How to deal with partisan posts on MeFi.

March 15, 2005 1:59 PM

Metafilter is not Wikipedia. There's no expectation of neutrality here. So instead of telling the poster to get his own blog, why not read the links, then add more links and observations from your own perspective. That's why they call them comments.
posted by Saucy Intruder to Etiquette/Policy at 1:59 PM (38 comments total)

Get a blog! ;-P
posted by mischief at 2:07 PM on March 15, 2005

I more or less agree with you that there's no expectation of neutrality here. But if thedevildancedlightly's assertion that the initial post's wording is verbatim from a John Kerry email is true, well, then this is pretty massively lame.
posted by COBRA! at 2:07 PM on March 15, 2005

I concur with the saucy one.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 2:07 PM on March 15, 2005

Agreed, the posting was lame and plagiarism. At least be honest and say that you are posting Kerry's talking points.
posted by caddis at 2:11 PM on March 15, 2005

Cobra!: The assertion is definitely true. See the bottom of http://www.johnkerry.com/email/0315.html

Had I posted a list of talking points from GWB's press releases (not that I would), I think the Saucy one's response may have been different (just saying)
posted by null terminated at 2:13 PM on March 15, 2005

Metafilter is not Wikipedia. There's no expectation of neutrality here.

Nor is it a call for social reform. You might want to read the mefi guidelines again. No where do I read "get the natives excited and ready to move".

Putting together 5 or more links to support your views isn't best of the web.
posted by justgary at 2:28 PM on March 15, 2005

The "meta" in "metafilter" means that every thread must discuss itself, and every subsequent comment must discuss the content of the previous comment, until the thread derails full circle, and arrives back at what it was attempting to discuss.
posted by iamck at 2:30 PM on March 15, 2005

OK, I didn't catch the Kerry rip-off. That's ungood.
posted by Saucy Intruder at 2:39 PM on March 15, 2005

null terminated - thanks for the backup on the link.
posted by thedevildancedlightly at 2:39 PM on March 15, 2005

the third comment addresses thedevildancedlightly, who appears not to have commented prior. so, i can only presume thedevildancedlightly snarked/derailed/expressed disapproval of the thread, using the provided comment facility.

after which some admin came along, bent the thread over a tree stump and forcibly sodomized it.
posted by quonsar at 2:51 PM on March 15, 2005

I concur with the saucy one, again.
posted by Pretty_Generic at 3:02 PM on March 15, 2005

quonsar - I'll admit that I had a snarky comment about the source earlier, but now it seems to have been disappeared down the memory hole.

I renew my motion that the admins take a lighter hand now that there's a personal attack against me (by nixerman) in the thread without my original comment for people to judge it against.
posted by thedevildancedlightly at 3:03 PM on March 15, 2005

I'm gonna go wayyyyyy out on a limb here and opine both that people shouldn't repost John Kerry e-mails as FPPs (even if they add links to 'em) and that deleted comments should get a marker showing that a comment was deleted. I know, I know, it all sounds crazy now, but think about it.
posted by soyjoy at 3:08 PM on March 15, 2005

thedevildancedlightly, was it something along the lines of "let me be the first one to post GYOBFW" or something like that?
posted by caddis at 3:21 PM on March 15, 2005

caddis - That was actually the post above mine (almost verbatim). They were, in fact, the first to say it. I was second. I'm not saying that it was a great post that I made, but the world will never know.
posted by thedevildancedlightly at 3:37 PM on March 15, 2005

I seem to be in the minority but don't see a problem with posting Kerry's talking points.

Does it change the facts because Kerry said it?
posted by cedar at 3:56 PM on March 15, 2005

The only thing that would have been diff about that post had it come from elsewhere rather than a Kerry email would have been the wording, no? (or--i'm with cedar.)
posted by amberglow at 3:59 PM on March 15, 2005

It certainly makes it less interesting.
posted by smackfu at 3:59 PM on March 15, 2005

Does it change the facts because Kerry said it?

Let's forget about ideology and politics; isn't reposting something from another source without attribution just out-and-out plagiarism? Granted, the linkage that Mean Mr. Bucket added was original, but the text is verbatim from another source. This strikes me as definitely uncool. Would it be kosher to copy an entry from someone's blog onto the Metafilter front page?

Maybe there's a difference because the talking points are meant to be distributed, but it seems like attribution is still called for.
posted by mr_roboto at 4:06 PM on March 15, 2005

I recall quite a few examples of FPPs being direct quotes without attribution.
posted by mischief at 4:09 PM on March 15, 2005

I think I know what you're talking about, mischief. Something like this? In these cases, however, the poster typically includes a link to the source, which serves as attribution.
posted by mr_roboto at 4:23 PM on March 15, 2005

thedevildancedlightly, I try hard not to attack people, ever. I attack their ideas and I attack their actions.

I thought this was a good post and a good discussion. The fact that it was a press release is a bit disconcerting but, in this particular case, it's largely irrelevant. I don't think MMB works for the Kerry campaign and I very much doubt his agenda here was to promote Kerry's agenda. Anyways, I learned bunches reading all the links. I didn't even know the ANWR thing was going down since I've been avoiding the news more and more.
posted by nixerman at 4:24 PM on March 15, 2005

nixerman - Sounds fair. My point was more that it's very out-of-context now, not a problem with you personally.

My main problem is just that it is cribbed directly from a talking points memo (of all things) without attribution. We do have some standards here. Somewhere...
posted by thedevildancedlightly at 4:42 PM on March 15, 2005

Let's forget about ideology and politics; isn't reposting something from another source without attribution just out-and-out plagiarism?

Well, not if they're talking points. The whole point of talking points is to get people to repeat them verbatim everywhere they can as if they were they're own.

On the other hand, metafilter is not a Crossfire type scream your talking points thing and I'd like to keep it that way. Reposting political talking points like a robot is an anthima to resoned debate.
posted by delmoi at 5:03 PM on March 15, 2005

There's no expectation of neutrality here.

Yes and no. We're not held to objectivity standards, per se, yet at the same time we're eventually punished if we tirelessly hawk a biased agenda on the front page. I'm not saying this is an example of that, but people who use MetaFilter exclusively to promote a highly controversial agenda are, indeed, invited to get their own fucking blogs.
posted by scarabic at 5:25 PM on March 15, 2005

... a highly controversial agenda ...
In whose eyes? What sort of topics are highly controversial, and what sort of topics are exempt from that? I've seen fights in music threads, in movies threads, and yes--in political threads too. Nothing is highly controversial, and everything is, to someone.
posted by amberglow at 5:38 PM on March 15, 2005

Generally I don't like "shoe on the other foot" arguments, but honestly, if someone had posted the contents of a GWB '04 talking points memo onto the front page and been called on it, what would the reaction have been? (Leaving aside the obvious shitstorm that even incognito Bush talking points would provoke).
posted by coelecanth at 5:41 PM on March 15, 2005

metafilter is not a Crossfire type scream your talking points thing

Lord, how I wish that were the case.
posted by GeekAnimator at 6:03 PM on March 15, 2005

Hmm... looking at my post again, it might seem to be implying that I want MeFi to be Crossfire, when I mean the opposite. Metafilter is too often a "scream your talking points" kind of place.
posted by GeekAnimator at 6:05 PM on March 15, 2005

If your post is talking points, they better be your goddamn talking point.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 6:34 PM on March 15, 2005

> people who use MetaFilter exclusively to promote a highly controversial agenda are, indeed, invited to get their own fucking blogs.

>> Nothing is highly controversial, and everything is, to someone.

Key word here is 'exclusively'. Let's not tilt at windmills, huh, amberglow? Equally, though, scarabic, I suspect no one in this thread is actually accusing the poster of the thread in question of using Metafilter exclusively to promote a political agenda. Yet. There are some who do, of course, but that's tangential.

Where does that leave us? Arguing about something other than the actual point, which is what usually happens.

Sigh.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 7:05 PM on March 15, 2005

In whose eyes?

Ultimately, Matt's. Your argument about the word "controversial" is all well and true, but we do have an arbiter. Once your threads start getting deleted because Matt's seen enough of your shit on his site, it's time to move on.

And again, I don't think any of that applies in this case. I think the offending comment was deleted, but the post remains, so the call has been made in this case. Nothing more to say, really.
posted by scarabic at 7:13 PM on March 15, 2005

amberglow, I gotta say, I find it hard to believe you would be so sanguine if, say, S@L had posted the text of an upcoming Karl Rove ad without any attribution or indication of the source, just adding a link here and there. I would say that's a truly lame FPP, and I think you would too. If we have standards, they have to apply across both sides of the fence.

It's not like it's a federal crime or anything, it's just poor FPP practice. If Kerry's e-mail moves you to post about the ANWR, it should move you enough that you can come up with something specific to this venue. And if you are going to quote from someone else's e-mail, it should be identified as such. That's all.
posted by soyjoy at 9:55 PM on March 15, 2005

I highly encourage anyone brave enough out there to write posts that are verbatim talking points from the RNC or BushCo.

I'm not gonna do it. But, fuck, if MetaFilter really is a community OPINION/EDITORIALIZING blog, if that's the point of it (as so many seem to think), then c'mon you conservative shock troops or LGF types...have at it.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 4:25 AM on March 16, 2005

Posting someone else's talking points verbatim without attribution? Isn't that the definition of astroturfing?
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 1:50 PM on March 16, 2005

PST: not so much as without attribution but pretending that that you wrote the message yourself. And this seems to be exactly the case here. Bad post.
posted by turbodog at 3:03 PM on March 16, 2005

1.) Make astroturf post using unattributed text lifted directly from John Kerry mailer

2.) Ignore ensuing MeTa post

3.) Follow up own post less than 24 hrs later with CNN link

4.) Profit


I want them gaz guzzler owners raped in the ass everytime they go to the pump.

Literally.

Icing on the shit-cake!
posted by dhoyt at 3:29 PM on March 16, 2005

This is pretty bad. I'm waiting for S@L to FPP O'Reilly's talking points of the day, so I can call this case closed.
posted by mek at 6:55 PM on March 16, 2005