Old comment about soda taste?

January 7, 2023 12:27 AM

Does anyone remember an old comment about the taste of soda, and how if you had a discerning palate you could taste the difference between sodas that were made in different regions because the local water there would impart a unique flavor, and then the comment ended with an admission that, no, actually, everything the comment had just been claiming was sheer nonsense? Been looking to screenshot that.
posted by KChasm to MetaFilter-Related at 12:27 AM (18 comments total)

I remember the comment as well. I think it was by Greg Nog, in this thread maybe. That user has disabled their account and wiped all their old comments off the site.
posted by brainwane at 5:48 AM on January 7, 2023

Maybe you would enjoy this short video in the same spirit.
posted by Comet Bug at 2:38 PM on January 7, 2023

It was a different Greg Nog comment.
posted by brainwane at 6:21 PM on January 7, 2023 [5 favorites]

I meant: a different comment, in a different thread, by that user.
posted by brainwane at 7:14 AM on January 8, 2023

if the user in question asked that their posts be removed from the site, it's a bit of an odd look to dig up and then repost a link to one such post here

I understand that archive.org is a perfectly public website and it's a minor thing in the scheme of it, but still
posted by Kybard at 11:14 AM on January 8, 2023 [8 favorites]

I agree! Am asking the mods to opine.
posted by brainwane at 12:06 PM on January 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

i believe it's possible - i know that back when the bass ale we got in the us was still made in england, it had a certain tang to it because of the minerals in the water - then they decided to brew the us version in canada and it was bland and lifeless and hardly worth the money
posted by pyramid termite at 3:07 PM on January 8, 2023 [1 favorite]

Oh geez, I think you guys found the one comment Greg Nog wiped his account to hide. Total faux pas.
posted by rikschell at 5:14 PM on January 8, 2023 [5 favorites]

if the user in question asked that their posts be removed from the site, it's a bit of an odd look to dig up and then repost a link to one such post here

A gentle reminder that Metafilter posts now regularly contain links to "archived" versions of material for which neither the site nor post author owns the copyright.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 11:01 PM on January 8, 2023 [3 favorites]

Well, I guess this is the sort of thing that people can decide we need "hard" rules for, or "soft" management of. Speaking for myself, I think it's rather extreme to issue a blanket ban on linking to anything anyone ever said, but would not want to feature comments or posts where someone is discussing something personal, or even political, etc., because they may have changed their position and they are not here to say that. But if someone is asking for that recipe for lentils that they can no longer find or the recommendation for a book on pottery glazes they bookmarked but has disappeared, etc, it seems like overreach. Ultimately, it may be a decision for the steering committee if we feel it is something that needs to be addressed.
posted by taz (staff) at 12:46 AM on January 9, 2023 [8 favorites]

I think soft management is appropriate for this post about soft drinks.
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 9:16 PM on January 9, 2023

Sorry to be ignorant, but I had no idea you could erase basically your entire existence here? I thought I just had to live with the evidence of my having been an asshole (note I am not accusing Greg Nog of being an asshole, just my understanding of what I thought was the policy before) online pmuch forever, which I’m fine with since it happened and those are my consequences. If anyone has time, can they point me to how/when this policy happened?
posted by toodleydoodley at 11:40 AM on January 11, 2023 [1 favorite]

I don't remember when it happened specifically but it is possible to get your account wiped if you're leaving the site. This is for GDPR compliance as well as the usual trust & safety reasons. If you just need a few assholish comments removed, mods can do that for you. Talk to them about specifics, it's complicated.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 3:17 PM on January 11, 2023 [3 favorites]

If anyone has time, can they point me to how/when this policy happened?

Here's the explanation mbrubeck gave the last time someone asked about this.
posted by spiderbeforesunset at 9:50 AM on January 12, 2023 [2 favorites]

They sucked his brains out!, here's an older discussion about linking to archive.org. My understanding is that the support for providing archive.org links on MeFi was primarily about circumventing paywalls and preventing accidental link rot, not about digging up things people deliberately deleted.
posted by spiderbeforesunset at 4:20 PM on January 12, 2023

Thanks Jessamyn and spiderbeforesunset for explaining that.
posted by toodleydoodley at 7:35 PM on January 12, 2023 [1 favorite]

the concept of going through all records on the site to delete one user's comment was, I believe, considered "too database-intensive." Jessamyn or Cortex can advise if my memory's correct.

It used to have to be done manually. Now there is a back-end system for doing this.

And this is going to be, for now, a situation where unless the SC determines differently, we're going to decide "it is okay to link to a user's deleted comments on a site like the Internet Archive" on a case-by-base basis, as taz says. There's nothing wrong with making a judgment call about whether you personally think it's something that's okay to do and having that decision be something the mod team has a different take on.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 10:20 AM on January 13, 2023

Thanks jessamyn!
posted by spiderbeforesunset at 7:34 PM on January 13, 2023