MetaTalk

I'm a relative newbie, so forgive me: Someone earlier today posted about Jack Russell Terriers. A useful (to me) discussion ensued. That thread has since been deleted for some reason. How can I retrieve it? There was some important information in that thread that I need to convey to my parents, who are buying a new dog. Why was a post deleted that a dozen or so people were actively discussing? Isn't that just cruel?
posted by dougb on May 15, 2003 - 38 comments

What's wrong with worldnetdaily? I posted a link to an article that really frightened me, and it was taken down. The message I received was: "worldnetdaily? Come on." Granted, from the little I read afterwards from the site, they are a little right of Attila the Hun, but probably no further right than yellowtimes or commondreams is left...

What gives? I'd like to know more about what worldnetdaily isn't taken seriously...
posted by drstrangelove on Feb 14, 2003 - 7 comments

What is the policy re accesing previously deleted posts and their deletion justifications? Is there a listing somewhere ? (Could be good for learning by negative example, although certainly defeats the purpose since accesing previously deleted posts means they have not really been deleted.)
posted by Voyageman on Feb 6, 2003 - 4 comments

23328 deleted becuase of "real time" wth?
posted by Big_B on Feb 5, 2003 - 47 comments

I'm confused. A humourous story with environmentalist overtones I had posted to the front page of MeFi vanished within about 20 minutes. Does this sort of thing happen often? And if so, why? this was the story: http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/West/12/19/monkey.pants.reut/index.html
posted by mb01 on Jan 18, 2003 - 14 comments

Is there a lofi for MeTa? If not, what happens to posts that get deleted (like the one that was just here, for example?) Is there any archive, anywhere? For that matter, what exactly is the point of Lofi? Sorry if this has all been explained before - I did search, but couldn't find anything.
posted by jonson on Dec 13, 2002 - 15 comments

Just curious: I posted Wanda Hudak's phone number in a thread regarding her vile "25-cent bullet" comment; now it is gone.

As a public official, I do believe that she should be accountable for her official statements. Is posting a number which is a matter of public record a violation of MeFi etiquette and/or policy? Apologies, of course, if it is. I will respect the community/mathowie's wishes...but I will continue to think posting it was, and remains, valid.
posted by adamgreenfield on Nov 21, 2002 - 36 comments

Hi....I posted a URL the other day that was similar to metafilter, and so I thought MeFi was hacked for a minute there. When I realized the typo, I was relieved! I wondered if other people had found similar sites. But the post isn't there. I'm just wondering if that was a server glitch or just a lame post that was pulled. No worries, just curious for my own edification.
posted by Modem Ovary on Oct 25, 2002 - 26 comments

I'm confused. I posted what I thought was a typical interesting link, but I guess it didn't pass muster, since it was dumped. What gives?

(I linked to it from my K5 diary. Now I have cleanup there to do.)
posted by tbc on Sep 27, 2002 - 9 comments

noticed a link I posted yesterday was removed? why? It would be nice for any moderator or higher up to e mail someone telling why the link was removed
posted by hoopyfrood on Sep 18, 2002 - 23 comments

CINDERELLA STORY. Aside from the fact that it would mean more work for Matt ... Every Friday, we always get a couple of frontpage posts that are not the sort of content that is desired on Metafilter. The "What Actor Do You Hate" is a fine example, but you could include any of the Friday flashy-goodness ones. The justification of them is always "it's Friday, and so just shut the fuck up, you uptight Mefi Nazi Cop Bastard." So what if we allow these sorts of things, but when the clock strikes twelve on Midnight Saturday morning, PST, they all turned into pumpkins, and were automatically deleted? (Alternately, you could just make posting replies to these threads disabled and allow them to scroll away.) I mean, relax the posting rules one day a week, let the people have their Friday fun, but clean up the messes they make, and prevent them from lingering on for days after the "let's loosen up because I've had such a hard week at work" crapola. Or would going to these lengths to allow the stuff just encourage people to fill the front page with complete crap 1/7th of the time?
posted by crunchland on Aug 10, 2002 - 31 comments

OK, this thread, took a long time to die....was it something I said?

I was trying to promote a different way of dealing with trolls, but - in my early morning fatigue - may have overstepped some mark.
Or maybe it wasn't me, and I'm justy feeling Catholic (free-floating) guilt. Kindly put me out of my misery!


posted by dash_slot- on Jul 30, 2002 - 38 comments

Matt has just deleted thomcatspike's latest incomprehensible post. Although some think he's just pulling our chains, many of us think that he's simply having trouble with English. If that's the case, how can we help him?
posted by timeistight on Jul 3, 2002 - 128 comments

Does this post about Textism belong on MetaFilter? As a link to directly to the Textism home page, it doesn't meet the guidelines, several people felt the link, and with the recent removal of the "general weblog-related" MetaTalk category, I wonder if it should be here at all. Isn't this what BlogRoots is for?
posted by kirkaracha on Jun 27, 2002 - 19 comments

is there any way one can delete a thread one posted? i am the idiot behind the daniel pearl video rationalization thread that's clogging up the front page and had i realised the page i linked to included screen grabs i would have marked it as such. i shouldn't have linked to it anyway and i would really like to end my own embarrassment by taking it down.
posted by pxe2000 on Jun 6, 2002 - 39 comments

1. How about a standard notice when a comment is deleted from a thread? Replacing each deleted comment with "[comment deleted]" might make threads like this more understandable.
2) MeTa doesn't notice that I've set MeFi to open external links in a new window. External links don't always open from comment preview pages, either, which causes a tiny moment of angst when I double-check links before posting. Am I missing something?
posted by mediareport on Jun 4, 2002 - 6 comments

I'm sure it's an unpopular opinion and I admit it probably has to do with my personal experience of neo-fascist censorship in Portugal, as well as my libertarian views on freedom of expression, but I feel a bit of me dies every time a thread is deleted on MetaFilter. Or perhaps it's just frustration for not being able to read them. Although Matt is as tolerant a person as I know and I've understood the reasons for every deleted thread I was aware of, I truthfully don't think malevolent or stupid posts can't be dealt with by the MetaFilter community such as it is. Why not just leave them be? In time they might just be ignored, as they deserved. But not dignified with deletion. For there is such a thing, IMO.
posted by MiguelCardoso on May 6, 2002 - 146 comments

Why is it okay for MetaFilter to have numerous threads on LOTR, Star Wars, Harry Potter, etc including a thread dedicated to the news that there are new scenes added to LOTR: FOTR, but a Spider-man thread results in guidelines and waffles being mentioned? I understand that the initial post could have been slighty better framed, but apart from that it is following precedents that have already been set. If this thread is deleted, does it imply we no longer discuss movies that a bunch of people here can't wait to see? If so will threads for upcoming Harry Potter, Star Wars, LOTR movies be deleted too?
posted by riffola on May 3, 2002 - 53 comments

Triple? Quad? What's the MeFi duplicate FPP record?
posted by nathan_teske on Apr 25, 2002 - 10 comments

Just wondering why this post was killed. I can't fathom how it became controversial enough (or whatever enough) to be deleted, since the description reads:

"
Paper enables a certain kind of thinking. Picture, for instance, the top of your desk. Chances are that you have a keyboard and a computer screen off to one side, and a clear space roughly eighteen inches square in front of your chair. What covers the rest of the desktop is probably piles—piles of papers, journals, magazines, binders, postcards, videotapes, and all the other artifacts of the knowledge economy. The piles look like a mess, but they aren't. From The New Yorker."

posted by beth on Mar 28, 2002 - 14 comments

For the sake of review, and so that we may all learn from the past in hopes of making a better future, why was this post deleted?
posted by insomnyuk on Feb 22, 2002 - 24 comments

Why is a post about someone having sex with a goat not worthy of discussion. The story had everything - intrigue, surpise, excitement, passion, shock, and much more. I know why it was delete - because mat thought it was 'sophmoric' to post something like that - well I didn't post it in a sophmoric manner, I posted it because it is a very interesting story. I have never heard of anything like it in my life. It makes me wonder whether you even bother to read past the headline before cracking the sensorship whip.
posted by RobertLoch on Feb 7, 2002 - 21 comments

Why was tpoh's post re Terry Jones' bit about grammar and war deleted? Or is it only sleeping? Off pining for the fjords?
posted by obiwanwasabi on Jan 17, 2002 - 21 comments

A post delete feature. My school's internal bbs does this by only allowing you to delete your post if it was the last post to that thread or FP, so no replier ends up looking crazy. Might clear up a lot of duplicate/angry posts.
posted by skyline on Jan 4, 2002 - 12 comments

Instead of simply deleting posts that people suggest should be deleted, remove them from the front page and disable further new posts on them. That way people like me who don't read MeTa very often will still know what you guys were talking about and why thread x should've been deleted rather than just having to figure it out from comments.
posted by zztzed on Dec 11, 2001 - 7 comments

Please kill this thread. [More]
posted by Steven Den Beste on Dec 11, 2001 - 13 comments

Damn, Matt, you're quick - that Ashcroft link was still cooling before it was gone. Are you hovering, anxiously, all the while counting your ill-gotten $500 Monopoly bills?

(For those playing along at home, it was a link to Ashcroft's visa offer, about three paragraphs long, and if people jumped on SDB for voicing an opinion, they would have had an aneurysm from the vitriol pouring out of this guy.)
posted by solistrato on Nov 29, 2001 - 10 comments

another day - another spoony thread removed.....
I didn't think this one was bad at all, what harm can there be in table tennis game all flash stylee?
one day i'll get it right.
[0)
posted by Spoon on Nov 28, 2001 - 18 comments

I think this is an excellent approach for adding a new piece of information to a previously discussed topic.
posted by rebeccablood on Nov 22, 2001 - 10 comments

Why was the last post on Jasmine Bleeth erased from the front page? I'm mostly just curious since I'm still figuring out the rules on front page posting. Why was this particular thread deleted? Or do I deserve an explanation?
posted by mayalucia on Nov 21, 2001 - 26 comments

How about a "kill post" function, with a tipping point. A little button next to front-page posts, that if 10, 15, 25, whatever people click within the first 10 minutes (or 5 responses) of a post, it gets deleted from the front page.

It's democratic, it's brutally efficient, and it will cut down on front page non-posts. I think people here are mature enough not to delete posts just because they're political.. and if not, the tipping point can just be scaled up a bit.
posted by cell divide on Sep 26, 2001 - 5 comments

Please delete my silly post from early this morning, before everything went down. In the context of what's happened today, looking at it on the front page makes me feel silly and trivial.
posted by darukaru on Sep 11, 2001 - 1 comment

I'd like to be able to delete threads that I started, so that if it turns out that I screwed up and made a duplicate post that I can correct it without having to bother Matt about it.
posted by Steven Den Beste on Mar 1, 2001 - 14 comments

Wow. You got rid of that self-promotion quick fast.
posted by capt.crackpipe on Jan 6, 2001 - 3 comments

I've deleted mspansel's threads and banned the account from posting again. I've been deleting more posts than ever lately, and I think it's a necessary evil to having such an open posting policy. I've changed my editing tools, so deleting posts or editing someone's bad html is a lot easier now, so expect to see more admin stuff being done in the future. My hope is that things stay on track this way.
posted by mathowie on Aug 21, 2000 - 9 comments

Matt, please delete all threads associated with my most recent long article to which I linked on my own site. I'm afraid I completely misjudged the audience here and it's clear that this was not an appropriate forum in which I should try to reveal feelings as personal and important as those were.
posted by Steven Den Beste on Aug 1, 2000 - 3 comments