Comment deletions "with OP's support"? February 1, 2025 8:10 PM Subscribe
Huh?
Not having the seen the comment, I won't second guess the mod's decision to delete. But their enforcement of the guidelines isn't supposed to depend on whether the OP supports the decision or not.
Or am I missing something?
To be very clear, my question about "who made Violet Blue an unpaid mod" wasn't premised on this comment being deleted (although i also read "with OP's support" as meaning with the original POSTER's support, ie Violet Blue's, rather than the original COMMENTER's.) It's premised on (among other things) several other comments of hers in that thread, including her calling someone an "asshole with no self-control" when that person pushed back on her "stop doomposting" edict. And, too, the very fact she's issuing "stop doomposting" edicts at all, in her own threads or anyone else's, because last i checked she is not a fucking mod.
posted by adrienneleigh at 8:25 PM on February 1 [11 favorites]
posted by adrienneleigh at 8:25 PM on February 1 [11 favorites]
Glad to hear that it was an independent mod decision. But mentioning the OP’s approval - or their being the flagger, for that matter - clouds the issue. For me, anyway.
posted by Lemkin at 8:30 PM on February 1 [4 favorites]
posted by Lemkin at 8:30 PM on February 1 [4 favorites]
"Deleted at the commenter's request," surely?
posted by A forgotten .plan file at 8:38 PM on February 1 [12 favorites]
posted by A forgotten .plan file at 8:38 PM on February 1 [12 favorites]
A forgotten .plan file : Yes, but the mod note doesn't say that. It says "with OP's support".
posted by adrienneleigh at 9:39 PM on February 1
posted by adrienneleigh at 9:39 PM on February 1
Sorry, I mean "surely this would be the clear, non-jargony way to express this idea." Like, in a spirit of making a suggestion to help a mode make themselves better understood.
posted by A forgotten .plan file at 9:59 PM on February 1 [9 favorites]
posted by A forgotten .plan file at 9:59 PM on February 1 [9 favorites]
(god, i'm really sorry about the length of the below. when i go on at this length i'm not sure i'm correctly reality-testing, so ignore this if i'm just stuck in some cognitive loop.)
I'm still trying to puzzle out what people mean by doomposting. I know what I mean by it--occasionally I have chastised people (whose comments I tend to agree with otherwise) when they have leaned too heavily into crop failures and mass starvation in posts about climate change; when a comment seems too...carnivorously celebratory about upcoming disaster. A comment whose teeth are showing.
But the original comment on Violet Blue's post--even if the commenter agreed it could be deleted--didn't seem like that. When you have a post that is essentially, "Here are all the world-historical terrible things the administration is doing," then holy shit we're doomed does not necessarily steer the thread; the thread is going to express anger and frustration and, yes, a sense of what is there to do?
Violet Blue made this comment at the end of the post: "Finally, please remember that these are challenging times, and expressions of hate, absolutism (all blah or all blee) or doom only many of us feel worse. If we notice each one another succumbing to temptation, I've noticed it's often helpful to remind one another in thread to please refrain."
I do not know what kind of response is possible within those parameters. They cover too much ground. And I'm not sure it is helpful to remind one another to refrain, unless maybe you're a close ally with similar politics?
Here I think is what I'm getting at: We are watching political moves that are calculated to defy the very structure of our government and our lives--they are systemic attacks. It's the difference between talking about a thunderstorm and climate change. When you talk systems, when you talk collapse, you're talking about a big unknown. Your predictions may sound like doom because--just to give an example--had the funds freeze really collapsed Medicaid, it's likely the healthcare system would have taken a hit as big or bigger than the effect of COVID early in the pandemic. Tens of thousands of jobs and millions of lives at stake. It would be very hard to comment on that without sounding a note of doom. (Another example, and for these examples please understand I'm not trying to make these into the topics of conversation, I'm just trying to illustrate a conversational mechanism, a natural reaction, a tendency: If on the very first October 7th thread, someone had gotten in a first comment saying, "I'm afraid nearly 18000 children will be killed as a result of this," someone else would have flagged that as the most offensive doomsaying possible. "Why are you steering the thread in such a grim direction? Let's stick to the facts!")
I'm not suggesting that Violet Blue was attempting to steer the conversation into Good Vibes Only. I am suggesting that a focus on practicality and looking-for-the-helpers during a crisis to the exclusion of one's natural reaction to atrocity has an effect of...ah...desaturating a conversation. Flattening its affect. I think we should be able to tell the difference between someone taking a bit of cruel joy in Telling It Like It Is, and someone expressing an honest moment of oh no. (And yes, of course there's an effect if a thousand people get in a thread and express their oh no's. There's a self-reinforcing loop there, and we need to recognize when we're (inadvertently) poisoning a conversation because of too much focus on our strongest feelings. I don't envy a moderator keeping up with that thread. But the answer to the average mefite who does not want to feel bad about current events is to read some comments, take the temperature of the thread, and nope out if they sense they'll get bummed reading it. The answer is not to censor out our darker emotions.)
posted by mittens at 4:38 AM on February 2 [21 favorites]
I'm still trying to puzzle out what people mean by doomposting. I know what I mean by it--occasionally I have chastised people (whose comments I tend to agree with otherwise) when they have leaned too heavily into crop failures and mass starvation in posts about climate change; when a comment seems too...carnivorously celebratory about upcoming disaster. A comment whose teeth are showing.
But the original comment on Violet Blue's post--even if the commenter agreed it could be deleted--didn't seem like that. When you have a post that is essentially, "Here are all the world-historical terrible things the administration is doing," then holy shit we're doomed does not necessarily steer the thread; the thread is going to express anger and frustration and, yes, a sense of what is there to do?
Violet Blue made this comment at the end of the post: "Finally, please remember that these are challenging times, and expressions of hate, absolutism (all blah or all blee) or doom only many of us feel worse. If we notice each one another succumbing to temptation, I've noticed it's often helpful to remind one another in thread to please refrain."
I do not know what kind of response is possible within those parameters. They cover too much ground. And I'm not sure it is helpful to remind one another to refrain, unless maybe you're a close ally with similar politics?
Here I think is what I'm getting at: We are watching political moves that are calculated to defy the very structure of our government and our lives--they are systemic attacks. It's the difference between talking about a thunderstorm and climate change. When you talk systems, when you talk collapse, you're talking about a big unknown. Your predictions may sound like doom because--just to give an example--had the funds freeze really collapsed Medicaid, it's likely the healthcare system would have taken a hit as big or bigger than the effect of COVID early in the pandemic. Tens of thousands of jobs and millions of lives at stake. It would be very hard to comment on that without sounding a note of doom. (Another example, and for these examples please understand I'm not trying to make these into the topics of conversation, I'm just trying to illustrate a conversational mechanism, a natural reaction, a tendency: If on the very first October 7th thread, someone had gotten in a first comment saying, "I'm afraid nearly 18000 children will be killed as a result of this," someone else would have flagged that as the most offensive doomsaying possible. "Why are you steering the thread in such a grim direction? Let's stick to the facts!")
I'm not suggesting that Violet Blue was attempting to steer the conversation into Good Vibes Only. I am suggesting that a focus on practicality and looking-for-the-helpers during a crisis to the exclusion of one's natural reaction to atrocity has an effect of...ah...desaturating a conversation. Flattening its affect. I think we should be able to tell the difference between someone taking a bit of cruel joy in Telling It Like It Is, and someone expressing an honest moment of oh no. (And yes, of course there's an effect if a thousand people get in a thread and express their oh no's. There's a self-reinforcing loop there, and we need to recognize when we're (inadvertently) poisoning a conversation because of too much focus on our strongest feelings. I don't envy a moderator keeping up with that thread. But the answer to the average mefite who does not want to feel bad about current events is to read some comments, take the temperature of the thread, and nope out if they sense they'll get bummed reading it. The answer is not to censor out our darker emotions.)
posted by mittens at 4:38 AM on February 2 [21 favorites]
On Reddit "OP" generally means the poster of the thread. Someone commenting in the thread is not the "OP" unless they also posted the thread.
So I think the terminology "removed with OP's support" was a bit misleading here. People thought it meant the thread poster was getting other people's comments deleted.
But as far as I can tell, that doesn't seem to be the case, it was just a standard "deleted at commenters request'.
So, nothing really to see here.
But to avoid confusion, might be better to reserve "OP" for the thread poster in future .
posted by TheophileEscargot at 5:09 AM on February 2 [20 favorites]
So I think the terminology "removed with OP's support" was a bit misleading here. People thought it meant the thread poster was getting other people's comments deleted.
But as far as I can tell, that doesn't seem to be the case, it was just a standard "deleted at commenters request'.
So, nothing really to see here.
But to avoid confusion, might be better to reserve "OP" for the thread poster in future .
posted by TheophileEscargot at 5:09 AM on February 2 [20 favorites]
In the end, it's a balancing act as you touch on in your comment, mittens.
As general policy the moderators do encourage members to be a bit more aware with their early comments in a thread. Try not to be too sarcastic or nitpicky or a downer. Yet what's occurring IS a downer, to put it mildly, so expressions of angst, fear, and everything else are perfectly normal in these times.
It would be great if early comments in a thread focus more on dealing with the links and topics mentioned. That doesn't mean no expressions of human emotion at all, but a mixture of emotion at the awful and frightening shit that's going, while not focusing solely on that fright.
Example:
"Oh my god this is completely awful, is this really the beginning of the end of America?"
vs
"Oh my god, this is completely awful, the federal workfrace are being really screwed over here! And the brazen attack on the country's institutions, jfc, are these shit heels really going to cause American to collapse?!"
But the above is after the fact commentary. As a moderator, all I intend to ask of members is just do your best with dealing all this genuinely scary shit and to try and be mindful of how your words may affect others. We're all in this together and we're all on the same side, pretty much, on this site as we use this shared space, so let's try and make it decent space for all of us when we can.
This not an official push or edict, just a suggestion of how these threads could go in the future. Otherwise, the mods will take the situations as they happen and go from there. It's not gonna be perfect or make everyone happy, but we'll do our best to encourage everyone to express themselves in a way that's mindful of "the room".
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 5:18 AM on February 2 [4 favorites]
As general policy the moderators do encourage members to be a bit more aware with their early comments in a thread. Try not to be too sarcastic or nitpicky or a downer. Yet what's occurring IS a downer, to put it mildly, so expressions of angst, fear, and everything else are perfectly normal in these times.
It would be great if early comments in a thread focus more on dealing with the links and topics mentioned. That doesn't mean no expressions of human emotion at all, but a mixture of emotion at the awful and frightening shit that's going, while not focusing solely on that fright.
Example:
"Oh my god this is completely awful, is this really the beginning of the end of America?"
vs
"Oh my god, this is completely awful, the federal workfrace are being really screwed over here! And the brazen attack on the country's institutions, jfc, are these shit heels really going to cause American to collapse?!"
But the above is after the fact commentary. As a moderator, all I intend to ask of members is just do your best with dealing all this genuinely scary shit and to try and be mindful of how your words may affect others. We're all in this together and we're all on the same side, pretty much, on this site as we use this shared space, so let's try and make it decent space for all of us when we can.
This not an official push or edict, just a suggestion of how these threads could go in the future. Otherwise, the mods will take the situations as they happen and go from there. It's not gonna be perfect or make everyone happy, but we'll do our best to encourage everyone to express themselves in a way that's mindful of "the room".
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 5:18 AM on February 2 [4 favorites]
Example:
"Oh my god this is completely awful, is this really the beginning of the end of America?"
vs
"Oh my god, this is completely awful, the federal workfrace are being really screwed over here! And the brazen attack on the country's institutions, jfc, are these shit heels really going to cause American to collapse?!"
There is no meaningful difference in these two comments, but that's just my own opinion as one asshole who can read.
posted by phunniemee at 6:07 AM on February 2 [26 favorites]
"Oh my god this is completely awful, is this really the beginning of the end of America?"
vs
"Oh my god, this is completely awful, the federal workfrace are being really screwed over here! And the brazen attack on the country's institutions, jfc, are these shit heels really going to cause American to collapse?!"
There is no meaningful difference in these two comments, but that's just my own opinion as one asshole who can read.
posted by phunniemee at 6:07 AM on February 2 [26 favorites]
One has more words.
posted by betweenthebars at 6:28 AM on February 2 [2 favorites]
posted by betweenthebars at 6:28 AM on February 2 [2 favorites]
📎It looks like you're composing doomerism! Would you like Clippy to help you add more characters?
posted by phunniemee at 6:34 AM on February 2 [27 favorites]
posted by phunniemee at 6:34 AM on February 2 [27 favorites]
I didn’t see this in situ, but I think I also would have interpreted OP as the poster of the thread rather than of the comment, and wondered why they were seemingly exercising editorial control over the discussion. “Deleted at the commenter's request” would be a lot clearer phrasing, although I get if you don’t want to convey that’s the only thing necessary for deletion.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 6:39 AM on February 2
posted by Horace Rumpole at 6:39 AM on February 2
Honestly, the example given above is a perfect encapsulation of why mods should not be trying to moderate super subjective stuff like whether a comment is excessively doomerist. It is probably impossible to do. The example above makes abundantly clear that it is definitely impossible for at least one of the actual mods of this site. The idea that a mod would even post this example kind of throws a shadow over notions of being able to judge a situation in a realistic way. I think it would be much more productive if mods stuck to clearer guidelines that can be applied with something approaching consensus, like don’t disparage other users, don’t use slurs, etc.
posted by snofoam at 6:40 AM on February 2 [15 favorites]
posted by snofoam at 6:40 AM on February 2 [15 favorites]
Also, for the sake of clarity, which of the two examples would be the inappropriately doomerist version and which is the constructive conversation version? I am genuinely unclear on this. Thanks!
posted by snofoam at 6:46 AM on February 2 [7 favorites]
posted by snofoam at 6:46 AM on February 2 [7 favorites]
if you want your comment to stand you must include the initials of god's only begotten son
posted by phunniemee at 6:50 AM on February 2 [6 favorites]
posted by phunniemee at 6:50 AM on February 2 [6 favorites]
I find that MeFi actually loves doomerism, but only in the short term. We must do X/prevent X or DOOM!!
Long-term doomerism, even as a follow-up to previously agreed upon doom conditionals (remember when most of us agreed X was needed or DOOM? We didn't manage X so now I think we are doomed) is considered unseemly.
It's a weird dichotomy. You can be as catastrophic and hyperbolic as you like, as long as you still leave room for a valiant effort to turn everything around... even if the last ten times we all agreed on this, society failed pretty resoundingly.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:50 AM on February 2 [7 favorites]
Long-term doomerism, even as a follow-up to previously agreed upon doom conditionals (remember when most of us agreed X was needed or DOOM? We didn't manage X so now I think we are doomed) is considered unseemly.
It's a weird dichotomy. You can be as catastrophic and hyperbolic as you like, as long as you still leave room for a valiant effort to turn everything around... even if the last ten times we all agreed on this, society failed pretty resoundingly.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:50 AM on February 2 [7 favorites]
not to derail the doomerism conversation but it really does feel like the entirety of the actual concern raised by this thread (the OP, if you will) would be addressed by correcting the mod note to say "with the original commenter's support" instead of "OP"?
it'd be nice if we had a similar shorthand for the former, for the sake of ensuring consistent communication on that front. "OC" would kind of just make it seem like BB was working with the assent of his self-insert Star Wars wookie, though
posted by Kybard at 7:10 AM on February 2 [4 favorites]
it'd be nice if we had a similar shorthand for the former, for the sake of ensuring consistent communication on that front. "OC" would kind of just make it seem like BB was working with the assent of his self-insert Star Wars wookie, though
posted by Kybard at 7:10 AM on February 2 [4 favorites]
If the new site had built-in deletion reasons that covered common situations like this, it would build consistency and accuracy into the system rather than requiring perfection from the workfrace.
posted by snofoam at 7:25 AM on February 2 [5 favorites]
posted by snofoam at 7:25 AM on February 2 [5 favorites]
I would say doomerism emits depressed or angry hopelessness. But it also would be fair to say it's a form of trolling or shit-posting. It doesn't encourage good conversation, so much as end it, and it's based on opinion, an incomplete collection of facts or speculation.
It also tends to go hand in hand with hyperbole or a certain kind of absolutism — purity in another form. It can sometimes have a whiff of conspiracy to it, e.g. Civil War is inevitable, and it will probably lead to genocide, or even America will not survive.
Thus, it's not some Republicans are bad, it's all of them. Thus, it's not considered that some might have been one-issue voters, and not addressing whatever issue the commenter is focusing on, but in fact all of them hate us.
Sometimes, it's focused on violence, nihilism or revenge fantasy, e.g. change will only come with violent revolution or post WWII living conditions.
I think all of this kind of commenting is destructive. It brings down the mood. It interrupts the conversation, if it doesn't outright end it. It also makes it hard to engage, and keep engaging.
I don't think the mods have this issue worked out yet, but I think they should address it. One problem is they don't agree among themselves, so I've seen some mods delete doomy shitposts at the beginning of the thread, but others not. Quite often if comments are moderated in the beginning of a thread for doom, no mod will enter again for several more hours, which often means if a thread has gone doomily awry the thread is often too derailed to matter by then.
I think this sort of thing drives people away, never mind attracting others. There's been a lot of talk about it on MFM, but I've also seen talk about it here. It carries a negative behavioral message if dooming is allowed. If dooming is discouraged, the way it's discouraged likewise reflects the culture and values of the site. Like a lot of hard stuff, the issue of dooming has been ignored too long. Personally, I think either mods need to visit threads a lot more often — and maybe actually read the whole thread, which it frequently doesn't look like they've done — or they should institute 24-bans on the worst offenders if only to communicate that behavior is strongly discouraged here.
posted by Violet Blue at 7:33 AM on February 2 [9 favorites]
It also tends to go hand in hand with hyperbole or a certain kind of absolutism — purity in another form. It can sometimes have a whiff of conspiracy to it, e.g. Civil War is inevitable, and it will probably lead to genocide, or even America will not survive.
Thus, it's not some Republicans are bad, it's all of them. Thus, it's not considered that some might have been one-issue voters, and not addressing whatever issue the commenter is focusing on, but in fact all of them hate us.
Sometimes, it's focused on violence, nihilism or revenge fantasy, e.g. change will only come with violent revolution or post WWII living conditions.
I think all of this kind of commenting is destructive. It brings down the mood. It interrupts the conversation, if it doesn't outright end it. It also makes it hard to engage, and keep engaging.
I don't think the mods have this issue worked out yet, but I think they should address it. One problem is they don't agree among themselves, so I've seen some mods delete doomy shitposts at the beginning of the thread, but others not. Quite often if comments are moderated in the beginning of a thread for doom, no mod will enter again for several more hours, which often means if a thread has gone doomily awry the thread is often too derailed to matter by then.
I think this sort of thing drives people away, never mind attracting others. There's been a lot of talk about it on MFM, but I've also seen talk about it here. It carries a negative behavioral message if dooming is allowed. If dooming is discouraged, the way it's discouraged likewise reflects the culture and values of the site. Like a lot of hard stuff, the issue of dooming has been ignored too long. Personally, I think either mods need to visit threads a lot more often — and maybe actually read the whole thread, which it frequently doesn't look like they've done — or they should institute 24-bans on the worst offenders if only to communicate that behavior is strongly discouraged here.
posted by Violet Blue at 7:33 AM on February 2 [9 favorites]
Just for the record: I only requested this MeTa to clear up the question of whether a poster is ever consulted on whether to delete a comment in their thread. That seems well answered at this point. So I’m all in favor of closing this up and letting the Doom! DOOM! question have its own forum.
posted by Lemkin at 7:47 AM on February 2 [3 favorites]
posted by Lemkin at 7:47 AM on February 2 [3 favorites]
I don’t think that anybody has to be a mod when requesting that people refrain from doing something. It’s an ask from a member that can be ignored and can continue to be ignored until a mod decides to step in. In this particular case it’s not an unreasonable ask but it’s still just a request.
As to banning somebody for doomerism? That’s a whole other subject that involves a lot of nuance and one that I think is going to be contentious. On the face of it, I don’t agree with it but then again, there may be times when it’s required. Tricky.
posted by ashbury at 7:57 AM on February 2 [5 favorites]
As to banning somebody for doomerism? That’s a whole other subject that involves a lot of nuance and one that I think is going to be contentious. On the face of it, I don’t agree with it but then again, there may be times when it’s required. Tricky.
posted by ashbury at 7:57 AM on February 2 [5 favorites]
I don’t think that anybody has to be a mod when requesting that people refrain from doing something.
That's what I thought too, but I've been in threads with several doomers more likely to listen to each other than polite requests, so there goes the whole thread, or a good chunk of it anyway.
As to banning somebody for doomerism?
Meanwhile, the vast majority of folks don't sit around and doom in real life because in real life friends and family of doomers tend to avoid them if they're always a downer. It only happens here because they can get away with it.
posted by Violet Blue at 8:13 AM on February 2 [3 favorites]
That's what I thought too, but I've been in threads with several doomers more likely to listen to each other than polite requests, so there goes the whole thread, or a good chunk of it anyway.
As to banning somebody for doomerism?
Meanwhile, the vast majority of folks don't sit around and doom in real life because in real life friends and family of doomers tend to avoid them if they're always a downer. It only happens here because they can get away with it.
posted by Violet Blue at 8:13 AM on February 2 [3 favorites]
Let’s use words carefully. Comments have been deleted. Has anyone been banned (account disabled) for posting doom statements?
posted by warriorqueen at 8:29 AM on February 2 [1 favorite]
posted by warriorqueen at 8:29 AM on February 2 [1 favorite]
Has anyone been banned (account disabled) for posting doom statements?
Not that I know of.
posted by Violet Blue at 8:31 AM on February 2
Not that I know of.
posted by Violet Blue at 8:31 AM on February 2
When has a MeTa been about staying focused on a question? More heat less light is the way. Draw your blades, get even on old scores, bonus points if you get some zingers in about the shitty modding.
We are not a month into the fucker's 2nd term (hey remember the discussions on acceptable terms for TFG?).. I don't know how to quell doomerism. It's what I feel. A community might see someone request to ease up on the doom in said person's thread and simply start their own thread, heavily adjusted for doom++. What the fuck do people do in a room, with conversation? If this cluster is conversing about something in a way that does not jive for you, do you push your way in or quietly join a different cluster? MeFi is a big space, make the room you want.
This pissyness in MeTa is fun though, a real sport for some
posted by ginger.beef at 8:47 AM on February 2 [1 favorite]
We are not a month into the fucker's 2nd term (hey remember the discussions on acceptable terms for TFG?).. I don't know how to quell doomerism. It's what I feel. A community might see someone request to ease up on the doom in said person's thread and simply start their own thread, heavily adjusted for doom++. What the fuck do people do in a room, with conversation? If this cluster is conversing about something in a way that does not jive for you, do you push your way in or quietly join a different cluster? MeFi is a big space, make the room you want.
This pissyness in MeTa is fun though, a real sport for some
posted by ginger.beef at 8:47 AM on February 2 [1 favorite]
I'm no doomer-boomer but it's counterintuitive to make an FPP about The Puppy BlenderTM and then expect people to refrain from talking about how blended puppies makes them feel sad
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 9:44 AM on February 2 [17 favorites]
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 9:44 AM on February 2 [17 favorites]
>Thus, it's not some Republicans are bad, it's all of them.
I agree that binary thinking is not helpful or productive, but this is the first I've seen it lumped into "doomerism."
posted by lapis at 10:35 AM on February 2
I agree that binary thinking is not helpful or productive, but this is the first I've seen it lumped into "doomerism."
posted by lapis at 10:35 AM on February 2
I don't know if this will hold water, but I think there's "moderation" and there's "facilitation."
Moderation is stuff like get rid of spammers, squash slurs, enforce policies about broad behaviors (no personal attacks, no spamming a thread when you've made your point, fix up spoilers, point links at the thing they meant and not what went in the markup).
That sounds kind of mechanical, but there's a lot of room for human judgment and refereeing.
Facilitation, I guess I'm thinking, is about getting more into the qualitative aspects of the conversation. "Mods please curtail doomerism" is way into the qualitative weeds of "don't say it this way, say it this way," and if we wondered what's wrong with that Brandon demonstrated it amply. There's already some facilitation going on, to the extent mods will make some qualitative judgments if a comment strays too close to being problematic wrt the social justice commitments of the site, so it's not completely out of the remit, I'm just not sure how much more ought to go on.
The idea that mods are supposed to be a surrogate/stand-in social circle to keep people from "getting away" with doomerism when we can see the distinction is easily lost seems like even more overhead, more reasons comments will just disappear into the void, and more squabbling. At some point the community itself has to choose how to respond to doomerism and just quit giving it oxygen. Sorry if that means threads don't go the way the poster wished, but it has ever been thus and the answer to it isn't "more rules and more room for mod subjectivity to enforce those rules." The answer is just "have the conversation you want to have with the people who want to have it with you."
Some stuff in an online community is less like a train set you're building and more like a deep space probe you're launching. The train set is amenable to re-engineering, or being turned off while you fix a misaligned switch. Deep space probes are more like "I did as much as I could to allow for the environment as I understand it, but this thing is not going to be amenable to a ton of direction around immediate tactical situations once it is launched."
But given the increasing individualism of the way posts are formatted, it might as well be fine for the poster to say "I hope this conversation goes more this way than that." That doesn't make them a mod, that makes them another member of the community telling the rest of the community how they hope this conversation will go. Then the people in the community can make their own call.
posted by A forgotten .plan file at 10:56 AM on February 2 [4 favorites]
Moderation is stuff like get rid of spammers, squash slurs, enforce policies about broad behaviors (no personal attacks, no spamming a thread when you've made your point, fix up spoilers, point links at the thing they meant and not what went in the markup).
That sounds kind of mechanical, but there's a lot of room for human judgment and refereeing.
Facilitation, I guess I'm thinking, is about getting more into the qualitative aspects of the conversation. "Mods please curtail doomerism" is way into the qualitative weeds of "don't say it this way, say it this way," and if we wondered what's wrong with that Brandon demonstrated it amply. There's already some facilitation going on, to the extent mods will make some qualitative judgments if a comment strays too close to being problematic wrt the social justice commitments of the site, so it's not completely out of the remit, I'm just not sure how much more ought to go on.
The idea that mods are supposed to be a surrogate/stand-in social circle to keep people from "getting away" with doomerism when we can see the distinction is easily lost seems like even more overhead, more reasons comments will just disappear into the void, and more squabbling. At some point the community itself has to choose how to respond to doomerism and just quit giving it oxygen. Sorry if that means threads don't go the way the poster wished, but it has ever been thus and the answer to it isn't "more rules and more room for mod subjectivity to enforce those rules." The answer is just "have the conversation you want to have with the people who want to have it with you."
Some stuff in an online community is less like a train set you're building and more like a deep space probe you're launching. The train set is amenable to re-engineering, or being turned off while you fix a misaligned switch. Deep space probes are more like "I did as much as I could to allow for the environment as I understand it, but this thing is not going to be amenable to a ton of direction around immediate tactical situations once it is launched."
But given the increasing individualism of the way posts are formatted, it might as well be fine for the poster to say "I hope this conversation goes more this way than that." That doesn't make them a mod, that makes them another member of the community telling the rest of the community how they hope this conversation will go. Then the people in the community can make their own call.
posted by A forgotten .plan file at 10:56 AM on February 2 [4 favorites]
This was the thread that finally convinced me to turn on the US Politics filter.
posted by coldhotel at 12:55 PM on February 2 [1 favorite]
Has anyone been banned (account disabled) for posting doom statements?
No.
In general, it's fine for any member to ask another member to stop doing X. If that doesn't help or the situation gets worse, feel free to flag it or flag it with a note and moderator will take a look.
This was the thread that finally convinced me to turn on the US Politics filter
Yes, anyone can use MyMeFi to filter out certain keywords
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 1:57 PM on February 2 [2 favorites]
No.
In general, it's fine for any member to ask another member to stop doing X. If that doesn't help or the situation gets worse, feel free to flag it or flag it with a note and moderator will take a look.
This was the thread that finally convinced me to turn on the US Politics filter
Yes, anyone can use MyMeFi to filter out certain keywords
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 1:57 PM on February 2 [2 favorites]
I'd like to add that the FPP was excellent; the comments thread was the opposite.
posted by coldhotel at 2:01 PM on February 2 [1 favorite]
posted by coldhotel at 2:01 PM on February 2 [1 favorite]
"I think this sort of thing drives people away"
Tbh my least favourite thing about this site is the policing of dooming. I'm scared, sad, and furious, think that those are all extremely valid and appropriate emotions given what's happening, and I want to connect with others who are feeling the same things. I get that some people prefer conversations to be focused on hope, or action, or tempering of emotions/extremes. But it sure does make me feel alienated and therefore always on the lookout for some other community where my brand of despair is allowed.
posted by EarnestDeer at 2:02 PM on February 2 [11 favorites]
Tbh my least favourite thing about this site is the policing of dooming. I'm scared, sad, and furious, think that those are all extremely valid and appropriate emotions given what's happening, and I want to connect with others who are feeling the same things. I get that some people prefer conversations to be focused on hope, or action, or tempering of emotions/extremes. But it sure does make me feel alienated and therefore always on the lookout for some other community where my brand of despair is allowed.
posted by EarnestDeer at 2:02 PM on February 2 [11 favorites]
Example:
"Oh my god this is completely awful, is this really the beginning of the end of America?"
vs
"Oh my god, this is completely awful, the federal workfrace are being really screwed over here! And the brazen attack on the country's institutions, jfc, are these shit heels really going to cause American to collapse?!"
One of these is allowed and the other one isn't? This really is an unenforceable rule, I have no idea what this anti-doomer rule is or how it works or which one of these is allowed. Maybe this rule needs to go back to the drawing board and be hammered out a little more.
posted by Vatnesine at 2:37 PM on February 2 [7 favorites]
One of these is allowed and the other one isn't?
No, it was just offered as an example. The full comment makes this clear.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 2:58 PM on February 2 [1 favorite]
No, it was just offered as an example. The full comment makes this clear.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 2:58 PM on February 2 [1 favorite]
Same, EarnestDeer. I think it was a mistake to add "gloom and doom" to the guidelines.
But it sure does make me feel alienated and therefore always on the lookout for some other community where my brand of despair is allowed.
If this was a sincere question, in a different thread someone mentioned SomethingAwful. It's not without its own problems, but I find it less suffocating than MetaFilter in terms of what is allowed.
posted by ftrtts at 3:09 PM on February 2 [1 favorite]
But it sure does make me feel alienated and therefore always on the lookout for some other community where my brand of despair is allowed.
If this was a sincere question, in a different thread someone mentioned SomethingAwful. It's not without its own problems, but I find it less suffocating than MetaFilter in terms of what is allowed.
posted by ftrtts at 3:09 PM on February 2 [1 favorite]
From the FAQ: "Please avoid doomsday speculation and conspiracy theory information in posts and comments."
As best I can tell, the intention is to discourage 'Trump is going to put Greenlanders in forced labor camps' and 'the secret Project 2025 plan is to declare martial law and start executing Democrats' kinds of stuff.
I don't read that as being about despair, or emotional expression, but more about signal-to-noise.
posted by box at 3:22 PM on February 2 [6 favorites]
As best I can tell, the intention is to discourage 'Trump is going to put Greenlanders in forced labor camps' and 'the secret Project 2025 plan is to declare martial law and start executing Democrats' kinds of stuff.
I don't read that as being about despair, or emotional expression, but more about signal-to-noise.
posted by box at 3:22 PM on February 2 [6 favorites]
counterintuitive to make an FPP about The Puppy BlenderTM and
I think so. Things like this are not edge case.
I call it the mainway effect.
One could frame a post in an alarmist framework
“Mr. Mainway, this is simply a bag of jagged, dangerous glass bits.”
“Yeah, it’s broken glass. It sells very well, you know. We’re just packaging what the kids want.”
posted by clavdivs at 5:37 PM on February 2
I think so. Things like this are not edge case.
I call it the mainway effect.
One could frame a post in an alarmist framework
“Mr. Mainway, this is simply a bag of jagged, dangerous glass bits.”
“Yeah, it’s broken glass. It sells very well, you know. We’re just packaging what the kids want.”
posted by clavdivs at 5:37 PM on February 2
So I think the terminology "removed with OP's support" was a bit misleading here. People thought it meant the thread poster was getting other people's comments deleted.
I think the point has been made, but I tripped over that too.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 6:31 PM on February 2
I think the point has been made, but I tripped over that too.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 6:31 PM on February 2
Mod note: I'm temporarily closing this thread until Brandon / US mods are back on the site, and I've also deleted comments that are a fight mostly between a couple of commenters about an issue unrelated to this post, which Brandon et al can choose to restore or not. There has been no mod on duty for several hours, hence the weird, late, stop-gap action here.
posted by taz (staff) at 9:30 PM on February 2 [1 favorite]
posted by taz (staff) at 9:30 PM on February 2 [1 favorite]
Thread reopened, please avoid attacking other members, if have complaints email us and we'll take a look.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 5:20 AM on February 3
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 5:20 AM on February 3
Always nice to see my comment disappear. Cool cool.
you folks have a nice time with this new site.
I'm done.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 6:15 AM on February 3
you folks have a nice time with this new site.
I'm done.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 6:15 AM on February 3
Hey mods, stop closing threads on MeTa when you don't like how it's going. That's not how things are supposed to work here. BB called it "unprecedented" and then it happened again so stop it please
posted by donnagirl at 8:07 AM on February 3 [13 favorites]
posted by donnagirl at 8:07 AM on February 3 [13 favorites]
So I’m all in favor of closing this up and letting the Doom! DOOM! question have its own forum.
There is no question, DOOM is very good
posted by ginger.beef at 9:24 AM on February 3 [1 favorite]
There is no question, DOOM is very good
posted by ginger.beef at 9:24 AM on February 3 [1 favorite]
The thing about "unprecedented" is that once you do it, there's a precedent.
posted by mittens at 9:48 AM on February 3 [4 favorites]
posted by mittens at 9:48 AM on February 3 [4 favorites]
If you keep the thread open while no moderators are on duty, people will be unhappy that the mods are not immediately responsive.
If you close it, people will be unhappy for other reasons.
posted by box at 9:54 AM on February 3 [4 favorites]
If you close it, people will be unhappy for other reasons.
posted by box at 9:54 AM on February 3 [4 favorites]
Nobody has ever been upset that the mods were not “immediately responsive”.
posted by bowbeacon at 10:22 AM on February 3 [3 favorites]
posted by bowbeacon at 10:22 AM on February 3 [3 favorites]
The mods haven't been immediately responsive in a decade or so. And often having them around makes things worse. I don't think we need their weirdly vague/obfuscating or increasingly anxious commentary to talk amongst ourselves.
posted by donnagirl at 10:32 AM on February 3 [6 favorites]
posted by donnagirl at 10:32 AM on February 3 [6 favorites]
Also no one knows when moderators are "on duty" and frankly as contractors they should not have set duty hours per US employment law.
posted by donnagirl at 10:33 AM on February 3 [4 favorites]
posted by donnagirl at 10:33 AM on February 3 [4 favorites]
Someone should probably call the US Department of Labor while it still exists
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 10:38 AM on February 3 [5 favorites]
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 10:38 AM on February 3 [5 favorites]
But the original comment on Violet Blue's post--even if the commenter agreed it could be deleted--didn't seem like that [terrible]. When you have a post that is essentially, "Here are all the world-historical terrible things the administration is doing," then holy shit we're doomed does not necessarily steer the thread; the thread is going to express anger and frustration and, yes, a sense of what is there to do?The very first post said something like: "I don't think America is going to survive."
And I said something like: "C'mon, don't doom in the very first post."
That's what Brandon deleted of his own accord, without any communication with me.
And I disagree with you here. I think that sort of comment can definitely guide the conversation and/or set the tone.
I'm not suggesting that Violet Blue was attempting to steer the conversation into Good Vibes Only.Thank you. No, I was not.
I am suggesting that a focus on practicality and looking-for-the-helpers during a crisis to the exclusion of one's natural reaction to atrocity has an effect of...ah...desaturating a conversation. Flattening its affect. I think we should be able to tell the difference between someone taking a bit of cruel joy in Telling It Like It Is, and someone expressing an honest moment of oh no.The Federal Government thread had an unusually practical approach in the OP because of the nature of the beast. I wanted to create a thread where federal workers could easily find links to locate more support, insight, assistance, whatever.
The thread was neutral about activism. I will probably never create an activist thread here. Other mefites have better skills and more experience in that arena than I do, and I leave that to them.
(And yes, of course there's an effect if a thousand people get in a thread and express their oh no's. There's a self-reinforcing loop there, and we need to recognize when we're (inadvertently) poisoning a conversation because of too much focus on our strongest feelings.Yes, this is one big part of it. There's a cumulative effect.
But the answer to the average mefite who does not want to feel bad about current events is to read some comments, take the temperature of the thread, and nope out if they sense they'll get bummed reading it. The answer is not to censor out our darker emotions.Should I inevitably plan to avoid my own posts here then? Or all of MetaFilter? Doom spans threads, and doomers frequently forget to consider how what they're saying will affect others.
The draw here for me after several years off was having a place where I could talk politics in a civilized way with smart people. I know there's an historic — and current — percentage of Mefites who are also like to talk politics in generally the same way for generally the same kinds of reasons.
For me, that means when I create or join a political thread here, I seek facts, interesting links, theories, insight, and a reasonably civilized tone. I don't look for comments like "America won't survive this." I don't seek out people online to speak my worst fears. Instead, I’m looking for new and different ways of thinking about whatever is going on.
posted by Violet Blue at 10:45 AM on February 3 [4 favorites]
No. I memailed OtherChaz about it.
posted by Violet Blue at 11:01 AM on February 3
posted by Violet Blue at 11:01 AM on February 3
I actually did email BB yesterday, asking, in part, about this thread: "I'm wondering if there's any way to retitle it as a thread about Doomerism to attract more discussion — or to just move the doomer comments!?" But I never heard back.
posted by Violet Blue at 11:32 AM on February 3
posted by Violet Blue at 11:32 AM on February 3
Posters have always been discouraged here from attempting to manage the conversation resulting from their posts - both in the post itself and especially in the comments. Posters don't - and shouldn't - have that control, and they should stop trying to get it.
posted by catspajamas at 11:43 AM on February 3 [9 favorites]
posted by catspajamas at 11:43 AM on February 3 [9 favorites]
This thread is this thread. If the conversation organically moves from it's initial subject to another, fine, that's how discussions work, but you or the mods don't get to unilaterally change it. Moving people's comments? What a giant shitshow that would be.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:43 AM on February 3 [5 favorites]
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:43 AM on February 3 [5 favorites]
No, we don't retitle posts that belong to someone else here or ask for special private guidance to shape a conversation to your liking, that would be pretty weird.
posted by phunniemee at 11:44 AM on February 3 [12 favorites]
posted by phunniemee at 11:44 AM on February 3 [12 favorites]
Posters don't - and shouldn't - have that control, and they should stop trying to get it.
Bingo-bango. If a poster has concerns an FPP's comments may take a turn, they can try to mitigate that by how they frame the post during composition. There are mechanisms in place to deal with derails, but not all derails are inherently bad, either. Regardless, once the OP clicks Post it's out of their hands.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:48 AM on February 3 [4 favorites]
Bingo-bango. If a poster has concerns an FPP's comments may take a turn, they can try to mitigate that by how they frame the post during composition. There are mechanisms in place to deal with derails, but not all derails are inherently bad, either. Regardless, once the OP clicks Post it's out of their hands.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:48 AM on February 3 [4 favorites]
No, we don't retitle posts that belong to someone else here or ask for special private guidance to shape a conversation to your liking, that would be pretty weird.
We weren't doing that, thanks. I was just trying to separate out the subject matter, which could even be done by appending the Doomer title to the original question title.
posted by Violet Blue at 11:50 AM on February 3 [1 favorite]
We weren't doing that, thanks. I was just trying to separate out the subject matter, which could even be done by appending the Doomer title to the original question title.
posted by Violet Blue at 11:50 AM on February 3 [1 favorite]
Posters have always been discouraged here from attempting to manage the conversation resulting from their posts - both in the post itself and especially in the comments. Posters don't - and shouldn't - have that control, and they should stop trying to get it.
Yes. I was trying to get more opinions. The horror.
posted by Violet Blue at 11:51 AM on February 3 [1 favorite]
Yes. I was trying to get more opinions. The horror.
posted by Violet Blue at 11:51 AM on February 3 [1 favorite]
by appending the Doomer title to the original question title.
Adding any words whatever to the post title would indeed be changing the post title.
posted by phunniemee at 11:53 AM on February 3 [3 favorites]
Adding any words whatever to the post title would indeed be changing the post title.
posted by phunniemee at 11:53 AM on February 3 [3 favorites]
The horror.
Nah, not horrorful, just weird, like phunniemee said. The spaghetti strands you're throwing at the wall here are just very weird for this site.
posted by catspajamas at 11:55 AM on February 3 [2 favorites]
Nah, not horrorful, just weird, like phunniemee said. The spaghetti strands you're throwing at the wall here are just very weird for this site.
posted by catspajamas at 11:55 AM on February 3 [2 favorites]
Violet Blue: I think this sort of thing drives people away, never mind attracting others.
Just wanted to say it absolutely 100% has that effect on me, and the way this MetaTalk has gone (I have only skimmed, can't bring myself to jump in more than this comment) is making me once again rethink whether I want to be here at all.
posted by kristi at 12:03 PM on February 3 [6 favorites]
Just wanted to say it absolutely 100% has that effect on me, and the way this MetaTalk has gone (I have only skimmed, can't bring myself to jump in more than this comment) is making me once again rethink whether I want to be here at all.
posted by kristi at 12:03 PM on February 3 [6 favorites]
Nah, not horrorful, just weird, like phunniemee said. The spaghetti strands you're throwing at the wall here are just very weird for this site.
Not weird. I had planned on making a post about dooming to get more conversation going about it. Then I found out this thread existed. Since folks had already posted about dooming here, I posted on here about it too, but I was afraid it wouldn't get much traffic. I also really liked Mittens' comment near the top, which like other posts in this thread explained a perspective I would not otherwise have understood.
Another point, re: the first comment in this thread: Yes, I did call someone an asshole. They were baiting me, and I took it, I admit.
But I have a long written history here that shows, by and large, I'm usually pretty polite, and completely willing to rethink if someone brings up the fact that, say, any thread changes impact transparency, which is a long-time concern. The reflexive sarcasm is unnecessary.
posted by Violet Blue at 12:34 PM on February 3 [1 favorite]
Not weird. I had planned on making a post about dooming to get more conversation going about it. Then I found out this thread existed. Since folks had already posted about dooming here, I posted on here about it too, but I was afraid it wouldn't get much traffic. I also really liked Mittens' comment near the top, which like other posts in this thread explained a perspective I would not otherwise have understood.
Another point, re: the first comment in this thread: Yes, I did call someone an asshole. They were baiting me, and I took it, I admit.
But I have a long written history here that shows, by and large, I'm usually pretty polite, and completely willing to rethink if someone brings up the fact that, say, any thread changes impact transparency, which is a long-time concern. The reflexive sarcasm is unnecessary.
posted by Violet Blue at 12:34 PM on February 3 [1 favorite]
Nobody has ever been upset that the mods were not “immediately responsive”.
Good one! You almost had me.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 3:17 PM on February 3 [3 favorites]
Good one! You almost had me.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 3:17 PM on February 3 [3 favorites]
the way this MetaTalk has gone (I have only skimmed, can't bring myself to jump in more than this comment) is making me once again rethink whether I want to be here at all.
My favorite new MeTa trend is people telling on themselves like this.
posted by donnagirl at 3:29 PM on February 3 [1 favorite]
My favorite new MeTa trend is people telling on themselves like this.
posted by donnagirl at 3:29 PM on February 3 [1 favorite]
Ok, I'm calling good call to close the thread and I need to thank and probably apologize to Taz for the third comment deleted, mine, it was just me trying to sort things and it would have created stir in hindsight thankyou alvy, it was a good intention deletion. Oddly, it's an example of mod deletion. I could see it spiral, from good intention. ok, thanks.
posted by clavdivs at 3:35 PM on February 3 [1 favorite]
posted by clavdivs at 3:35 PM on February 3 [1 favorite]
As best I can tell, the intention is to discourage [...] 'the secret Project 2025 plan is to declare martial law and start executing Democrats' kinds of stuff.
I guess this is part of why this topic is so hard to resolve, because to me the above sounds like one reasonable interpretation of current events based on stated and inferred goals of major political actors. I don't find the doom stuff very interesting or healthy when people on here start to spiral, but I agree heavily with the above poster who pointed out the difference between moderating and facilitating. This site struggles enough with skillful moderation that the facilitation aspect feels way beyond realistic ability.
posted by dusty potato at 4:50 PM on February 3 [4 favorites]
I guess this is part of why this topic is so hard to resolve, because to me the above sounds like one reasonable interpretation of current events based on stated and inferred goals of major political actors. I don't find the doom stuff very interesting or healthy when people on here start to spiral, but I agree heavily with the above poster who pointed out the difference between moderating and facilitating. This site struggles enough with skillful moderation that the facilitation aspect feels way beyond realistic ability.
posted by dusty potato at 4:50 PM on February 3 [4 favorites]
Yes, I did call someone an asshole.
And you should have gotten a day off from the site for that. Not sure why that didn't happen, but it's the usual mod response when someone flies off the handle with insults.
posted by catspajamas at 4:56 PM on February 3 [6 favorites]
And you should have gotten a day off from the site for that. Not sure why that didn't happen, but it's the usual mod response when someone flies off the handle with insults.
posted by catspajamas at 4:56 PM on February 3 [6 favorites]
Taz deleted a bunch of comments by me, and several of them were probably justified deletions, but one of them was neither personal to a specific user nor a derail from this thread, so i am going to recreate it:
I think that backseat modding is bad; i think that there is a line between "encouraging fellow members to uphold community norms" and "backseat modding"; i think that some MeFites don't do a great job of staying on the correct side of that line; and i really wish that the actual mods would do something about that when it happens.
posted by adrienneleigh at 5:00 PM on February 3 [15 favorites]
I think that backseat modding is bad; i think that there is a line between "encouraging fellow members to uphold community norms" and "backseat modding"; i think that some MeFites don't do a great job of staying on the correct side of that line; and i really wish that the actual mods would do something about that when it happens.
posted by adrienneleigh at 5:00 PM on February 3 [15 favorites]
They let hippybear do it for *so* long without any public pushback.
posted by catspajamas at 4:04 AM on February 4 [7 favorites]
posted by catspajamas at 4:04 AM on February 4 [7 favorites]
Oh but that ended fine!!! Everyone came out looking good and nobody got hurt and definitely nobody buttoned over it and most importantly, Barbra Streisand has been properly avenged.
posted by phunniemee at 5:27 AM on February 4 [4 favorites]
posted by phunniemee at 5:27 AM on February 4 [4 favorites]
I think it's spelled 'Barbara.'
posted by box at 5:52 AM on February 4 [6 favorites]
posted by box at 5:52 AM on February 4 [6 favorites]
Moderation is stuff like get rid of spammers, squash slurs, enforce policies about broad behaviors (no personal attacks, no spamming a thread when you've made your point, fix up spoilers, point links at the thing they meant and not what went in the markup).I really like the distinction between moderation and facilitation made in this comment. I think deletion is a good tool for moderation concerns, but I think that facilitation should be almost entirely in the form of the mod leaving a comment without a deletion. Deletion is often too blunt an instrument to be used on something subjective like "is this conversation going in the right direction?".
That sounds kind of mechanical, but there's a lot of room for human judgment and refereeing.
Facilitation, I guess I'm thinking, is about getting more into the qualitative aspects of the conversation. "Mods please curtail doomerism" is way into the qualitative weeds of "don't say it this way, say it this way," and if we wondered what's wrong with that Brandon demonstrated it amply. There's already some facilitation going on, to the extent mods will make some qualitative judgments if a comment strays too close to being problematic wrt the social justice commitments of the site, so it's not completely out of the remit, I'm just not sure how much more ought to go on.
posted by a faded photo of their beloved at 7:35 AM on February 4 [5 favorites]
I think it's spelled 'Barbara.'
That's not what IMDB thinks.
posted by flabdablet at 8:23 AM on February 4
That's not what IMDB thinks.
posted by flabdablet at 8:23 AM on February 4
(that's the joke)
posted by cooker girl at 8:50 AM on February 4
posted by cooker girl at 8:50 AM on February 4
oof
posted by ginger.beef at 10:00 AM on February 4
posted by ginger.beef at 10:00 AM on February 4
You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments
The OP's note wasn't a factor in the decision to remove the comment, but I thought it was worthwhile to note that they were ok with it being removed.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 8:17 PM on February 1 [4 favorites]