Missing MeTa

January 13, 2007 3:09 AM

I have never seen a completely disappeared MeTa post before today. Given what passes for normal on MetaTalk, I fear that there must have been a truly unspeakable horror contained within it to merit this special handling. Do I walk on dangerous ground, merely speaking that post's name? If so, I take it all back, I saw nothing, there never was a thread 1347... what was that number again? I forget now.
posted by Meatbomb to Etiquette/Policy at 3:09 AM (11 comments total)

It's not the first time it's happened.

The post was about an AskMe question that didn't have any text. The MeTa post followed suit and then, is is the norm round these here parts, everyone proceeded to joke around.

If a tree falls down in the forest and no-one is around to here it, does it make a noise? If a mod deletes a MeTa post, did it ever really exist?

This is the sound of one hand clapping. The other is preoccupied somehow.
posted by Effigy2000 at 3:28 AM on January 13, 2007

irony?
posted by geekyguy at 3:34 AM on January 13, 2007

There is no "deleted post page" for Metatalk, i.e. any deleted post goes away completely. This is far from new, there are probably hundreds of deleted metatalk threads over the years. The one you are talking about was on a subject where lawyers have been involved from what I hear (and there is an explanation thread about it elsewhere.)
posted by Rhomboid at 4:13 AM on January 13, 2007

here
posted by Rhomboid at 4:15 AM on January 13, 2007

I was referring to the " " meta, about the " " askme.
posted by Meatbomb at 4:21 AM on January 13, 2007

Every now and again a post gets completely removed from MeTa, usually when it's a total noisefest, but sometimes when it's someone who completely misunderstands what MetaTalk is for (there was one last week that was some sort of classified ad posting, for example) and rarely when someone is treading on some sort of dangerous or problematic ground.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 4:39 AM on January 13, 2007

Yawn. I have thousands of 'em.
posted by loquacious at 5:01 AM on January 13, 2007

But that one was funny! Glad I caught it before the Time Patrol scoured it.
posted by languagehat at 5:30 AM on January 13, 2007

This is not the thread you're looking for.






Move along.
posted by loquacious at 5:42 AM on January 13, 2007

Yes it is./

Now give it up, where is it¿
posted by alicesshoe at 6:05 AM on January 13, 2007

There's no deleted reason page for metatalk, so stuff gets removed completely. If something's really off or pointless here, it gets wiped.

There were 2 or 3 removed in the last 24 hours. The blank one was dumb, didn't explain the problem to be discussed in a followup thread and was just a free-for-all. There was another about a deleted comment the author never wants to see mentioned again so that went as well. Another recent thread was started by someone not familiar with metatalk and was also removed.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 6:34 AM on January 13, 2007