A Policy Question

July 7, 2016 1:38 PM

Can anyone explain the policy of not notifying an anonymous poster why or even that a request is denied?
posted by R2WeTwo to Etiquette/Policy at 1:38 PM (15 comments total)

The basic reason is, once a question is in the Anonymous Queue, we don't know who asked it. (We can figure it out if we really need to, by some extra steps, but we don't in general.) We count on folks to contact us directly to follow up, after a day or two. It's always fine to do that through the contact form, which is linked on the bottom right of every page.

A bit more from the FAQ about how the anonymous question function works: 1 and 2
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 1:44 PM on July 7, 2016 [3 favorites]

fwiw i've emailed beforehand to mods asking if an anon post would be ok, and then submitted it once they've said it looks fine. that seemed to work ok (obvs you are no longer anon to mods, but that was fine in my case).
posted by andrewcooke at 3:53 PM on July 7, 2016 [1 favorite]

Now we're all dying to know ...

And assuming the worst.
posted by Bruce H. at 3:17 AM on July 8, 2016

It hadn't been a day or two yet so it seems I, too, was "assuming the worst."

Thanks, everyone.
posted by R2WeTwo at 6:06 AM on July 8, 2016

Boring adult response to what I know was just meant as a jocular riff, but it should be taken as a given that MetaTalk will work best if people can e.g. ask policy/process questions without having their site participation put in the spotlight as a result.
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:32 AM on July 8, 2016 [8 favorites]

No worries. Like I said: boring adult response, just part of my job.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:57 AM on July 8, 2016

he sighed, in resignation.
posted by Roger Dodger at 1:19 PM on July 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

God I hope not. cortex don't resign now! We need you more than ever!
posted by carsonb at 5:47 PM on July 8, 2016 [1 favorite]

Re-signation is the process of being so onboard that you sign up for it all over again. I'm re-signed to my fate!
posted by cortex (staff) at 5:50 PM on July 8, 2016 [11 favorites]

Awwwww.
posted by maryr at 6:35 AM on July 9, 2016 [1 favorite]

Can I hijack this resolved MeTa to ask why a comment I made in the Kanye FPP about Madonna having sex with a dog was deleted? It linked to this picture, which is totally safe for work, so deletion is kind of baffling.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 9:53 AM on July 9, 2016

It was in a train of comments that were deleted, which were going on at great length about Madonna fucking a dog. It's one of those things where, ok mention it once, but having a ten or fifteen comment digression about it takes it out of the realm of "I am mentioning another celebrity attention-getting thing in passing" to "No really, I want to talk about Madonna and dog sex".... not saying that was you, just that's how the earlier comments were reading and why they got deleted.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 10:16 AM on July 9, 2016 [2 favorites]

Fair enough, thanks!
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 10:40 AM on July 9, 2016

Can I hijack this resolved MeTa to ask what the relative airspeed of an unladen swallow is?
posted by phearlez at 12:41 PM on July 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

No, I'm sorry, there isn't time.
posted by Etrigan at 12:50 PM on July 11, 2016 [1 favorite]