IRL post achiving pre-event

April 6, 2017 7:55 AM

This IRL post concerns an event with a long lead time. It's been closed/archived long before the event. Should we rethink archiving posts long before the event? [I tried to use the contact form, but got some weird error page about an invalid construct]
posted by pjern to Etiquette/Policy at 7:55 AM (16 comments total)

Yeah, it seems like a no-brainer that IRL posts should only auto-close once the event has completed (maybe event date +7 days or something to accommodate "this was fun!" posts).
posted by EndsOfInvention at 7:57 AM on April 6, 2017 [1 favorite]

Heya! First off to your post-script: yes, something is wonky with the contact form under the hood at the moment. Hoping to get it fixed up today; in the mean time, folks are welcome to email or mefimail me instead. Sorry about that!

To the main question: yeah, this seems like a behavior—auto-closing IRL events that don't leave "Proposed" status after a month—that is hurting instead of helping in odd cases like this, and I think we'll revisit that functionality.

The intention going in was to avoid having abandoned, forever-Proposed events faking people out ("Ooh, there's something happening in Minneapolis and—dammit, no, it's just that dead proposal again...") but that events will sometimes get proposed long ahead of time and not formally firmed up into actual full-on "yes, database, this is happening" state despite still being actively planned clearly breaks the assumptions that went into that design decision.

So it may be simplest for us to just reverse course on that bit and look at other approaches for event cleanup for the stuff that does get abandoned; user (ideally poster but who knows) reporting that something's gone hooey would suffice probably.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:59 AM on April 6, 2017

Should be there up top right under the title, yeah.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:21 AM on April 6, 2017

We've moved on to the next one, but I don't see the year displayed either. Since it's confirmed and not proposed, it does not close until after it happens and I love that we can post it so far in advance.
posted by crush at 8:21 AM on April 6, 2017

"I see a year in the date posted line under the title, but not a year in the yellow box showing the event date" is what I meant to type.
posted by crush at 8:23 AM on April 6, 2017

Ah, yes, I see. I think we declined to include year in the infobox date to save room, since most events will be taking place the same year they're posted and most that don't are December-posted cuspings, but there's a question of whether that's really a necessary space savings. Or maybe tackling it with more nuance, whether we should make a "is this the same year as now?" check for whether or not to include the year, like we do for comment bylines.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:33 AM on April 6, 2017

Hey that's me! I was planning on creating a new 'real' event now that's I've got more of the details worked out and have actually asked my MIL if it's okay for a bunch of internet folks to come visiting (it is). Should I hold off on posting the new one until this has been sorted out or wait until within the thread close window to repost?
posted by metaphorever at 3:03 PM on April 6, 2017

The intention going in was to avoid having abandoned, forever-Proposed events faking people out

This is also a good goal.
posted by grouse at 4:14 PM on April 6, 2017 [2 favorites]

How many times has a proposed event been auto-closed? How many times was this clearly not the desired behavior, like here?
posted by grouse at 4:15 PM on April 6, 2017 [1 favorite]

How about a backend rule along the lines of, "if the date is defined in the proposal, keep open until proposed date + n days, else close on date post went up + m days."
posted by ardgedee at 7:02 AM on April 7, 2017

How about MeMail the proposer when their proposed event is auto-closed? If mod intervention is required, then they can use the contact form.
posted by grouse at 7:40 AM on April 7, 2017

It seems like this is a rare enough occurrence that automation is more trouble than it is worth, and grouse probably has the best answer.
posted by Literaryhero at 8:02 PM on April 7, 2017

It did happen last year too (the auto close) with an Edinburgh event that eventually went ahead last month and just had a long lead time. I did raise a query at the time.
posted by Chairboy at 2:52 AM on April 8, 2017

A minor pony - perhaps just a rocking horse - but this IRL shows up on sidebars as just ", England" which is kinda confusing. Yep, ye olde Englande is small compared to e.g. Texas, but it still takes a while (and often an absurd amount of money) to cross it, so a bit of location precision is needed.
posted by Wordshore at 4:15 AM on April 11, 2017

Yeah that bug has been around for a while, I previously send a Contact Form message about it and cortex said it was being investigated.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 7:29 AM on April 11, 2017

Yep, something went sideways with the geolocation stuff we're using—identical input used to produce better results on that—but resolving it is down the pile a little ways.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:32 AM on April 11, 2017 [1 favorite]