Ruschmc is right on the money.
posted by handful of rain at 6:09 AM on January 1, 2005

How about if we had a "Chattyfilter" category in Meta? Or has that been requested already?
posted by kamylyon at 6:58 AM on January 1, 2005

I agree completely with you Civil_Disobedient, but I do wonder how you know there's so many duplicate comments if you never read them.
posted by fvw at 8:26 AM on January 1, 2005

How about if we had a "Chattyfilter"...?

We do. First, you download an IRC client...
posted by majick at 9:50 AM on January 1, 2005

Of course, plenty of "valid" questions have no definite answer, so this isn't a precise metric with which to judge validity.

It isn't really a very good metric at all, C_D. There is no reason why having "an answer" (as opposed to many) should even play into it. No advice-type or recommendation question has only one answer and these sides of Ask are the useful sides to lots of people, especially people who know to use google or ask a librarian. So I would think a metic that ignores two entire categories of totally valid questions is beyond imprecise.

That said, many of the questions that seem poll-ish aren't there to satisfy idle curiosity but are attempts to get at a more oblique answer. Both the heat question and grumblebee's lateness question come to mind. They look like polls, but the former is an attempt to set a heating preference in context in order to figure out a thermostat debate; the second, an attempt to get people to explain why they do something so the poster could stop being driven insane by a fairly common trait; it worked, too: grumblebee understood why people were often late and admitted that it helped him not just think them irresponsible, rude, or both.

Why are these not valid uses for Ask? They both were attempts to find solutions to problems* even though they both look like polls. And beyond living up to epithets, why do you care that a question read the way you would write it?

*Problems more important, in my personal calculus, than remembering a book title so I could buy it, and believe me, I take books seriously.
posted by dame at 10:04 AM on January 1, 2005

Why are these not valid uses for Ask? They both were attempts to find solutions to problems* even though they both look like polls.

The difference, I think, is just that. In my view, those posts are perfectly valid uses. I don't personally see any problem at all with problems that look and act like polls, but I do wish that people wouldn't use AskMe to post questions that really are just polls.
posted by redfoxtail at 11:45 AM on January 1, 2005

40/F/Mass
posted by Sidhedevil at 1:38 PM on January 1, 2005

Oh... I got it! Let's have an anti-social area on the site. No, wait, we already got three of those.
posted by Doohickie at 3:13 PM on January 1, 2005

Sorry about the out-of-line and completely unwarranted catcalling, Miz Licious, as well as for leaving the thread for a day-plus while you had an almost AskMe worthy question that went unanswered.

[MWRAWR OMGWTFROFLOLBBQKTHXBYE]
posted by chicobangs at 4:36 PM on January 1, 2005

I am a little late for this party, but I think that the New Year's Resolution question is just fine, especially since we don't get that many of these chatty questions.
posted by caddis at 6:24 AM on January 2, 2005

So... waddya think the odds are that Matt will give us a social pony filter when the new design comes out?
posted by Doohickie at 2:53 PM on January 2, 2005

Pretty poor. SocialFilter is vulnerable to the "King of the Shitpile" problem.
posted by majick at 7:14 AM on January 6, 2005