February 2014 Archives (all archives)
February 28
Use of the "we" when referring to the United States
Since not everyone is USian, I think it would be a good idea for people to refrain when possible from using "we" when discussing the people of the United States. This especially rankles when discussing military action, as in "we should drop a nuclear weapon," as even fellow citizens may not want to be included in that "we". [more inside]
>save
It is the end of February and the Third MetaFilter Interactive Fiction Contest is coming to a close! [more inside]
February 27
What's the worst post you posted on the blue?
Lipstick Thespian points out that my latest post about clothes is "absolutely the dumbest thing I've ever read on Metafilter." They've got a point! I admit I've posted some real stinkers in my time that I would gladly take back. So I'm wondering, what are some things that you yourself have posted, that in retrospect you would take back, and why? [more inside]
February 24
Contents Under (not enough) Pressure
GNFTI, you complete MONSTER. How could you. I trusted you. [more inside]
February 23
Deleted Askme Post?
I was in the process of replying to an ask me post, that I don't think violated any guidelines. In the process of responding, a little notice popped up that it was deleted. I don't want to go into specifics as to what the post was about if the poster asked for it to be deleted. I'm just curious how often this happens and what the reason is. The broad strokes description was that the post was a complicated relationship/mental health question, and the poster seemed to be in a lot of distress. [more inside]
February 20
Metafilter Wins!
Nice MF shoutout from Mark Morford in his latest post about trolls... [more inside]
February 19
What happened to the @askmetafilter Twitter?
I'm pretty sure it's one of the unofficial Twitter accounts, but does anyone know what happened to the @askmetafilter feed? It looks like it stopped updating on the 5th. This feed was nice to have since it used the question title as the tweet rather than starting with the question itself like the @mefigreen feed. Thanks all.
February 17
Odd layout issue?
When browsing on my mobile device, I noticed a rendering issue and wondered if others have seen the same?
February 16
How can we make ThereIsHelp even better?
The ThereIsHelp page on the MeFi wiki is a helpful compilation of resources for people who are struggling with depression, suicidal ideation, alcoholism, domestic violence, and sexual assault. It's also a living document, originally created through the collaboration of MeFites over three years ago in memory of Bill Zeller, and I'd like to continue the conversation about how we as a community can make it even better. [more inside]
Awesome comment for debt validation letter?
Hi all, I'm looking for a killer comment I saw once that had the whole content of what I believe was a debt validation letter? It included quotes from the various laws. It was badass! Now I can't find it... Do you guys know it? [more inside]
MeFi Fantasy Baseball 2014
Spring training for the Metafilter Fantasy Baseball league's ninth season has begun. Instructions for interested GMs follow. [more inside]
February 15
trolling trolling trolling (no more)
My name is Ardiril (aka mischief), and I am an internet troll personality [via NickySkye]. I am not the only troll here. With this post, I remove my option of denial. Who else among you will accept my challenge to change? [more inside]
Seeking ragga video
I seem to recall several years ago a post to the blue that featured a YouTube video of some ragga/dancehall song from the 80s. The song lyrics and video featured a dreadlocked Jamaican who encountered a policeman. I think the policeman called the first guy "Dreadlocks." Dreadlocks claimed to be transporting vegetables to town, but the policeman thought he had marijuana and arrested him.
I have tried many Google search strategies and haven't found this. Did it really appear on the blue or am I imagining things?
February 14
Keeping score on our King William's Quiz solvathon
A December tradition around here is taking a collective whack at the King William's College General Knowledge Paper (or Quiz). The answers have been published, so we can have a look at how we did. Here's our solvathon discussion. Our answers were recorded in this Google Doc created by rewil. I have now added to that, as Column C, the official answers as released by the college (PDF). (Guardian link for same.) On the Google Doc, our answers are in Col. D. Red shading indicates our wrong answers, of which there are 14, out of 180. So we got a 92.2. (You might quibble with a few of the official answers, though.)
February 13
Unflagging enthusiasm with fat fingers
I flagged something today while reading on my mobile, that five seconds later I realised I did not need to flag for the reason I gave. I could not unflag the comment and I fretted over this for ten minutes guiltily. Previously I have also flagged and favourited things by accident because of the fat fingers/tiny screen while reading metafilter on my phone.
Is it technically and/or operationally possible to change the "Flagged" text to a link to either undo the flag/change it or to go straight to the moderators contact page? Or perhaps a "Scourge thyself, blamer of innocents" button would work for me. I'm posting to metatalk because I don't know if this is just a me being dumb on my phone issue or others would also like this added.
Ways a Thread Goes Bad
Yesterday's FPP about aedison's misgendering while in detention went... not so well. Some thoughts on what went wrong and how threads like this could go better inside. [more inside]
"Would you like to go on a date with me?"
Just something I've always noticed on askme threads about pursuing a romantic interest - everyone's advocating the use of the word 'date,' and it somewhat surprises me. [more inside]
February 11
Camp Mefi Update
For those of you wondering what the status of the Camp MeFi project is, please pull a log up to the crackling fire. Full update inside. [more inside]
A pony for our MeFi birthdays?
We can click birthdays in user profiles to find MeFites who share the same birthday, and we can click locations to find other MeFites who are geographically close. How about a clickable join-date to find MeFites who joined on the same day (+/- N yrs)? It would be like a pony crossed from the old-timers thread and bondcliff's birthday pony! [more inside]
GSOH post - satire?
February 10
The Day We Fight Back
I'm curious, is MetaFilter going to join The Day We Fight Back protest against mass surveillance tomorrow, along with Boing Boing, Reddit and others?
February 8
Still here?
Just curious, how many mefi "old-timers" are still around? [more inside]
February 7
Easily Googled AskMefi Questions
What are your thoughts on AskMefi questions that can be easily Googled and/or are based on erroneous information? (I'm thinking specifically of this question, which contains both factually incorrect details and could easily be answered with Google. There isn't a request for advice, experiential information, anecdata, or other relevant info that a search engine couldn't provide. What does everyone think? Is this a normal/appropriate use of AskMefi?
February 6
Likelihood to "go smoothly": necessarily a positive quality in a topic?
I'm curious about the deletion message for an article I posted to the blue: "This is a kind of incoherent article on a topic that's not likely to go smoothly. -- restless_nomad". I have no objection to the deletion! But the stated reason raises an interesting question, I think: are good topics necessarily topics that generate discussions which go smoothly? [more inside]
89: Bookie Clicker
The latest podcast was recorded yesterday and runs about an hour and fifteen minutes, covering all the highlights from the site in January. [more inside]
Allow turning off favourites for specific posts
Although favourites are certainly a nice feature for a lot of things, I worry that there's a tendency for them to water down more nuanced discussions. As a way to preempt this, perhaps people who make posts could have the option to disallow favouriting of comments on that post? [more inside]
February 5
Ideas re: what makes for an acceptable vs unacceptable "processing" Ask?
Hey all, this is my first Meta post and I hope this is an okay subject to ask for clarifications on.
Could I get some ideas/feedback about what constitutes an acceptable AskMe in terms of helping the asker to process their particular situation? [more inside]
Do you cross-post your FPPs to your own blog?
Just curious ... people who actively work on making great FPPs, do you then post that content to your own blog? Or do you leave it exclusive to MeFi? I am curious if this is a thing that people do, either the mega-post builders like zarq, for instance, or the more casual poster. [more inside]
February 4
How did AskMe teach you how to fish?
I'm curious about "the questions you didn't post" - that is to say, questions people considered posting to AskMe, but realised what answers they'd receive and *acted on that realisation*. [more inside]
February 3
Making arguments out of thin air
I want to talk about the ongoing toxic trend on Metafilter of people threadshitting within the first few comments of a post without reading the post's subject, leading into arguments about content that either has nothing to do with the post or have been addressed directly within the post. It's been a problem with the site for years, and I think the community would be much better for it if this trend just outright stopped. [more inside]
February 2
Mental illnesses as adjectives? Perhaps not?
I hate to call out such an otherwise amazingly written post (full, I hasten to add, of links I am looking forward to listening to), but I have some concerns. [more inside]
Popular posts period pony?
Pretty sure in the last 7 days, 30 days, all time was a great breakdown 5 years ago, but now, maybe last quarter, biannual, 12 months, biennial, lustrum would give us a better range to surf through. (I'm sure the community would come up with better words than I did.)
Currently the gap between 30 days & all time whisks a lot of quite recent but not in the last month very nice stuff under the cyber rug.
I would also like to see it applied to the categories (in Ask me). For example, there are 7202 posts to Questions in the Clothing, Beauty, & Fashion category. But how to find the most loved?
February 1
Dylan Farrow NYT Letter Deserves Its Own Post
Several posts to this New York Times "open letter" from Dylan Farrow about being a survivor of abuse have been deleted [1] [2] [3] [4] on the basis that there's an open post about Mia Farrow, this is outragefilter, and that it's a touchy topic that we've "covered a lot recently". These are not convincing arguments for the deletions. [more inside]
How Did This Happen?
so I was perusing a thread, and noticed what looks like a formatting error, in this comment -screenshot. [more inside]
Full House Reviewed is complete, with Metafilter shoutout.
The author of Full House Reviewed posts his last entry, and he attributes Metafilter to his popularity.
Also, someone needs to tell him who we really are. [more inside]
>have fun
It is February first, which means the Third MetaFilter Interactive Fiction Contest has begun! [more inside]