Is there a rule against swearing now? February 5, 2025 4:12 PM Subscribe
I had a comment deleted by travelingthyme with a note "One deleted. Please practice care with comments and refrain from swearing etc."
All I said was "What is this shit? Can we say what we fucking mean?"
Was it a bit intemperate? I guess. But the second part of the mod note is ridiculous. "Refrain from swearing etc." Is there a rule against swearing now? Are the mods our parents? Do people on this website want a no swearing policy?
Mod note: Short answer, swearing is fine on the site, swearing at other members is not is the general rule.
Rhymedirective's comment was not swearing at another user but was pretty agressive, hence the deletion.
There was a pause in getting this MeTa up as I figure out what was going on and seeing if Thyme was around (they had gone off shift).
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 4:16 PM on February 5 [2 favorites]
Rhymedirective's comment was not swearing at another user but was pretty agressive, hence the deletion.
There was a pause in getting this MeTa up as I figure out what was going on and seeing if Thyme was around (they had gone off shift).
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 4:16 PM on February 5 [2 favorites]
Rhymedirective's comment was not swearing at another user but was pretty agressive, hence the deletion.
This is not, nor has it ever been a rule here, "being aggressive" in general, not directed at other users, has never been prohibited. I've long been a proponent of moderating with a lighter hand, as has many people on MeTa, and I recognize this is an ongoing discussion, likely to involve the upcoming committee, etc., but this deletion seems like a significant step in the opposite direction, and for no particular good reason. Could we have some context for the discussion? On what post was this? In response to what?
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 4:20 PM on February 5 [37 favorites]
This is not, nor has it ever been a rule here, "being aggressive" in general, not directed at other users, has never been prohibited. I've long been a proponent of moderating with a lighter hand, as has many people on MeTa, and I recognize this is an ongoing discussion, likely to involve the upcoming committee, etc., but this deletion seems like a significant step in the opposite direction, and for no particular good reason. Could we have some context for the discussion? On what post was this? In response to what?
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 4:20 PM on February 5 [37 favorites]
Never mind, found it, and rhymedirective has closed their account because of this. We've been saying for ages that overly aggressive moderation makes people leave the site, and here we have another example, a user that's been here for three years, posted a fair bit, now gone. This has to stop.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 4:22 PM on February 5 [39 favorites]
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 4:22 PM on February 5 [39 favorites]
I engage with the various sites very rarely now although I still spend hours reading comments every day, but absolutely have to chime in stating that this deletion is wild.
posted by It Was Capitalism All Along at 4:26 PM on February 5 [18 favorites]
posted by It Was Capitalism All Along at 4:26 PM on February 5 [18 favorites]
Short answer, swearing is fine on the site
Oh good!
swearing at other members is not is the general rule.
Sure, that makes sense.
Rhymedirective's comment was not swearing at another user
Ah, good, in keeping with the rules!
but was pretty agressive, hence the deletion.
What.
posted by mittens at 4:29 PM on February 5 [76 favorites]
Oh good!
swearing at other members is not is the general rule.
Sure, that makes sense.
Rhymedirective's comment was not swearing at another user
Ah, good, in keeping with the rules!
but was pretty agressive, hence the deletion.
What.
posted by mittens at 4:29 PM on February 5 [76 favorites]
Metafilter has never been a place that's SFW.
This is weird.
posted by freethefeet at 4:30 PM on February 5 [8 favorites]
This is weird.
posted by freethefeet at 4:30 PM on February 5 [8 favorites]
*sighs, grabs the big red zero, and trudges over to the "IT HAS BEEN ___ DAYS SINCE THE LAST MODERATION SHITSHOW" sign*
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 4:36 PM on February 5 [55 favorites]
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 4:36 PM on February 5 [55 favorites]
Here's the original deletion note: https://www.metafilter.com/207509/Nobody-Elected-Elon#8683643
Looks like rhymedirective's original comment was flagged with a note describing the comment as hostile, which cause a moderator to look at it and delete it..
Folks can, of course, bring up this incide to the Moderation Oversight Committee, via warriorqueen's MeFiMail
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 4:36 PM on February 5 [1 favorite]
Looks like rhymedirective's original comment was flagged with a note describing the comment as hostile, which cause a moderator to look at it and delete it..
Folks can, of course, bring up this incide to the Moderation Oversight Committee, via warriorqueen's MeFiMail
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 4:36 PM on February 5 [1 favorite]
Folks can, of course, bring up this incide to the Moderation Oversight Committee, via warriorqueen's MeFiMail
We can, but as someone who volunteered to be on it, I don't think the committee is up and running yet. Or have I just not been notified?
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 4:38 PM on February 5 [12 favorites]
We can, but as someone who volunteered to be on it, I don't think the committee is up and running yet. Or have I just not been notified?
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 4:38 PM on February 5 [12 favorites]
Brandon, could you share the text of the comment so everyone can see what counts as aggressive?
posted by mittens at 4:38 PM on February 5 [5 favorites]
posted by mittens at 4:38 PM on February 5 [5 favorites]
rhymedirective Please do contact me. Joakim Ziegler, you should have received a Slack invite last week but we are just getting organized and I haven’t done a roll call there yet - MeMailing you.
posted by warriorqueen at 4:43 PM on February 5 [2 favorites]
posted by warriorqueen at 4:43 PM on February 5 [2 favorites]
I didn't see the deleted comment, but I have a related story. In another recent thread, I had flagged some comments for thread-shitting, which besides being against the rules, I find to be a growing problem on this site. Criticism is always fine, but I'm talking about comments that are very reactive and brief, and don't engage in any of the linked material or what other users have written, that boil down to "I hate this" or "anyone who thinks this is a moron" etc. It leads to derails and fights - not great. Anyway, one of the thread-shitting comments did eventually get deleted, but the mod note said it was because the comment had swearing in it - which had nothing to do with why I flagged - and I even flagged w/ note. The swearing was not the problem!
It might help if Metafilter, rather than having a litany of rules of that it enforces very willy-nilly, have a handful of core rules that lead to deletion. Keep it ten or less. Swearing shouldn't be one of them.
posted by coffeecat at 4:43 PM on February 5 [37 favorites]
It might help if Metafilter, rather than having a litany of rules of that it enforces very willy-nilly, have a handful of core rules that lead to deletion. Keep it ten or less. Swearing shouldn't be one of them.
posted by coffeecat at 4:43 PM on February 5 [37 favorites]
Love it that the paid staff is refusing to engage and instead passing the work off to unpaid volunteers who haven't organized yet. Which he knows, because he's on our Slack channel
posted by donnagirl at 4:47 PM on February 5 [16 favorites]
posted by donnagirl at 4:47 PM on February 5 [16 favorites]
Here's the original comment:
******
Protip: If the left does something out of pocket, the media isn't going to treat it as a constitutional crisis. Can you guess what kind of crisis they will treat it as?
Can we say what the fuck we mean? What is this shit?
******
The italics are what someone else posted and the non-italics are what Rhymedirective wrote.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 4:48 PM on February 5
******
Protip: If the left does something out of pocket, the media isn't going to treat it as a constitutional crisis. Can you guess what kind of crisis they will treat it as?
Can we say what the fuck we mean? What is this shit?
******
The italics are what someone else posted and the non-italics are what Rhymedirective wrote.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 4:48 PM on February 5
There's nothing delete-worthy about that comment.
posted by donnagirl at 4:50 PM on February 5 [55 favorites]
posted by donnagirl at 4:50 PM on February 5 [55 favorites]
Mod note: And to be totally clear about moderator actions, a number of comments were removed from that original thread and a unrelated MeTa thread. All of the comments were commenting on the deletion, which we currently do not allow in the original or unrelated threads.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 4:52 PM on February 5
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 4:52 PM on February 5
Prob. not the right call to delete it.
posted by Going To Maine at 4:55 PM on February 5 [9 favorites]
posted by Going To Maine at 4:55 PM on February 5 [9 favorites]
Eh, I agree with the deletion, but not the mod note. The problem isn't the use of the word "fuck" or "shit" it's the level hostility directed towards another user for...saying something they don't agree with and/or find unclear? That's escalating a fight, and Metafilter isn't a place for fighting, right? Disagreement is great, but I'm sure I'm not alone for preferring Metafilter to other online spaces because people here are often capable of disagreeing in a way that encourages discussion, not shuts it down. And I say this as someone who agrees that the comment rhymedirective was responding to deserved pushback.
posted by coffeecat at 4:59 PM on February 5 [24 favorites]
posted by coffeecat at 4:59 PM on February 5 [24 favorites]
What is this shit? is way too useful to disallow. Do we need to get folks to use a stand in like WITS? or What is this sha-nay-nay?
posted by snofoam at 5:00 PM on February 5 [4 favorites]
posted by snofoam at 5:00 PM on February 5 [4 favorites]
it's the level hostility directed towards another user for...saying something they don't agree with and/or find unclear?
I mostly agree with this, but…this was in response to a comment that quoted another user and then began with “Protip:”
I don’t have my handbook with me, but obviously invoking “protip:” towards another user forfeits all expectations of a measured response.
posted by snofoam at 5:06 PM on February 5 [38 favorites]
I mostly agree with this, but…this was in response to a comment that quoted another user and then began with “Protip:”
I don’t have my handbook with me, but obviously invoking “protip:” towards another user forfeits all expectations of a measured response.
posted by snofoam at 5:06 PM on February 5 [38 favorites]
bring up this incide to the Moderation Oversight Committee
I think there's some value to the MOC but I don't want to see the staff using it as a bureaucratic shield / black hole in order to avoid criticism.
How about....pretend it doesn't exist until everything is set up?
posted by Diskeater at 5:07 PM on February 5 [13 favorites]
I think there's some value to the MOC but I don't want to see the staff using it as a bureaucratic shield / black hole in order to avoid criticism.
How about....pretend it doesn't exist until everything is set up?
posted by Diskeater at 5:07 PM on February 5 [13 favorites]
WHAT. THE. FUCK. MODS.
making a classic MeTa reference; not swearing at anyone
posted by donnagirl at 5:08 PM on February 5 [15 favorites]
making a classic MeTa reference; not swearing at anyone
posted by donnagirl at 5:08 PM on February 5 [15 favorites]
WHAT. THE. FUCK. MODS.
I'm suddenly thinking of merch for the next fundraiser.
posted by mittens at 5:09 PM on February 5 [10 favorites]
I'm suddenly thinking of merch for the next fundraiser.
posted by mittens at 5:09 PM on February 5 [10 favorites]
(Scrolling back through the thread, the “Protip:” was directed at the user who then asked “What is this shit?” So this mod decided that you can’t “What is this shit?” someone even after they directly “Protip:” you, which is pretty fucked up as far as I’m concerned.)
posted by snofoam at 5:10 PM on February 5 [25 favorites]
posted by snofoam at 5:10 PM on February 5 [25 favorites]
Failure to read or consider context is the biggest mod issue we face as a community
posted by donnagirl at 5:13 PM on February 5 [18 favorites]
posted by donnagirl at 5:13 PM on February 5 [18 favorites]
I stand next to Spartacus in a brave show of solidarity and I, too, say what is this shit?
posted by phunniemee at 5:35 PM on February 5 [10 favorites]
posted by phunniemee at 5:35 PM on February 5 [10 favorites]
LOL
Do we need to add in the filter like Fark does?
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 5:46 PM on February 5 [1 favorite]
Do we need to add in the filter like Fark does?
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 5:46 PM on February 5 [1 favorite]
Man, just.....god, we're all fucking tired. And maybe this time next year some of us aren't going to be here. And like... I don't know can we just not? Can we just understand that everyone is freaking and tired and agitated and on our very last everything?
posted by corb at 5:58 PM on February 5 [17 favorites]
posted by corb at 5:58 PM on February 5 [17 favorites]
Mod note: I think there's some value to the MOC but I don't want to see the staff using it as a bureaucratic shield / black hole in order to avoid criticism
Pointing out that members with a complaint about moderation can voice said complaints to an Oversight Committee is not the best way to avoid criticism. Quite the opposite. It is one of the best ways to give members options about their complaints and to be held publicly accountable, which is a good goal to have.
Overall, I think that the deletion could have been worded better, but it was an understable call. If the OP or disagreed with the deletion that's fine, they can use the Contact Us form, which will be seen by every moderator, and/or contact the Oversight Committee (currently via warriorqueen's MeFiMail) to express those disagreements.
If instead members choose to post complaints in the original thread or other threads, those comments will be removed. If those types of derailing comments keep occurring, we may be forced to issue temporary bans. So please don't post derailing comments.
I've added two tags to this post, 'moderation' and 'ModerationComplaints'. If folks have suggestions for other tags to add to MeTas about moderation complaints, please share. The goal is to include those tags with all future MeTas about that subject.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 6:28 PM on February 5 [3 favorites]
Pointing out that members with a complaint about moderation can voice said complaints to an Oversight Committee is not the best way to avoid criticism. Quite the opposite. It is one of the best ways to give members options about their complaints and to be held publicly accountable, which is a good goal to have.
Overall, I think that the deletion could have been worded better, but it was an understable call. If the OP or disagreed with the deletion that's fine, they can use the Contact Us form, which will be seen by every moderator, and/or contact the Oversight Committee (currently via warriorqueen's MeFiMail) to express those disagreements.
If instead members choose to post complaints in the original thread or other threads, those comments will be removed. If those types of derailing comments keep occurring, we may be forced to issue temporary bans. So please don't post derailing comments.
I've added two tags to this post, 'moderation' and 'ModerationComplaints'. If folks have suggestions for other tags to add to MeTas about moderation complaints, please share. The goal is to include those tags with all future MeTas about that subject.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 6:28 PM on February 5 [3 favorites]
I don't mean this in a harsh way directed at TT, but I was sad to see that deletion and rhymedirective's departure. In part because I saw this and thought, "Can we say what the fuck we mean? What is this shit?" should possibly actually be a posting guideline here. There's an evolving MF house style which I would describe as "insidery, terse, condescending, and unhelpful" and I think this comment nailed one of the impacts of that, which is comments that you, the reader should understand rather than me, the writer having to make them clear.
I'm sure I'm guilty of the practice myself by the way. I would love a more memorable slogan/guideline reminding me to check myself.
Anyway. Consider this my formal petition to add "Can we say what the fuck we mean? What is this shit?" to the site guidelines and the banner! Turn a failure of moderation into a serendipitous discovery of a useful rule. (Again, no severe criticism of moderation intended, mistakes in life and work are common and understandable. I have just pulled over for a hamburger and a beer on the long road home from the Salton Sea--surely a failure of moderation, but a forgivable one.)
posted by kensington314 at 6:31 PM on February 5 [34 favorites]
I'm sure I'm guilty of the practice myself by the way. I would love a more memorable slogan/guideline reminding me to check myself.
Anyway. Consider this my formal petition to add "Can we say what the fuck we mean? What is this shit?" to the site guidelines and the banner! Turn a failure of moderation into a serendipitous discovery of a useful rule. (Again, no severe criticism of moderation intended, mistakes in life and work are common and understandable. I have just pulled over for a hamburger and a beer on the long road home from the Salton Sea--surely a failure of moderation, but a forgivable one.)
posted by kensington314 at 6:31 PM on February 5 [34 favorites]
What corb said with some exceptions. These are terrible times but I fear we are approaching metastasized autolysis. The powers that be have far too much power over us mere minions.
posted by y2karl at 6:40 PM on February 5 [5 favorites]
posted by y2karl at 6:40 PM on February 5 [5 favorites]
Metafilter: approaching metastasized autolysis
posted by OsoMeaty at 6:48 PM on February 5 [3 favorites]
posted by OsoMeaty at 6:48 PM on February 5 [3 favorites]
Protip: If the left does something out of pocket, the media isn't going to treat it as a constitutional crisis. Can you guess what kind of crisis they will treat it as?
Can we say what the fuck we mean? What is this shit?
This is an insane deletion. What are you about with this nonsense? It wasn't even 'fuck you' or similar. Expressing frustration using what are common idioms are not 'hostility to another user'. These phrases are common parlance.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 6:55 PM on February 5 [42 favorites]
Can we say what the fuck we mean? What is this shit?
This is an insane deletion. What are you about with this nonsense? It wasn't even 'fuck you' or similar. Expressing frustration using what are common idioms are not 'hostility to another user'. These phrases are common parlance.
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 6:55 PM on February 5 [42 favorites]
The main unfortunate thing here was the deletion note, and it's not the first time recently that we've seen badly written deletion reasons cause a blowup. This really is something the mods could reflect on better. (The impression it gives me is that they're maybe attempting to make sure they have a concrete, determinate reason for deleting anything, but if in the attempt to do so they stretch out and create a new concrete-sounding-but-imaginary rule out of whole cloth, then that's kind of worse than giving no deletion reason at all.)
But also: the comment was so thin! I think that level of anger directed at another user, whether swearing or not, probably does need to communicate more than simply "what is this shit." Rewrite it with less anger or with more substance and it would have stayed up.
But instead the user pulled a classic freak out flame out (of a sort that until a few years ago would have been roundly mocked here in MeTa).
So my two cents: Probably fine deletion. Very bad/unproductive deletion note. Exceptionally bad/dumb user reaction.
posted by nobody at 7:14 PM on February 5 [11 favorites]
But also: the comment was so thin! I think that level of anger directed at another user, whether swearing or not, probably does need to communicate more than simply "what is this shit." Rewrite it with less anger or with more substance and it would have stayed up.
But instead the user pulled a classic freak out flame out (of a sort that until a few years ago would have been roundly mocked here in MeTa).
So my two cents: Probably fine deletion. Very bad/unproductive deletion note. Exceptionally bad/dumb user reaction.
posted by nobody at 7:14 PM on February 5 [11 favorites]
I was going to say something about the number of hits for "fucking" on MeFi alone meaning that it is probably not a member of the No Cussing Club, but reality tops it:
rhymedirective: "All I said was "What is this shit? Can we say what we fucking mean?" Was it a bit intemperate? I guess."
Isn't curbing "intemperate" interactions between members one of the main points of moderation?
I agree with coffeecat that the profanity itself isn't the issue -- you see harsher language all the time re: current events. But directly calling another member's comment "shit" (with a side of f-bomb) comes off as needlessly aggro. There's enough prickly hostility in the world already, do we really want more of that energy here?
posted by Rhaomi at 7:15 PM on February 5 [12 favorites]
Your query used a very common word or phrase that appears across hundreds of thousands of posts and comments on the site. You might try searching again by adding a few more words to your query.(Don't miss that list of tags, which definitely takes that advice to heart.)
rhymedirective: "All I said was "What is this shit? Can we say what we fucking mean?" Was it a bit intemperate? I guess."
Isn't curbing "intemperate" interactions between members one of the main points of moderation?
I agree with coffeecat that the profanity itself isn't the issue -- you see harsher language all the time re: current events. But directly calling another member's comment "shit" (with a side of f-bomb) comes off as needlessly aggro. There's enough prickly hostility in the world already, do we really want more of that energy here?
posted by Rhaomi at 7:15 PM on February 5 [12 favorites]
Rhyme didn't button because their comment got deleted. Rhyme didn't even button because of the dogshit mod note. Rhyme buttoned after Brandon told them this Metatalk couldn't go up until tomorrow.
posted by phunniemee at 7:17 PM on February 5 [12 favorites]
posted by phunniemee at 7:17 PM on February 5 [12 favorites]
> Looks like rhymedirective's original comment was flagged with a note describing the comment as hostile, which cause a moderator to look at it and delete it.
We keep seeing "it was flagged" being used to justify decisions to delete comments. Stop that. Whether one, two or even a dozen people flag a comment should have no bearing on whether it gets deleted.
It either breaks the rules or it doesn't. Make that call, and stand by your decision.
If the comment was deleted because it was hostile then you can say "it was deleted because it was hostile, which is against the rules". There should be no reason to tell us what flags it got. It's not relevant.
Otherwise we might as well just turn the flag button into the delete button. People have already learned they can use it as one.
posted by automatronic at 7:33 PM on February 5 [44 favorites]
We keep seeing "it was flagged" being used to justify decisions to delete comments. Stop that. Whether one, two or even a dozen people flag a comment should have no bearing on whether it gets deleted.
It either breaks the rules or it doesn't. Make that call, and stand by your decision.
If the comment was deleted because it was hostile then you can say "it was deleted because it was hostile, which is against the rules". There should be no reason to tell us what flags it got. It's not relevant.
Otherwise we might as well just turn the flag button into the delete button. People have already learned they can use it as one.
posted by automatronic at 7:33 PM on February 5 [44 favorites]
Why are y'all so profoundly bad at your jobs? Are we so far into the post-No Child Left Behind era that reading comprehension and understanding of broader context is no longer a reasonable expectation for paid moderators of a text-based website? Should we all get those Harrison Bergeron implants to make sticking around here worth it?
posted by knucklebones at 7:37 PM on February 5 [11 favorites]
posted by knucklebones at 7:37 PM on February 5 [11 favorites]
Rhyme didn't button because their comment got deleted. Rhyme didn't even button because of the dogshit mod note. Rhyme buttoned after Brandon told them this Metatalk couldn't go up until tomorrow.
What the fuck? Wasn't it literally like a month ago that Brandon and the rest of the mods agreed that they would post stuff from the queue immediately unless there were *significant* other considerations?
posted by adrienneleigh at 7:39 PM on February 5 [11 favorites]
What the fuck? Wasn't it literally like a month ago that Brandon and the rest of the mods agreed that they would post stuff from the queue immediately unless there were *significant* other considerations?
posted by adrienneleigh at 7:39 PM on February 5 [11 favorites]
1. I also don't understand what the "Protip" was saying.
2. "What in the world are you talking about?" would have sufficed to make the point.
3. In-face-up-getting should be actively discouraged.
4. It was a mod blunder to state the issue as swearing rather than hostility.
5. Buttoning because one's MeTa didn't get posted quickly enough is some wack-ass shit.
posted by Lemkin at 7:43 PM on February 5 [18 favorites]
2. "What in the world are you talking about?" would have sufficed to make the point.
3. In-face-up-getting should be actively discouraged.
4. It was a mod blunder to state the issue as swearing rather than hostility.
5. Buttoning because one's MeTa didn't get posted quickly enough is some wack-ass shit.
posted by Lemkin at 7:43 PM on February 5 [18 favorites]
it's not like we had a series of Fucking Fuck threads during the last trump admin or anything
oh wait
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 7:45 PM on February 5 [7 favorites]
oh wait
posted by His thoughts were red thoughts at 7:45 PM on February 5 [7 favorites]
I think buttoning because one's comment was deleted, the reasoning behind it wasn't aligned with any known site guidelines, AND the appeal to the community felt like it had been suppressed, was totally reasonable.
I for one am very, very weary of all the self-censorship I see in so many places on the Internet because people have learned that fuck words get their content buried by the algorithm. We don't do that here and I am definitely not on board to have our mods get paid to fix the glitch.
posted by potrzebie at 7:59 PM on February 5 [22 favorites]
I for one am very, very weary of all the self-censorship I see in so many places on the Internet because people have learned that fuck words get their content buried by the algorithm. We don't do that here and I am definitely not on board to have our mods get paid to fix the glitch.
posted by potrzebie at 7:59 PM on February 5 [22 favorites]
If somebody feels that it's time for them to button then it makes sense for them to do so, no matter what anybody else may think.
I don't think that the comment should have been deleted because it was a completely valid question (I mean, really, just say the fuck what you mean) - let the thing play out, see where it goes, step in when it actually breaks any of the rules; drop a mod comment asking people to cool it, give somebody or a bunch of somebody's a 24 hour break. Further, tone of voice and intent is not always easy with the written word and it's entirely possible that the swearing was more about frustration than about aggression; it's pretty easy to see one for the other since they often go together anyway.
posted by ashbury at 8:19 PM on February 5 [7 favorites]
I don't think that the comment should have been deleted because it was a completely valid question (I mean, really, just say the fuck what you mean) - let the thing play out, see where it goes, step in when it actually breaks any of the rules; drop a mod comment asking people to cool it, give somebody or a bunch of somebody's a 24 hour break. Further, tone of voice and intent is not always easy with the written word and it's entirely possible that the swearing was more about frustration than about aggression; it's pretty easy to see one for the other since they often go together anyway.
posted by ashbury at 8:19 PM on February 5 [7 favorites]
I think buttoning because one's comment was deleted, the reasoning behind it wasn't aligned with any known site guidelines, AND the appeal to the community felt like it had been suppressed, was totally reasonable.
Sure, but keeping at it in-thread, over and over, and eventually reaching "If you're gonna continue to annoy me with these deletions, I'm gonna continue to annoy you" is also just classic flameout nonsense.
(But I see the point a bunch of you are making: had the queue not been invoked, that in-thread nonsense would have been rerouted over here, where it wouldn't have had to have been repeatedly deleted. Maybe it is time to just ditch the queue and see how that goes for a while.)
posted by nobody at 8:21 PM on February 5 [6 favorites]
Sure, but keeping at it in-thread, over and over, and eventually reaching "If you're gonna continue to annoy me with these deletions, I'm gonna continue to annoy you" is also just classic flameout nonsense.
(But I see the point a bunch of you are making: had the queue not been invoked, that in-thread nonsense would have been rerouted over here, where it wouldn't have had to have been repeatedly deleted. Maybe it is time to just ditch the queue and see how that goes for a while.)
posted by nobody at 8:21 PM on February 5 [6 favorites]
(Sorry, I shouldn't have repeated "nonsense" in the parenthetical above. It probably wouldn't have reached nonsense-level had it been brought over here right away.)
posted by nobody at 8:29 PM on February 5 [1 favorite]
posted by nobody at 8:29 PM on February 5 [1 favorite]
There's an evolving MF house style which I would describe as "insidery, terse, condescending, and unhelpful"
Yeah this applies to Thyme's deletion note more than anything.
This whole thing, including this thread, emphasizes the need for the "hide/reveal" instead of "delete" feature so we can all see what was the deleted comment, what was the deletion reason and we can all learn something about the site norms and their evolution or application - and of course push back as needed. As it stands, it is a frustrating black box and it doesn't need to be that way.
Come back soon, rhymedirective.
posted by Rumple at 8:32 PM on February 5 [22 favorites]
Yeah this applies to Thyme's deletion note more than anything.
This whole thing, including this thread, emphasizes the need for the "hide/reveal" instead of "delete" feature so we can all see what was the deleted comment, what was the deletion reason and we can all learn something about the site norms and their evolution or application - and of course push back as needed. As it stands, it is a frustrating black box and it doesn't need to be that way.
Come back soon, rhymedirective.
posted by Rumple at 8:32 PM on February 5 [22 favorites]
Pointing out that members with a complaint about moderation can voice said complaints to an Oversight Committee is not the best way to avoid criticism. Quite the opposite. It is one of the best ways to give members options about their complaints and to be held publicly accountable, which is a good goal to have.
The committee was formed a week ago and has no formal processes, power, or anything yet. Telling people right now to contact the MOC with their complaints gives the illusion of accountability and nothing else.
posted by Diskeater at 8:38 PM on February 5 [29 favorites]
The committee was formed a week ago and has no formal processes, power, or anything yet. Telling people right now to contact the MOC with their complaints gives the illusion of accountability and nothing else.
posted by Diskeater at 8:38 PM on February 5 [29 favorites]
This whole thing, including this thread, emphasizes the need for the "hide/reveal" instead of "delete" feature
Or a moderation log, which has the benefit of moving the material out of a given thread, granting tacit benefit of the doubt to the moderation team while offering transparency for the community. Maybe it ends up getting put back after litigation, but that takes it out of play in the moment so it can't further inflame, give offense, etc.
And I don't think even a community-driven oversight committee should stand in for this fundamental tool for transparency.
posted by A forgotten .plan file at 8:44 PM on February 5 [6 favorites]
Or a moderation log, which has the benefit of moving the material out of a given thread, granting tacit benefit of the doubt to the moderation team while offering transparency for the community. Maybe it ends up getting put back after litigation, but that takes it out of play in the moment so it can't further inflame, give offense, etc.
And I don't think even a community-driven oversight committee should stand in for this fundamental tool for transparency.
posted by A forgotten .plan file at 8:44 PM on February 5 [6 favorites]
hmm
refrain, restrain, regain.
checking the fuq
posted by clavdivs at 8:45 PM on February 5 [7 favorites]
(Scrolling back through the thread, the “Protip:” was directed at the user who then asked “What is this shit?” So this mod decided that you can’t “What is this shit?” someone even after they directly “Protip:” you, which is pretty fucked up as far as I’m concerned.)
Fair, I revise my earlier comment (though as mod decisions go, it's certainly not in the top 10 worst). I'd say the ideal mod intervention would have been no deletions, but just a note of "Hey everyone, we get it's stressful right now, but we need to take the temperature down a notch - anyone who keeps escalating will get a temp ban from this thread." Usually threads that get fighty do so gradually in back and forths, and where the line eventually gets drawn in a deletion - if no official warning is given - will always feel arbitrary to someone. Whereas if an official mod warning comes down, well, then people kinda know they need to be on their best behavior for a bit, and it's on them if they decide to keep fighting regardless.
posted by coffeecat at 9:28 PM on February 5 [13 favorites]
Fair, I revise my earlier comment (though as mod decisions go, it's certainly not in the top 10 worst). I'd say the ideal mod intervention would have been no deletions, but just a note of "Hey everyone, we get it's stressful right now, but we need to take the temperature down a notch - anyone who keeps escalating will get a temp ban from this thread." Usually threads that get fighty do so gradually in back and forths, and where the line eventually gets drawn in a deletion - if no official warning is given - will always feel arbitrary to someone. Whereas if an official mod warning comes down, well, then people kinda know they need to be on their best behavior for a bit, and it's on them if they decide to keep fighting regardless.
posted by coffeecat at 9:28 PM on February 5 [13 favorites]
>>Pointing out that members with a complaint about moderation can voice said complaints to an Oversight Committee is not the best way to avoid criticism. Quite the opposite. It is one of the best ways to give members options about their complaints and to be held publicly accountable, which is a good goal to have.
>The committee was formed a week ago and has no formal processes, power, or anything yet. Telling people right now to contact the MOC with their complaints gives the illusion of accountability and nothing else.
Combined with that, I am noticing a complete lack of actual actionable responses from the mods in these MeTa threads. Any call to action is either ignored or deflected to the Oversight Committee (all hail the committee).
Perhaps the mods could consult to the Democratic Party as experts in gumming up the gears?
posted by coriolisdave at 9:51 PM on February 5 [9 favorites]
>The committee was formed a week ago and has no formal processes, power, or anything yet. Telling people right now to contact the MOC with their complaints gives the illusion of accountability and nothing else.
Combined with that, I am noticing a complete lack of actual actionable responses from the mods in these MeTa threads. Any call to action is either ignored or deflected to the Oversight Committee (all hail the committee).
Perhaps the mods could consult to the Democratic Party as experts in gumming up the gears?
posted by coriolisdave at 9:51 PM on February 5 [9 favorites]
Rhymedirective's comment was not swearing at another user but was pretty agressive, [emphasis added] hence the deletion.
If we're now deleting "pretty aggressive" comments, I expect to see some threads thinned out considerably.
I don't like that kind of comment but capricious and uneven deletions have been a problem here for some time, and one that seems to be getting worse rather than better.
posted by rpfields at 9:55 PM on February 5 [7 favorites]
If we're now deleting "pretty aggressive" comments, I expect to see some threads thinned out considerably.
I don't like that kind of comment but capricious and uneven deletions have been a problem here for some time, and one that seems to be getting worse rather than better.
posted by rpfields at 9:55 PM on February 5 [7 favorites]
As a longtime member of the Cussing Is For Fucking Emphasis Club, I would like to protest this deletion. For fuck’s sake. It’s 2025, the world is on fire and fascists are running rampant and we still have to wake up every goddamn day and exist. This isn’t someone’s YouTube video we are trying to desperately keep from getting demonetized. I refuse to engage in euphemisms on Mefi when a simple fucking shit piss goddamn motherfucker asshole will do.
posted by Mizu at 10:42 PM on February 5 [45 favorites]
posted by Mizu at 10:42 PM on February 5 [45 favorites]
That's a ridiculous deletion and an even more ridiculous deletion reason.
posted by lapis at 10:43 PM on February 5 [14 favorites]
posted by lapis at 10:43 PM on February 5 [14 favorites]
I think buttoning because one's comment was deleted, the reasoning behind it wasn't aligned with any known site guidelines, AND the appeal to the community felt like it had been suppressed, was totally reasonable.
MetaTalk should NOT be a rapid response sub-site. The whole point is to have a cooling off period and time to gather information and reflect.
I feel like I’m saying this a lot lately, but I don’t think we should have the expectation that everything happens right away. What social media site gives you immediate response times from moderators? Facebook couldn’t achieve that with billions of dollars of revenue—how are we to handle it with thousands?
Stuff like this that requires mod engagement has to wait until there are staff resources to address it—and unreasonable expectations are gonna lead to bad outcomes.
When the oversight committee gets going, I wouldn’t expect immediate responses there either. Volunteers need time to figure things out too, and are unpaid. The goal is, again, to slow down and look at something in depth—not to get a faster response by speedrunning through all the available channels of complaint.
Maybe there should be explicit timelines:
1. Flags get reviewed daily, really hourly when a mod is on shift.
2. MetaTalk concerns are addresses in 3-5 days.
3. Oversight concerns can expect an initial response in 1-2 days, but resolutions arrive in a week or two.
These are hypothetical but seem to capture the orders of magnitude. But I think some MeTas could be held for a week or more under the right circumstances—again, waiting for when there’s time and attention to do a good job on them.
posted by anotherpanacea at 10:52 PM on February 5 [16 favorites]
MetaTalk should NOT be a rapid response sub-site. The whole point is to have a cooling off period and time to gather information and reflect.
I feel like I’m saying this a lot lately, but I don’t think we should have the expectation that everything happens right away. What social media site gives you immediate response times from moderators? Facebook couldn’t achieve that with billions of dollars of revenue—how are we to handle it with thousands?
Stuff like this that requires mod engagement has to wait until there are staff resources to address it—and unreasonable expectations are gonna lead to bad outcomes.
When the oversight committee gets going, I wouldn’t expect immediate responses there either. Volunteers need time to figure things out too, and are unpaid. The goal is, again, to slow down and look at something in depth—not to get a faster response by speedrunning through all the available channels of complaint.
Maybe there should be explicit timelines:
1. Flags get reviewed daily, really hourly when a mod is on shift.
2. MetaTalk concerns are addresses in 3-5 days.
3. Oversight concerns can expect an initial response in 1-2 days, but resolutions arrive in a week or two.
These are hypothetical but seem to capture the orders of magnitude. But I think some MeTas could be held for a week or more under the right circumstances—again, waiting for when there’s time and attention to do a good job on them.
posted by anotherpanacea at 10:52 PM on February 5 [16 favorites]
2. MetaTalk concerns are addresses in 3-5 days.
There is no reason for a MetaTalk post to wait 3-5 days to get posted. Take this one as an example. What about this post would require 3-5 days to approve (and as we saw, it got approved within a couple of hours when the poster complained about the mods stating it would go up "tomorrow"). It's a four line post, what requires time here?
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 11:36 PM on February 5 [7 favorites]
There is no reason for a MetaTalk post to wait 3-5 days to get posted. Take this one as an example. What about this post would require 3-5 days to approve (and as we saw, it got approved within a couple of hours when the poster complained about the mods stating it would go up "tomorrow"). It's a four line post, what requires time here?
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 11:36 PM on February 5 [7 favorites]
The oversight committee isn't at all intended to be a rapid response body - the opposite really.
I think the root of this is that people have a number of different ideas about what the grey is for, when a post is made to complain about a moderator decision. I've always considered it a "pressure release" venue - a community with moderation will always have people who consider a moderator decision to be wrong for some reason and we need a place for that discontentment to go. Timely moderator engagement not required or expected. If that's what it's for, then having a queue doesn't make sense. And if that's what it's for then if you make a post about a moderator decision that made you mad and it just languishes in the queue for ages, you're not wrong to take it personally.
But clearly some people think of the grey as, like, a ticketing system for the moderators, where each post is potentially an issue for them to reply to. In which case the queue does make sense because they shouldn't pull issues off the queue if they don't have time to address them.
I guess the question is which view the mods are closer to and whether we as a community agree that's how they ought to approach this subsite.
posted by potrzebie at 11:39 PM on February 5 [4 favorites]
I think the root of this is that people have a number of different ideas about what the grey is for, when a post is made to complain about a moderator decision. I've always considered it a "pressure release" venue - a community with moderation will always have people who consider a moderator decision to be wrong for some reason and we need a place for that discontentment to go. Timely moderator engagement not required or expected. If that's what it's for, then having a queue doesn't make sense. And if that's what it's for then if you make a post about a moderator decision that made you mad and it just languishes in the queue for ages, you're not wrong to take it personally.
But clearly some people think of the grey as, like, a ticketing system for the moderators, where each post is potentially an issue for them to reply to. In which case the queue does make sense because they shouldn't pull issues off the queue if they don't have time to address them.
I guess the question is which view the mods are closer to and whether we as a community agree that's how they ought to approach this subsite.
posted by potrzebie at 11:39 PM on February 5 [4 favorites]
A rule against swearing at other users has been part of the content policy for a while.
As a reminder, a while ago someone on /r/metafiltermeta created a Miro Board of our many, many rules and suggested simplifying it into 4 rules and 4 principles.
Rules:
The following types of content or behavior will not be tolerated:I think one problem is that this rule isn't consistently enforced. People get confused when a comment is flagged and the mods actually delete it for this reason.
...
Name calling: Any kind of name calling and/or cursing directed at others in a conversation. (Pointing out that a statement is inappropriate or otherwise problematic is not name-calling.) In general, cursing is fine on the site, but cursing at someone else is not okay.
As a reminder, a while ago someone on /r/metafiltermeta created a Miro Board of our many, many rules and suggested simplifying it into 4 rules and 4 principles.
Rules:
- No hate speech
- No harassment
- No misuse of another's account
- No spam
- Speak authentically
- Be gracious
- Practice self-awareness & inclusion
- Be respectful of all people and cultures
note: Short answer, swearing is fine on the site, swearing at other members is not is the general rule. Rhymedirective's comment was not swearing at another user but was pretty agressive, hence the deletion.
Protip: delete comments that actually break guidelines and just leave a note if you want to encourage people to be a little nicer.
posted by snofoam at 2:36 AM on February 6 [16 favorites]
Protip: delete comments that actually break guidelines and just leave a note if you want to encourage people to be a little nicer.
posted by snofoam at 2:36 AM on February 6 [16 favorites]
Bopping in to say I added a special tag to a post this morning, and I invite y’all to use it if so moved. Because we can all use a little fucking relief right now.
posted by cupcakeninja at 3:10 AM on February 6 [1 favorite]
posted by cupcakeninja at 3:10 AM on February 6 [1 favorite]
Swearing or being aggressive "at" someone goes like this:
"Fuck you you fucking fuckface, I hope you die in a fire"
and that's a no. That's not what happened here.
Also, this is the second time in two-ish months that a user has buttoned after having a legitimate issue with moderation and having their attempt to discuss it delayed or denied.
posted by donnagirl at 3:13 AM on February 6 [16 favorites]
"Fuck you you fucking fuckface, I hope you die in a fire"
and that's a no. That's not what happened here.
Also, this is the second time in two-ish months that a user has buttoned after having a legitimate issue with moderation and having their attempt to discuss it delayed or denied.
posted by donnagirl at 3:13 AM on February 6 [16 favorites]
The oversight committee isn't at all intended to be a rapid response body - the opposite really.
Definitely emphasizing this. The committee will not be quick on things, and is still forming.
posted by warriorqueen at 3:34 AM on February 6 [7 favorites]
Definitely emphasizing this. The committee will not be quick on things, and is still forming.
posted by warriorqueen at 3:34 AM on February 6 [7 favorites]
The rule is against "cursing directed at others in a conversation". If you quote someone and then curse underneath the quote, you're directing it at them.
The rule was pretty clearly intended at banning cursing at the other mefites in the thread, while allowing you to curse other human beings who aren't around to be offended.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 3:35 AM on February 6 [3 favorites]
The rule was pretty clearly intended at banning cursing at the other mefites in the thread, while allowing you to curse other human beings who aren't around to be offended.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 3:35 AM on February 6 [3 favorites]
If you quote someone and then curse underneath the quote, you're directing it at them.
I'm not so fucking sure about this
posted by donnagirl at 3:43 AM on February 6 [33 favorites]
I'm not so fucking sure about this
posted by donnagirl at 3:43 AM on February 6 [33 favorites]
Can we consider "protip" to be a curse word then?
This whole thing is so silly. Like, are we all not adults? We can't handle somebody saying "what the shit?" to us?
I really think we should only delete comments when they are beyond the pale, and otherwise mod notes seem sufficient. This was definitely overmoderation.
If we could do the hide/reveal with the summary/details tags, that would be even better since everybody could see what was deleted. But mods have said in previous threads that this wasn't practicable.
posted by joannemerriam at 3:46 AM on February 6 [12 favorites]
This whole thing is so silly. Like, are we all not adults? We can't handle somebody saying "what the shit?" to us?
I really think we should only delete comments when they are beyond the pale, and otherwise mod notes seem sufficient. This was definitely overmoderation.
If we could do the hide/reveal with the summary/details tags, that would be even better since everybody could see what was deleted. But mods have said in previous threads that this wasn't practicable.
posted by joannemerriam at 3:46 AM on February 6 [12 favorites]
If you quote someone and then curse underneath the quote, you're directing it at them.
If any part of this were true or part of the moderation strategy here I would have like seven comments on this site instead of the several thousand I do.
posted by phunniemee at 4:37 AM on February 6 [19 favorites]
If any part of this were true or part of the moderation strategy here I would have like seven comments on this site instead of the several thousand I do.
posted by phunniemee at 4:37 AM on February 6 [19 favorites]
It's a four line post, what requires time here?
The moderators’ time, attention, and consultation. Specifically, Brandon held this post until his coworker was back on shift.
If you want professional moderators they need to be able to unplug: take breaks, go on vacation, get sick, have meetings, see their families, have an entire weekend, etc. In particular they need a manageable workload which means they can’t field an infinite amount of whining simultaneously.
As a group, members act like the worst always-on bosses who think employees should be online 24/7 and answer messages within 45 minutes unless they’re in a car crash—this is Elon Musk levels of abuse, and it’s not like we’re building rocket ships here.
posted by anotherpanacea at 4:52 AM on February 6 [16 favorites]
The moderators’ time, attention, and consultation. Specifically, Brandon held this post until his coworker was back on shift.
If you want professional moderators they need to be able to unplug: take breaks, go on vacation, get sick, have meetings, see their families, have an entire weekend, etc. In particular they need a manageable workload which means they can’t field an infinite amount of whining simultaneously.
As a group, members act like the worst always-on bosses who think employees should be online 24/7 and answer messages within 45 minutes unless they’re in a car crash—this is Elon Musk levels of abuse, and it’s not like we’re building rocket ships here.
posted by anotherpanacea at 4:52 AM on February 6 [16 favorites]
I never saw the comment that was deleted and I don't think I was part of this thread, but "protip" is basically the suicide by cop of internet discourse; you're asking the other person to just fuck you up, and whatever happens to you after that is strictly between you and your God.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:55 AM on February 6 [40 favorites]
posted by kittens for breakfast at 4:55 AM on February 6 [40 favorites]
Also, this is the second time in two-ish months that a user has buttoned after having a legitimate issue with moderation and having their attempt to discuss it delayed or denied
Hey, could you please link to the other instance? That way people who aren't aware of it can see what it was.
What about this post would require 3-5 days to approve (and as we saw, it got approved within a couple of hours when the poster complained about the mods stating it would go up "tomorrow"). It's a four line post, what requires time here?
I agree that 3-5 days is too much, but this post was paused because I was busy dealing witih other stuff on the site, this post seemed like a tense situation that could get worse and I wanted to figure out what had gone on. Reached out to Traveling Thyme (TT), who was off shift, so I figured they wouldn't get back to me until the next, hence the public note about the delay, along with an email that was sent to rhymedirective explaining the delay. TT did get back to me, so that's why it went through last night as opposed to today. There was literally a 2 minute span between rhymedirective closing their account and the MeTa post going live.
Yes, some people think there should be no queue, but I think it serves a purpose in preventing or delaying more heated posts getting through. Almost 100% of the submissions go through within an hour or so.
If we could do the hide/reveal with the summary/details tags, that would be even better since everybody could see what was deleted. But mods have said in previous threads that this wasn't practicable.
Was told it would be back for the site to test, am checking now on the status of that, should hear back sometime later today.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 4:59 AM on February 6 [3 favorites]
Hey, could you please link to the other instance? That way people who aren't aware of it can see what it was.
What about this post would require 3-5 days to approve (and as we saw, it got approved within a couple of hours when the poster complained about the mods stating it would go up "tomorrow"). It's a four line post, what requires time here?
I agree that 3-5 days is too much, but this post was paused because I was busy dealing witih other stuff on the site, this post seemed like a tense situation that could get worse and I wanted to figure out what had gone on. Reached out to Traveling Thyme (TT), who was off shift, so I figured they wouldn't get back to me until the next, hence the public note about the delay, along with an email that was sent to rhymedirective explaining the delay. TT did get back to me, so that's why it went through last night as opposed to today. There was literally a 2 minute span between rhymedirective closing their account and the MeTa post going live.
Yes, some people think there should be no queue, but I think it serves a purpose in preventing or delaying more heated posts getting through. Almost 100% of the submissions go through within an hour or so.
If we could do the hide/reveal with the summary/details tags, that would be even better since everybody could see what was deleted. But mods have said in previous threads that this wasn't practicable.
Was told it would be back for the site to test, am checking now on the status of that, should hear back sometime later today.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 4:59 AM on February 6 [3 favorites]
Specifically, Brandon held this post until his coworker was back on shift.
No, I'm pretty sure he didn't. I think he originally wanted to, but he didn't, and it mattered so little that you didn't even notice.
posted by phunniemee at 4:59 AM on February 6 [3 favorites]
No, I'm pretty sure he didn't. I think he originally wanted to, but he didn't, and it mattered so little that you didn't even notice.
posted by phunniemee at 4:59 AM on February 6 [3 favorites]
Yep, travelingthyme did get back to me, so the post went live.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 5:00 AM on February 6 [1 favorite]
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 5:00 AM on February 6 [1 favorite]
Hey, could you please link to the other instance? That way people who aren't aware of it can see what it was.
If donnagirl wasn't referring to Moggies, then Moggies and 3.
posted by phunniemee at 5:00 AM on February 6 [2 favorites]
If donnagirl wasn't referring to Moggies, then Moggies and 3.
posted by phunniemee at 5:00 AM on February 6 [2 favorites]
Looks like rhymedirective's original comment was flagged
My understanding of the flagging system is that it was intended to be a way for a member to register concern about or draw attention to another member’s comment without derailing the discussion. Increasingly, though, we’re seeing comments get nuked because they received a flag. That’s not really moderation. It’s not nuanced or consistent and it doesn’t promote robust discussion. The language used in the deleted post was not actually a problem (thanks to Rhaomi for sharing the result from the MetaFilter search engine: Your query used a very common word or phrase that appears across hundreds of thousands of posts and comments on the site), but it was flagged so it was deleted.
I’m not saying anything new or revolutionary. But there’s a lot of discontent in MetaTalk these days and I think it’s in part because so many components of the moderation have been redefined, secretly and without notice. And when people inquire about these changes, the mod response has been obtuse and unhelpful.
posted by kate blank at 5:02 AM on February 6 [16 favorites]
My understanding of the flagging system is that it was intended to be a way for a member to register concern about or draw attention to another member’s comment without derailing the discussion. Increasingly, though, we’re seeing comments get nuked because they received a flag. That’s not really moderation. It’s not nuanced or consistent and it doesn’t promote robust discussion. The language used in the deleted post was not actually a problem (thanks to Rhaomi for sharing the result from the MetaFilter search engine: Your query used a very common word or phrase that appears across hundreds of thousands of posts and comments on the site), but it was flagged so it was deleted.
I’m not saying anything new or revolutionary. But there’s a lot of discontent in MetaTalk these days and I think it’s in part because so many components of the moderation have been redefined, secretly and without notice. And when people inquire about these changes, the mod response has been obtuse and unhelpful.
posted by kate blank at 5:02 AM on February 6 [16 favorites]
My understanding of the flagging system is that it was intended to be a way for a member to register concern about or draw attention to another member’s comment without derailing the discussion. Increasingly, though, we’re seeing comments get nuked because they received a flag.
Yes, flags do draw the mod's attention (by design) and when we look at them sometimes we do make a decision that comment should be removed. That's how the flagging system is meant to work in terms of drawing mod's attention.
That's it from me for now, back later this evening.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 5:22 AM on February 6 [1 favorite]
Yes, flags do draw the mod's attention (by design) and when we look at them sometimes we do make a decision that comment should be removed. That's how the flagging system is meant to work in terms of drawing mod's attention.
That's it from me for now, back later this evening.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 5:22 AM on February 6 [1 favorite]
In all seriousness, this site feels like it's in a doom loop. The stresses of life before trumpocalypse were leading to either:
i) bad decision by mod/staff to do something = buttoning
ii) bad decision by mod/staff to not do something = buttoning
iii) increasingly fraught and multitracked airing-of-grievances MeTa threads which eventually got heated and something bad said by mod/staff or user between each other = buttoning
Now with trumpocalypse, all of this is amped up.
I would ask for people, if you want this site to survive, to place less emphasis on the bad decisions by ANYONE somehow being an existential crisis, and just walk away for a week. Don't button!. Call it out, and walk away. Come back to this imperfect place.
People are going to make errors - some of which are systematically caused by management structures and some of which are just bad decisions; and some of which might express prejudice!
You don't leave a neighborhood because of dogshit on the kerb which you step in and it ruins your shoes (left by your neighbors), or because one dumb neighbor (or even the neighbor who is head of the HOA!) clips your wing mirror and refuses to pay for it. I would argue that any of the transgressions on this site are less harmful, costly and consequential than those two examples. And yet we want to treat this place as a neighborhood.
If every time a bad decision is made, someone buttons..... this site is doomed.
posted by lalochezia at 5:34 AM on February 6 [21 favorites]
i) bad decision by mod/staff to do something = buttoning
ii) bad decision by mod/staff to not do something = buttoning
iii) increasingly fraught and multitracked airing-of-grievances MeTa threads which eventually got heated and something bad said by mod/staff or user between each other = buttoning
Now with trumpocalypse, all of this is amped up.
I would ask for people, if you want this site to survive, to place less emphasis on the bad decisions by ANYONE somehow being an existential crisis, and just walk away for a week. Don't button!. Call it out, and walk away. Come back to this imperfect place.
People are going to make errors - some of which are systematically caused by management structures and some of which are just bad decisions; and some of which might express prejudice!
You don't leave a neighborhood because of dogshit on the kerb which you step in and it ruins your shoes (left by your neighbors), or because one dumb neighbor (or even the neighbor who is head of the HOA!) clips your wing mirror and refuses to pay for it. I would argue that any of the transgressions on this site are less harmful, costly and consequential than those two examples. And yet we want to treat this place as a neighborhood.
If every time a bad decision is made, someone buttons..... this site is doomed.
posted by lalochezia at 5:34 AM on February 6 [21 favorites]
this post was paused because I was busy dealing witih other stuff on the site
Clearly the mod staff are too busy to manage a Metatalk queue. Luckily, it should be easy to turn off the queueing and just let posts go up as they are submitted.
posted by snofoam at 6:05 AM on February 6 [8 favorites]
Clearly the mod staff are too busy to manage a Metatalk queue. Luckily, it should be easy to turn off the queueing and just let posts go up as they are submitted.
posted by snofoam at 6:05 AM on February 6 [8 favorites]
imo it's not so much "oh this one bad action from the mods moves me from being a content user to requesting a content wipe," it's that years of bad actions from the mods have moved people closer and closer to the point where an individual user finally decides that further engagement with the sight costs more sanity and causes more grief than just burning their account down.
from a distance, since none of us can directly experience what other users are going through, it might look like "user X buttoned because X didn't happen" but it reality it's more likely to be years of buildup until the straw breaks the camel's back.
users have no options other than buttoning, complaining, and pulling financial support, so that's what we see.
posted by glonous keming at 6:13 AM on February 6 [8 favorites]
from a distance, since none of us can directly experience what other users are going through, it might look like "user X buttoned because X didn't happen" but it reality it's more likely to be years of buildup until the straw breaks the camel's back.
users have no options other than buttoning, complaining, and pulling financial support, so that's what we see.
posted by glonous keming at 6:13 AM on February 6 [8 favorites]
Come back to this imperfect place.
Nah, people can button if they want. Metafilter's days as a "community" are long gone (probably with cortex's departure, I'd say) and we should admit it. In the grand scheme of things, this website isn't that important. If someone wants to leave and be done with it, that's their right. This earnest appeal to Feelings and Put Aside Your Grievance For The Sake Of Humanity every time there's an issue here is getting pretty tedious, imho.
Anyway. This deletion was stupid, the fact that attracting new users is being prioritised over retaining older users is also stupid, paid moderators punting the ball to the unpaid oversight committee in order to avoid consequences is deeply stupid. I'm pretty sure nobody backed the idea of the oversight committee just to give moderators an easy out on doing their job. "If you've got a problem, go complain to the committee" is not a resolution.
posted by fight or flight at 6:19 AM on February 6 [12 favorites]
Nah, people can button if they want. Metafilter's days as a "community" are long gone (probably with cortex's departure, I'd say) and we should admit it. In the grand scheme of things, this website isn't that important. If someone wants to leave and be done with it, that's their right. This earnest appeal to Feelings and Put Aside Your Grievance For The Sake Of Humanity every time there's an issue here is getting pretty tedious, imho.
Anyway. This deletion was stupid, the fact that attracting new users is being prioritised over retaining older users is also stupid, paid moderators punting the ball to the unpaid oversight committee in order to avoid consequences is deeply stupid. I'm pretty sure nobody backed the idea of the oversight committee just to give moderators an easy out on doing their job. "If you've got a problem, go complain to the committee" is not a resolution.
posted by fight or flight at 6:19 AM on February 6 [12 favorites]
I would like to strongly encourage moderators to move in the direction of leaving more notes and deleting fewer comments.
posted by a faded photo of their beloved at 6:24 AM on February 6 [25 favorites]
posted by a faded photo of their beloved at 6:24 AM on February 6 [25 favorites]
If someone replied to one of your [you reading this] comments with “What the fuck are you on about?”, I’m pretty sure you would interpret it as hostility rather than frustration. Part of “We’re all adults here” is you don’t get to throw things just because you’re cranky.
If the deletion reason had been stated as “One comment removed. Please direct your comments towards the issue rather than other members”, I doubt we would be here.
posted by Lemkin at 6:25 AM on February 6 [14 favorites]
If the deletion reason had been stated as “One comment removed. Please direct your comments towards the issue rather than other members”, I doubt we would be here.
posted by Lemkin at 6:25 AM on February 6 [14 favorites]
the fact that attracting new users is being prioritised over retaining older users is also stupid
As someone who has advocated for doing both, I'm not sure I understand that as a fact. Would you be willing to unpack that a bit?
posted by warriorqueen at 6:44 AM on February 6 [3 favorites]
As someone who has advocated for doing both, I'm not sure I understand that as a fact. Would you be willing to unpack that a bit?
posted by warriorqueen at 6:44 AM on February 6 [3 favorites]
If someone replied to one of your [you reading this] comments with “What the fuck are you on about?”
As I have done literally dozens of times here, I would respond some version of "what I'm trying to fucking say is ___" and re-explain myself, because we're all adults here and I can read the content of a sentence without having a meltdown over a word that would have got me a demerit in middle school.
posted by phunniemee at 6:44 AM on February 6 [24 favorites]
As I have done literally dozens of times here, I would respond some version of "what I'm trying to fucking say is ___" and re-explain myself, because we're all adults here and I can read the content of a sentence without having a meltdown over a word that would have got me a demerit in middle school.
posted by phunniemee at 6:44 AM on February 6 [24 favorites]
I haven't always loved every moderation choice, but I have to second the motion that users temper their fucking expectations. There is no bottleneck on the number of front page posts or comments; if some hot button subject happens in real time, there could be a flurry of comments happening in rapid succession, while at the same time there are also dozens of conversations simultaneously happening all over the site that the hot button people are paying no attention to, but that moderators do have to pay attention to. Ask me how I know what it's like when there are no guardrails on the number of people participating in a thing, no way of knowing from one second to the next if there's going to be a riot.
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:51 AM on February 6 [7 favorites]
posted by kittens for breakfast at 6:51 AM on February 6 [7 favorites]
I have noticed rather mild comments of mine disappearing without any comment. I assume it is reflexive moderation of anything that gets flagged by anyone. This encouragement of the hecklers’ veto further increases the reverberations in the echo chamber. In my opinion.
posted by Gilgamesh's Chauffeur at 6:52 AM on February 6 [10 favorites]
posted by Gilgamesh's Chauffeur at 6:52 AM on February 6 [10 favorites]
Metafilter's days as a "community" are long gone
wtf. speak for yourself. So tired of hearing about how Metafilter is dead or dying, when I still love this place and visit multiple times per day. In fact, I'm sure many people in this thread visit as much or more than I do. Have you been to the GSD irl thread? That's the best of the fucking web right there.
Times are so, so ugly. People make decisions other people don't like. It does not make those people evil, or evil-intentioned, or conspiring... or I'm not even sure what. I'm pretty sure nobody here wants Brandon's job so sure, let him know when you think he's made a bad call. But does it make people feel better to insult him and insult his intelligence?
Some people in this thread agree with, or at least understand, that the comment in question seemed to be very hostile and specifically directly toward another member. It doesn't have anything to do with the word "fuck" or the word "shit". And since some people agree with his decision, then it isn't "wrong", it is simply open for discussion.
Folks here who are so sure they would make a better decision in the moment every single time, please submit an application. Everyone who has never made a mistake at their job, raise your hand? Otherwise, try to see things from the other side. Nobody is going to agree on every decision. Yes, bring up your concerns - sometimes they are very serious concerns. But why do people have to be so ugly and accusatory - honestly, it feels like some people are trying to score points with each other. Do you really think Brandon is a horrible, mean person? Do you think he just doesn't give a shit? Seriously?
posted by Glinn at 6:59 AM on February 6 [33 favorites]
wtf. speak for yourself. So tired of hearing about how Metafilter is dead or dying, when I still love this place and visit multiple times per day. In fact, I'm sure many people in this thread visit as much or more than I do. Have you been to the GSD irl thread? That's the best of the fucking web right there.
Times are so, so ugly. People make decisions other people don't like. It does not make those people evil, or evil-intentioned, or conspiring... or I'm not even sure what. I'm pretty sure nobody here wants Brandon's job so sure, let him know when you think he's made a bad call. But does it make people feel better to insult him and insult his intelligence?
Some people in this thread agree with, or at least understand, that the comment in question seemed to be very hostile and specifically directly toward another member. It doesn't have anything to do with the word "fuck" or the word "shit". And since some people agree with his decision, then it isn't "wrong", it is simply open for discussion.
Folks here who are so sure they would make a better decision in the moment every single time, please submit an application. Everyone who has never made a mistake at their job, raise your hand? Otherwise, try to see things from the other side. Nobody is going to agree on every decision. Yes, bring up your concerns - sometimes they are very serious concerns. But why do people have to be so ugly and accusatory - honestly, it feels like some people are trying to score points with each other. Do you really think Brandon is a horrible, mean person? Do you think he just doesn't give a shit? Seriously?
posted by Glinn at 6:59 AM on February 6 [33 favorites]
I can read the content of a sentence without having a meltdown over a word that would have got me a demerit in middle school
The issue isn’t whether anyone in particular can deal with a show of hostility. The issue is whether MetaFilter will be a place where hostility between users is acceptable.
If it will be, I don’t see that helping user retention/acquisition either.
posted by Lemkin at 7:10 AM on February 6 [5 favorites]
The issue isn’t whether anyone in particular can deal with a show of hostility. The issue is whether MetaFilter will be a place where hostility between users is acceptable.
If it will be, I don’t see that helping user retention/acquisition either.
posted by Lemkin at 7:10 AM on February 6 [5 favorites]
The issue is whether MetaFilter will be a place where hostility between users is acceptable.
Dude I know you're some BND after being gone for a dozen years, but lol
posted by phunniemee at 7:12 AM on February 6 [19 favorites]
Dude I know you're some BND after being gone for a dozen years, but lol
posted by phunniemee at 7:12 AM on February 6 [19 favorites]
I do not understand what that means.
posted by Lemkin at 7:15 AM on February 6 [2 favorites]
posted by Lemkin at 7:15 AM on February 6 [2 favorites]
Rhymedirective's comment was not swearing at another user but was pretty agressive, hence the deletion.
So, why wasn't that the reason for deletion in the mod note?
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 7:16 AM on February 6 [6 favorites]
So, why wasn't that the reason for deletion in the mod note?
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 7:16 AM on February 6 [6 favorites]
increasingly, though, we’re seeing comments get nuked because they received a flag.
I think I need to send my flagging button back to the factory for servicing.
posted by A forgotten .plan file at 7:20 AM on February 6 [4 favorites]
I think I need to send my flagging button back to the factory for servicing.
posted by A forgotten .plan file at 7:20 AM on February 6 [4 favorites]
I do not understand what that means
Metafilter has always been a place where users have been hostile to each other. It's also a place where people have been exceptionally kind. And smart. And incisive. Deeply funny, thought provoking, rude, generous, thoroughly interesting, and human. People have historically behaved every kind of way on Metafilter and learned and grown because of it, not despite it. The breadth of experience and interaction here is what has made Metafilter a community.
So much of the late moderation has sought to neuter that, and this place is suffering for it. It's depressing as hell to watch. Are we a community that knows each other as a group of very human people, or not?
posted by phunniemee at 7:25 AM on February 6 [30 favorites]
Metafilter has always been a place where users have been hostile to each other. It's also a place where people have been exceptionally kind. And smart. And incisive. Deeply funny, thought provoking, rude, generous, thoroughly interesting, and human. People have historically behaved every kind of way on Metafilter and learned and grown because of it, not despite it. The breadth of experience and interaction here is what has made Metafilter a community.
So much of the late moderation has sought to neuter that, and this place is suffering for it. It's depressing as hell to watch. Are we a community that knows each other as a group of very human people, or not?
posted by phunniemee at 7:25 AM on February 6 [30 favorites]
Joakim Ziegler: I didn't read that as it taking 3-5 days to post a MeTa, when read in the context of anotherpanacea's entire comment. I read it as "if an issue like this is brought up in a MeTa, it will not be resolved in that MeTa; rather, it will be taken with the comments in the MeTa and thought through, and action will be recommended after discussion".
I could be wrong, but that was how I interpreted it.
posted by pdb at 7:55 AM on February 6 [1 favorite]
I could be wrong, but that was how I interpreted it.
posted by pdb at 7:55 AM on February 6 [1 favorite]
I have noticed rather mild comments of mine disappearing without any comment.
It could just be that they are off topic. I do see a lot more deletions in Ask now when people stray from the original question. It is easy to get caught up in the conversation when reading the comments and having that pang of "I must correct that erroneous fact!". I accept that I do it, find it annoying when others do it, and understand that kind of deletion is not a slap but more like a nudge to keep things focused on helping the OP with their question.
posted by soelo at 7:56 AM on February 6 [1 favorite]
It could just be that they are off topic. I do see a lot more deletions in Ask now when people stray from the original question. It is easy to get caught up in the conversation when reading the comments and having that pang of "I must correct that erroneous fact!". I accept that I do it, find it annoying when others do it, and understand that kind of deletion is not a slap but more like a nudge to keep things focused on helping the OP with their question.
posted by soelo at 7:56 AM on February 6 [1 favorite]
On the other hand, I recently had a comment deleted in ask for absolutely bullshit reasons yet again another failure to read for context. My comment was something like "I get all my Canadian news from Kitteh" and that got deleted as an off topic joke (??????).
Actually borderline offensive to me. Acting like the work that Kitteh and other mefites do that is literally creating the quality content on this website is some kind of... joke? It cheapens their efforts and is frankly disrespectful.
posted by phunniemee at 8:01 AM on February 6 [15 favorites]
Actually borderline offensive to me. Acting like the work that Kitteh and other mefites do that is literally creating the quality content on this website is some kind of... joke? It cheapens their efforts and is frankly disrespectful.
posted by phunniemee at 8:01 AM on February 6 [15 favorites]
Acting like the work that Kitteh and other mefites do that is literally creating the quality content on this website is some kind of... joke?
Even if we posit that the Asker would have been well served by that answer, it is not reasonable to expect the mods to know each individual user’s typical contributions with that level of detail.
posted by Lemkin at 8:11 AM on February 6 [5 favorites]
Even if we posit that the Asker would have been well served by that answer, it is not reasonable to expect the mods to know each individual user’s typical contributions with that level of detail.
posted by Lemkin at 8:11 AM on February 6 [5 favorites]
I recently deleted (not de-activated) my FB account for many reasons, but wanting to be able to talk to people about links and share links and talk about different things we all read is part of why I decided to officially join MeFi. It seemed nice to have some level of self-selected people who actually want to talk deeply about things, smarter and more thoughtful and more insightful than the FB bots, trolls and random town MAGA drunks that can't even spell "constitution", etc.
One of the reasons I bailed on FB was because moderation was so absolutely uneven. You could have one person saying incredibly frightening or violent things, but they said it obliquely or using dogwhistles, and then your response to them that included profanity or something would be deleted on the basis of profanity while their oblique threat or harassment or whatever stood. My responses to absolutely terrifying fascists in my community - individual people who I see at school board meetings - who were almost gleeful about trans kids and immigrant kids being harmed in someone being consistently deleted, and FB making it clear that was likely to get even more common, was the end of the line for me.
I'm not saying the "pro-tip" comment was oblique harassment or similar to the threatening comments I referenced above, or anything like that. BUT, it does seem like a massive overreaction to have deleted the comment at that stage in the situation. From reading this MeTa post I agree with people who seem to be indicating that something like a "hey cool off" mod note would have been the more appropriate first step.
posted by fennario at 8:17 AM on February 6 [4 favorites]
One of the reasons I bailed on FB was because moderation was so absolutely uneven. You could have one person saying incredibly frightening or violent things, but they said it obliquely or using dogwhistles, and then your response to them that included profanity or something would be deleted on the basis of profanity while their oblique threat or harassment or whatever stood. My responses to absolutely terrifying fascists in my community - individual people who I see at school board meetings - who were almost gleeful about trans kids and immigrant kids being harmed in someone being consistently deleted, and FB making it clear that was likely to get even more common, was the end of the line for me.
I'm not saying the "pro-tip" comment was oblique harassment or similar to the threatening comments I referenced above, or anything like that. BUT, it does seem like a massive overreaction to have deleted the comment at that stage in the situation. From reading this MeTa post I agree with people who seem to be indicating that something like a "hey cool off" mod note would have been the more appropriate first step.
posted by fennario at 8:17 AM on February 6 [4 favorites]
then let me posit that the response for lacking context and comprehension of a comment is to not to fucking delete it
posted by glonous keming at 8:18 AM on February 6 [18 favorites]
posted by glonous keming at 8:18 AM on February 6 [18 favorites]
>The issue is whether MetaFilter will be a place where hostility between users is acceptable.
>If it will be, I don’t see that helping user retention/acquisition either.
Agreed to a point, but if it will be a place where we are tone policed to death and restricted to the use of church-appropriate language and the appearance of being nice at all times, that will not help retention either. There has to be a balanced in-between. At least for me personally.
posted by fennario at 8:24 AM on February 6 [5 favorites]
>If it will be, I don’t see that helping user retention/acquisition either.
Agreed to a point, but if it will be a place where we are tone policed to death and restricted to the use of church-appropriate language and the appearance of being nice at all times, that will not help retention either. There has to be a balanced in-between. At least for me personally.
posted by fennario at 8:24 AM on February 6 [5 favorites]
I didn't read that as it taking 3-5 days to post a MeTa, when read in the context of anotherpanacea's entire comment. I read it as "if an issue like this is brought up in a MeTa, it will not be resolved in that MeTa; rather, it will be taken with the comments in the MeTa and thought through, and action will be recommended after discussion".
I could be wrong, but that was how I interpreted it.
This is very charitable, and in any case the exact dates were pretty speculative! But I was actually thinking something like this:
Say there’s a complaint about a deletion by mod X that arrives in the queue on Friday night. Mod X has worked five days in a row and is due two days of weekend. Mod Y looks at the complaint and thinks “I don’t fully understand the context here! I need to ask Mod X about it. Plus I want Mod X to be able to respond during the discussion! Mod X comes back Monday afternoon so we’ll hold the post until then.”
That gets you 3 days. Then maybe Mod X is going on a well-deserved vacation, or has a sick kid at home, or some other part of the site blows up Monday morning, so maybe it’s a couple of more days. That happens often enough that you set the likely delay to 3-5 days.
I should say that a lot of MeTas don’t require moderators to participate! I think it should be a lot more. But the idea that Mod X should work overtime during their weekend, sick kid handling, or vacation so that they can get attacked on MeTa strikes me as really shabby. It’s a recipe for burnout.
posted by anotherpanacea at 8:25 AM on February 6 [4 favorites]
I could be wrong, but that was how I interpreted it.
This is very charitable, and in any case the exact dates were pretty speculative! But I was actually thinking something like this:
Say there’s a complaint about a deletion by mod X that arrives in the queue on Friday night. Mod X has worked five days in a row and is due two days of weekend. Mod Y looks at the complaint and thinks “I don’t fully understand the context here! I need to ask Mod X about it. Plus I want Mod X to be able to respond during the discussion! Mod X comes back Monday afternoon so we’ll hold the post until then.”
That gets you 3 days. Then maybe Mod X is going on a well-deserved vacation, or has a sick kid at home, or some other part of the site blows up Monday morning, so maybe it’s a couple of more days. That happens often enough that you set the likely delay to 3-5 days.
I should say that a lot of MeTas don’t require moderators to participate! I think it should be a lot more. But the idea that Mod X should work overtime during their weekend, sick kid handling, or vacation so that they can get attacked on MeTa strikes me as really shabby. It’s a recipe for burnout.
posted by anotherpanacea at 8:25 AM on February 6 [4 favorites]
this is Elon Musk levels of abuse
Okay but someone literally said this and no one has asked what the shit yet so maybe we still are a community
posted by B_Ghost_User at 8:35 AM on February 6 [4 favorites]
Okay but someone literally said this and no one has asked what the shit yet so maybe we still are a community
posted by B_Ghost_User at 8:35 AM on February 6 [4 favorites]
I was being a little hyperbolic, but context is that which is scarce: SpaceX workers reportedly took Adderall and IV fluids, and some slept in the bathroom, to keep up with Elon Musk's deadlines
Elon Musk says Tesla workers will be sleeping on the factory floor when new $25,000 EV goes into production next year
posted by anotherpanacea at 8:55 AM on February 6
Elon Musk says Tesla workers will be sleeping on the factory floor when new $25,000 EV goes into production next year
posted by anotherpanacea at 8:55 AM on February 6
it is not reasonable to expect the mods to know each individual user’s typical contributions with that level of detail.
Yes, it is reasonable actually. It wasn't a blind hand wave to another username. I specifically linked to Kitteh's FPP history, where even the most cursory and disengaged scroll would reveal dozens and dozens of posts that are very clearly and obviously about Canada. If the paid staff of a text based website can't see or understand this in the single required click and the sum of truly a few seconds of scrolling, then they should not be employed to moderate a text based website.
posted by phunniemee at 9:14 AM on February 6 [19 favorites]
Yes, it is reasonable actually. It wasn't a blind hand wave to another username. I specifically linked to Kitteh's FPP history, where even the most cursory and disengaged scroll would reveal dozens and dozens of posts that are very clearly and obviously about Canada. If the paid staff of a text based website can't see or understand this in the single required click and the sum of truly a few seconds of scrolling, then they should not be employed to moderate a text based website.
posted by phunniemee at 9:14 AM on February 6 [19 favorites]
One mod having to ask another mod for context on a deletion seems like a tooling failure. The deletion should have notes made on it for the other mods to read and understand. There's not that many deletions made per day, so writing each one up with 4 sentences of context seems like a reasonable ask. (and of course this should also be available to regular users, in a moderation log)
posted by bowbeacon at 9:25 AM on February 6 [12 favorites]
posted by bowbeacon at 9:25 AM on February 6 [12 favorites]
It doesn't seem reasonable to expect them to just know or something, but yeah it does seem reasonable to expect them to click on a link in the comment to see if it has relevant content before deciding something is a joke.
Maybe only a superficial glance through the link, sure, I wouldn't expect a forensic review.
But as someone who doesn't know kitteh at all, I just looked up the profile and took a 5 second superficial glance and saw that there are obviously a lot of factual, non-jokey, detail oriented posts on the relevant subject. It seems fair to use at least a superficial review of the contents of a link before deciding the comment that included the link was a jokey non-answer.
posted by fennario at 9:27 AM on February 6 [5 favorites]
Maybe only a superficial glance through the link, sure, I wouldn't expect a forensic review.
But as someone who doesn't know kitteh at all, I just looked up the profile and took a 5 second superficial glance and saw that there are obviously a lot of factual, non-jokey, detail oriented posts on the relevant subject. It seems fair to use at least a superficial review of the contents of a link before deciding the comment that included the link was a jokey non-answer.
posted by fennario at 9:27 AM on February 6 [5 favorites]
This just really highlights the total leadership vacuum around here. There's no one who can define a meaningful standard for this or act as recourse for disagreements. No one to be a voice of reason when the impulse to hit delete was felt. We only have people doing things and looking to cover their asses in so doing. I hate to be so negative lately but this kind of stuff is just so willfully bad that I don't even understand it. You simply can't read the moderator input here and go away with the impression that the people moderating this site actually want to be doing it. Just about every action is soaked in avoidance and minimization.
posted by feloniousmonk at 9:27 AM on February 6 [13 favorites]
posted by feloniousmonk at 9:27 AM on February 6 [13 favorites]
Something about frantically grasping at straws like well diggers in a cavein slathered over and under with not with a bang but a whimper ranch dressing...
posted by y2karl at 9:31 AM on February 6 [4 favorites]
posted by y2karl at 9:31 AM on February 6 [4 favorites]
People are going to make errors - some of which are systematically caused by management structures and some of which are just bad decisions; and some of which might express prejudice!
And that is fine or at least workable IF it is paired with routine-as-in-daily reversal of terrible moderation decisions. Which this was.
What should have happened is that the moment a second moderator logged on and saw a message OR MetaTalk thread regarding a deletion*, they should have looked into it and then reached out to travelingthyme and said “I disagree with this decision, I can restore the comment or you can” and then the deletion actually reversed.
Yes, the mods are going to make mistakes. They are human, and there is a shit-ton of Metafilter to review and manage. That’s okay! Mistakes are okay! Provided those mistakes and being human are paired with consistent, open admission and correcting of the mistake. Not acknowledging mistakes, not following through on correcting them, is definitionally abuse. It is an abusive pattern of behavior of the sort employed by people who are either habitually abusive or have - through a mixture of completely understandable exhaustion and expediency - accidentally slipped into a pattern of casual abuse. It should have been halted literal decades / a thousand buttonings ago.
And since I feel certain someone is otherwise going to call it out: the reason I did not apply to the moderator oversight committee is that as someone who grew up under daily physically violent abuse and who will never fully divest himself of that inheritance, I should not be in a position where I could potentially pass it further. Especially not to an entire community via proxy.
*We should have a formal channel for contesting deletions, as well as a log or comment hiding system so that deletions that are not flagrant, beyond-the-pale overt hate speech can be seen by non-moderators if they really care to.
posted by Ryvar at 9:31 AM on February 6 [8 favorites]
And that is fine or at least workable IF it is paired with routine-as-in-daily reversal of terrible moderation decisions. Which this was.
What should have happened is that the moment a second moderator logged on and saw a message OR MetaTalk thread regarding a deletion*, they should have looked into it and then reached out to travelingthyme and said “I disagree with this decision, I can restore the comment or you can” and then the deletion actually reversed.
Yes, the mods are going to make mistakes. They are human, and there is a shit-ton of Metafilter to review and manage. That’s okay! Mistakes are okay! Provided those mistakes and being human are paired with consistent, open admission and correcting of the mistake. Not acknowledging mistakes, not following through on correcting them, is definitionally abuse. It is an abusive pattern of behavior of the sort employed by people who are either habitually abusive or have - through a mixture of completely understandable exhaustion and expediency - accidentally slipped into a pattern of casual abuse. It should have been halted literal decades / a thousand buttonings ago.
And since I feel certain someone is otherwise going to call it out: the reason I did not apply to the moderator oversight committee is that as someone who grew up under daily physically violent abuse and who will never fully divest himself of that inheritance, I should not be in a position where I could potentially pass it further. Especially not to an entire community via proxy.
*We should have a formal channel for contesting deletions, as well as a log or comment hiding system so that deletions that are not flagrant, beyond-the-pale overt hate speech can be seen by non-moderators if they really care to.
posted by Ryvar at 9:31 AM on February 6 [8 favorites]
I don’t think we should have the expectation that everything happens right away. What social media site gives you immediate response times from moderators?
It's just difficult, because it once was here. And I get that it's because the mods used to be very engaged and very online and it wasn't just a job. But also, I don't think it's fair to act like people are crazy for expecting something they used to have.
...like, you know, democracy in America. *sobs brokenly*
posted by corb at 9:32 AM on February 6 [8 favorites]
It's just difficult, because it once was here. And I get that it's because the mods used to be very engaged and very online and it wasn't just a job. But also, I don't think it's fair to act like people are crazy for expecting something they used to have.
...like, you know, democracy in America. *sobs brokenly*
posted by corb at 9:32 AM on February 6 [8 favorites]
I would like to strongly encourage moderators to move in the direction of leaving more notes and deleting fewer comments.
If there is one takeaway, I hope this is it. When people are getting fighty in a thread, it's very rarely one person's fault. Deletions don't erase the fight - it already happened. I'd rather mods get into the habit more of just stepping in and saying "Hey, the temperature needs to get taken down, if people continue to be reactive or escalate there will be deletions or temp bans from the thread."
Metafilter has always been a place where users have been hostile to each other.
You've been here longer than me, but I've noticed a trend of increasing reactive anger - whether directed at other users, ideas, the world, etc. I joined Metafilter after lurking for several years because I saw people often getting into disagreements - sometimes with hostility - in multiple paragraph length exchanges. I learned a lot from reading those exchanges, and was impressed how much they differed than say something you'd find on Twitter or Reddit where people engage more to score points rather than to think through their own ideas. So, it might be useful to distinguish hostility that's delivered in a form of a one-liner barb, vs. one that is based on clearly articulated ideological disagreement of some sort. I agree with you that a lot of mod decisions of late have aimed to neuter what attracted me to join - i.e. the liveliness of the site, in part because users would often vehemently disagree with each other. The goal shouldn't be preventing conflict, and too many mod deletions seem to be about sweeping conflict under the rug. But I don't think anyone benefits from allowing users to just vent anger unproductively - and that's also seems to be a problem lately, no doubt in part given all the fucked up shit going on across the world.
posted by coffeecat at 9:32 AM on February 6 [10 favorites]
If there is one takeaway, I hope this is it. When people are getting fighty in a thread, it's very rarely one person's fault. Deletions don't erase the fight - it already happened. I'd rather mods get into the habit more of just stepping in and saying "Hey, the temperature needs to get taken down, if people continue to be reactive or escalate there will be deletions or temp bans from the thread."
Metafilter has always been a place where users have been hostile to each other.
You've been here longer than me, but I've noticed a trend of increasing reactive anger - whether directed at other users, ideas, the world, etc. I joined Metafilter after lurking for several years because I saw people often getting into disagreements - sometimes with hostility - in multiple paragraph length exchanges. I learned a lot from reading those exchanges, and was impressed how much they differed than say something you'd find on Twitter or Reddit where people engage more to score points rather than to think through their own ideas. So, it might be useful to distinguish hostility that's delivered in a form of a one-liner barb, vs. one that is based on clearly articulated ideological disagreement of some sort. I agree with you that a lot of mod decisions of late have aimed to neuter what attracted me to join - i.e. the liveliness of the site, in part because users would often vehemently disagree with each other. The goal shouldn't be preventing conflict, and too many mod deletions seem to be about sweeping conflict under the rug. But I don't think anyone benefits from allowing users to just vent anger unproductively - and that's also seems to be a problem lately, no doubt in part given all the fucked up shit going on across the world.
posted by coffeecat at 9:32 AM on February 6 [10 favorites]
*We should have a formal channel for contesting deletions, as well as a log or comment hiding system so that deletions that are not flagrant, beyond-the-pale overt hate speech can be seen by non-moderators if they really care to.
This concept has merit.
posted by y2karl at 9:33 AM on February 6 [4 favorites]
This concept has merit.
posted by y2karl at 9:33 AM on February 6 [4 favorites]
Yes, it is reasonable actually. It wasn't a blind hand wave to another username. I specifically linked to Kitteh's FPP history, where even the most cursory and disengaged scroll would reveal dozens and dozens of posts that are very clearly and obviously about Canada.
As a devoted scholar of your body of work and appreciator of many of your takes, that link might not have offered the clarifying benefit you think it did. Sometimes sussing out what is a sincere observation from what is snarling sarcasm is hard with you.
posted by A forgotten .plan file at 9:39 AM on February 6 [11 favorites]
As a devoted scholar of your body of work and appreciator of many of your takes, that link might not have offered the clarifying benefit you think it did. Sometimes sussing out what is a sincere observation from what is snarling sarcasm is hard with you.
posted by A forgotten .plan file at 9:39 AM on February 6 [11 favorites]
I stand next to Spartacus in a brave show of solidarity and I, too, say what is this shit?
I'm Whatisthisshitacus!
posted by kirkaracha (staff) at 9:41 AM on February 6 [11 favorites]
I'm Whatisthisshitacus!
posted by kirkaracha (staff) at 9:41 AM on February 6 [11 favorites]
Rhaomi:
An alternative is the mods taking fewer, more thoughtful actions. If mods were willing to leave guiding comments, and were willing to justify their actions in a way that made it clear they understood the context of the comments they were acting on, I think there would likely be less grousing (though certainly not none).
I'd also argue its absolutely essential that you identify yourself as a MeFi board member when opining about how the site or its moderation operate.
posted by grandsham at 9:45 AM on February 6 [5 favorites]
Isn't curbing "intemperate" interactions between members one of the main points of moderation?I think this taking a pretty extreme view of "moderation", and it still seems to center deletion as the only tool in the mod toolbox.
I agree with coffeecat that the profanity itself isn't the issue -- you see harsher language all the time re: current events. But directly calling another member's comment "shit" (with a side of f-bomb) comes off as needlessly aggro. There's enough prickly hostility in the world already, do we really want more of that energy here?
An alternative is the mods taking fewer, more thoughtful actions. If mods were willing to leave guiding comments, and were willing to justify their actions in a way that made it clear they understood the context of the comments they were acting on, I think there would likely be less grousing (though certainly not none).
I'd also argue its absolutely essential that you identify yourself as a MeFi board member when opining about how the site or its moderation operate.
posted by grandsham at 9:45 AM on February 6 [5 favorites]
moderate [ verb mod-uh-reyt ]
to reduce the excessiveness of; make less violent, severe, intense, or rigorous:posted by kirkaracha (staff) at 9:51 AM on February 6 [4 favorites]
to moderate the sharpness of one's words.
It's strange to see this happening now, of all times, when my personal impression of MetaFilter is that it's more fighty than at any point in my 24 years here.
Yes, specific, prolific users play a large part in that. But on the whole, it feels like a more aggressive space.
I don't think removing swearing is the way to quell that, however.
posted by yellowcandy at 9:55 AM on February 6 [5 favorites]
Yes, specific, prolific users play a large part in that. But on the whole, it feels like a more aggressive space.
I don't think removing swearing is the way to quell that, however.
posted by yellowcandy at 9:55 AM on February 6 [5 favorites]
I rarely comment because I don't want to be deleted or yelled at by somebody smarter than me
But isn't saying "protip" just some absolute rude ass fucking garbage
posted by SystematicAbuse at 10:08 AM on February 6 [30 favorites]
But isn't saying "protip" just some absolute rude ass fucking garbage
posted by SystematicAbuse at 10:08 AM on February 6 [30 favorites]
Metafilter's days as a "community" are long gone
wtf. speak for yourself. So tired of hearing about how Metafilter is dead or dying, when I still love this place and visit multiple times per day.
thank you.
and I gotta say, the one thing that inspires me to tell another user to FUCK OFF to their face is when they present their personal despair for the future of the community as FACT. It's not that I feel they're lying or seeking to deceive. I suspect they're being very honest. But sometimes, in a crisis, we panic, we give in to complex inner darkness and start acting in a way that feeds that beast and threatens everyone around us. Sometimes, we're crying out for a slap in the face.
But ... I don't say fuck off. I bite my tongue, I take a deep breath and then I say something like, whoah there, I think you're having a Denethor moment.
posted by philip-random at 10:16 AM on February 6 [17 favorites]
wtf. speak for yourself. So tired of hearing about how Metafilter is dead or dying, when I still love this place and visit multiple times per day.
thank you.
and I gotta say, the one thing that inspires me to tell another user to FUCK OFF to their face is when they present their personal despair for the future of the community as FACT. It's not that I feel they're lying or seeking to deceive. I suspect they're being very honest. But sometimes, in a crisis, we panic, we give in to complex inner darkness and start acting in a way that feeds that beast and threatens everyone around us. Sometimes, we're crying out for a slap in the face.
But ... I don't say fuck off. I bite my tongue, I take a deep breath and then I say something like, whoah there, I think you're having a Denethor moment.
posted by philip-random at 10:16 AM on February 6 [17 favorites]
MetaFilter: This concept has merit
posted by Lemkin at 10:18 AM on February 6 [5 favorites]
posted by Lemkin at 10:18 AM on February 6 [5 favorites]
There's no one who can define a meaningful standard for this or act as recourse for disagreements.
We're (the moderation oversight committee) is working on this at the direction of the board! But it is taking some time. As predicted when I said I can help for bursts of time, I'm in a PR thinggummy work sprint and that lowers my time to be organizing great community and so it's a bit slow this week and last. But soon we will have processes so that it's not all on me and it will be able to do tons b/c there are great people.
the reason I did not apply to the moderator oversight committee
You do not have to be on the committee to have opinions, to care, or contribute to MetaFilter. Volunteering is appreciated, not required. Participation is appreciated. There is no hours-served test for caring here. :) The committee is not a yardstick to beat people with.
posted by warriorqueen at 10:25 AM on February 6 [5 favorites]
We're (the moderation oversight committee) is working on this at the direction of the board! But it is taking some time. As predicted when I said I can help for bursts of time, I'm in a PR thinggummy work sprint and that lowers my time to be organizing great community and so it's a bit slow this week and last. But soon we will have processes so that it's not all on me and it will be able to do tons b/c there are great people.
the reason I did not apply to the moderator oversight committee
You do not have to be on the committee to have opinions, to care, or contribute to MetaFilter. Volunteering is appreciated, not required. Participation is appreciated. There is no hours-served test for caring here. :) The committee is not a yardstick to beat people with.
posted by warriorqueen at 10:25 AM on February 6 [5 favorites]
I missed this one:
We should have a formal channel for contesting deletions
This is kind of where we're starting, and by starting I mean "this is the direction we are looking at taking on, where the committee looks at contested decisions, makes recommendations to the mods, and if we can't reach a resolution, sends it up to the board." But again, we need some time.
posted by warriorqueen at 10:29 AM on February 6 [3 favorites]
We should have a formal channel for contesting deletions
This is kind of where we're starting, and by starting I mean "this is the direction we are looking at taking on, where the committee looks at contested decisions, makes recommendations to the mods, and if we can't reach a resolution, sends it up to the board." But again, we need some time.
posted by warriorqueen at 10:29 AM on February 6 [3 favorites]
Sometimes sussing out what is a sincere observation from what is snarling sarcasm is hard with you.
Thank you for saying what I was thinking, in a much nicer way than I was workshopping in my head. Not because I want to be mean but because often times critiques can come off really badly just because they're critiques.
posted by cooker girl at 10:45 AM on February 6 [4 favorites]
Thank you for saying what I was thinking, in a much nicer way than I was workshopping in my head. Not because I want to be mean but because often times critiques can come off really badly just because they're critiques.
posted by cooker girl at 10:45 AM on February 6 [4 favorites]
I assume it is reflexive moderation of anything that gets flagged by anyone.
I was going to just say that I don't think this is correct, cause most of the threadshitting comments I flag don't get deleted. But when I thought about it I realized I kinda just don't understand what is or isn't allowed here, which is strange because there are at least 3 separate pages with rules about what to post. But then there's this post which is about a comment that doesn't seem to violate any of those rules, but it also isn't allowed, so I guess there's other rules on top of what's on those pages. It would be easier if there were fewer rules, and then if someone says something that isn't against one of those rules but it still sucks, the mods could leave a note or reach out to that person about it. Or we could decide that people are allowed to be mean or annoying here and it doesn't require mod action at all unless they actually break a rule. Either is probably fine.
posted by birthday cake at 10:50 AM on February 6 [6 favorites]
I was going to just say that I don't think this is correct, cause most of the threadshitting comments I flag don't get deleted. But when I thought about it I realized I kinda just don't understand what is or isn't allowed here, which is strange because there are at least 3 separate pages with rules about what to post. But then there's this post which is about a comment that doesn't seem to violate any of those rules, but it also isn't allowed, so I guess there's other rules on top of what's on those pages. It would be easier if there were fewer rules, and then if someone says something that isn't against one of those rules but it still sucks, the mods could leave a note or reach out to that person about it. Or we could decide that people are allowed to be mean or annoying here and it doesn't require mod action at all unless they actually break a rule. Either is probably fine.
posted by birthday cake at 10:50 AM on February 6 [6 favorites]
And to not abuse the edit window, phunniemee, the second answer you posted regarding kitteh would absolutely have been left to stand had it been your first answer. And it was an excellent, thoughtful, informative answer!
I literally do get all of my news about Canada from here on Metafilter, from Kitteh's FPPs. "Take advantage of your natural, local resources, as they are fantastic" is absolutely an answer to this question. Kitteh has been doing excellent on the ground work for years to make MeFi less America-centric, and as such Metafilter has become a decent aggregator of Canadian news and someone who's already on Metafilter would be enriched to follow her.
When I'm joking you'll know it.
I've been here for years and years and most of the time I do know when you're joking (not every time!) but not everyone who reads AskMe has been here for years and years. And a lot of people who read/use AskMe never set foot anywhere else on the site and maybe wouldn't click over to see what kitteh contributes. Sometimes giving more context than a one-liner with a link is better, especially in Ask.
posted by cooker girl at 10:52 AM on February 6 [5 favorites]
I literally do get all of my news about Canada from here on Metafilter, from Kitteh's FPPs. "Take advantage of your natural, local resources, as they are fantastic" is absolutely an answer to this question. Kitteh has been doing excellent on the ground work for years to make MeFi less America-centric, and as such Metafilter has become a decent aggregator of Canadian news and someone who's already on Metafilter would be enriched to follow her.
When I'm joking you'll know it.
I've been here for years and years and most of the time I do know when you're joking (not every time!) but not everyone who reads AskMe has been here for years and years. And a lot of people who read/use AskMe never set foot anywhere else on the site and maybe wouldn't click over to see what kitteh contributes. Sometimes giving more context than a one-liner with a link is better, especially in Ask.
posted by cooker girl at 10:52 AM on February 6 [5 favorites]
Sometimes giving more context than a one-liner with a link is better, especially in Ask.
Sometimes. But I just fundamentally disagree for this specific time. It was a perfect, unscripted mefi moment, I said my comment, and moments later Kitteh came in and made hers. It was completely uncoordinated and was a hilariously apt illustration of exactly what I had just said. Then the police came along and deleted it and the perfect moment was ruined. How many other lovely little Metafilter moments like this have been robbed of us by crap moderation? Dozens? Hundreds? Disappointing.
posted by phunniemee at 11:14 AM on February 6 [18 favorites]
Sometimes. But I just fundamentally disagree for this specific time. It was a perfect, unscripted mefi moment, I said my comment, and moments later Kitteh came in and made hers. It was completely uncoordinated and was a hilariously apt illustration of exactly what I had just said. Then the police came along and deleted it and the perfect moment was ruined. How many other lovely little Metafilter moments like this have been robbed of us by crap moderation? Dozens? Hundreds? Disappointing.
posted by phunniemee at 11:14 AM on February 6 [18 favorites]
And sorry other people don't love my interactions here, I can't solve that for anyone. If it makes you feel any better I'm like this at all times everywhere in every aspect of my life with everyone I know, mefi isn't getting some special secret version. I just decided at some point that editing myself to fit into someone else's plan wasn't a valuable use of my precious time, so in order to preserve my mental health we all get to go to hell together ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
posted by phunniemee at 11:14 AM on February 6 [15 favorites]
posted by phunniemee at 11:14 AM on February 6 [15 favorites]
No one said you should edit yourself. Being as snarky as you are is certainly your prerogative. Just don't be surprised when people assume you are all snark all the time.
posted by soelo at 11:38 AM on February 6 [12 favorites]
posted by soelo at 11:38 AM on February 6 [12 favorites]
It's amazing how awful humans can be to other humans without even using a damn or a fuck! Amazing! Almost enough to make me wish I wasn't a ghost.
posted by B_Ghost_User at 11:43 AM on February 6 [8 favorites]
posted by B_Ghost_User at 11:43 AM on February 6 [8 favorites]
To say that Metafilter is more fighty now than in the past is ludicrous.
There was once a Meta, for example, from which at least 69 comments were deleted largely because, and only in my opinion of course since the deletions were rapid fire and I saw a mere handful, a moderator was determined to defend a user I considered to be their own pet little bully from all criticism for truly egregious behavior.
posted by jamjam at 11:46 AM on February 6 [7 favorites]
There was once a Meta, for example, from which at least 69 comments were deleted largely because, and only in my opinion of course since the deletions were rapid fire and I saw a mere handful, a moderator was determined to defend a user I considered to be their own pet little bully from all criticism for truly egregious behavior.
posted by jamjam at 11:46 AM on February 6 [7 favorites]
@jamjam, I hear you. But I don't think that's evidence of this place being any less fighty now.
That sounds like a specific problem with a specific mod.
posted by yellowcandy at 12:03 PM on February 6 [3 favorites]
That sounds like a specific problem with a specific mod.
posted by yellowcandy at 12:03 PM on February 6 [3 favorites]
honestly, given the egregious shit that's going down in the world, I'd argue that Metafilter is being remarkably un-fighty. By which I mean, we're all under pressure, it could be worse. We're doing a more or less good job of not bringing our worst to our discussions.
posted by philip-random at 12:08 PM on February 6 [5 favorites]
posted by philip-random at 12:08 PM on February 6 [5 favorites]
it is not reasonable to expect the mods to know each individual user’s typical contributions with that level of detail
I wanted to come back to this for a moment because I would've assumed the opposite, that some mod decisions are based on how they view particular users. Not in a bad way--not like a grudge--but just in the sense of knowing someone's writing style and what they probably mean. The kind of thing where you can tell the difference between snark and bile. (In fact the "protip" comment that started this whole thing was hard to read not just because it was oblique and gnomic but because I didn't have a sense of who the user was--couldn't hear their voice in my head.)
I'm not the most insightful person here, not by a long shot, but I do feel like I've developed a pretty good sense of the people who are prolific, just from checking in on threads as often as I do. And--here comes the big assumption--I would've assumed the mods have an even better, more granular view of even more of the users, since they have more exposure to what's happening on the site?
Is that an incorrect view? And I'm not asking you in particular, Lemkin, but it's more of a general question...do the mods have a good sense of who we are, enough to interpret what we mean? (Is that a dumb question?)
posted by mittens at 12:20 PM on February 6 [6 favorites]
I wanted to come back to this for a moment because I would've assumed the opposite, that some mod decisions are based on how they view particular users. Not in a bad way--not like a grudge--but just in the sense of knowing someone's writing style and what they probably mean. The kind of thing where you can tell the difference between snark and bile. (In fact the "protip" comment that started this whole thing was hard to read not just because it was oblique and gnomic but because I didn't have a sense of who the user was--couldn't hear their voice in my head.)
I'm not the most insightful person here, not by a long shot, but I do feel like I've developed a pretty good sense of the people who are prolific, just from checking in on threads as often as I do. And--here comes the big assumption--I would've assumed the mods have an even better, more granular view of even more of the users, since they have more exposure to what's happening on the site?
Is that an incorrect view? And I'm not asking you in particular, Lemkin, but it's more of a general question...do the mods have a good sense of who we are, enough to interpret what we mean? (Is that a dumb question?)
posted by mittens at 12:20 PM on February 6 [6 favorites]
whoah there, I think you're having a Denethor moment
I just want you to know that I'm going to be stealing and using this, because boy does it work.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:43 PM on February 6 [7 favorites]
I just want you to know that I'm going to be stealing and using this, because boy does it work.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:43 PM on February 6 [7 favorites]
I flag fantastic comments frequently
I once flagged a really awful turd of a comment, an inexplicably hostile bigoted comment
I think the community is the one we make, it's okay to put it all out there and scrappiness is part of a community. The mods keep things on the rails and I have faith we're moving in the right direction with an oversight committee but it'll take time.
Whatever time it is, it's the right time to try to behave like a community. If you're flagging negative a lot more than fantastic, maybe pause to think what is going on with you. What are you trying to achieve.
posted by ginger.beef at 1:03 PM on February 6 [2 favorites]
I once flagged a really awful turd of a comment, an inexplicably hostile bigoted comment
I think the community is the one we make, it's okay to put it all out there and scrappiness is part of a community. The mods keep things on the rails and I have faith we're moving in the right direction with an oversight committee but it'll take time.
Whatever time it is, it's the right time to try to behave like a community. If you're flagging negative a lot more than fantastic, maybe pause to think what is going on with you. What are you trying to achieve.
posted by ginger.beef at 1:03 PM on February 6 [2 favorites]
Since I doubt anyone on the mod team is going to take action about any of the very real concerns in this thread, I may as well use this space to provide some levity for other folks.
Had a very early meeting where I had to present this morning so sent the dogs outside to use the bathroom on their own while I got ready. When I let them back inside I saw one had pooped in the middle of the walk instead of in the yard like a normal animal, so I put on the crocs and set out with a bag to clean it up. Unfortunately it sleeted all night and I'm a stupid idiot, and I got one foot out on the stoop and then slipped and fell all the way down the stairs and landed right in the poop. Cut my hand on my concrete steps. The ice was so bad I couldn't find any purchase, so I just flailed around wallowing in the poop trying to get traction. Got poop in my hand cut so probably I'm going to get sepsis and die idk.
Anyway, managed to crawl myself back up the steps and grab my salt from inside, and sat at the top of the stoop and did my best to chuck salt for distance to get my share of the public sidewalk for the kids going to school an hour later. Crawled back inside and peeled off my poopy clothes, cleaned myself up, texted my boss "I have suffered a very stupid indignity and may be a few minutes late joining" and he texted back "ice?" and I said "bingo," and started a load of laundry.
A few hours later and now I'm waiting at urgent care, not for my hand wound (though I'll have them look at it) but because I sneezed and felt my butt pop out of joint and now I can't sit down. I have tickets for the CSO tonight and for the Goodman tomorrow, so this is a very ass heavy period of my week for me, so please keep me in your thoughts and prayers. Thank you. Please step carefully and if you see a poop maybe just ignore it and let it return to the earth.
posted by phunniemee at 1:07 PM on February 6 [36 favorites]
Had a very early meeting where I had to present this morning so sent the dogs outside to use the bathroom on their own while I got ready. When I let them back inside I saw one had pooped in the middle of the walk instead of in the yard like a normal animal, so I put on the crocs and set out with a bag to clean it up. Unfortunately it sleeted all night and I'm a stupid idiot, and I got one foot out on the stoop and then slipped and fell all the way down the stairs and landed right in the poop. Cut my hand on my concrete steps. The ice was so bad I couldn't find any purchase, so I just flailed around wallowing in the poop trying to get traction. Got poop in my hand cut so probably I'm going to get sepsis and die idk.
Anyway, managed to crawl myself back up the steps and grab my salt from inside, and sat at the top of the stoop and did my best to chuck salt for distance to get my share of the public sidewalk for the kids going to school an hour later. Crawled back inside and peeled off my poopy clothes, cleaned myself up, texted my boss "I have suffered a very stupid indignity and may be a few minutes late joining" and he texted back "ice?" and I said "bingo," and started a load of laundry.
A few hours later and now I'm waiting at urgent care, not for my hand wound (though I'll have them look at it) but because I sneezed and felt my butt pop out of joint and now I can't sit down. I have tickets for the CSO tonight and for the Goodman tomorrow, so this is a very ass heavy period of my week for me, so please keep me in your thoughts and prayers. Thank you. Please step carefully and if you see a poop maybe just ignore it and let it return to the earth.
posted by phunniemee at 1:07 PM on February 6 [36 favorites]
do the mods have a good sense of who we are, enough to interpret what we mean? (Is that a dumb question?)
good question, yes I think they do. I know of three that can translate clavdvian.
it's interesting moderator used the word refrain. this seems to be suggest a suggestion rather than blind compliance.
but since the comments deleted, how we supposed to differentiate.
posted by clavdivs at 1:11 PM on February 6 [4 favorites]
good question, yes I think they do. I know of three that can translate clavdvian.
it's interesting moderator used the word refrain. this seems to be suggest a suggestion rather than blind compliance.
but since the comments deleted, how we supposed to differentiate.
posted by clavdivs at 1:11 PM on February 6 [4 favorites]
If donnagirl wasn't referring to Moggies, then Moggies and 3.
I was actually talking about the terrible moderation of this thread about an Uber driver who needed a bathroom which lead to nouvelle-personne buttoning. Per Brandon, n-p submitted a MeTa to discuss the racism in that thread and her treatment, and was denied that opportunity outright.
Moggies situation seems like it was a million years ago (it wasn't, just so much has happened since) so I wasn't even thinking of it, but it's definitely of the same genre of lack of care.
So little care that maybe Brandon doesn't actually even remember that whole debacle that went on for days. Or maybe he's just attempting to appear like he doesn't know so it can seem like just a little dust up that blew over. But I will always remember it as the time the moderation team chased off a black woman for suggesting that considering the humanity of your black uber driver and how police response to his need for a bathroom might go awry. Then when they were called on the racism of it all, they quietly undeleted the comments. Leave no trace, as it were.
posted by donnagirl at 1:20 PM on February 6 [22 favorites]
phunniemee, I'm keeping your ass in my thoughts and prayers. Also your poopy hand and your injured dignity.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 1:21 PM on February 6 [8 favorites]
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 1:21 PM on February 6 [8 favorites]
MetaFilter: wallowing in the poop trying to get traction.
posted by wenestvedt at 1:24 PM on February 6 [8 favorites]
posted by wenestvedt at 1:24 PM on February 6 [8 favorites]
phunniemee, that's all very horrible but your willingness accept it all for what it is is quite remarkable. I hope that all of you recovers quickly.
posted by ashbury at 1:28 PM on February 6 [1 favorite]
posted by ashbury at 1:28 PM on February 6 [1 favorite]
I made 3/3 urgent care staff laugh simply by telling the truth. Once my punch card gets to 10 that means my co-pay is free.
posted by phunniemee at 1:42 PM on February 6 [12 favorites]
posted by phunniemee at 1:42 PM on February 6 [12 favorites]
Mod note: I appreciate everyone's feedback in this thread and wish I had worded my mod note differently. I also wish I had not deleted the comment. After some more thought, I should have written a mod note encouraging participation that fosters challenging conversations that bring users in rather than calling them out.
The deletion was an attempt to halt what I perceived as hostility/poking at a user. I was doing my best to anticipate what I've seen in the past, which is that a user makes a short and sort of blunt comment at a user, and folks either pile on each other or a back-and-forth conspires that derails and makes the thread an unpleasant place to be for everyone. That's where I was coming from.
I did not mean that swearing wasn't allowed, we know it is perfectly OK to do so in threads and I have no issue with that. I tried to suggest that we practice care when commenting and holding back from swearing/calling out users. I apologize for not being more mindful and intentional with my wording.
I appreciate the perspectives being shared and I'll consider it all the next time a situation like this arises.
posted by travelingthyme (staff) at 1:55 PM on February 6 [39 favorites]
The deletion was an attempt to halt what I perceived as hostility/poking at a user. I was doing my best to anticipate what I've seen in the past, which is that a user makes a short and sort of blunt comment at a user, and folks either pile on each other or a back-and-forth conspires that derails and makes the thread an unpleasant place to be for everyone. That's where I was coming from.
I did not mean that swearing wasn't allowed, we know it is perfectly OK to do so in threads and I have no issue with that. I tried to suggest that we practice care when commenting and holding back from swearing/calling out users. I apologize for not being more mindful and intentional with my wording.
I appreciate the perspectives being shared and I'll consider it all the next time a situation like this arises.
posted by travelingthyme (staff) at 1:55 PM on February 6 [39 favorites]
this is a hero origin story
the poop was radioactive, wasn't it
posted by ginger.beef at 1:56 PM on February 6 [5 favorites]
the poop was radioactive, wasn't it
posted by ginger.beef at 1:56 PM on February 6 [5 favorites]
The Brown Hulk.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:00 PM on February 6 [8 favorites]
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:00 PM on February 6 [8 favorites]
I got one foot out on the stoop and then slipped and fell all the way down the stairs and landed right in the poop.
The first time I tried to ride a horse I fell off and hit the ground hard (injury) and landed in a cow pie (insult). That was also the last time I tried to ride a horse.
posted by kirkaracha (staff) at 2:08 PM on February 6 [3 favorites]
The first time I tried to ride a horse I fell off and hit the ground hard (injury) and landed in a cow pie (insult). That was also the last time I tried to ride a horse.
posted by kirkaracha (staff) at 2:08 PM on February 6 [3 favorites]
So I just found this post.
It went to outrage over a deleted comment followed by the user leaving the site to great debate on how the deletion and comment should have been treated, then a discourse on mod behavior, a note from the mod stating they could have done things differently, and then a story about falling on ice, suffering dog poop related indignity, potentially serious bodily harm to one's rear, and I think I'm good now.
posted by Atreides at 2:11 PM on February 6 [5 favorites]
It went to outrage over a deleted comment followed by the user leaving the site to great debate on how the deletion and comment should have been treated, then a discourse on mod behavior, a note from the mod stating they could have done things differently, and then a story about falling on ice, suffering dog poop related indignity, potentially serious bodily harm to one's rear, and I think I'm good now.
posted by Atreides at 2:11 PM on February 6 [5 favorites]
fell all the way down the stairs and landed right in the poop
What is this shit?
posted by snofoam at 2:13 PM on February 6 [28 favorites]
What is this shit?
posted by snofoam at 2:13 PM on February 6 [28 favorites]
Pooperwoman, surely
Crap-ton America
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:15 PM on February 6 [4 favorites]
Crap-ton America
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 2:15 PM on February 6 [4 favorites]
Maybe the real measure was the ends we frayed along the way.
posted by lucidium at 2:17 PM on February 6 [1 favorite]
posted by lucidium at 2:17 PM on February 6 [1 favorite]
Scat Woman
posted by ginger.beef at 2:24 PM on February 6 [4 favorites]
posted by ginger.beef at 2:24 PM on February 6 [4 favorites]
a Denethor moment
Gandalf found it necessary to commit political violence when things got bad enough.
Just an idle observation on a fantasy story with no relevance to real life, of course.
posted by Lemkin at 2:24 PM on February 6 [2 favorites]
Gandalf found it necessary to commit political violence when things got bad enough.
Just an idle observation on a fantasy story with no relevance to real life, of course.
posted by Lemkin at 2:24 PM on February 6 [2 favorites]
yellowcandy I faved your comment on my phone because I think you made a good point and also because I appreciate it that you apparently didn't take my comment personally — and it certainly wasn't meant personally.
But I also somehow flagged your comment in the same gesture, and now not only can I not unflag it, I can't even see the reason I inadvertantly flagged it the first place.
So I think it would be great if we had a deflag option built into the flag button, because this isn't my first losing goaround with it.
posted by jamjam at 2:27 PM on February 6 [5 favorites]
But I also somehow flagged your comment in the same gesture, and now not only can I not unflag it, I can't even see the reason I inadvertantly flagged it the first place.
So I think it would be great if we had a deflag option built into the flag button, because this isn't my first losing goaround with it.
posted by jamjam at 2:27 PM on February 6 [5 favorites]
So I think it would be great if we had a deflag option built into the flag button, because this isn't my first losing goaround with it.
I was literally just coding that for the new site.
posted by kirkaracha (staff) at 2:32 PM on February 6 [25 favorites]
I was literally just coding that for the new site.
posted by kirkaracha (staff) at 2:32 PM on February 6 [25 favorites]
Phunimee phlagged as phantastic.
posted by The Ardship of Cambry at 2:41 PM on February 6 [2 favorites]
posted by The Ardship of Cambry at 2:41 PM on February 6 [2 favorites]
The Dook Knight, please.
If I can use my superpowers for one thing it would be justice for nouvelle-personne, who I'm very ashamed to admit hadn't crossed my mind, since she never got her MeTa she deserved.
Good information to have: turns out you can't x-ray a butt.
posted by phunniemee at 2:53 PM on February 6 [9 favorites]
If I can use my superpowers for one thing it would be justice for nouvelle-personne, who I'm very ashamed to admit hadn't crossed my mind, since she never got her MeTa she deserved.
Good information to have: turns out you can't x-ray a butt.
posted by phunniemee at 2:53 PM on February 6 [9 favorites]
you can't x-ray a butt
If you ever need a sock puppet user name...
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 2:55 PM on February 6 [2 favorites]
If you ever need a sock puppet user name...
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 2:55 PM on February 6 [2 favorites]
Personally, my scatological superhero name would probably be Shitstorm.
posted by snofoam at 3:00 PM on February 6 [3 favorites]
posted by snofoam at 3:00 PM on February 6 [3 favorites]
phunniemee, you have become such an overarching and indispensable presence on Metafilter that if we had our own night sky, you would have to be a major constellation.
Roughly where Orion is in everybody else's, I'm thinking.
But in culture hero terms, your latest adventure could be compared to cleaning out the Augean Stables, perhaps, and I would be surprised if you haven't already killed the Nemean Lion somewhere back in your Activity.
So you only have at most ten more Labors to go, by my count!
posted by jamjam at 3:05 PM on February 6 [2 favorites]
Roughly where Orion is in everybody else's, I'm thinking.
But in culture hero terms, your latest adventure could be compared to cleaning out the Augean Stables, perhaps, and I would be surprised if you haven't already killed the Nemean Lion somewhere back in your Activity.
So you only have at most ten more Labors to go, by my count!
posted by jamjam at 3:05 PM on February 6 [2 favorites]
I did not read this whole thread nor do I intend to. I assume that 90+% of the responses say this was a bullshit deletion. I am the father of three. When they were young(er), my wife and I decided that cursing as a middle schooler was not a hill we were willing to fight for. We set simple rules. No cursing at or about someone. Although we did not state it as we did not want to condone it, cursing about something was tolerated. Stub your toe and scream "Fuuuuuck!" sure. Watch the Yankees lose a game in the bottom of the 9th and scream this is bullshit. ok. Call your sister a fuck face, not so good. It turned out that it was pretty much the same rule I thought was in effect here. If that has changed, let me know.
I generally do not get all worked up about deletions. I sort of see my comments as the way Jerry Garcia saw his music. I am paraphrasing because I cannot find the exact quote at this moment, but he said something like, We play the music for the fans. Once we do, it is theirs to do with as they see fit. (He was talking about recording the show and trading tapes.)
Having said that, this deletion goes above and beyond. I really think it changes the site. It is no longer Metafilter as I know it if this is the new standard.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 3:07 PM on February 6 [8 favorites]
I generally do not get all worked up about deletions. I sort of see my comments as the way Jerry Garcia saw his music. I am paraphrasing because I cannot find the exact quote at this moment, but he said something like, We play the music for the fans. Once we do, it is theirs to do with as they see fit. (He was talking about recording the show and trading tapes.)
Having said that, this deletion goes above and beyond. I really think it changes the site. It is no longer Metafilter as I know it if this is the new standard.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 3:07 PM on February 6 [8 favorites]
Personally, my scatological superhero name would probably be Shitstorm.
Dibs on Sir Poopsalot. I earned it fair and square.
posted by kirkaracha (staff) at 3:08 PM on February 6 [1 favorite]
Dibs on Sir Poopsalot. I earned it fair and square.
posted by kirkaracha (staff) at 3:08 PM on February 6 [1 favorite]
If we could do the hide/reveal with the summary/details tags, that would be even better since everybody could see what was deleted. But mods have said in previous threads that this wasn't practicable.
Following up: Yeah, regarding the hide comment feature, it's run into some technical issues on the current site, just trying clarify whether it'll appear here or the new site first. But it'll definitely be back, at the very least as a test.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 3:17 PM on February 6 [2 favorites]
Following up: Yeah, regarding the hide comment feature, it's run into some technical issues on the current site, just trying clarify whether it'll appear here or the new site first. But it'll definitely be back, at the very least as a test.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 3:17 PM on February 6 [2 favorites]
Yeah, regarding the hide comment feature, it's run into some technical issues on the current site, just trying clarify whether it'll appear here or the new site first. But it'll definitely be back, at the very least as a test.
(Protip?) No one was disgruntled in any way about the previous tease and aborted "test" of this functionality, so teasing it again seems like a great idea to me. Keep us guessing!
posted by snofoam at 3:31 PM on February 6 [4 favorites]
(Protip?) No one was disgruntled in any way about the previous tease and aborted "test" of this functionality, so teasing it again seems like a great idea to me. Keep us guessing!
posted by snofoam at 3:31 PM on February 6 [4 favorites]
Metafilter: I did not read this whole thread nor do I intend to.
posted by mittens at 3:50 PM on February 6 [19 favorites]
posted by mittens at 3:50 PM on February 6 [19 favorites]
A couple months back, i made a long comment about moderation techniques in a previous thread. I'm re-upping it here not to toot my own horn but to stress that in my opinion, as part of a team of moderators on a different (and pretty active! and extremely opinionated!) community, deletion should be one of the last tools mods reach for. Unfortunately, at MetaFilter it seems to be the first and very nearly the only tool in their toolbox at this point.
posted by adrienneleigh at 3:54 PM on February 6 [29 favorites]
posted by adrienneleigh at 3:54 PM on February 6 [29 favorites]
I just want to chime in and say that adrienneleigh's comment about moderation practices that they link right above this is great, should be required reading for all who want to make suggestions on how moderation should be done, and also lines up almost perfectly with my views. It's a combination of better practices, a lighter touch, a system of escalation, and some tooling, and all should be almost perfectly applicable to MeFi's needs.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 4:24 PM on February 6 [5 favorites]
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 4:24 PM on February 6 [5 favorites]
>you can't x-ray a butt
If you ever need a sock puppet user name...
There was a Captain Underpants name generator several years back that gave some guy I knew the name "Poopsie Toiletbuns", which I think was a group favorite.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:26 PM on February 6 [2 favorites]
If you ever need a sock puppet user name...
There was a Captain Underpants name generator several years back that gave some guy I knew the name "Poopsie Toiletbuns", which I think was a group favorite.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 4:26 PM on February 6 [2 favorites]
I think my ex wife had access to that Captain Underpants name generator. She called me shiforbrains.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 5:04 PM on February 6 [1 favorite]
posted by JohnnyGunn at 5:04 PM on February 6 [1 favorite]
Obviously, our team is The X-cremen.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 5:29 PM on February 6 [3 favorites]
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 5:29 PM on February 6 [3 favorites]
Or The Fantastic 2.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 5:31 PM on February 6 [1 favorite]
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 5:31 PM on February 6 [1 favorite]
Sorry for all the shitposting. I think it's out of my system, now.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 5:33 PM on February 6 [4 favorites]
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 5:33 PM on February 6 [4 favorites]
phunniemee, as the proud new owner of a first-timepositive COVID diagnosis (thanks to a coworker with personal space issues who didn't wear a mask after being diagnosed with "a sinus infection"), my heart goes out to you. The flesh is a prison, mired in the poop of the inevitable.
snofoam: "(Protip?) No one was disgruntled in any way about the previous tease and aborted "test" of this functionality, so teasing it again seems like a great idea to me. Keep us guessing!"
First this reminds me: I hope people aren't really automatically taking "protip" as snarky or condescending! Imho it has its use as a genuine helpful pointer. It's context-dependent (like the techy version of "bless your heart") and like that phrase must be used carefully, but it's not always an insult (definitely not the times I've used it in posts! 😬)
On comment hiding--it being my idea, I wrote a script for it to work with comment edit pages that streamlined things a lot:
- press a Hide button and a popup asks for the hide reason
- press Ok and it automatically wraps the comment in the right tags
-it also adds a log entry to the clipboard for passing elsewhere
It worked well and BB/loup were excited to try it (Brandon actually messaged earlier asking what the status was). But when I sent the script code to frimble to add to the editing page (so it would Just Work instead of requiring installing script managers on each browser and device), they flagged some problems with the way detail/ summary tags work with screen readers. Basically it tends to announce the little toggle arrow as some long awkward "HTML BLACK ARROW RIGHT CONTROL ELEMENT" Etc, and then will read the entire hidden comment even if it hadn't been toggled to show it, which kind of defeats the purpose. Not a showstopper, but annoying enough that they couldn't justify adding it as a regular mod tool as-is. There are potentially ways to make it work better with a custom implementation instead of relying on the standard html element, but the new site is close enough to testing that it would make more sense to target that instead of the old code. It's frustrating, but there isn't any opposition to trying it and it's only been delayed in order to avoid making the UI less accessible. If it helps, there's another useful script especially for mobile users which has fewer issues that should be ready to roll out sometime this month (hint: it helped with this very comment! 👀)
posted by Rhaomi at 6:53 PM on February 6 [6 favorites]
snofoam: "(Protip?) No one was disgruntled in any way about the previous tease and aborted "test" of this functionality, so teasing it again seems like a great idea to me. Keep us guessing!"
First this reminds me: I hope people aren't really automatically taking "protip" as snarky or condescending! Imho it has its use as a genuine helpful pointer. It's context-dependent (like the techy version of "bless your heart") and like that phrase must be used carefully, but it's not always an insult (definitely not the times I've used it in posts! 😬)
On comment hiding--it being my idea, I wrote a script for it to work with comment edit pages that streamlined things a lot:
- press a Hide button and a popup asks for the hide reason
- press Ok and it automatically wraps the comment in the right tags
-it also adds a log entry to the clipboard for passing elsewhere
It worked well and BB/loup were excited to try it (Brandon actually messaged earlier asking what the status was). But when I sent the script code to frimble to add to the editing page (so it would Just Work instead of requiring installing script managers on each browser and device), they flagged some problems with the way detail/ summary tags work with screen readers. Basically it tends to announce the little toggle arrow as some long awkward "HTML BLACK ARROW RIGHT CONTROL ELEMENT" Etc, and then will read the entire hidden comment even if it hadn't been toggled to show it, which kind of defeats the purpose. Not a showstopper, but annoying enough that they couldn't justify adding it as a regular mod tool as-is. There are potentially ways to make it work better with a custom implementation instead of relying on the standard html element, but the new site is close enough to testing that it would make more sense to target that instead of the old code. It's frustrating, but there isn't any opposition to trying it and it's only been delayed in order to avoid making the UI less accessible. If it helps, there's another useful script especially for mobile users which has fewer issues that should be ready to roll out sometime this month (hint: it helped with this very comment! 👀)
posted by Rhaomi at 6:53 PM on February 6 [6 favorites]
FLO!
posted by clavdivs at 7:04 PM on February 6 [4 favorites]
posted by clavdivs at 7:04 PM on February 6 [4 favorites]
Shitshow? Hardly,
It's Raining Florence Hendersons!!!
posted by y2karl at 7:43 PM on February 6 [7 favorites]
It's Raining Florence Hendersons!!!
posted by y2karl at 7:43 PM on February 6 [7 favorites]
travelingthyme, thank you. That pile-on thing is definitely problematic but I think a comment would have been more helpful.
On a related note, what did the original comment (responded to by rhymedirective) actually mean?
posted by freethefeet at 8:05 PM on February 6 [1 favorite]
On a related note, what did the original comment (responded to by rhymedirective) actually mean?
posted by freethefeet at 8:05 PM on February 6 [1 favorite]
On a related note, what did the original comment (responded to by rhymedirective) actually mean?
I took it to mean that they thought the comment they were responding too was opaque and teasing without saying what it actually meant (it was something like "Can you guess what would happen if X").
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 9:51 PM on February 6 [2 favorites]
I took it to mean that they thought the comment they were responding too was opaque and teasing without saying what it actually meant (it was something like "Can you guess what would happen if X").
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 9:51 PM on February 6 [2 favorites]
I agree, but I can’t actually guess what they thought would happen.
posted by nat at 1:37 AM on February 7 [1 favorite]
posted by nat at 1:37 AM on February 7 [1 favorite]
Mod note: One deleted. Please practice care with comments and refrain from swearing etc.
posted by travelingthyme (staff) at 11:02 AM
Mods: “Please practice care…”
Metatalk Junkies: “DON’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO, DAD.”
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 5:21 AM on February 7 [6 favorites]
posted by travelingthyme (staff) at 11:02 AM
Mods: “Please practice care…”
Metatalk Junkies: “DON’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO, DAD.”
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 5:21 AM on February 7 [6 favorites]
I did not read this whole thread nor do I intend to.
travelingthyme did acknowledge regret about the deletion, for what it's worth (just a few comments above yours)
posted by ginger.beef at 7:18 AM on February 7 [3 favorites]
travelingthyme did acknowledge regret about the deletion, for what it's worth (just a few comments above yours)
posted by ginger.beef at 7:18 AM on February 7 [3 favorites]
Okay hi, rhymedirective here. I have been in email communication with Brandon and I've decided to have them reopen my account, mostly so I could leave my two cents about this whole thing in here.
First, I do appreciate travelingthyme's response even if I don't agree with it 100%, for the following reason:
My deleted comment was responding to a dismissive and confusing comment in response to something I posted. This is a pattern of communication that I have seen on Metafilter, where someone posts a dismissive but on the surface non-rude response, someone responds in a manner in which may be indecorous but not hostile, and that comment is deleted and the original response left to stand.
I don't think the comment that I was responding to is in any way flag-worthy; it was just yet another example of the sort of "I'm smarter than everyone else" style of commenting that acts to shut down communication. I think, especially in this moment, it's vitally important that people say what they mean.
posted by rhymedirective at 9:52 AM on February 7 [51 favorites]
First, I do appreciate travelingthyme's response even if I don't agree with it 100%, for the following reason:
My deleted comment was responding to a dismissive and confusing comment in response to something I posted. This is a pattern of communication that I have seen on Metafilter, where someone posts a dismissive but on the surface non-rude response, someone responds in a manner in which may be indecorous but not hostile, and that comment is deleted and the original response left to stand.
I don't think the comment that I was responding to is in any way flag-worthy; it was just yet another example of the sort of "I'm smarter than everyone else" style of commenting that acts to shut down communication. I think, especially in this moment, it's vitally important that people say what they mean.
posted by rhymedirective at 9:52 AM on February 7 [51 favorites]
rhymedirective, happy to have you back! Hope you'll stick around - there's way more good than bad.
posted by Glinn at 10:01 AM on February 7 [5 favorites]
posted by Glinn at 10:01 AM on February 7 [5 favorites]
I don't think the comment that I was responding to is in any way flag-worthy; it was just yet another example of the sort of "I'm smarter than everyone else" style of commenting that acts to shut down communication. I think, especially in this moment, it's vitally important that people say what they mean.
Hear, hear
posted by kensington314 at 10:18 AM on February 7 [6 favorites]
Hear, hear
posted by kensington314 at 10:18 AM on February 7 [6 favorites]
if we are talking about flags and deletions, I was pretty steamed about a deletion of a comment by a mod where I responded to something someone posted to the I/P thread
personally I think what made me angry is analogous to what angered rhymedirective: I thought the comment I responded to was inappropriate to the discussion and responded angrily with a "fuck off" so obviously I was not happy to have my comment deleted, but the mod note also pointed out it's wrong to say "fuck you" to another member.
I do think "fuck off" is not the same as "fuck you"
but ultimately, a week goes by, now it has been a few weeks: I can go either way on this stuff. At the time it happens it feels like a personal attack and I was quite angry with the mod and we exchanged email communication about it, it's history. I hate to think people are buttoning during a moment of anger, and I don't share the view that the mods are doing a terrible job all the time. I will say, we're (many of us) particular about language and how we use language. Don't tell me I told someone "fuck you" when I'm telling them to fuck off :)
it's not easy being a mod.. also.. mods can do better
posted by ginger.beef at 10:30 AM on February 7 [6 favorites]
personally I think what made me angry is analogous to what angered rhymedirective: I thought the comment I responded to was inappropriate to the discussion and responded angrily with a "fuck off" so obviously I was not happy to have my comment deleted, but the mod note also pointed out it's wrong to say "fuck you" to another member.
I do think "fuck off" is not the same as "fuck you"
but ultimately, a week goes by, now it has been a few weeks: I can go either way on this stuff. At the time it happens it feels like a personal attack and I was quite angry with the mod and we exchanged email communication about it, it's history. I hate to think people are buttoning during a moment of anger, and I don't share the view that the mods are doing a terrible job all the time. I will say, we're (many of us) particular about language and how we use language. Don't tell me I told someone "fuck you" when I'm telling them to fuck off :)
it's not easy being a mod.. also.. mods can do better
posted by ginger.beef at 10:30 AM on February 7 [6 favorites]
send not to know for whom the fucks off
it fucks for thee
posted by phunniemee at 10:33 AM on February 7 [7 favorites]
it fucks for thee
posted by phunniemee at 10:33 AM on February 7 [7 favorites]
damn, phucks were given
posted by ginger.beef at 12:43 PM on February 7
posted by ginger.beef at 12:43 PM on February 7
rhymedirective, happy to see you back, hope you stick around, and I hope your input helps us make things better!
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 1:23 PM on February 7 [1 favorite]
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 1:23 PM on February 7 [1 favorite]
I do think "fuck off" is not the same as "fuck you"
It’s an exceedingly fine nuance.
posted by Lemkin at 1:24 PM on February 7 [3 favorites]
It’s an exceedingly fine nuance.
posted by Lemkin at 1:24 PM on February 7 [3 favorites]
"Fuck" is one of the most versatile words in the English language, its nuances should be fucking appreciated and savored.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 1:29 PM on February 7 [7 favorites]
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 1:29 PM on February 7 [7 favorites]
I am late to this party, but I agree that:
1. I would love it if people would say what they mean.
2. I swear all the fucking time. I’m not necessarily angry when doing so.
posted by sugarbomb at 2:33 PM on February 7 [4 favorites]
1. I would love it if people would say what they mean.
2. I swear all the fucking time. I’m not necessarily angry when doing so.
posted by sugarbomb at 2:33 PM on February 7 [4 favorites]
It’s an exceedingly fine nuance.
to a receiver, I'm sure
when I say or type it, a "fuck you" is pointedly hostile
"fuck off" is adjacent to "go on then you dumb bugger"
posted by ginger.beef at 2:40 PM on February 7 [5 favorites]
to a receiver, I'm sure
when I say or type it, a "fuck you" is pointedly hostile
"fuck off" is adjacent to "go on then you dumb bugger"
posted by ginger.beef at 2:40 PM on February 7 [5 favorites]
Mod note: Metafilter's days as a "community" are long gone
Just popping in to note that I strongly disagree with this sentiment. Just got back from dropping some Valentine's cards into the mail to other MeFites and marveling over the advice being given for potentially moving out of the USA. That thread was very specifically made for MeFites to share advice with each and that's a mighty fine thing.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 4:13 PM on February 7 [6 favorites]
Just popping in to note that I strongly disagree with this sentiment. Just got back from dropping some Valentine's cards into the mail to other MeFites and marveling over the advice being given for potentially moving out of the USA. That thread was very specifically made for MeFites to share advice with each and that's a mighty fine thing.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 4:13 PM on February 7 [6 favorites]
It’s an exceedingly fine nuance
No it isn’t. One is a direct attack, the other merely a suggestion.
“Fuck off” = I want you to go away
“Fuck you” = you, sir, are a fuckwit
“Ok, champ” = pistols at dawn
posted by coriolisdave at 10:39 PM on February 7 [8 favorites]
No it isn’t. One is a direct attack, the other merely a suggestion.
“Fuck off” = I want you to go away
“Fuck you” = you, sir, are a fuckwit
“Ok, champ” = pistols at dawn
posted by coriolisdave at 10:39 PM on February 7 [8 favorites]
While metafilter was founded stateside it is now international, and fuck appears to be ... more flexible in other flavours of English. Often here "fuck off" can mean "that's bullshit", or "you're pulling my leg", or an invite to explain something that sounds preposterous, and other uses, I imagine other uses in S Africa, Australia...
Certainly when written is such a narrow medium as pure text an 'f off' structure does need some nuance in the surounding sentence.
Is the US handling and development of English so puritan the f word has not be so adapted?
posted by unearthed at 12:02 AM on February 8 [2 favorites]
Certainly when written is such a narrow medium as pure text an 'f off' structure does need some nuance in the surounding sentence.
Is the US handling and development of English so puritan the f word has not be so adapted?
posted by unearthed at 12:02 AM on February 8 [2 favorites]
I'm heartened to see that many mefites agree about "protip", a comment that just oozes smug condescension down on the plebs down below from the Enlightened One. Same goes to "friendly reminder".
posted by Pyrogenesis at 12:08 AM on February 8 [18 favorites]
posted by Pyrogenesis at 12:08 AM on February 8 [18 favorites]
sugarbomb: I would love it if people would say what they mean.
Very much so. As someone who tends to take everything literally, I regularly find sarcasm hard to deal with in written text. Now add the extra difficulties that arise from having English as a foreign language, and I will often misinterpret. I can't be the only one.
posted by Too-Ticky at 1:10 AM on February 8 [2 favorites]
Very much so. As someone who tends to take everything literally, I regularly find sarcasm hard to deal with in written text. Now add the extra difficulties that arise from having English as a foreign language, and I will often misinterpret. I can't be the only one.
posted by Too-Ticky at 1:10 AM on February 8 [2 favorites]
See that one confuses me. I’ve always used “protip” as self effacing sarcasm. Like, “protip: if you’re reading fanfic at 3am, definitely don’t check if it’s an unfinished work in progress from ten years ago, just read all 200K and lie awake through dawn!” Or, “protip: if you don’t carry in all the grocery bags at once, your milk will spoil and the eggs will break by the time you get back out to the car for a second trip!” (Examples sourced from real life) Admittedly I’ve seen it used in the smug asshole way but it confuses me enough to just kind of skim over whatever is being said with that framing.
posted by Mizu at 1:11 AM on February 8 [3 favorites]
posted by Mizu at 1:11 AM on February 8 [3 favorites]
The origin of "protip" was the hilariously useless advice: "To defeat the Cyberdemon, shoot at it until it dies." Which does lend itself both to the surface level condescending stating the obvious, as well as the self-aware acknowledging that the writer doesn't really know what they're doing either.
posted by lucidium at 1:54 AM on February 8 [3 favorites]
posted by lucidium at 1:54 AM on February 8 [3 favorites]
Swearing in non-US anglophone countries is pretty widely acknowledged to be more common, creative, flexible and nuanced. There's a great piece on the difference UK / US on the BCC including details of how talented British comedians (Stephen Fry / Hugh Laurie) could communicate absolute filth while staying within the literal bounds of decency of said organisation.
posted by protorp at 2:05 AM on February 8 [2 favorites]
posted by protorp at 2:05 AM on February 8 [2 favorites]
It is fine to use Protip when mocking your own foibles. If you quote another user and then start your response with Protip, it will be rightly considered insulting condescension.
posted by snofoam at 2:28 AM on February 8 [13 favorites]
posted by snofoam at 2:28 AM on February 8 [13 favorites]
As someone who tends to take everything literally, I regularly find sarcasm hard to deal with in written text. Now add the extra difficulties that arise from having English as a foreign language, and I will often misinterpret. I can't be the only one.
I sympathize with your difficulty. But sarcasm is such an effective rhetorical device - and is so integral to my worldview - that to forego it would almost defeat the purpose of trying to express myself in the first place.
I wield this instrument with the hand of a master, of course, so I'm obviously biased.
posted by Lemkin at 5:53 AM on February 8 [4 favorites]
I sympathize with your difficulty. But sarcasm is such an effective rhetorical device - and is so integral to my worldview - that to forego it would almost defeat the purpose of trying to express myself in the first place.
I wield this instrument with the hand of a master, of course, so I'm obviously biased.
posted by Lemkin at 5:53 AM on February 8 [4 favorites]
It would be so cool if someone who was paid to do things here wrote down all these new rules before they started random enforcement. And it's a very new rule, because the Fucking Fuck threads are not that long gone.
I hope it's not folly to ask, but could we have some succinct and clear content/language guidelines prepared by the paid staff before the next site update? Like 10 bullet points? It would be so much easier to consistently enforce. I'm only thinking of the mods.
narrator: it was folly to ask
alt narrator: she was not, in fact, only thinking of the mods
posted by donnagirl at 9:19 AM on February 8 [8 favorites]
I hope it's not folly to ask, but could we have some succinct and clear content/language guidelines prepared by the paid staff before the next site update? Like 10 bullet points? It would be so much easier to consistently enforce. I'm only thinking of the mods.
narrator: it was folly to ask
alt narrator: she was not, in fact, only thinking of the mods
posted by donnagirl at 9:19 AM on February 8 [8 favorites]
Huh? No swearing in post titles? Or was it calling a politician a prick? Why would that matter?
posted by tiny frying pan at 9:25 AM on February 8 [3 favorites]
posted by tiny frying pan at 9:25 AM on February 8 [3 favorites]
I'm married to Kitteh, and wow, this thread has been a fuckin' trip to catch up on.
posted by Shepherd at 9:36 AM on February 8 [3 favorites]
posted by Shepherd at 9:36 AM on February 8 [3 favorites]
Well it's not every day a person witnesses the birth of a hero
Our Friendly Neighborhood Shitslinger
posted by ginger.beef at 9:56 AM on February 8
Our Friendly Neighborhood Shitslinger
posted by ginger.beef at 9:56 AM on February 8
Mod note: Huh? No swearing in post titles? Or was it calling a politician a prick? Why would that matter?
Those are good points and looking over the rationale I wrote, I think a better way to word it would be this:
It would be so cool if someone who was paid to do things here wrote down all these new rules before they started random enforcement.
Trying to write down every instance that something could be considered wrong or delete worthy isn't possible, as things are often, but not always, based on context.
Otherwise, this past Thursday, I've been working up a short checklist of how mods could approach situations that are flagged/require action. Have been workshopping with the other mods, hope to publish it for community feedback sometime next week, say by the evening of Wednesday the 12th, eastern time, in a new MeTa.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 9:59 AM on February 8 [2 favorites]
Those are good points and looking over the rationale I wrote, I think a better way to word it would be this:
Post title edited to remove the "fucking prick" part. Name calling a politician is generally fine, as is the swearing, but let's keep it out the post titles for basic civility. Once people see that name calling is ok in X situation, they often feel it's ok to do that in many other situations, which tends to create an increased level of general hostility.Hope that better explains things.
Feel free to call politicians fucking prick in the comments or post body though!
It would be so cool if someone who was paid to do things here wrote down all these new rules before they started random enforcement.
Trying to write down every instance that something could be considered wrong or delete worthy isn't possible, as things are often, but not always, based on context.
Otherwise, this past Thursday, I've been working up a short checklist of how mods could approach situations that are flagged/require action. Have been workshopping with the other mods, hope to publish it for community feedback sometime next week, say by the evening of Wednesday the 12th, eastern time, in a new MeTa.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 9:59 AM on February 8 [2 favorites]
... this whole entire thread is yet another perfect example of y'all getting exactly what you asked for, and turning around and complaining about it.
The whole site could use a time-warp behaviorally back to pre-non-profit-seeking days.
posted by stormyteal at 12:35 PM on February 8 [3 favorites]
The whole site could use a time-warp behaviorally back to pre-non-profit-seeking days.
posted by stormyteal at 12:35 PM on February 8 [3 favorites]
y'all getting exactly what you asked for
Can you clarify? Do you mean the entire population of Metafilter (except you?)? Or do you mean everyone who posted in this thread (including you, or not including you)? Or do you mean specific people who posted in this thread and which ones?
(Also, are you really saying this is new behavior for this place?)
posted by Glinn at 12:51 PM on February 8 [5 favorites]
Can you clarify? Do you mean the entire population of Metafilter (except you?)? Or do you mean everyone who posted in this thread (including you, or not including you)? Or do you mean specific people who posted in this thread and which ones?
(Also, are you really saying this is new behavior for this place?)
posted by Glinn at 12:51 PM on February 8 [5 favorites]
Trying to write down every instance that something could be considered wrong or delete worthy isn't possible, as things are often, but not always, based on context.
I very clearly did not ask for anyone to write down every instance. I very clearly asked for a bullet-point summary of how you'd like discourse to go here, because you are literally inventing rules at a breakneck pace. I have no idea why you misread me so hugely, but i really do not enjoy how when you misread members, you usually do so in a way that makes them seem crazy or demanding ("write down every instance!") and you seem totally reasonable ("read for context" is hilarious given how often the staff is called out for not doing this exact thing)
posted by donnagirl at 2:06 PM on February 8 [15 favorites]
I very clearly did not ask for anyone to write down every instance. I very clearly asked for a bullet-point summary of how you'd like discourse to go here, because you are literally inventing rules at a breakneck pace. I have no idea why you misread me so hugely, but i really do not enjoy how when you misread members, you usually do so in a way that makes them seem crazy or demanding ("write down every instance!") and you seem totally reasonable ("read for context" is hilarious given how often the staff is called out for not doing this exact thing)
posted by donnagirl at 2:06 PM on February 8 [15 favorites]
. I very clearly asked for a bullet-point summary of how you'd like discourse to go here,
No. You very clearly asked for a list of rules And Brandon explained why moderation can't be boiled down to a list of rules, because context is important and people are complicated. We have guidelines around how we behave as a community. Sometimes those guidelines are tested in new ways that require moderators to step in and make decisions. Those aren't "rules" - they're just how things go sometimes.
I don't see how you can reasonably claim Brandon misread your request
posted by kbanas at 2:22 PM on February 8 [2 favorites]
No. You very clearly asked for a list of rules And Brandon explained why moderation can't be boiled down to a list of rules, because context is important and people are complicated. We have guidelines around how we behave as a community. Sometimes those guidelines are tested in new ways that require moderators to step in and make decisions. Those aren't "rules" - they're just how things go sometimes.
I don't see how you can reasonably claim Brandon misread your request
posted by kbanas at 2:22 PM on February 8 [2 favorites]
I don't see how you can reasonably claim Brandon misread your request
Brandon singled out the first part of the comment which I read to be sarcastic, and ignored the second part:
... could we have some succinct and clear content/language guidelines prepared by the paid staff before the next site update? Like 10 bullet points? It would be so much easier to consistently enforce. I'm only thinking of the mods.
People have been asking for that, because everyone besides the mod team and maybe summer intern project managers understand that principles and guidelines are more durable and useful than very specific lists of rules.
It's one time you can take a page from an employee manual: A lot of them have rules against "unproductive communication." They don't say: No gossiping, no cussing, no violent language, no lying, no spreading rumors, no shit-talking your coworkers, no wandering around sharing shit you overheard in a meeting in a way meant to stir shit up, no sharing data in a selective manner such that it will derail a project, no sharing data in a selective manner in a manner such that it will make someone sound stupid when they really weren't being in that context, no ..." &c.
And they don't do all that enumerating because it's a time suck, it's futile, and it actually deprives the people charged with just keeping the wheels turning of the ability to intervene in cases of unproductive communication that proves disruptive, because it just breeds malignant, rules-lawyering bullshit from people who spend their days looking for the unmentioned thing they can use to violate the spirit of the policy all day long.
There are at least two blockers to taking a principles-driven approach:
(1) As near as I can tell, there's a hyper-fixation on policies and rules among the mods themselves, but that seems to have been engendered by (2) a select few participants who do not, themselves, understand application of a principle vs. enforcement of a rule, and who run to the little legal library they've built in the sewing room, where they can go consult printed and leather-bound editions of all the rules whenever they catch a deletion.
Oh, and (3) trust for the moderation staff is low, so nobody wants to entrust them with enforcing principles, because there's a sense that they're inconsistent outside the error bars of "a team of moderators is going to bring a collection of perspectives that are inconsistent" and there's a reasonable sense that the principles would include things like the military's old classic "silent insolence," or the high school I worked at that included "defiance of authority," and was used to punish kids who were physically compliant but sucked their teeth in the process.
It's a hole to climb out of, not a hole to keep digging with more and more specific rules.
posted by A forgotten .plan file at 3:09 PM on February 8 [12 favorites]
Brandon singled out the first part of the comment which I read to be sarcastic, and ignored the second part:
... could we have some succinct and clear content/language guidelines prepared by the paid staff before the next site update? Like 10 bullet points? It would be so much easier to consistently enforce. I'm only thinking of the mods.
People have been asking for that, because everyone besides the mod team and maybe summer intern project managers understand that principles and guidelines are more durable and useful than very specific lists of rules.
It's one time you can take a page from an employee manual: A lot of them have rules against "unproductive communication." They don't say: No gossiping, no cussing, no violent language, no lying, no spreading rumors, no shit-talking your coworkers, no wandering around sharing shit you overheard in a meeting in a way meant to stir shit up, no sharing data in a selective manner such that it will derail a project, no sharing data in a selective manner in a manner such that it will make someone sound stupid when they really weren't being in that context, no ..." &c.
And they don't do all that enumerating because it's a time suck, it's futile, and it actually deprives the people charged with just keeping the wheels turning of the ability to intervene in cases of unproductive communication that proves disruptive, because it just breeds malignant, rules-lawyering bullshit from people who spend their days looking for the unmentioned thing they can use to violate the spirit of the policy all day long.
There are at least two blockers to taking a principles-driven approach:
(1) As near as I can tell, there's a hyper-fixation on policies and rules among the mods themselves, but that seems to have been engendered by (2) a select few participants who do not, themselves, understand application of a principle vs. enforcement of a rule, and who run to the little legal library they've built in the sewing room, where they can go consult printed and leather-bound editions of all the rules whenever they catch a deletion.
Oh, and (3) trust for the moderation staff is low, so nobody wants to entrust them with enforcing principles, because there's a sense that they're inconsistent outside the error bars of "a team of moderators is going to bring a collection of perspectives that are inconsistent" and there's a reasonable sense that the principles would include things like the military's old classic "silent insolence," or the high school I worked at that included "defiance of authority," and was used to punish kids who were physically compliant but sucked their teeth in the process.
It's a hole to climb out of, not a hole to keep digging with more and more specific rules.
posted by A forgotten .plan file at 3:09 PM on February 8 [12 favorites]
So we can swear, maybe, maybe not, depending on the context and whatever mod's mood ... definitely not at each other but also not about third parties who aren't even part of the community, and should speak only with civility about a politician in a post title .... of all the timelines in which to be told it's suddenly important to speak politely about public figures in our political landscape that is a burning shithouse (uh oh can I say that)? The things that are literally being done in this political landscape and now we all need to make sure ... we're polite about it.
Like maybe just take a break from micromanaging people's tone for a little bit. When it's at other members here I can sort of understand, but I also feel STRONGLY that the deleted comment that spawned this thread was cherry picked because it used 'bad words' despite being in response to a comment with a nasty ass (uh oh can I say that?) tone.
The most nasty, horrible thing ever said to me (a relative told me that my kid died as a punishment from God because I vote in favor of abortion rights) was said using "polite" words, but my response - which includes enough bad words that I probably can't repeat it in church, my kid's school, a meeting at work or, evidently, on Metafilter - was the problem, so I am really, really, really frustrated seeing a pattern here that feels similar.
We are all adults, right? Literally, this is on the level of micromanaging people's speech now. This is not the kind of 'bending over backwards to word a comment carefully' that I thought I would have to do, and that I've seen the community increasingly concerned about.
posted by fennario at 3:11 PM on February 8 [28 favorites]
Like maybe just take a break from micromanaging people's tone for a little bit. When it's at other members here I can sort of understand, but I also feel STRONGLY that the deleted comment that spawned this thread was cherry picked because it used 'bad words' despite being in response to a comment with a nasty ass (uh oh can I say that?) tone.
The most nasty, horrible thing ever said to me (a relative told me that my kid died as a punishment from God because I vote in favor of abortion rights) was said using "polite" words, but my response - which includes enough bad words that I probably can't repeat it in church, my kid's school, a meeting at work or, evidently, on Metafilter - was the problem, so I am really, really, really frustrated seeing a pattern here that feels similar.
We are all adults, right? Literally, this is on the level of micromanaging people's speech now. This is not the kind of 'bending over backwards to word a comment carefully' that I thought I would have to do, and that I've seen the community increasingly concerned about.
posted by fennario at 3:11 PM on February 8 [28 favorites]
No. You very clearly asked for a list of rules And Brandon explained why moderation can't be boiled down to a list of rules
Bullshit, they LITERALLY SAID:
could we have some succinct and clear content/language guidelines prepared by the paid staff before the next site update? Like 10 bullet points? [emphasis mine]
Context absolutely matters, but it should not be hard to define simple guidelines for participating in this place. The fact that this list DOES NOT EVEN EXIST FOR THE MODS yet is a problem - how can they possibly be expected to consistently enforce rules that have not been specified?
And this is precisely the problem, and just one of the "impossible problems" mods are hiding behaviours behind.
posted by coriolisdave at 3:12 PM on February 8 [12 favorites]
Bullshit, they LITERALLY SAID:
could we have some succinct and clear content/language guidelines prepared by the paid staff before the next site update? Like 10 bullet points? [emphasis mine]
Context absolutely matters, but it should not be hard to define simple guidelines for participating in this place. The fact that this list DOES NOT EVEN EXIST FOR THE MODS yet is a problem - how can they possibly be expected to consistently enforce rules that have not been specified?
And this is precisely the problem, and just one of the "impossible problems" mods are hiding behaviours behind.
posted by coriolisdave at 3:12 PM on February 8 [12 favorites]
Like post comments and post titles are equally public, aren't they? It's not like comments are behind a login. I just find that so arbitrary and frustrating.
posted by fennario at 3:20 PM on February 8 [7 favorites]
posted by fennario at 3:20 PM on February 8 [7 favorites]
There are at least two blockers to taking a principles-driven approach
You missed step zero: have principles.
posted by coriolisdave at 3:22 PM on February 8 [4 favorites]
You missed step zero: have principles.
posted by coriolisdave at 3:22 PM on February 8 [4 favorites]
Like post comments and post titles are equally public, aren't they?
I can sorta understand this - a front page full of “this fucking guy” / “yet more fuckery from shitstain #1” / “goddamned mothercunting fucks did it again” sure wouldn’t read great, and absolutely sets a tone we might not want.
But the tone policing of comments needs to ease up.
posted by coriolisdave at 3:25 PM on February 8 [3 favorites]
I can sorta understand this - a front page full of “this fucking guy” / “yet more fuckery from shitstain #1” / “goddamned mothercunting fucks did it again” sure wouldn’t read great, and absolutely sets a tone we might not want.
But the tone policing of comments needs to ease up.
posted by coriolisdave at 3:25 PM on February 8 [3 favorites]
a bullet-point summary of how you'd like discourse to go here
I've always wondered what it would look like if a community explicitly adopted Grice:
Be relevant.
Be clear.
posted by anotherpanacea at 3:28 PM on February 8 [7 favorites]
I've always wondered what it would look like if a community explicitly adopted Grice:
- Be informative.
- Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purposes of the exchange).
- Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.
- Be truthful.
- Try to make your contribution one that is true.
- Do not say what you believe is false.
- Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.
- Provide information relevant to the current exchange.
- Omit irrelevant information.
- Avoid obscurity of expression — i.e., avoid language that is difficult to understand.
- Avoid ambiguity — i.e., avoid language that can be interpreted in multiple ways.
- Be brief — i.e., avoid unnecessary verbosity.
- Be orderly — i.e., provide information in an order that makes sense, and makes it easy for the recipient to process it.
absolutely sets a tone we might not want.
for whom? for what? no one comes here.
posted by phunniemee at 3:31 PM on February 8 [4 favorites]
for whom? for what? no one comes here.
posted by phunniemee at 3:31 PM on February 8 [4 favorites]
what it would look like if a community explicitly adopted Grice:
At a guess - a lot more helpful, a lot more useful, and a lot less fun
posted by coriolisdave at 3:35 PM on February 8 [1 favorite]
At a guess - a lot more helpful, a lot more useful, and a lot less fun
posted by coriolisdave at 3:35 PM on February 8 [1 favorite]
>I can sorta understand this - a front page full of “this fucking guy” / “yet more fuckery from shitstain #1” / “goddamned mothercunting fucks did it again” sure wouldn’t read great, and absolutely sets a tone we might not want.
Word, I can see that reasoning. But is it an ongoing problem that I (new here) may not be aware of? That absolutely could be, so if told "yes" I'll believe that.
It seems to me like it's something better handled by the 'general principles' approach outlined above and expect people to think about those principles when crafting post titles and when enough people are doing so then we would not have a front page full of that.
Although at the same time, I also see the point made by someone who indicated that there are people in the community who will run to their rule book and cite 17 prior decisions to make it extremely unfair that this 1 'intemperate' post title was allowed when theirs wasn't, or something.
posted by fennario at 3:36 PM on February 8 [2 favorites]
Word, I can see that reasoning. But is it an ongoing problem that I (new here) may not be aware of? That absolutely could be, so if told "yes" I'll believe that.
It seems to me like it's something better handled by the 'general principles' approach outlined above and expect people to think about those principles when crafting post titles and when enough people are doing so then we would not have a front page full of that.
Although at the same time, I also see the point made by someone who indicated that there are people in the community who will run to their rule book and cite 17 prior decisions to make it extremely unfair that this 1 'intemperate' post title was allowed when theirs wasn't, or something.
posted by fennario at 3:36 PM on February 8 [2 favorites]
a lot less fun
It's actually fairly well-established that most jokes operate by violating Gricean maxims!
But, say, AskMe probably does operated according to Grice 95% of the time.
posted by anotherpanacea at 3:41 PM on February 8 [3 favorites]
It's actually fairly well-established that most jokes operate by violating Gricean maxims!
But, say, AskMe probably does operated according to Grice 95% of the time.
posted by anotherpanacea at 3:41 PM on February 8 [3 favorites]
most jokes operate by violating Gricean maxims!
So, then, if we adopt those maxims then… it would be less fun.
Cos violating maxims is how you end up with DOGE
posted by coriolisdave at 3:49 PM on February 8
So, then, if we adopt those maxims then… it would be less fun.
Cos violating maxims is how you end up with DOGE
posted by coriolisdave at 3:49 PM on February 8
(For clarity, I’m not saying we should DO grice, it sounds like a good starting point if nothing else!)
posted by coriolisdave at 3:50 PM on February 8 [1 favorite]
posted by coriolisdave at 3:50 PM on February 8 [1 favorite]
"mods can only enact rules that have existed for at least three (3) days"
Like, does anyone think the post title was against a rule, or was it just a mod feeling suddenly decorum-minded and who got out over their skis? Just stop making up rules to justify obvious fuckups.
Also, mods better be preparing a major retroactive editing spree to deal with any other cases of this horrid behaviour! Otherwise, it might seem a tad arbitrary.
Who is being protected from what here? It can't be Adam Schiff, so do mods just have so little trust in us that they're worried people are going to be posting questions with the title "What should I do about my asshole neighbour, Joe Smith of 123 Avenue St., who's a fucking prick"? Was this the best way to avoid that slippery slope that exists entirely in the mind of mod? Who's to tell?
The tradition of unforced errors continues.
posted by sagc at 3:55 PM on February 8 [18 favorites]
Like, does anyone think the post title was against a rule, or was it just a mod feeling suddenly decorum-minded and who got out over their skis? Just stop making up rules to justify obvious fuckups.
Also, mods better be preparing a major retroactive editing spree to deal with any other cases of this horrid behaviour! Otherwise, it might seem a tad arbitrary.
Who is being protected from what here? It can't be Adam Schiff, so do mods just have so little trust in us that they're worried people are going to be posting questions with the title "What should I do about my asshole neighbour, Joe Smith of 123 Avenue St., who's a fucking prick"? Was this the best way to avoid that slippery slope that exists entirely in the mind of mod? Who's to tell?
The tradition of unforced errors continues.
posted by sagc at 3:55 PM on February 8 [18 favorites]
((*should NOT do grice, damnit ))
posted by coriolisdave at 3:56 PM on February 8 [1 favorite]
posted by coriolisdave at 3:56 PM on February 8 [1 favorite]
fennario: Like post comments and post titles are equally public, aren't they
Yes and no*. I can see the logic if a mod would think: let's keep the front pages of each subsite SFW. If you click on 'more inside', you're on your own.
*Trust the Germans to have a word for this: jein. A nice and compact combination of ja and nein.
posted by Too-Ticky at 4:05 PM on February 8 [1 favorite]
Yes and no*. I can see the logic if a mod would think: let's keep the front pages of each subsite SFW. If you click on 'more inside', you're on your own.
*Trust the Germans to have a word for this: jein. A nice and compact combination of ja and nein.
posted by Too-Ticky at 4:05 PM on February 8 [1 favorite]
I see what you're saying. Also, an important point, I find "SFW" the way you put it to be a better justification than "civility" the way the mod put it, in that context. That gives people a bit more control over what is visible on their screen or history.
posted by fennario at 4:11 PM on February 8 [3 favorites]
posted by fennario at 4:11 PM on February 8 [3 favorites]
We must preserve the sanctity of post titles.
posted by phunniemee at 4:14 PM on February 8 [14 favorites]
posted by phunniemee at 4:14 PM on February 8 [14 favorites]
a front page full of “this fucking guy” / “yet more fuckery from shitstain #1” / “goddamned mothercunting fucks did it again” sure wouldn’t read great
I dunno, I think it would be a real day-brightener.
posted by Don Pepino at 4:26 PM on February 8 [6 favorites]
I dunno, I think it would be a real day-brightener.
posted by Don Pepino at 4:26 PM on February 8 [6 favorites]
We must preserve the sanctity of post titles.
omg
posted by chococat at 5:00 PM on February 8 [3 favorites]
omg
posted by chococat at 5:00 PM on February 8 [3 favorites]
Proposal:
We have the new site filter swear words, so shit becomes shiat etc.
We create a paid membership tier and/or sell tokens to allow the filter to be bypassed.
Pros: Advertisers see the site as family friendly.
Cons: I can't think of any at the moment.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 5:19 PM on February 8
We have the new site filter swear words, so shit becomes shiat etc.
We create a paid membership tier and/or sell tokens to allow the filter to be bypassed.
Pros: Advertisers see the site as family friendly.
Cons: I can't think of any at the moment.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 5:19 PM on February 8
I'm calling phunniemee on hitting a limit on bodily excretions in one thread
posted by ginger.beef at 5:29 PM on February 8 [2 favorites]
posted by ginger.beef at 5:29 PM on February 8 [2 favorites]
"Piss off" being the obvious trifecta at this point, sorry for wrecking the moment
posted by ginger.beef at 5:31 PM on February 8 [1 favorite]
posted by ginger.beef at 5:31 PM on February 8 [1 favorite]
We have the new site filter swear words, so shit becomes shiat etc.
gently caress that
posted by theclaw at 5:35 PM on February 8 [13 favorites]
gently caress that
posted by theclaw at 5:35 PM on February 8 [13 favorites]
"Piss off" being the obvious trifecta at this point
Urine luck.
posted by snofoam at 5:39 PM on February 8 [1 favorite]
Urine luck.
posted by snofoam at 5:39 PM on February 8 [1 favorite]
Anyone planning to button, this MeTa surely rekindled the flame
Good job team, I mean it
posted by ginger.beef at 5:52 PM on February 8 [3 favorites]
Good job team, I mean it
posted by ginger.beef at 5:52 PM on February 8 [3 favorites]
It’s amusing that after getting confirmation that the original mod action was, in retrospect, the wrong call, and noted incorrectly (because swearing is not a valid deletion reason), we have a second brand new, ad hoc “policy” about swearing in post titles. Are we allowed to comment that the moderation seems to be shitty and fucking inconsistent?
posted by snofoam at 5:53 PM on February 8 [12 favorites]
posted by snofoam at 5:53 PM on February 8 [12 favorites]
With regard to editing the post title, at first I was ambivalent about it and didn’t really care one way or the other. The comment about tone policing wormed its way into my brain and now I’m rethinking my ambivalence so here’s where I’m at: the swearing in the post title wasn't necessary and any number of other words would have made the point just as well if not better so sure, edit the swearing out. On the other hand, the poster decided to use the words they used and editing the title really istone policing, and that’s a steep and slippery slope that doesn’t even need to be walked on.
I read the reason and I find myself agreeing with sagc, who’s being protected from what? Is the editing maybe more about appearance, along the lines of the language is unbecoming of MetaFilter? I hope that this isn’t the case.
I wonder if there’s going to be an uptick in sweary post titles now. If that’s the case do you double down and edit or let it go? Both choices will definitely be commented on.
posted by ashbury at 6:47 PM on February 8 [3 favorites]
I read the reason and I find myself agreeing with sagc, who’s being protected from what? Is the editing maybe more about appearance, along the lines of the language is unbecoming of MetaFilter? I hope that this isn’t the case.
I wonder if there’s going to be an uptick in sweary post titles now. If that’s the case do you double down and edit or let it go? Both choices will definitely be commented on.
posted by ashbury at 6:47 PM on February 8 [3 favorites]
I almost never post on the blue and when I do it’s usually cute animal videos but I am now quite tempted to post cute animal videos with sweary post titles. “Look at this fucking parrot” “this asshole porcupine won’t leave the kitchen”
posted by Mizu at 7:02 PM on February 8 [25 favorites]
posted by Mizu at 7:02 PM on February 8 [25 favorites]
Are we allowed to comment that the moderation seems to be shitty and fucking inconsistent?
Of course you are. It's a pretty aggressive way to say that, though.
posted by Glinn at 7:11 PM on February 8 [2 favorites]
Of course you are. It's a pretty aggressive way to say that, though.
posted by Glinn at 7:11 PM on February 8 [2 favorites]
this asshole porcupine won’t leave the kitchen”
that would have been a great line in the dining room scene in a creature was stirring.
watching Saturday Night. live...
Chevy Chase almost beat the shit ouuta bastard bee Belushi, snorting half of Garrett's fucking stash. and Michael O Donahue. fuccckk me.
before that George Carlin does his rehearsal...f*** you...f*** you...and f*** you....
and f*** all of you.
I see no room for microaggression with George Carlin.
posted by clavdivs at 7:23 PM on February 8
that would have been a great line in the dining room scene in a creature was stirring.
watching Saturday Night. live...
Chevy Chase almost beat the shit ouuta bastard bee Belushi, snorting half of Garrett's fucking stash. and Michael O Donahue. fuccckk me.
before that George Carlin does his rehearsal...f*** you...f*** you...and f*** you....
and f*** all of you.
I see no room for microaggression with George Carlin.
posted by clavdivs at 7:23 PM on February 8
Honestly, it often feels like the mods are somehow secretly accelerationist when it comes to conflict with the userbase. Like why on earth would you invent a new rule about swearing when people just got done being nearly across-the-board unhappy about a different ad hoc swearing thing? The level of judgment shown is... unique.
posted by dusty potato at 7:35 PM on February 8 [22 favorites]
posted by dusty potato at 7:35 PM on February 8 [22 favorites]
I flagged a post this morning and it didn't get taken down.
I'm pretty salty about it, if you want to know.
(jk)
posted by Lemkin at 7:39 PM on February 8
I'm pretty salty about it, if you want to know.
(jk)
posted by Lemkin at 7:39 PM on February 8
A fundraiser: MeFites can post filthy FPP titles, attempting to outdo one another, till someone taps out with a post titled "The Aristocrats"
.
.
.
Profit?
I didn't say it was a good idea
posted by ginger.beef at 7:50 PM on February 8 [3 favorites]
.
.
.
Profit?
I didn't say it was a good idea
posted by ginger.beef at 7:50 PM on February 8 [3 favorites]
Are we allowed to comment that the moderation seems to be shitty and fucking inconsistent?
Only if you’re prepared to do it over and over and over again for a period of many years. Many people give up before they’ve badgered the moderators into doing things the way they want.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:45 PM on February 8 [3 favorites]
Only if you’re prepared to do it over and over and over again for a period of many years. Many people give up before they’ve badgered the moderators into doing things the way they want.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 8:45 PM on February 8 [3 favorites]
Mod note: I almost never post on the blue and when I do it’s usually cute animal videos but I am now quite tempted to post cute animal videos with sweary post titles. “Look at this fucking parrot” “this asshole porcupine won’t leave the kitchen”
Honestly, that would be hilarious. A fundraiser with expletive loaded titles and comments about animals would be great, IMO. But I know it would also bother some people because that post of the title I edited picked up a lot of flags
My interpretation of those flags was that some members thought the language was harsh and unnecessary. So I edited it for the reasons stated and left a note. That note picked up a decent number of favorites. So are flags and favorites the end all, be all of decider of things? Nah, but it's not like they don't matter, IMO. It all depends on the context.
If there was a post in AskMe that was titled "SIgnificant other left/is mad because of X, am I the fucking prick?" it probably would have been left up, despite a large number of flags, because that example wasn't attacking anyone.
Disagreement and arguing is fine, even vigorously. But MeFi is not an all out war zone. If disagreements and arguments ratchet to attacks, then yes mods will step in to defuse and redirect those incidents.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 5:03 AM on February 9 [3 favorites]
Honestly, that would be hilarious. A fundraiser with expletive loaded titles and comments about animals would be great, IMO. But I know it would also bother some people because that post of the title I edited picked up a lot of flags
My interpretation of those flags was that some members thought the language was harsh and unnecessary. So I edited it for the reasons stated and left a note. That note picked up a decent number of favorites. So are flags and favorites the end all, be all of decider of things? Nah, but it's not like they don't matter, IMO. It all depends on the context.
If there was a post in AskMe that was titled "SIgnificant other left/is mad because of X, am I the fucking prick?" it probably would have been left up, despite a large number of flags, because that example wasn't attacking anyone.
Disagreement and arguing is fine, even vigorously. But MeFi is not an all out war zone. If disagreements and arguments ratchet to attacks, then yes mods will step in to defuse and redirect those incidents.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 5:03 AM on February 9 [3 favorites]
the title I edited picked up a lot of flags
What is "a lot" in numbers, I'm curious.
posted by phunniemee at 5:30 AM on February 9 [3 favorites]
What is "a lot" in numbers, I'm curious.
posted by phunniemee at 5:30 AM on February 9 [3 favorites]
7
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 5:35 AM on February 9 [1 favorite]
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 5:35 AM on February 9 [1 favorite]
The 7-hecklers veto
posted by sagc at 5:42 AM on February 9 [9 favorites]
posted by sagc at 5:42 AM on February 9 [9 favorites]
"if disagreements and arguments ratchet into attacks"... on elected politicians who are not present on the site.
Like, can you see how dishonest it is to compare this scenario to a personal attack? What rule did it break? Remember, only cite things that are actually written down somewhere.
posted by sagc at 5:45 AM on February 9 [13 favorites]
Like, can you see how dishonest it is to compare this scenario to a personal attack? What rule did it break? Remember, only cite things that are actually written down somewhere.
posted by sagc at 5:45 AM on February 9 [13 favorites]
Also, maybe using the favorites bookmarks you got as a retroactive justification isn't the strong argument you seem to believe it is. My previous comment asking WTF has more favorites than yours explaining the change, so clearly I am more mathematically correct, and should be made a mod.
posted by sagc at 5:50 AM on February 9 [13 favorites]
posted by sagc at 5:50 AM on February 9 [13 favorites]
>Also, maybe using the favorites bookmarks you got as a retroactive justification isn't the strong argument you seem to believe it is.
Agreed. People favorite for various different reasons.
"But my statement was popular" isn't a good excuse to justify a bad policy .... look at our current political state.
And that is even if you count 7 as a persuasively popular amount (a 'mandate' even) (I don't) and assume all 7 favorites reflected agreement.
Comments criticizing the decision have far more favorites, if we're going to treat that metric as relevant.
posted by fennario at 6:03 AM on February 9 [3 favorites]
Agreed. People favorite for various different reasons.
"But my statement was popular" isn't a good excuse to justify a bad policy .... look at our current political state.
And that is even if you count 7 as a persuasively popular amount (a 'mandate' even) (I don't) and assume all 7 favorites reflected agreement.
Comments criticizing the decision have far more favorites, if we're going to treat that metric as relevant.
posted by fennario at 6:03 AM on February 9 [3 favorites]
For that matter, falling in poop does much better numbers than comment/title deletion, maybe that should be the new moderation strategy.
posted by phunniemee at 6:09 AM on February 9 [15 favorites]
posted by phunniemee at 6:09 AM on February 9 [15 favorites]
But I know it would also bother some people because that post of the title I edited picked up a lot of flags
My interpretation of those flags was that some members thought the language was harsh and unnecessary. So I edited it for the reasons stated and left a note. That note picked up a decent number of favorites. So are flags and favorites the end all, be all of decider of things? Nah, but it's not like they don't matter, IMO.
No. Stop it. This, right here, is exactly the problem.
The job of moderators is supposed to be to enforce the rules, even when people don't like it. That's why it's a paid gig. And what you're doing instead is reacting to flags, and trying to score favorites.
In the 2022 user survey, an overwhelming theme of the responses was that people have stopped posting and commenting here because the range of acceptable discourse keeps becoming more and more narrow.
And what you're describing is exactly the mechanism by which I believe that change has happened. Because it wasn't just that people made mean comments. That always happened. It's because people saw that the moderators, too, would cave in to those who wanted the site to never show them anything they didn't like, and who were prepared to make a lot of noise about it.
We have rules. Follow them. If something gets a lot of flags, but doesn't break the rules, then you can open a MetaTalk thread, or talk to the board or the forthcoming moderation committee, to see if perhaps the rules need to change. But you cannot just skip that step. The rules can't just keep changing behind the scenes because of whatever people decide to flag for.
posted by automatronic at 6:19 AM on February 9 [42 favorites]
My interpretation of those flags was that some members thought the language was harsh and unnecessary. So I edited it for the reasons stated and left a note. That note picked up a decent number of favorites. So are flags and favorites the end all, be all of decider of things? Nah, but it's not like they don't matter, IMO.
No. Stop it. This, right here, is exactly the problem.
The job of moderators is supposed to be to enforce the rules, even when people don't like it. That's why it's a paid gig. And what you're doing instead is reacting to flags, and trying to score favorites.
In the 2022 user survey, an overwhelming theme of the responses was that people have stopped posting and commenting here because the range of acceptable discourse keeps becoming more and more narrow.
And what you're describing is exactly the mechanism by which I believe that change has happened. Because it wasn't just that people made mean comments. That always happened. It's because people saw that the moderators, too, would cave in to those who wanted the site to never show them anything they didn't like, and who were prepared to make a lot of noise about it.
We have rules. Follow them. If something gets a lot of flags, but doesn't break the rules, then you can open a MetaTalk thread, or talk to the board or the forthcoming moderation committee, to see if perhaps the rules need to change. But you cannot just skip that step. The rules can't just keep changing behind the scenes because of whatever people decide to flag for.
posted by automatronic at 6:19 AM on February 9 [42 favorites]
That note picked up a decent number of favorites.
Good to know that moderators are making decisions based on what's best for the site and user experience, not some arbitrary number of upvotes or how cool the moderator gets to look in front of all the other kids.
My interpretation of those flags was that some members thought the language was harsh and unnecessary.
Can we have a breakdown of those flags? How many of them actually mentioned the bad language in the title?
posted by fight or flight at 7:18 AM on February 9 [7 favorites]
Good to know that moderators are making decisions based on what's best for the site and user experience, not some arbitrary number of upvotes or how cool the moderator gets to look in front of all the other kids.
My interpretation of those flags was that some members thought the language was harsh and unnecessary.
Can we have a breakdown of those flags? How many of them actually mentioned the bad language in the title?
posted by fight or flight at 7:18 AM on February 9 [7 favorites]
For that matter, falling in poop does much better numbers than comment/title deletion, maybe that should be the new moderation strategy.
What’s the new part?
posted by snofoam at 7:25 AM on February 9 [5 favorites]
What’s the new part?
posted by snofoam at 7:25 AM on February 9 [5 favorites]
Hi again, here's some notes mixed with answers to specific questions:
Totally agree that citing a particular number of flags or favorites isn't a particular mandate or or proof that a particular action is approved. As I stated earlier, they definitely can be a factor in how mods assess and deal with situations.
Think of it as less as me trying for ironclad justification for decisions made, but explaining the line of thinking. Yes, it's clear there isn't unanimous agreement on the reasoning or action.
Regarding the 2022 survey, the overwhelming takeaway was that people thought moderation was fine, with some members having various issue with it.
What rule did it break? Remember, only cite things that are actually written down somewhere.
Eh, there are always going to be grey areas where decisions need to be made, so trying to always cite a specific rule as an ironclad answer doesn't always work.
That said, I'd cite the hateful and insensitive and name calling under the Content Policy.
Interestingly enough, there's no specific definition of what a MeFi moderator does on the site, unless I missed something. If you asked me to define it I'd say that a moderator is a member of the community empowered to help guide, nurture, and when necessary, enforce site rules and norms, so my edited rationale works under that.
Can we have a breakdown of those flags? How many of them actually mentioned the bad language in the title?
Sure, here it is:
2 flagged as breaks guidelines
3 flagged as offensive
2 flagged as other, with notes explicitly mentioning the language
And what you're doing instead is reacting to flags, and trying to score favorites
Well, yeah, every moderator is reacting to flags to some extent. That's what they're designed to do, alert the mods to potential problems and mods decide how to act on them.
As to me scoring favorites, yeah no. My personal view is that favorites are neat, I choose "has favorites" as indicator of favorites, and I keep in mind that I have more favorites than Matt, who created and ran the site, but it's clear that he is absolutely more important to this site that I am. In short, favorites are an interesting measurement, but they're not a definitive answer to anything.
I'll be in and out on the site until Tuesday evening eastern time, so any comments from me will probably be sporadic. Mostly I'm just listening, with the expectation that the Moderation Oversight Committee is taking notes and will have recommendations down the line. That's fine, that's what it and MetaTalk are for.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 8:10 AM on February 9 [2 favorites]
Totally agree that citing a particular number of flags or favorites isn't a particular mandate or or proof that a particular action is approved. As I stated earlier, they definitely can be a factor in how mods assess and deal with situations.
Think of it as less as me trying for ironclad justification for decisions made, but explaining the line of thinking. Yes, it's clear there isn't unanimous agreement on the reasoning or action.
Regarding the 2022 survey, the overwhelming takeaway was that people thought moderation was fine, with some members having various issue with it.
What rule did it break? Remember, only cite things that are actually written down somewhere.
Eh, there are always going to be grey areas where decisions need to be made, so trying to always cite a specific rule as an ironclad answer doesn't always work.
That said, I'd cite the hateful and insensitive and name calling under the Content Policy.
Interestingly enough, there's no specific definition of what a MeFi moderator does on the site, unless I missed something. If you asked me to define it I'd say that a moderator is a member of the community empowered to help guide, nurture, and when necessary, enforce site rules and norms, so my edited rationale works under that.
Can we have a breakdown of those flags? How many of them actually mentioned the bad language in the title?
Sure, here it is:
2 flagged as breaks guidelines
3 flagged as offensive
2 flagged as other, with notes explicitly mentioning the language
And what you're doing instead is reacting to flags, and trying to score favorites
Well, yeah, every moderator is reacting to flags to some extent. That's what they're designed to do, alert the mods to potential problems and mods decide how to act on them.
As to me scoring favorites, yeah no. My personal view is that favorites are neat, I choose "has favorites" as indicator of favorites, and I keep in mind that I have more favorites than Matt, who created and ran the site, but it's clear that he is absolutely more important to this site that I am. In short, favorites are an interesting measurement, but they're not a definitive answer to anything.
I'll be in and out on the site until Tuesday evening eastern time, so any comments from me will probably be sporadic. Mostly I'm just listening, with the expectation that the Moderation Oversight Committee is taking notes and will have recommendations down the line. That's fine, that's what it and MetaTalk are for.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 8:10 AM on February 9 [2 favorites]
Cool. Are you going to delete every mention of Trump that calls him names? Cheeto Mussolini and such?
posted by lapis at 8:18 AM on February 9 [3 favorites]
posted by lapis at 8:18 AM on February 9 [3 favorites]
cool, more wild flailing to find something that could, if one squints, barely justify the deletion. And that's after the fact! At the very least you should have had an idea of which guidelines it violated before acting.
Also, I suspect you're misreading the guidelines, otherwise my calling Trudeau an fucking prick of a Prime Minister here in this comment is just as deleteworthy.
Brandon, you do not seem to have improved your ability to actually correctly interpret either site guidelines or member concerns, and the constant shifting of justifications is just embarassing for someone who should be a professional.
Back in another few months when I'm reminded that this place exists to see if this kind of foot shooting continues, I guess.
posted by sagc at 8:28 AM on February 9 [6 favorites]
Also, I suspect you're misreading the guidelines, otherwise my calling Trudeau an fucking prick of a Prime Minister here in this comment is just as deleteworthy.
Brandon, you do not seem to have improved your ability to actually correctly interpret either site guidelines or member concerns, and the constant shifting of justifications is just embarassing for someone who should be a professional.
Back in another few months when I'm reminded that this place exists to see if this kind of foot shooting continues, I guess.
posted by sagc at 8:28 AM on February 9 [6 favorites]
What in the everloving
So by this logic, if someone posted about, say, Congresswoman McBride, 7 transphobic members could flag it and it’d be changed to “Congressman”?
posted by rhymedirective at 8:39 AM on February 9 [7 favorites]
So by this logic, if someone posted about, say, Congresswoman McBride, 7 transphobic members could flag it and it’d be changed to “Congressman”?
posted by rhymedirective at 8:39 AM on February 9 [7 favorites]
Wow, just wow, Brandon. What a crock of horseshit. Additionally, it's absolutely pathetic that at some point you looked up Matt's favorites and compared them to yours when we have had dozens of conversations about how favorites aren't necessarily endorsements. I myself have favorited several of your comments in case I need citations when you weirdly decide that precedent matters. Not endorsements. More of anti-endorsements. Never needed to do that with Matt, since you're keeping score.
posted by donnagirl at 8:47 AM on February 9 [7 favorites]
posted by donnagirl at 8:47 AM on February 9 [7 favorites]
We have the new site filter swear words, so shit becomes shiat etc.
"Sheeeeeeeeeit", surely.
posted by kirkaracha (staff) at 9:42 AM on February 9 [2 favorites]
"Sheeeeeeeeeit", surely.
posted by kirkaracha (staff) at 9:42 AM on February 9 [2 favorites]
Okay Brandon you have to tell me if I got at least one "flagged as fantastic" for my original post title about that fucking prick.
posted by kensington314 at 9:45 AM on February 9 [5 favorites]
posted by kensington314 at 9:45 AM on February 9 [5 favorites]
I'd forgotten that apart from the rules documented in the guidelines, content policy, microaggressions and unacceptable words pages, there are also some rules that have been created in moderator comments, but not centrally documented as far as I know.
1. "cross-site talk/comments are generally removed"
2. "calling for a moderator to resign"
3. "Name calling a politician is generally fine, along with the swearing, but let's keep it out the post titles for basic civility."
Are there any others?
posted by TheophileEscargot at 10:51 AM on February 9 [4 favorites]
1. "cross-site talk/comments are generally removed"
2. "calling for a moderator to resign"
3. "Name calling a politician is generally fine, along with the swearing, but let's keep it out the post titles for basic civility."
Are there any others?
posted by TheophileEscargot at 10:51 AM on February 9 [4 favorites]
Some of the comments that don’t answer the question in Ask are deleted. Others are left behind. A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.
posted by Vatnesine at 11:02 AM on February 9
posted by Vatnesine at 11:02 AM on February 9
Regarding the 2022 survey, the overwhelming takeaway was that people thought moderation was fine, with some members having various issue with it.
Just a reminder to BB and others that this was after significant exoduses POC members and of trans members, as well as allies.
posted by knucklebones at 11:26 AM on February 9 [8 favorites]
Just a reminder to BB and others that this was after significant exoduses POC members and of trans members, as well as allies.
posted by knucklebones at 11:26 AM on February 9 [8 favorites]
Are there any others?
...we rarely approve put more than one meta through in the same day.
posted by Diskeater at 11:51 AM on February 9 [8 favorites]
...we rarely approve put more than one meta through in the same day.
posted by Diskeater at 11:51 AM on February 9 [8 favorites]
i love the near-infallibility of a mod pronouncement having a fucking autocorrect typo because they're doing their jobs on their fucking phones while driving down the road or whatever
posted by glonous keming at 12:01 PM on February 9 [9 favorites]
posted by glonous keming at 12:01 PM on February 9 [9 favorites]
Oh wait, I can see from another BB comment here that I didn't get any flagged as fantastic. I'm a little bit offended by that! I do assume that I mostly got flagged by people who see Schiff as a Resistance Hero. Which is fine, I coexist very harmoniously with a lot of people who like Adam Schiff a lot more than I do.
I don't typically get involved in moderation conversations, mostly for [shrug emoji] reasons, and because those conversations make me feel like maybe I'm getting an uncomfortable window into how people treat wait staff at restaurants. I will say this though: if moderation decisions cite to Metafilter guidelines (rather than, I guess, nuance and context and common sense), such citations should make sense.
So, per BB, "I'd cite the hateful and insensitive and name calling under the Content Policy." Hateful or Insensitive: BB is right that I hate Adam Schiff, but I believe the Content Policy and moderation precedent allow us to hate an individual (cf: every post about Trump, Trudeau, any social media influencer, etc.). The CP is clearly written to prevent "hate speech," in that it is explicitly about barring transphobia, homophobia, misogyny, and racism in people's activity here. The "insensitive" reference in the CP seems to anticipate and seek to prevent that kind ironic winking-and-nodding, trollish edgelord shit that you see on the right. A "keep the Milo's out" kind of thing. Anyway, I didn't do any of that and if you ever see me doing anything like that, please just kick me right off the site, someone snuck the red pill into my Honey Bunches of Oats when I wasn't looking.
In the CP, Name Calling is specifically about name-calling or cursing at another person in the conversation. So unless Adam Schiff is Metafilter's own, categorically that's no violation. (Please disclose if Adam Schiff is Metafilter's own so that I may make an informed decision about whether or not to button.)
Anyway, the change does seem a little odd? Like it seems to reinforce the question of whether swearing is suddenly disallowed, or whether a general "good manners" policy governs moderation here. Maybe the site should be a less coarse place with less strident and vitriolic post titles? I could see an argument for that, and I think in most other spaces in my life I'd probably not come right out the gate the way I did, owing to people's sensitivities and such. But I tend to think of MF as a kind of social mixer among strangers and vague acquaintances, which governs the way I present here. If, instead, the intention is for us to be more in the mode of that little room after church where you drink Crystal Light and eat cookies from Kroger, probably the community deserves to weigh in on that.
But then again, elsewhere in this MeTa Brandon is supporting the idea of a fundraiser where we use pottymouth words as subject titles? So it's hard to identify and pin down a core moderation principle here.
posted by kensington314 at 12:27 PM on February 9 [4 favorites]
I don't typically get involved in moderation conversations, mostly for [shrug emoji] reasons, and because those conversations make me feel like maybe I'm getting an uncomfortable window into how people treat wait staff at restaurants. I will say this though: if moderation decisions cite to Metafilter guidelines (rather than, I guess, nuance and context and common sense), such citations should make sense.
So, per BB, "I'd cite the hateful and insensitive and name calling under the Content Policy." Hateful or Insensitive: BB is right that I hate Adam Schiff, but I believe the Content Policy and moderation precedent allow us to hate an individual (cf: every post about Trump, Trudeau, any social media influencer, etc.). The CP is clearly written to prevent "hate speech," in that it is explicitly about barring transphobia, homophobia, misogyny, and racism in people's activity here. The "insensitive" reference in the CP seems to anticipate and seek to prevent that kind ironic winking-and-nodding, trollish edgelord shit that you see on the right. A "keep the Milo's out" kind of thing. Anyway, I didn't do any of that and if you ever see me doing anything like that, please just kick me right off the site, someone snuck the red pill into my Honey Bunches of Oats when I wasn't looking.
In the CP, Name Calling is specifically about name-calling or cursing at another person in the conversation. So unless Adam Schiff is Metafilter's own, categorically that's no violation. (Please disclose if Adam Schiff is Metafilter's own so that I may make an informed decision about whether or not to button.)
Anyway, the change does seem a little odd? Like it seems to reinforce the question of whether swearing is suddenly disallowed, or whether a general "good manners" policy governs moderation here. Maybe the site should be a less coarse place with less strident and vitriolic post titles? I could see an argument for that, and I think in most other spaces in my life I'd probably not come right out the gate the way I did, owing to people's sensitivities and such. But I tend to think of MF as a kind of social mixer among strangers and vague acquaintances, which governs the way I present here. If, instead, the intention is for us to be more in the mode of that little room after church where you drink Crystal Light and eat cookies from Kroger, probably the community deserves to weigh in on that.
But then again, elsewhere in this MeTa Brandon is supporting the idea of a fundraiser where we use pottymouth words as subject titles? So it's hard to identify and pin down a core moderation principle here.
posted by kensington314 at 12:27 PM on February 9 [4 favorites]
Yikes.
So, trying to be constructive: At least among those that have shared their opinion, it seems like there's a broad consensus that:
(a) this deletion was a step too far
(b) we'd like to the mods try to de-escalate threads without deleting comments more often
Even the moderator who deleted the comment thinks it wasn't a good deletion and the situation could possibly have been addressed in a better way. Am I correct?
Because if I am, another moderator stepping in now to try to justify the deletion - and future deletions like it - seems only likely to cause dissatisfaction with moderation to spiral. If this was a bad deletion, and it seems like most of us think that, what we need is some reflection on how to do things differently rather than continued defenses and justifications.
BB, I've moderated various online forums for a long time so I know what a thankless task it can be; there's no pleasing everyone. But approaching every issue people have with moderation as though you're on trial and need to mount a defense is most assuredly NOT helping. I get the impulse, I really do, but you've got to put your ego aside. If you see yourself as a community member, then have a dialogue and problem-solve as a community member. And if you really want to leave the reflection up to the oversight committee, then do so.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 12:33 PM on February 9 [9 favorites]
So, trying to be constructive: At least among those that have shared their opinion, it seems like there's a broad consensus that:
(a) this deletion was a step too far
(b) we'd like to the mods try to de-escalate threads without deleting comments more often
Even the moderator who deleted the comment thinks it wasn't a good deletion and the situation could possibly have been addressed in a better way. Am I correct?
Because if I am, another moderator stepping in now to try to justify the deletion - and future deletions like it - seems only likely to cause dissatisfaction with moderation to spiral. If this was a bad deletion, and it seems like most of us think that, what we need is some reflection on how to do things differently rather than continued defenses and justifications.
BB, I've moderated various online forums for a long time so I know what a thankless task it can be; there's no pleasing everyone. But approaching every issue people have with moderation as though you're on trial and need to mount a defense is most assuredly NOT helping. I get the impulse, I really do, but you've got to put your ego aside. If you see yourself as a community member, then have a dialogue and problem-solve as a community member. And if you really want to leave the reflection up to the oversight committee, then do so.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 12:33 PM on February 9 [9 favorites]
I thought the Deleted Comment that started this whole thread was an inflamed response to an Original Comment that used the word "Protip:" and was therefore objectionable / condescending / bad. So in theory an alternate way of handling the problem is deleting condescending comments, and identifying those through filters that scan for particular vocabulary. Suggested vocabulary to add to our Banned Condescention filter:
1: Protip -
2: Gently -
3: Kindly -
These words could be coded to bring up a metafilter version of Clippy: "It looks like you're going to explain something from an assumed position of superiority. Gently, have you considered NOT doing that?"
Any other words that are an instant indication that the comment following them will be condescending?
i'm joking. Mostly.
posted by Vatnesine at 1:47 PM on February 9 [10 favorites]
1: Protip -
2: Gently -
3: Kindly -
These words could be coded to bring up a metafilter version of Clippy: "It looks like you're going to explain something from an assumed position of superiority. Gently, have you considered NOT doing that?"
Any other words that are an instant indication that the comment following them will be condescending?
i'm joking. Mostly.
posted by Vatnesine at 1:47 PM on February 9 [10 favorites]
"I didn't read the link, but..."
posted by box at 2:16 PM on February 9 [1 favorite]
posted by box at 2:16 PM on February 9 [1 favorite]
(a) this deletion was a step too far
(b) we'd like to the mods try to de-escalate threads without deleting comments more often
Speaking only for myself, I'd like the mods not to delete anything unless that is the only possible solution. Far too often, trying to solve something that isn't an actual problem itself becomes a much bigger problem. There are times when you're damned if you do and damned if you don't, but this was not even close to that.
Speaking of solutions that are their own problem, please get rid of the fucking MeTa queue!
posted by dg at 2:52 PM on February 9 [11 favorites]
(b) we'd like to the mods try to de-escalate threads without deleting comments more often
Speaking only for myself, I'd like the mods not to delete anything unless that is the only possible solution. Far too often, trying to solve something that isn't an actual problem itself becomes a much bigger problem. There are times when you're damned if you do and damned if you don't, but this was not even close to that.
Speaking of solutions that are their own problem, please get rid of the fucking MeTa queue!
posted by dg at 2:52 PM on February 9 [11 favorites]
(c) more notes, fewer deletions.
You missed step zero: have principles.
This.
Rules are an attempt to control. They inevitably get nitpicky, long-winded, and even nonsensical.
Principles are an assertion of values. What are the values of the site? How do they help ensure a good, fair, friendly user experience for members?
posted by Violet Blue at 3:42 PM on February 9 [6 favorites]
You missed step zero: have principles.
This.
Rules are an attempt to control. They inevitably get nitpicky, long-winded, and even nonsensical.
Principles are an assertion of values. What are the values of the site? How do they help ensure a good, fair, friendly user experience for members?
posted by Violet Blue at 3:42 PM on February 9 [6 favorites]
a good game of Stratego
posted by clavdivs at 7:08 PM on February 9 [2 favorites]
posted by clavdivs at 7:08 PM on February 9 [2 favorites]
cursing at someone else is not okay
I'm basically done with this site, but FWIW, I'm firmly in the camp that cursing at someone can be perfectly valid. Words are just a way of communicating thoughts and whether you use "naughty" words or not doesn't really matter, it's what you intend to convey. And sometimes it's absolutely appropriate to chew someone out. This should be a place where grownups can exist and communicate with each other in an adult way without having to run to moderators.
To my knowledge, I've cursed at one person here and as far as I'm concerned it was absolutely justified. I asked a pretty specific question on Ask about something that was presenting me with a great deal of difficulty and stress. A user early in the thread decided to derail, ignored my question, and proceeded to tell me that I was incapable of performing the overall task (with no knowledge of what I do in the field or what my skills are, other than the extremely narrow part of what I'd discussed looking for suggestions specific to the question) and that I should give up on something I obviously cared about. This caused the majority of the followup comments to also be similar thoughts on the derail.
I could have written paragraph after paragraph chewing them out for their cluelessness about the situation, how their unwanted and unasked for advice had basically made my entire question worthless, etc. using "polite" words. But that didn't really fit the anger for when I made it clear in my question that the specific issue I needed to solve was impacting my life in significant ways and that person decided to, "well, actually, you don't understand what the problem really is," me.
So I sent the short version along with "Fuck off."
A adult receiving that message in that circumstance should perhaps engage in some self reflection on the situation and resolve to do better, not run crying to the moderators that someone was mean to them. And the moderators in those cases should ask, "well, did you provoke this kind of response? You should prevent this kind of situation by behaving better."
The obsession with the idea that no one (within a certain extreme spectrum of left wing groupthink) should ever be offended by anything here evar is a huge part of why so many people have left.
And for the record, I have been cursed at by DM here myself, and I took a moment to review the conversation, determined that I hadn't done anything inappropriate, but disengaged after simply asked her to not contact me again. And we both went on to have perfectly fine experiences on MF for years without having to get anyone else involved. Because we were both adults.
posted by Candleman at 7:26 PM on February 9 [7 favorites]
I'm basically done with this site, but FWIW, I'm firmly in the camp that cursing at someone can be perfectly valid. Words are just a way of communicating thoughts and whether you use "naughty" words or not doesn't really matter, it's what you intend to convey. And sometimes it's absolutely appropriate to chew someone out. This should be a place where grownups can exist and communicate with each other in an adult way without having to run to moderators.
To my knowledge, I've cursed at one person here and as far as I'm concerned it was absolutely justified. I asked a pretty specific question on Ask about something that was presenting me with a great deal of difficulty and stress. A user early in the thread decided to derail, ignored my question, and proceeded to tell me that I was incapable of performing the overall task (with no knowledge of what I do in the field or what my skills are, other than the extremely narrow part of what I'd discussed looking for suggestions specific to the question) and that I should give up on something I obviously cared about. This caused the majority of the followup comments to also be similar thoughts on the derail.
I could have written paragraph after paragraph chewing them out for their cluelessness about the situation, how their unwanted and unasked for advice had basically made my entire question worthless, etc. using "polite" words. But that didn't really fit the anger for when I made it clear in my question that the specific issue I needed to solve was impacting my life in significant ways and that person decided to, "well, actually, you don't understand what the problem really is," me.
So I sent the short version along with "Fuck off."
A adult receiving that message in that circumstance should perhaps engage in some self reflection on the situation and resolve to do better, not run crying to the moderators that someone was mean to them. And the moderators in those cases should ask, "well, did you provoke this kind of response? You should prevent this kind of situation by behaving better."
The obsession with the idea that no one (within a certain extreme spectrum of left wing groupthink) should ever be offended by anything here evar is a huge part of why so many people have left.
And for the record, I have been cursed at by DM here myself, and I took a moment to review the conversation, determined that I hadn't done anything inappropriate, but disengaged after simply asked her to not contact me again. And we both went on to have perfectly fine experiences on MF for years without having to get anyone else involved. Because we were both adults.
posted by Candleman at 7:26 PM on February 9 [7 favorites]
Why is telling someone to fuck off the adult response?
In real life, in the right circumstances, it could get you punched in the nose. Even online, it's a nasty exchange to read, and it certainly doesn't enhance the environment of the thread.
Why not politely ask the person to please answer your question? Why not write the mods and ask for a rerail? Why not ask the mods to delete the thread, and create another question later? Why not just take it in stride?
I repeatedly see folks on here justifying short snappish and mean-spirited outbursts. They rationalize they are "feeling their feelings" as though that's definitionally an adult thing to do, when, in fact, emotional regulation is typically something adults teach children.
That's not to say we don't all get angry and falter sometimes. I don't take you to task for that. But I do think the assumption that an outburst, maybe even a tantrum, is a-okay because that's how you felt is fundamentally selfish, as though you were the only person in that thread when, by your own account, you weren't.
From the sound of it, the worst harm done was intense disappointment. You think that hasn't happened to most of us on the site?
posted by Violet Blue at 7:56 PM on February 9 [5 favorites]
In real life, in the right circumstances, it could get you punched in the nose. Even online, it's a nasty exchange to read, and it certainly doesn't enhance the environment of the thread.
Why not politely ask the person to please answer your question? Why not write the mods and ask for a rerail? Why not ask the mods to delete the thread, and create another question later? Why not just take it in stride?
I repeatedly see folks on here justifying short snappish and mean-spirited outbursts. They rationalize they are "feeling their feelings" as though that's definitionally an adult thing to do, when, in fact, emotional regulation is typically something adults teach children.
That's not to say we don't all get angry and falter sometimes. I don't take you to task for that. But I do think the assumption that an outburst, maybe even a tantrum, is a-okay because that's how you felt is fundamentally selfish, as though you were the only person in that thread when, by your own account, you weren't.
From the sound of it, the worst harm done was intense disappointment. You think that hasn't happened to most of us on the site?
posted by Violet Blue at 7:56 PM on February 9 [5 favorites]
Why is telling someone to fuck off the adult response?
Well, it's not the adult response. There are other perfectly valid ones.
But, sometimes, cursing at someone is absolutely a perfectly valid adult response.
Insistence on civil language without insistence on civil behaviour is not just pointless, but counter-productive.
posted by coriolisdave at 8:04 PM on February 9 [15 favorites]
Well, it's not the adult response. There are other perfectly valid ones.
But, sometimes, cursing at someone is absolutely a perfectly valid adult response.
Insistence on civil language without insistence on civil behaviour is not just pointless, but counter-productive.
posted by coriolisdave at 8:04 PM on February 9 [15 favorites]
Words are just a way of communicating thoughts
Look there's some reductive shit getting churned up and I don't agree with this item in particular but in general I'm with you, we all drop a few bombs and I'd be surprised if a good percentage of MeFites haven't 'earned' a good fuck off here and there
Mostly it's not necessary though. Mostly it's perfectly fine to rise above that anger. I think we mostly can get along and mostly things work okay around here. Sheesh.
posted by ginger.beef at 8:16 PM on February 9
Look there's some reductive shit getting churned up and I don't agree with this item in particular but in general I'm with you, we all drop a few bombs and I'd be surprised if a good percentage of MeFites haven't 'earned' a good fuck off here and there
Mostly it's not necessary though. Mostly it's perfectly fine to rise above that anger. I think we mostly can get along and mostly things work okay around here. Sheesh.
posted by ginger.beef at 8:16 PM on February 9
Why not politely ask the person to please answer your question?
Because I had no interest in their terrible advice? They had exhibited no domain knowledge related to the question, just found an opportunity to tell a stranger that they suck.
Why not write the mods and ask for a rerail?
Since when has that ever worked here?
Why not ask the mods to delete the thread, and create another question later? Why not just take it in stride?
a: it was time sensitive and as mentioned disrupting my (and my household's) lives.
b: why should I take someone deliberately fucking up a tense question I'd put substantial work into writing well in stride? They were out of line and fully deserving of what in reality is a very minor slap on the wrist. If people aren't called out, they never learn.
In real life, in the right circumstances, it could get you punched in the nose.
So would telling someone that they're inept and should just give up.
But I do think the assumption that an outburst, maybe even a tantrum, is a-okay because that's how you felt is fundamentally selfish, as though you were the only person in that thread when, by your own account, you weren't.
Oh whatever. Answerers on Ask are explicitly supposed to answer the question asked. Expressing the idea that "not wanting multiple people to go off on how horrible I am based on incorrect assumptions, largely derailing the entire thing, was selfish" is an utterly foolish statement.
If you think that a single, private message with a short naughty phrase is a tantrum, I'm curious how you cope with people IRL.
From the sound of it, the worst harm done was intense disappointment.
Please enumerate the harm done by being told to fuck off then. In the best case scenario, they actually got a little better because of it, and thought before shooting their mouth off in the future. Whereas what they said to me was 100% worthless and wasted my time.
It's a bigger issue with the decrease of quality posts on the blue - people spend a significant amount of time putting a post together only to have it derailed immediately, often by the purity police, killing off any actual discussion of the content. So people stop bothering to post and the site dies.
Mostly it's not necessary though.
I think a single fuck off in ~15 years with this account is well within the tolerances of reasonableness.
posted by Candleman at 8:49 PM on February 9 [9 favorites]
Because I had no interest in their terrible advice? They had exhibited no domain knowledge related to the question, just found an opportunity to tell a stranger that they suck.
Why not write the mods and ask for a rerail?
Since when has that ever worked here?
Why not ask the mods to delete the thread, and create another question later? Why not just take it in stride?
a: it was time sensitive and as mentioned disrupting my (and my household's) lives.
b: why should I take someone deliberately fucking up a tense question I'd put substantial work into writing well in stride? They were out of line and fully deserving of what in reality is a very minor slap on the wrist. If people aren't called out, they never learn.
In real life, in the right circumstances, it could get you punched in the nose.
So would telling someone that they're inept and should just give up.
But I do think the assumption that an outburst, maybe even a tantrum, is a-okay because that's how you felt is fundamentally selfish, as though you were the only person in that thread when, by your own account, you weren't.
Oh whatever. Answerers on Ask are explicitly supposed to answer the question asked. Expressing the idea that "not wanting multiple people to go off on how horrible I am based on incorrect assumptions, largely derailing the entire thing, was selfish" is an utterly foolish statement.
If you think that a single, private message with a short naughty phrase is a tantrum, I'm curious how you cope with people IRL.
From the sound of it, the worst harm done was intense disappointment.
Please enumerate the harm done by being told to fuck off then. In the best case scenario, they actually got a little better because of it, and thought before shooting their mouth off in the future. Whereas what they said to me was 100% worthless and wasted my time.
It's a bigger issue with the decrease of quality posts on the blue - people spend a significant amount of time putting a post together only to have it derailed immediately, often by the purity police, killing off any actual discussion of the content. So people stop bothering to post and the site dies.
Mostly it's not necessary though.
I think a single fuck off in ~15 years with this account is well within the tolerances of reasonableness.
posted by Candleman at 8:49 PM on February 9 [9 favorites]
why should I take someone deliberately fucking up a tense question I'd put substantial work into writing well in stride? They were out of line and fully deserving of what in reality is a very minor slap on the wrist. If people aren't called out, they never learn.
Sorry, you're right.
I veered sideways because there is way too much pointless sharp and nasty on this site, and I really hate it. What you're describing is a situation in which you had no one else to ask, and felt you at least deserved to be taken seriously, and treated with respect, and you weren't. You also expected Ask to live up to its mission, and it didn't in a fairly destructive way. Is that a more accurate understanding?
people spend a significant amount of time putting a post together only to have it derailed immediately, often by the purity police, killing off any actual discussion of the content.
Absolutely. In a big-picture sense, this is disrespectful too.
posted by Violet Blue at 9:26 PM on February 9 [2 favorites]
Sorry, you're right.
I veered sideways because there is way too much pointless sharp and nasty on this site, and I really hate it. What you're describing is a situation in which you had no one else to ask, and felt you at least deserved to be taken seriously, and treated with respect, and you weren't. You also expected Ask to live up to its mission, and it didn't in a fairly destructive way. Is that a more accurate understanding?
people spend a significant amount of time putting a post together only to have it derailed immediately, often by the purity police, killing off any actual discussion of the content.
Absolutely. In a big-picture sense, this is disrespectful too.
posted by Violet Blue at 9:26 PM on February 9 [2 favorites]
Here's an Aussie application of fuck off, at 17 seconds in [Mr In Between, so CW so bleak as Aussie humour], but I've heard (and used it) in similar situations.
And I strongly agree with adrienneleigh above re comment deletion being the last, absolutely last resort - if only for the fact that it renders threads senseless, just flag them - a yellow card perhaps. We're all adults here, we live in multiple real worlds which are often a lot harsher and grittier than this place - some of my life experience is not a million miles away from the sentence above.
posted by unearthed at 12:47 AM on February 10 [3 favorites]
And I strongly agree with adrienneleigh above re comment deletion being the last, absolutely last resort - if only for the fact that it renders threads senseless, just flag them - a yellow card perhaps. We're all adults here, we live in multiple real worlds which are often a lot harsher and grittier than this place - some of my life experience is not a million miles away from the sentence above.
posted by unearthed at 12:47 AM on February 10 [3 favorites]
Man, changing a post title without the user's permission should be way over the line for mods here. There was no crisis about calling Schiff a name that needed to be handled immediately; what Brandon should have done was leave this note in the thread:
"Folks are flagging the post title as offensive; I've asked the poster if they're OK with mods editing it. Ad it does not break any rules it will stand for now."
But even that, to me, would have been a step too far, and yet another indicator that Brandon has a very different idea of the role of a Metafilter mod than I do. But it would have at least not treated the community like a class of schoolchildren by inventing a new rule he decided to suddenly enforce.
posted by catspajamas at 3:51 AM on February 10 [13 favorites]
"Folks are flagging the post title as offensive; I've asked the poster if they're OK with mods editing it. Ad it does not break any rules it will stand for now."
But even that, to me, would have been a step too far, and yet another indicator that Brandon has a very different idea of the role of a Metafilter mod than I do. But it would have at least not treated the community like a class of schoolchildren by inventing a new rule he decided to suddenly enforce.
posted by catspajamas at 3:51 AM on February 10 [13 favorites]
there is a shit-ton of Metafilter to review and manage
Is there, though? Site's shrunk pretty dramatically in recent years.
posted by catspajamas at 4:03 AM on February 10 [6 favorites]
Is there, though? Site's shrunk pretty dramatically in recent years.
posted by catspajamas at 4:03 AM on February 10 [6 favorites]
it seems like there's a broad consensus that:
(a) this deletion was a step too far
(b) we'd like to the mods try to de-escalate threads without deleting comments more often
This thread has been going a long time, but I’m not sure that’s the consensus: what I feel clear about is that swearing is not an automatic deletion! The mod note was wrong.
My sense is that the deletion was really cutting short two users who were being shirty with each other. The mods could have deleted both the “protip” line—indubitably a rude attack—and the more obviously aggressive response, but they left the attack and only deleted the response.
That’s my read, and I could be wrong: some folks play this game where they get really really rude with a frisson of plausible deniability, and then when the other person calls them out (often a bit intemperately) they claim to have been attacked.
I think they see it as a badge of honor to get a rise out of the other person, and feel particularly proud when the other person gets moderated and their contribution stands.
But honestly: it’s tiresome when threads turn into a troll just tormenting a frustrated person like this. I’m open to having many fewer deletions here, but I think I DO still support deleting trolls (and then by necessity their victims) to re-rail threads.
posted by anotherpanacea at 5:50 AM on February 10 [7 favorites]
(a) this deletion was a step too far
(b) we'd like to the mods try to de-escalate threads without deleting comments more often
This thread has been going a long time, but I’m not sure that’s the consensus: what I feel clear about is that swearing is not an automatic deletion! The mod note was wrong.
My sense is that the deletion was really cutting short two users who were being shirty with each other. The mods could have deleted both the “protip” line—indubitably a rude attack—and the more obviously aggressive response, but they left the attack and only deleted the response.
That’s my read, and I could be wrong: some folks play this game where they get really really rude with a frisson of plausible deniability, and then when the other person calls them out (often a bit intemperately) they claim to have been attacked.
I think they see it as a badge of honor to get a rise out of the other person, and feel particularly proud when the other person gets moderated and their contribution stands.
But honestly: it’s tiresome when threads turn into a troll just tormenting a frustrated person like this. I’m open to having many fewer deletions here, but I think I DO still support deleting trolls (and then by necessity their victims) to re-rail threads.
posted by anotherpanacea at 5:50 AM on February 10 [7 favorites]
rhymedirective, thanks for coming back to comment. I haven't really followed this, but it's an odd deletion. I love swearing, it must be allowed.
posted by theora55 at 8:39 AM on February 10 [4 favorites]
posted by theora55 at 8:39 AM on February 10 [4 favorites]
Why is telling someone to fuck off the adult response?
Well, there is no one 'adult response' and I would consider it a very adult response - one I use on those occasions when it's appropriate, the use in question being a perfect example. Sometimes, there's really nothing else to say but 'oh, just fuck off'.
I happened to come across these rules and procedures via Lemkin's post yesterday. Because I'm that kind of person, I read right through them and concluded they would be a good starting point for a set of similar guidelines here. It appears that, in that model, telling someone to fuck off probably gets you an 'infraction' but, if you behave yourself otherwise, it's not going to have any real or lasting impact on you. Personally, I don't think swearing should be forbidden or even discouraged, especially if it's done creatively ;-)
posted by dg at 1:35 PM on February 10 [3 favorites]
Well, there is no one 'adult response' and I would consider it a very adult response - one I use on those occasions when it's appropriate, the use in question being a perfect example. Sometimes, there's really nothing else to say but 'oh, just fuck off'.
I happened to come across these rules and procedures via Lemkin's post yesterday. Because I'm that kind of person, I read right through them and concluded they would be a good starting point for a set of similar guidelines here. It appears that, in that model, telling someone to fuck off probably gets you an 'infraction' but, if you behave yourself otherwise, it's not going to have any real or lasting impact on you. Personally, I don't think swearing should be forbidden or even discouraged, especially if it's done creatively ;-)
posted by dg at 1:35 PM on February 10 [3 favorites]
MetaFilter: I love swearing, it must be allowed.
posted by ginger.beef at 2:56 PM on February 10 [3 favorites]
posted by ginger.beef at 2:56 PM on February 10 [3 favorites]
what I feel clear about is that swearing is not an automatic deletion! The mod note was wrong.
That's not what the mod note said.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 3:22 PM on February 10 [2 favorites]
That's not what the mod note said.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 3:22 PM on February 10 [2 favorites]
metafilter: From the early vebal knife fights to gratuitous cuss stunt post.
posted by clavdivs at 3:28 PM on February 10 [1 favorite]
posted by clavdivs at 3:28 PM on February 10 [1 favorite]
Man, changing a post title without the user's permission should be way over the line for mods here.
Yeah, wasn't there formerly a rule that mods do not change post titles or text unless a user requests it? That seems to have completely gone out the fucking window in the last six months or so, given things like phunniemee's comment getting a spoiler warning and loup making a "correction" that wasn't a correction to someone's post, but it's super unacceptable.
posted by adrienneleigh at 3:48 PM on February 10 [9 favorites]
Yeah, wasn't there formerly a rule that mods do not change post titles or text unless a user requests it? That seems to have completely gone out the fucking window in the last six months or so, given things like phunniemee's comment getting a spoiler warning and loup making a "correction" that wasn't a correction to someone's post, but it's super unacceptable.
posted by adrienneleigh at 3:48 PM on February 10 [9 favorites]
Mr. trouble never hangs around,
when he hears this Mighty sound,
🕺
Here I come to save the day!
posted by clavdivs at 5:37 PM on February 10
when he hears this Mighty sound,
🕺
Here I come to save the day!
posted by clavdivs at 5:37 PM on February 10
as a community we just need to collectively let go of old-world ideas like "users" having a "stake" and accept that the Moderators exercise their judgement based purely on the vibes and feelings they are experiencing at that moment. in that way they are so much more pure than we are. didn't you know "moderator" is an anagram of At Doom, Err? so pure. stuff like rules and policies and guidelines are just the outmoded frameworks we use to try to box the Moderators in with, man, to try to make sense of the aspect of benevolence. like say can you see light in a vaccuum, you can only see it when there's particles for it to illuminate? that's us. they're light. are we the dust on a stained glass window, trying to comprehend the cathedral, ok? the sooner we just accept this the better off we'll all be. pure.
posted by glonous keming at 6:12 PM on February 10 [6 favorites]
posted by glonous keming at 6:12 PM on February 10 [6 favorites]
Moderators exercise their judgement based purely on the vibes and feelings they are experiencing at that moment. ... didn't you know "moderator" is an anagram of At Doom, Err?
Mood Arrest
posted by phunniemee at 7:06 PM on February 10 [6 favorites]
Mood Arrest
posted by phunniemee at 7:06 PM on February 10 [6 favorites]
Wow, this is still going on, huh
posted by kittens for breakfast at 7:32 PM on February 10 [2 favorites]
posted by kittens for breakfast at 7:32 PM on February 10 [2 favorites]
Mod note: But I tend to think of MF as a kind of social mixer among strangers and vague acquaintances, which governs the way I present here. If, instead, the intention is for us to be more in the mode of that little room after church where you drink Crystal Light and eat cookies from Kroger, probably the community deserves to weigh in on that.
No one is arguing for or wants the site to be church gathering, but I get your point.
After reading over other comments and thinking about it, the answer to “how could I have handled this better” would be to send you a message noting the title was getting flagged and asked if you were ok with a title change. If yes, change it, if no, leave it as is and move on. If someone felt that the language was a super serious problem they could send us an email or propose a MeTa and we’d go from there.
Thank you everyone for taking the time to give feedback and voice your opinions! That definitely helped clarify the situation and how things could have gone better.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 1:18 AM on February 11 [8 favorites]
No one is arguing for or wants the site to be church gathering, but I get your point.
After reading over other comments and thinking about it, the answer to “how could I have handled this better” would be to send you a message noting the title was getting flagged and asked if you were ok with a title change. If yes, change it, if no, leave it as is and move on. If someone felt that the language was a super serious problem they could send us an email or propose a MeTa and we’d go from there.
Thank you everyone for taking the time to give feedback and voice your opinions! That definitely helped clarify the situation and how things could have gone better.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 1:18 AM on February 11 [8 favorites]
"Metafilter Userbase" is an anagram of: "A Miserable Fest? True"
posted by TheophileEscargot at 1:19 AM on February 11 [6 favorites]
posted by TheophileEscargot at 1:19 AM on February 11 [6 favorites]
RECIPE TIME
(I do think, as BB points out, that people often use MetaTalk as a way to deal with posts they object to, which seems to be fine and even to be partially the point of MetaTalk.)
posted by kensington314 at 1:46 AM on February 11 [3 favorites]
(I do think, as BB points out, that people often use MetaTalk as a way to deal with posts they object to, which seems to be fine and even to be partially the point of MetaTalk.)
posted by kensington314 at 1:46 AM on February 11 [3 favorites]
I see we've reached the "everybody must stop talking about this now" portion of the program.
posted by automatronic at 3:57 AM on February 11 [4 favorites]
posted by automatronic at 3:57 AM on February 11 [4 favorites]
Mod note: I do want to mention something more about all of this, namely the response by some members.
If folks want to voice their opinion/complain about a moderation action, that needs to happen via email or submit a MeTa. Repeatedly derailing the original thread (1, 2) or a completely unrelated thread is not ok, and neither are threats. Yes you're angry and yes you deserve to be heard and you will be, but please avoid lashing out. It piles escalation on top of escalation, making the situation worse than it needs to be.
Please don't do this, to avoid causing harm to the community.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 5:01 AM on February 11 [4 favorites]
If folks want to voice their opinion/complain about a moderation action, that needs to happen via email or submit a MeTa. Repeatedly derailing the original thread (1, 2) or a completely unrelated thread is not ok, and neither are threats. Yes you're angry and yes you deserve to be heard and you will be, but please avoid lashing out. It piles escalation on top of escalation, making the situation worse than it needs to be.
Please don't do this, to avoid causing harm to the community.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 5:01 AM on February 11 [4 favorites]
submit a MeTa
please
get rid of
🎀the fucking🎀
queue
posted by phunniemee at 5:10 AM on February 11 [25 favorites]
please
get rid of
🎀the fucking🎀
queue
posted by phunniemee at 5:10 AM on February 11 [25 favorites]
threats!
posted by glonous keming at 5:46 AM on February 11 [3 favorites]
posted by glonous keming at 5:46 AM on February 11 [3 favorites]
Are the mods our parents?
In hindsight, this wasn't going anywhere good.
posted by box at 5:58 AM on February 11 [2 favorites]
In hindsight, this wasn't going anywhere good.
posted by box at 5:58 AM on February 11 [2 favorites]
and neither are threats
Excuse me for swearing, but what the hell.
I'm going to be blunt: Good moderators don't do this.
When good moderators find themselves in a dispute with a user, no matter how right they think they are, they don't resort to hyperbolic mischaracterizations of that user's actions. "Threats"! I mean, yes, "I'll annoy you until you address this" is a threat in the most technical sense, but you know what you're doing when you choose a highly charged word that's only true in the most technical sense.
Good moderators also don't post comments where they harp on the behavior of single users after that behavior has already been addressed/discussed.
Please don't do this, to avoid causing harm to the community.
Bad moderation causes harm to the community.
BB, I have been trying to be charitable, because as the person who does the most speaking on behalf of the moderation team you're naturally be the most exposed and take the most heat. But over the past few weeks my confidence in your moderation has been steadily eroding. You're not using your position as a spokesman well; you say that you're a member of the community with a few special privileges to help moderate, but you don't communicate like it. You communicate to exercise your power.
I've been a member of this site since 2008. I've seen a lot of changes. I've seen a lot of people leave - people who I don't miss, and people who I do.
I hope that my longstanding presence on this site, and my being a member with no personal stake in this dispute other than wanting the community to come through it better or at least unharmed, will matter to you. Will maybe cause you to pause and reflect about what your job is, and what role your ego should play in it.
I think that the oversight committee should be discussing this when they get off the ground. Is saying that a "threat"?
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 6:56 AM on February 11 [42 favorites]
Excuse me for swearing, but what the hell.
I'm going to be blunt: Good moderators don't do this.
When good moderators find themselves in a dispute with a user, no matter how right they think they are, they don't resort to hyperbolic mischaracterizations of that user's actions. "Threats"! I mean, yes, "I'll annoy you until you address this" is a threat in the most technical sense, but you know what you're doing when you choose a highly charged word that's only true in the most technical sense.
Good moderators also don't post comments where they harp on the behavior of single users after that behavior has already been addressed/discussed.
Please don't do this, to avoid causing harm to the community.
Bad moderation causes harm to the community.
BB, I have been trying to be charitable, because as the person who does the most speaking on behalf of the moderation team you're naturally be the most exposed and take the most heat. But over the past few weeks my confidence in your moderation has been steadily eroding. You're not using your position as a spokesman well; you say that you're a member of the community with a few special privileges to help moderate, but you don't communicate like it. You communicate to exercise your power.
I've been a member of this site since 2008. I've seen a lot of changes. I've seen a lot of people leave - people who I don't miss, and people who I do.
I hope that my longstanding presence on this site, and my being a member with no personal stake in this dispute other than wanting the community to come through it better or at least unharmed, will matter to you. Will maybe cause you to pause and reflect about what your job is, and what role your ego should play in it.
I think that the oversight committee should be discussing this when they get off the ground. Is saying that a "threat"?
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 6:56 AM on February 11 [42 favorites]
Mod oversight stuff: We should be up and running for complaints fairly soon; just choosing a platform which I'll finalize tonight when I'm not on my work computer and can really dig in and then hammering out some processes.
It's becoming clear we will have a subcommittee on broader issues although primarily focused on one-to-one support at the start (and as a way of getting a handle on issues that maybe don't make it to MetaTalk.)
Personal opinion stuff: I was providing coaching feedback for some new instructors last night and the 'don't subject the whole class to a lecture when your issue is with one person' thing came up.' That's when the person speaking is in a position of authority. Just a thought, she says hypocritically.
posted by warriorqueen at 7:04 AM on February 11 [13 favorites]
It's becoming clear we will have a subcommittee on broader issues although primarily focused on one-to-one support at the start (and as a way of getting a handle on issues that maybe don't make it to MetaTalk.)
Personal opinion stuff: I was providing coaching feedback for some new instructors last night and the 'don't subject the whole class to a lecture when your issue is with one person' thing came up.' That's when the person speaking is in a position of authority. Just a thought, she says hypocritically.
posted by warriorqueen at 7:04 AM on February 11 [13 favorites]
If the mods keep making decisions I think are misguided and detrimental to the site as a whole, I threaten to make critical comments explaining why I think the decisions are bad.
posted by snofoam at 9:16 AM on February 11 [14 favorites]
posted by snofoam at 9:16 AM on February 11 [14 favorites]
The thread about threats in unrelated threads is threatening to take over the swearing thread I've read.
posted by Ashenmote at 10:17 AM on February 11 [2 favorites]
posted by Ashenmote at 10:17 AM on February 11 [2 favorites]
Maybe we should make a whole new thread for the threats comment because I've come off a whole morning packed full of calls that have just created an endless stream of problems I need to fix and somehow still the dumbest part of my day has been seeing "I'm gonna continue to annoy you" get characterized as a threat. What an absolute farce.
posted by phunniemee at 10:23 AM on February 11 [25 favorites]
posted by phunniemee at 10:23 AM on February 11 [25 favorites]
Wow I am glad I am not alone. I think it is a big reach to characterize "I'm gonna continue to annoy you" as a threat particularly in a text-only environment. Easier to read it as "If the problem doesn't get solved you're going to have to keep dealing with these issues" or something like it.
Especially when it's a circular path of .... Have a problem? Post a MeTa. MeTa doesn't get posted and you're mad? Post a MeTa. But the MeTa is on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "Beware of the Leopard.”
In that context, continued annoyance seems like a natural consequence that one might learn from.
posted by fennario at 10:36 AM on February 11 [10 favorites]
Especially when it's a circular path of .... Have a problem? Post a MeTa. MeTa doesn't get posted and you're mad? Post a MeTa. But the MeTa is on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying "Beware of the Leopard.”
In that context, continued annoyance seems like a natural consequence that one might learn from.
posted by fennario at 10:36 AM on February 11 [10 favorites]
Yeah I've been consistently annoyed by the mods here for some time, had no idea I was literally living under constant threat. Hope MeFi's liability insurance is up to date so you can afford the bills for my CPTSD treatment.
posted by phunniemee at 10:39 AM on February 11 [7 favorites]
posted by phunniemee at 10:39 AM on February 11 [7 favorites]
Now now now please do not escalate the situation with these very serious and very real threats of legal action.
To avoid causing harm to the community.
posted by fennario at 10:48 AM on February 11 [4 favorites]
To avoid causing harm to the community.
posted by fennario at 10:48 AM on February 11 [4 favorites]
Wow, just wow, Brandon. What a crock of horseshit.
I'm gonna continue to post this comment as long as the behavior inspiring it continues. Not a threat, more like a promise.
posted by donnagirl at 11:10 AM on February 11 [8 favorites]
I'm gonna continue to post this comment as long as the behavior inspiring it continues. Not a threat, more like a promise.
posted by donnagirl at 11:10 AM on February 11 [8 favorites]
I get that most of you are just having fun with this, but for the one or two people who seem to be taking it seriously: BB clearly meant "threaten to keep making a mess of the thread(s)" and not "threaten to [whatever type of thing you're pretending to believe he meant]," right?
"Repeatedly derailing the original thread (1, 2) or a completely unrelated thread is not ok, and neither are threats [to do the same]."
(But, yeah, it's funny that it can be read the other, more inflammatory way, yeah.)
posted by nobody at 11:14 AM on February 11 [7 favorites]
"Repeatedly derailing the original thread (1, 2) or a completely unrelated thread is not ok, and neither are threats [to do the same]."
(But, yeah, it's funny that it can be read the other, more inflammatory way, yeah.)
posted by nobody at 11:14 AM on February 11 [7 favorites]
Sorry, you want me to read for context?? In this economy??!??
posted by phunniemee at 11:16 AM on February 11 [8 favorites]
posted by phunniemee at 11:16 AM on February 11 [8 favorites]
We want you to not post every single little thought that pops into your head. Maybe consider filtering a bit.
posted by Press Butt.on to Check at 11:32 AM on February 11 [8 favorites]
posted by Press Butt.on to Check at 11:32 AM on February 11 [8 favorites]
Metafilter: Maybe consider filtering a bit.
posted by fennario at 11:41 AM on February 11 [2 favorites]
posted by fennario at 11:41 AM on February 11 [2 favorites]
> BB clearly meant
there is very little clear when BB communicates other than his emotional state at the time of writing
posted by glonous keming at 11:48 AM on February 11 [11 favorites]
there is very little clear when BB communicates other than his emotional state at the time of writing
posted by glonous keming at 11:48 AM on February 11 [11 favorites]
He sometimes tells us about what he's eating
posted by tiny frying pan at 11:49 AM on February 11 [7 favorites]
posted by tiny frying pan at 11:49 AM on February 11 [7 favorites]
"Repeatedly derailing the original thread (1, 2) or a completely unrelated thread is not ok, and neither are threats [to do the same]."
I will be honest, this reading entirely did not occur to me.
posted by solotoro at 11:52 AM on February 11 [9 favorites]
I will be honest, this reading entirely did not occur to me.
posted by solotoro at 11:52 AM on February 11 [9 favorites]
It’s ambiguous! But charity suggests that when there’s a reading that makes the whole sentence make sense and be true and one where the speaker has to be a villain and a liar, we should choose the first. There’s just so little charity to spare at the bottom of a thread like this!
posted by anotherpanacea at 12:02 PM on February 11 [5 favorites]
posted by anotherpanacea at 12:02 PM on February 11 [5 favorites]
Bad moderation causes harm to the community.
BB, I have been trying to be charitable, because as the person who does the most speaking on behalf of the moderation team you're naturally be the most exposed and take the most heat. But over the past few weeks my confidence in your moderation has been steadily eroding. You're not using your position as a spokesman well; you say that you're a member of the community with a few special privileges to help moderate, but you don't communicate like it. You communicate to exercise your power.
I disagree, and thought I was communicating an ask and request of the community to decrease overall hostility. How would you suggest the request should have be worded?
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 12:30 PM on February 11
BB, I have been trying to be charitable, because as the person who does the most speaking on behalf of the moderation team you're naturally be the most exposed and take the most heat. But over the past few weeks my confidence in your moderation has been steadily eroding. You're not using your position as a spokesman well; you say that you're a member of the community with a few special privileges to help moderate, but you don't communicate like it. You communicate to exercise your power.
I disagree, and thought I was communicating an ask and request of the community to decrease overall hostility. How would you suggest the request should have be worded?
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 12:30 PM on February 11
lol
posted by sagc at 12:31 PM on February 11 [5 favorites]
posted by sagc at 12:31 PM on February 11 [5 favorites]
Maybe read and absorb the content of Kutsuwamushis and warriorqueens posts? Fuck, take a management seminar. This constant cluelessness, the "who, me make a mistake? Never happened before, couldn't be happening now", the having to be dragged kicking and screaming into admitting flaws...
how you are not embarrassed to be showing your incompetence so consistently and so publicly remains a deep mystery to me.
posted by sagc at 12:34 PM on February 11 [7 favorites]
how you are not embarrassed to be showing your incompetence so consistently and so publicly remains a deep mystery to me.
posted by sagc at 12:34 PM on February 11 [7 favorites]
Constructive feedback is always welcomed, so thanks for those who have done so or will do!
Otherwise, it's back to working for the best of the site and accepting not everyone will be happy about every decision or action. I'll still be here reading any feedback.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 12:48 PM on February 11 [3 favorites]
Otherwise, it's back to working for the best of the site and accepting not everyone will be happy about every decision or action. I'll still be here reading any feedback.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 12:48 PM on February 11 [3 favorites]
In my personal opinion, the request would have landed better if it included an acknowledgement that the delay in MeTa threads was part of rhymedirective's frustration. So you're asking them to post that frustration to MeTa instead of in the thread, and to not continue to derail threads, while simultaneously keeping a queue slowing down the post actually posting at MeTa. So the person can't even really effectively use the resource you're pointing them to.
Let's say you email me with a complaint about my business - say my shipping speed is slow and you are asking for an update. I respond that email isn't the proper venue for that complaint, you need to call me on the phone. So you do, but I don't pick up, I don't call you back, I don't send you a tracking number and I don't ship the thing. You email me again, frustrated now. My response is to again say you need to call me on the phone, and on top of it I chide you for your frustrated attitude, but I don't acknowledge the fact that I haven't called you back or shipped the product. I guarantee you would not be satisfied with that exchange.
How differently do you think it would have landed if you said something like:
"Yes you're angry and yes you deserve to be heard and I can see why the delay in posting MeTa threads would make that worse. We need to solve that problem, but in the meantime, please avoid lashing out. When I'm moderating these comments, I can't be working on getting MeTa threads posted faster."
I concede that in this group, someone is going to have a bone to pick with any way that you word any thing and you might feel like you just can't win. That must be hard.
It's also possible that I've fundamentally misunderstood some part of what is going on here, with the delay in posting MeTa threads. I don't understand why there is a delay. Threads to other subsites post right away. That seems very fixable to me. But what do I know.
posted by fennario at 12:56 PM on February 11 [15 favorites]
Let's say you email me with a complaint about my business - say my shipping speed is slow and you are asking for an update. I respond that email isn't the proper venue for that complaint, you need to call me on the phone. So you do, but I don't pick up, I don't call you back, I don't send you a tracking number and I don't ship the thing. You email me again, frustrated now. My response is to again say you need to call me on the phone, and on top of it I chide you for your frustrated attitude, but I don't acknowledge the fact that I haven't called you back or shipped the product. I guarantee you would not be satisfied with that exchange.
How differently do you think it would have landed if you said something like:
"Yes you're angry and yes you deserve to be heard and I can see why the delay in posting MeTa threads would make that worse. We need to solve that problem, but in the meantime, please avoid lashing out. When I'm moderating these comments, I can't be working on getting MeTa threads posted faster."
I concede that in this group, someone is going to have a bone to pick with any way that you word any thing and you might feel like you just can't win. That must be hard.
It's also possible that I've fundamentally misunderstood some part of what is going on here, with the delay in posting MeTa threads. I don't understand why there is a delay. Threads to other subsites post right away. That seems very fixable to me. But what do I know.
posted by fennario at 12:56 PM on February 11 [15 favorites]
We want you to not post every single little thought that pops into your head. Maybe consider filtering a bit.
That I haven't resorted to following the mods around the site playing that mocking tuba tune wherever they go should be proof enough I'm filtering at least somewhat. No one is forcing you to read this.
posted by phunniemee at 1:11 PM on February 11 [17 favorites]
That I haven't resorted to following the mods around the site playing that mocking tuba tune wherever they go should be proof enough I'm filtering at least somewhat. No one is forcing you to read this.
posted by phunniemee at 1:11 PM on February 11 [17 favorites]
I don't pick up, I don't call you back, I don't send you a tracking number and I don't ship the thing
oh! i've been to your etsy store!
posted by mittens at 1:14 PM on February 11 [12 favorites]
oh! i've been to your etsy store!
posted by mittens at 1:14 PM on February 11 [12 favorites]
n my personal opinion, the request would have landed better if it included an acknowledgement that the delay in MeTa threads was part of rhymedirective's frustration. So you're asking them to post that frustration to MeTa instead of in the thread, and to not continue to derail threads, while simultaneously keeping a queue slowing down the post actually posting at MeTa. So the person can't even really effectively use the resource you're pointing them to.
This is a great point. I was going to add something a while back, but by the time I was going to, travelling thyme had said the deletion was wrong and the wording was bad. Also, rhymedirective was back, so I figured I should leave it alone. (I really think the thread should have been closed right there.)
Building off fennario's point, let's look at an alternate scenario:
1. rhymedirective's meta goes up and Brandon Blatcher (or really any mod) could go in ASAP and say, "Swearing is allowed. Not sure where travelling thyme was coming with that, but they are off. will follow up about the mod note when there is more context." (i also think a mod note should still go on the thread saying swearing is fine, because not everyone comes to MeTa and they might be confused.)
2. that could very well have been the end of it. rhymedirective says fine, i wasn't trying to be rude to others, but here is the post cooled down.
I guess I'm joining team no queue as in the recent past, it seems to be causing more issues than it solves (if it solves any).
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 1:20 PM on February 11 [7 favorites]
This is a great point. I was going to add something a while back, but by the time I was going to, travelling thyme had said the deletion was wrong and the wording was bad. Also, rhymedirective was back, so I figured I should leave it alone. (I really think the thread should have been closed right there.)
Building off fennario's point, let's look at an alternate scenario:
1. rhymedirective's meta goes up and Brandon Blatcher (or really any mod) could go in ASAP and say, "Swearing is allowed. Not sure where travelling thyme was coming with that, but they are off. will follow up about the mod note when there is more context." (i also think a mod note should still go on the thread saying swearing is fine, because not everyone comes to MeTa and they might be confused.)
2. that could very well have been the end of it. rhymedirective says fine, i wasn't trying to be rude to others, but here is the post cooled down.
I guess I'm joining team no queue as in the recent past, it seems to be causing more issues than it solves (if it solves any).
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 1:20 PM on February 11 [7 favorites]
Press Butt.on to Check We want you to not post every single little thought that pops into your head. Maybe consider filtering a bit.
Who is this fucking “we”? Speak for yourself.
posted by coriolisdave at 1:25 PM on February 11 [13 favorites]
Who is this fucking “we”? Speak for yourself.
posted by coriolisdave at 1:25 PM on February 11 [13 favorites]
How would you suggest the request should have be worded?
It should be clear from my comment that I think you shouldn't have (a) called rhymedirective's comment a threat, and (b) continued to single out rhymedirective at all.
But in fact, the entire comment was unnecessary and tone deaf. Unnecessary: The comments linked are a week old, from a single user, and had already been addressed. There was no continued issue with the behavior. Tone deaf: To the extent that people sympathize with rhymedirective's comments, it's because the way the site currently functions meant they felt they had no better avenue to address their issue with the site moderation. The discussion was way past the point of needing (or benefiting from) a moderator pronouncing that such behavior is Bad, especially not when done in such a way.
Fennario has some great suggestions for how you could have engaged with rhymedirective's (and others') frustration more productively. From there, instead of focusing on how one user's behavior is Bad, you could have focused on whether there is an issue with how the site functions and whether it can/should be fixed. Or you could not have commented at all. That would have been better.
Although you asked me how you should have worded that comment, I have also made clear that I think there's a larger problem with the way you're communicating as a mod. I have tried to explain how/why that it is a mindset problem, but I don't think that this is something you recognize in yourself or agree with, so I don't have much hope that any "constructive feedback" I could give you would be recognized as such.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 1:35 PM on February 11 [13 favorites]
It should be clear from my comment that I think you shouldn't have (a) called rhymedirective's comment a threat, and (b) continued to single out rhymedirective at all.
But in fact, the entire comment was unnecessary and tone deaf. Unnecessary: The comments linked are a week old, from a single user, and had already been addressed. There was no continued issue with the behavior. Tone deaf: To the extent that people sympathize with rhymedirective's comments, it's because the way the site currently functions meant they felt they had no better avenue to address their issue with the site moderation. The discussion was way past the point of needing (or benefiting from) a moderator pronouncing that such behavior is Bad, especially not when done in such a way.
Fennario has some great suggestions for how you could have engaged with rhymedirective's (and others') frustration more productively. From there, instead of focusing on how one user's behavior is Bad, you could have focused on whether there is an issue with how the site functions and whether it can/should be fixed. Or you could not have commented at all. That would have been better.
Although you asked me how you should have worded that comment, I have also made clear that I think there's a larger problem with the way you're communicating as a mod. I have tried to explain how/why that it is a mindset problem, but I don't think that this is something you recognize in yourself or agree with, so I don't have much hope that any "constructive feedback" I could give you would be recognized as such.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 1:35 PM on February 11 [13 favorites]
We want you to not post every single little thought that pops into your head.
Speaking for myself, i absolutely do want phunniemee to continue posting every single little thought that pops into her head, because she is fucking awesome.
posted by adrienneleigh at 1:44 PM on February 11 [31 favorites]
Speaking for myself, i absolutely do want phunniemee to continue posting every single little thought that pops into her head, because she is fucking awesome.
posted by adrienneleigh at 1:44 PM on February 11 [31 favorites]
Speaking for myself, i absolutely do want phunniemee to continue posting every single little thought that pops into her head, because she is fucking awesome.
Though personally I also would not discourage the ongoing development of this kinda "Michael Scott versus Toby from HR" dynamic Press Butt.on to Check and phunniemee have going on. It's too perfect and I like it.
posted by kensington314 at 1:56 PM on February 11 [4 favorites]
Though personally I also would not discourage the ongoing development of this kinda "Michael Scott versus Toby from HR" dynamic Press Butt.on to Check and phunniemee have going on. It's too perfect and I like it.
posted by kensington314 at 1:56 PM on February 11 [4 favorites]
I'm sure nobody is interested (see what I did there?) to know that I absolutely did read Brandon Blatcher's mention of threats as 'threats [of violence or worse]' and followed the link to find out how that happened. In that context, it looked like an exaggeration at least.
posted by demi-octopus at 1:59 PM on February 11 [10 favorites]
posted by demi-octopus at 1:59 PM on February 11 [10 favorites]
1: Protip -
2: Gently -
3: Kindly -
4: Prithee -
posted by kirkaracha (staff) at 2:32 PM on February 11 [7 favorites]
2: Gently -
3: Kindly -
4: Prithee -
posted by kirkaracha (staff) at 2:32 PM on February 11 [7 favorites]
5. Would you kindly-
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 2:42 PM on February 11 [3 favorites]
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 2:42 PM on February 11 [3 favorites]
I'm team we. Absolutely convinced y'all will be unpleasantly unhappy indefinitely. The number one skill any moderator will need here will be to let a an endless stream of complaints roll off their back.
posted by Wood at 2:48 PM on February 11 [2 favorites]
posted by Wood at 2:48 PM on February 11 [2 favorites]
Maybe consider filtering a bit.
Filtering on MetaTalk? Take it to the blue.
posted by ssg at 4:04 PM on February 11 [3 favorites]
Filtering on MetaTalk? Take it to the blue.
posted by ssg at 4:04 PM on February 11 [3 favorites]
Have there been additional people who have posted that they are intending to derail threads because their MetaTalks aren’t being approved since this post went up?
posted by warriorqueen at 4:05 PM on February 11 [4 favorites]
posted by warriorqueen at 4:05 PM on February 11 [4 favorites]
I just went to pop my gnocchi gratin out of the oven, did I miss something?
posted by snofoam at 4:12 PM on February 11 [1 favorite]
posted by snofoam at 4:12 PM on February 11 [1 favorite]
WOOD, good point. I just read a 22-year-old metatalk thread. holy moly can you imagine no moderation and everybody's real angry.
I didn't think I could be that vicious with photons.
comparatively, this thread is like a deep fried ding dong.
tripping the fight fantastic.
oh don't get me wrong it's not like it's "you've can handle the toooth" oh no quite the opposite. today it would metastasize into a Xorn.
fuckin a right adrienne, I adore hearing what's on people's mind as opposed to every washed symposium that smells like a freshly printed t-shirt.
I won't link to that thread, the whole point is that within that thred there was only one or two voices that were trying to see reason while trying to perhaps intercede and not interfere.
that person is a moderator today on staff.
in my mind's eye, I see that thread as a complete verbal knife fight and someone walking through it with a bit of Grace and not much fear and I wouldn't doubt a Brook Turner hidden up the sleeve.
maybe we should have one thread with no moderation and about one or two rules but I don't think that would happen, THE EAST, people take each other's inventory, tell each off, deadpan satire, cuss fuss another, story boarded, belittle another, tear down. threaten. questionnaire thinking?, politics, question the privilege to post. you're taking up resources, get your own blog.
make fun of their sintax.
I never want to see a thread like that again. but at times like that there can be a resolution cuz people get broken down so much that either they run off or honesty talk or who knows. most didn't read it, then.
is it cathartic? I'm not sure, but serious commentators bring threads to the blue and when they read threads like that or this, well not this one, is it a wonder why some people have left. but the real question is, do they still read metafilter.
thing is that I don't think there would be any catharsis from the viciousness of a non-moderated thread today. for a television analogy, it will be like watching Saturday night live with Michael ODonahue and some of the more darker sketch writers
as opposed to today's mere edgy.
on the positive side, perhaps this is a change in internet mores*, over time, the 2.0 negative shit. real long here...that sound, like you're chewing on soup...time to finis.
I'd say there's a snowstorm coming but there's always a storm coming now isn't there.
*I don't have to explain f****** s***.
posted by clavdivs at 4:34 PM on February 11 [5 favorites]
I didn't think I could be that vicious with photons.
comparatively, this thread is like a deep fried ding dong.
tripping the fight fantastic.
oh don't get me wrong it's not like it's "you've can handle the toooth" oh no quite the opposite. today it would metastasize into a Xorn.
fuckin a right adrienne, I adore hearing what's on people's mind as opposed to every washed symposium that smells like a freshly printed t-shirt.
I won't link to that thread, the whole point is that within that thred there was only one or two voices that were trying to see reason while trying to perhaps intercede and not interfere.
that person is a moderator today on staff.
in my mind's eye, I see that thread as a complete verbal knife fight and someone walking through it with a bit of Grace and not much fear and I wouldn't doubt a Brook Turner hidden up the sleeve.
maybe we should have one thread with no moderation and about one or two rules but I don't think that would happen, THE EAST, people take each other's inventory, tell each off, deadpan satire, cuss fuss another, story boarded, belittle another, tear down. threaten. questionnaire thinking?, politics, question the privilege to post. you're taking up resources, get your own blog.
make fun of their sintax.
I never want to see a thread like that again. but at times like that there can be a resolution cuz people get broken down so much that either they run off or honesty talk or who knows. most didn't read it, then.
is it cathartic? I'm not sure, but serious commentators bring threads to the blue and when they read threads like that or this, well not this one, is it a wonder why some people have left. but the real question is, do they still read metafilter.
thing is that I don't think there would be any catharsis from the viciousness of a non-moderated thread today. for a television analogy, it will be like watching Saturday night live with Michael ODonahue and some of the more darker sketch writers
as opposed to today's mere edgy.
on the positive side, perhaps this is a change in internet mores*, over time, the 2.0 negative shit. real long here...that sound, like you're chewing on soup...time to finis.
I'd say there's a snowstorm coming but there's always a storm coming now isn't there.
*I don't have to explain f****** s***.
posted by clavdivs at 4:34 PM on February 11 [5 favorites]
The MetaTalk games? It is a quarter quell…
posted by one4themoment at 4:51 PM on February 11 [1 favorite]
posted by one4themoment at 4:51 PM on February 11 [1 favorite]
From there, instead of focusing on how one user's behavior is Bad, you could have focused on whether there is an issue with how the site functions and whether it can/should be fixed. Or you could not have commented at all. That would have been better.
To be clear, it was more than one member who were doing the derailing. It was about 4 or 5 I can recall offhand.
I hear what you're saying, re: why bring this up now, just let it go. But yeah, we disagree on that, hence the ask from the community at large to avoid lashing out and derailing threads. That just starts making things hostile all over and doesn't do much to solve the problem.
You make think a moderator or particular decision is wrong, and that's fine. A member may think that trying to bully moderators into doing something is the way to go, but please avoid lashing out at other parts of the site. Members will absolutely have avenues for being heard, but if asked to hold off on publishing a MeTa, please respect that ask. It wasn't made lightly, it was made with the goal of defusing the situation, so please just give a chance.
Thanks for taking the time to respond Kutsuwamushi.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 5:02 PM on February 11
To be clear, it was more than one member who were doing the derailing. It was about 4 or 5 I can recall offhand.
I hear what you're saying, re: why bring this up now, just let it go. But yeah, we disagree on that, hence the ask from the community at large to avoid lashing out and derailing threads. That just starts making things hostile all over and doesn't do much to solve the problem.
You make think a moderator or particular decision is wrong, and that's fine. A member may think that trying to bully moderators into doing something is the way to go, but please avoid lashing out at other parts of the site. Members will absolutely have avenues for being heard, but if asked to hold off on publishing a MeTa, please respect that ask. It wasn't made lightly, it was made with the goal of defusing the situation, so please just give a chance.
Thanks for taking the time to respond Kutsuwamushi.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 5:02 PM on February 11
Absolutely convinced y'all will be unpleasantly unhappy indefinitely
I actually haven't had that many issues with the moderation of MetaFilter for most of the time I've been here. I've disagreed with some decisions, but overall, it's not something I've had major concerns about. For the most part I've even been pleased with the increased moderation in recent years.
So I just want to make clear that I'm not coming from a place of just being an unpleasantly unhappy person who will always and forever disapprove of whatever the moderators do. I don't think I've said much at all about moderation in the many years I've been here; I'm not in a habit of complaining about it. I spoke up now because I see the most visibly active moderator taking site moderation--and communication about site moderation--in a direction that bothers me.
I think that your characterization is pretty dismissive, actually, in an annoying way. I'm serious about what I've said here and I hope it will be considered seriously.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 5:02 PM on February 11 [22 favorites]
I actually haven't had that many issues with the moderation of MetaFilter for most of the time I've been here. I've disagreed with some decisions, but overall, it's not something I've had major concerns about. For the most part I've even been pleased with the increased moderation in recent years.
So I just want to make clear that I'm not coming from a place of just being an unpleasantly unhappy person who will always and forever disapprove of whatever the moderators do. I don't think I've said much at all about moderation in the many years I've been here; I'm not in a habit of complaining about it. I spoke up now because I see the most visibly active moderator taking site moderation--and communication about site moderation--in a direction that bothers me.
I think that your characterization is pretty dismissive, actually, in an annoying way. I'm serious about what I've said here and I hope it will be considered seriously.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 5:02 PM on February 11 [22 favorites]
So... Why single out one member?
posted by sagc at 5:11 PM on February 11 [6 favorites]
posted by sagc at 5:11 PM on February 11 [6 favorites]
Members will absolutely have avenues for being heard, but if asked to hold off on publishing a MeTa, please respect that ask. It wasn't made lightly, it was made with the goal of defusing the situation, so please just give a chance.
I'm going to yellow flag this, tentatively, because there may be context I am missing.
I go back to the same thing I said before - and I come at this with no grudges or history here - but if the rule is "Don't derail in the thread; take it to MeTa" then don't hold off on publishing a MeTa. You cannot really, legitimately, say, "Members will be heard" but tack on "... but not here, not there, maybe later, maybe not." You've said over and over that people should take it to MeTa, but there are barriers to that avenue too. Like I said above, if I tell you the way to address a concern is to call me then I have a responsibility to pick up the phone.
Looking at the FAQ, it says re MetaTalk that "If you are tempted to post just in order to vent, consider taking some time to cool off first." I think it is fair to hold members to that, but it says "consider". It is a request to members to use their self-control and hold off a beat if they aren't going to express themselves in an outcome-oriented way. This is fair and people should step up to that. The world won't end if someone takes a breath and count to 10 and drink a glass of water before they make a post.
But, it unambiguously (to me anyway) contemplates member exercising this discretion for themselves. I have seen what makes me think the opposite is happening - that mods are holding certain topics back. If you're going to do that, be loud and clear and unambiguous about who, what, when, where and why and then also refrain from acting like "take it to MeTa" is a legitimate outlet for members. If you're going to hold back the posts, then it's disingenuous to act like that's a realistic outlet or alternate way to handle a disagreement.
Seems to me both members and mods need to be operating in good faith on this aspect of it.
posted by fennario at 5:19 PM on February 11 [14 favorites]
I'm going to yellow flag this, tentatively, because there may be context I am missing.
I go back to the same thing I said before - and I come at this with no grudges or history here - but if the rule is "Don't derail in the thread; take it to MeTa" then don't hold off on publishing a MeTa. You cannot really, legitimately, say, "Members will be heard" but tack on "... but not here, not there, maybe later, maybe not." You've said over and over that people should take it to MeTa, but there are barriers to that avenue too. Like I said above, if I tell you the way to address a concern is to call me then I have a responsibility to pick up the phone.
Looking at the FAQ, it says re MetaTalk that "If you are tempted to post just in order to vent, consider taking some time to cool off first." I think it is fair to hold members to that, but it says "consider". It is a request to members to use their self-control and hold off a beat if they aren't going to express themselves in an outcome-oriented way. This is fair and people should step up to that. The world won't end if someone takes a breath and count to 10 and drink a glass of water before they make a post.
But, it unambiguously (to me anyway) contemplates member exercising this discretion for themselves. I have seen what makes me think the opposite is happening - that mods are holding certain topics back. If you're going to do that, be loud and clear and unambiguous about who, what, when, where and why and then also refrain from acting like "take it to MeTa" is a legitimate outlet for members. If you're going to hold back the posts, then it's disingenuous to act like that's a realistic outlet or alternate way to handle a disagreement.
Seems to me both members and mods need to be operating in good faith on this aspect of it.
posted by fennario at 5:19 PM on February 11 [14 favorites]
Perhaps a moderation log so that we may all see how threatening the misbehavers have been.
posted by phunniemee at 5:22 PM on February 11 [12 favorites]
posted by phunniemee at 5:22 PM on February 11 [12 favorites]
To be clear, it was more than one member who were doing the derailing. It was about 4 or 5 I can recall offhand.
And yet you only linked to a single user's comments, which were a week old by the time you linked them, and which had already been addressed the mods more than once. You had no recent examples of the behavior were telling us not to engage in.
So yes, this comes across as an exercise of power: Unnecessary pronouncements from on high often do, even if the guidelines are reasonable. And given your focus on a single user, it also comes across as you using your position as a moderator to address grievances--and it wouldn't be the first time that I felt this way recently.
You're not really engaging with the issues I've raised. Instead, you're making this pronouncement again--but clearly, I'm not arguing that users should be allowed to derail threads with complaints about moderation, and I haven't engaged in this behavior myself. It is, again, unnecessary. To put it another way, you can't justify the way you've handled this by convincing us that the user who had a dispute with you is in the wrong; that's not the issue. It's your handling of the dispute that is the issue--or at least it is for me.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 5:24 PM on February 11 [16 favorites]
And yet you only linked to a single user's comments, which were a week old by the time you linked them, and which had already been addressed the mods more than once. You had no recent examples of the behavior were telling us not to engage in.
So yes, this comes across as an exercise of power: Unnecessary pronouncements from on high often do, even if the guidelines are reasonable. And given your focus on a single user, it also comes across as you using your position as a moderator to address grievances--and it wouldn't be the first time that I felt this way recently.
You're not really engaging with the issues I've raised. Instead, you're making this pronouncement again--but clearly, I'm not arguing that users should be allowed to derail threads with complaints about moderation, and I haven't engaged in this behavior myself. It is, again, unnecessary. To put it another way, you can't justify the way you've handled this by convincing us that the user who had a dispute with you is in the wrong; that's not the issue. It's your handling of the dispute that is the issue--or at least it is for me.
posted by Kutsuwamushi at 5:24 PM on February 11 [16 favorites]
When I read bb’s comment about the threat there were no other comments after his. I literally said out loud to nobody, “oh Brandon, you didn’t “, thought about typing those exact words as a comment, and then didn’t because what would be the point?
Brandon, in case you haven’t heard this loud and clear, this thing was done, grievances aired, mistakes acknowledged, assurances of doing better expressed, statements of appreciation for the feedback given. Done, exit gracefully, end scene.
I know you know your audience so I’m very puzzled at the fact that you made the decision to Say A Thing and then to Say More Things. Very puzzled and I don’t know what to think about it which isn’t a good place for you, me and anybody else who feels the same way. Short of you looking at your last three or four comments and understanding why they were cause for concern and retracting, I don’t see this ending well for you at all. This makes me sad.
posted by ashbury at 5:31 PM on February 11 [4 favorites]
Brandon, in case you haven’t heard this loud and clear, this thing was done, grievances aired, mistakes acknowledged, assurances of doing better expressed, statements of appreciation for the feedback given. Done, exit gracefully, end scene.
I know you know your audience so I’m very puzzled at the fact that you made the decision to Say A Thing and then to Say More Things. Very puzzled and I don’t know what to think about it which isn’t a good place for you, me and anybody else who feels the same way. Short of you looking at your last three or four comments and understanding why they were cause for concern and retracting, I don’t see this ending well for you at all. This makes me sad.
posted by ashbury at 5:31 PM on February 11 [4 favorites]
To put it another way, you can't justify the way you've handled this by convincing us that the user who had a dispute with you is in the wrong; that's not the issue. It's your handling of the dispute that is the issue--or at least it is for me.
That's totally fair and agree that it could have been handled better.
The lashing out and derailing of threads by several members because the original issue was not handled great, is a separate issue. Those derails has been noted, the request has been made to avoid doing that in the future, so that's that.
Have there been additional people who have posted that they are intending to derail threads because their MetaTalks aren’t being approved since this post went up?
No, there has not been.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 5:56 PM on February 11
That's totally fair and agree that it could have been handled better.
The lashing out and derailing of threads by several members because the original issue was not handled great, is a separate issue. Those derails has been noted, the request has been made to avoid doing that in the future, so that's that.
Have there been additional people who have posted that they are intending to derail threads because their MetaTalks aren’t being approved since this post went up?
No, there has not been.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 5:56 PM on February 11
In the most detail you can muster, what exactly do the mods think went wrong here? Here being this thread.
I ask, because the process of "Mods do something" -> "Feedback from community" -> ""Mods admit fault and promise to do better" seems to be missing a critical step, which is the mods demonstrating that they have even the remotest understanding of user concerns. You can promise and promise, but you keep fucking up in the same broad ways that seem to give lie to the idea that you understand what could be "handled better ".
posted by sagc at 6:04 PM on February 11 [9 favorites]
I ask, because the process of "Mods do something" -> "Feedback from community" -> ""Mods admit fault and promise to do better" seems to be missing a critical step, which is the mods demonstrating that they have even the remotest understanding of user concerns. You can promise and promise, but you keep fucking up in the same broad ways that seem to give lie to the idea that you understand what could be "handled better ".
posted by sagc at 6:04 PM on February 11 [9 favorites]
To be clear, it was more than one member who were doing the derailing. It was about 4 or 5 I can recall offhand.
Is that a recent escalation? Are these all the same thread or a different thread? Are links available?
I'm asking because that seems like a lot, but I'm not sure 'cause I don't read close to every thread and also with deletions, I probably don't see a lot of comments like that at all.
But if it's a change, it would be good to figure out why - if it's all related to swearing or something else. Honestly if it were all related to swearing I'd assume it's a wave that will pass pretty quickly. But there might be something else.
And if it's not a change, it would be good to figure out how to handle it.
posted by warriorqueen at 6:18 PM on February 11 [4 favorites]
Is that a recent escalation? Are these all the same thread or a different thread? Are links available?
I'm asking because that seems like a lot, but I'm not sure 'cause I don't read close to every thread and also with deletions, I probably don't see a lot of comments like that at all.
But if it's a change, it would be good to figure out why - if it's all related to swearing or something else. Honestly if it were all related to swearing I'd assume it's a wave that will pass pretty quickly. But there might be something else.
And if it's not a change, it would be good to figure out how to handle it.
posted by warriorqueen at 6:18 PM on February 11 [4 favorites]
Because we don't have a mod log or a details tag to hide them inside, BB's linked evidence is only to mod notes indicating that details have been deleted. So again, we're expected to trust the mods' assessment, whether they've earned that trust or (clearly) not.
posted by knucklebones at 8:02 PM on February 11 [5 favorites]
posted by knucklebones at 8:02 PM on February 11 [5 favorites]
How would you suggest the request should have be worded?
I'm not gonna wordsmith, especially not a day or two after the fact, but I will share a perspective that I hope you might find helpful.
In my current company, I am in what you might call our compliance department. For most of my tenure here, I wasn't in a senior decision-making role. But I was tasked with advising project colleagues on what their agreements and any other contractual references said they could do, what they needed approval to do, and what they could not do. As far as I was concerned, I wasn't the one making those decisions, I was just the one telling them what those rules were. I didn't write a single one of those rules. All the same, I wasn't just reading those rules verbatim back to my colleagues, I was saying "Here's how this rule applies in your specific situation." And that is an interpretive exercise. And I always had to be very careful what I said, because anytime I made ANY sort of declaratory or imperative statement, if I wasn't very, very clear about the boundaries around it, there was a good chance that if anyone asked around later if they could do something on another project, someone might tell them "yes, our compliance department says that is ok." No matter how different the context.
I understand your position to be that you are a user with just some administrative privileges to enforce rules that were not made by you. But the fact is that every enforcement action is an interpretive exercise, and ultimately a rule can't mean anything other than how it's interpreted and enforced. So when you make declarations like "[x] needs to happen this way," or "[y] is not ok," that carries a different meaning than when a user without those administrative privileges says them. If I say "please avoid lashing out," everyone can just say "ok, cool, solotoro thinks lashing out is not ok, perhaps I will take that under advisement, perhaps not." When YOU say "please avoid lashing out," that always carries the implication "and if you do it despite me telling you not to, I will edit or delete your post, because that is my vision of how our policy applies in that case." If you are trying to write suggestions rather than your interpretation of policy, then you need to make 1000% clear that's what you're doing. Because ultimately, if a user wants to have their post stand, they aren't beholden to some Platonic ideal of policy, they are beholden to whatever your specific vision of that policy is.
posted by solotoro at 9:58 AM on February 12 [15 favorites]
I'm not gonna wordsmith, especially not a day or two after the fact, but I will share a perspective that I hope you might find helpful.
In my current company, I am in what you might call our compliance department. For most of my tenure here, I wasn't in a senior decision-making role. But I was tasked with advising project colleagues on what their agreements and any other contractual references said they could do, what they needed approval to do, and what they could not do. As far as I was concerned, I wasn't the one making those decisions, I was just the one telling them what those rules were. I didn't write a single one of those rules. All the same, I wasn't just reading those rules verbatim back to my colleagues, I was saying "Here's how this rule applies in your specific situation." And that is an interpretive exercise. And I always had to be very careful what I said, because anytime I made ANY sort of declaratory or imperative statement, if I wasn't very, very clear about the boundaries around it, there was a good chance that if anyone asked around later if they could do something on another project, someone might tell them "yes, our compliance department says that is ok." No matter how different the context.
I understand your position to be that you are a user with just some administrative privileges to enforce rules that were not made by you. But the fact is that every enforcement action is an interpretive exercise, and ultimately a rule can't mean anything other than how it's interpreted and enforced. So when you make declarations like "[x] needs to happen this way," or "[y] is not ok," that carries a different meaning than when a user without those administrative privileges says them. If I say "please avoid lashing out," everyone can just say "ok, cool, solotoro thinks lashing out is not ok, perhaps I will take that under advisement, perhaps not." When YOU say "please avoid lashing out," that always carries the implication "and if you do it despite me telling you not to, I will edit or delete your post, because that is my vision of how our policy applies in that case." If you are trying to write suggestions rather than your interpretation of policy, then you need to make 1000% clear that's what you're doing. Because ultimately, if a user wants to have their post stand, they aren't beholden to some Platonic ideal of policy, they are beholden to whatever your specific vision of that policy is.
posted by solotoro at 9:58 AM on February 12 [15 favorites]
To be clear, it was more than one member who were doing the derailing. It was about 4 or 5 I can recall offhand.
Is that a recent escalation? Are these all the same thread or a different thread? Are links available?
I feel like it's a recent thing, yeah.
There are two different threads and most of the comments themselves are currently deleted.
If you are trying to write suggestions rather than your interpretation of policy, then you need to make 1000% clear that's what you're doing.
Good advice within all your comment solotoro, thank you.
In the most detail you can muster, what exactly do the mods think went wrong here? Here being this thread.
Do you mean this MeTa thread or the original thread this MeTa is about?
Otherwise, this past Thursday, I've been working up a short checklist of how mods could approach situations that are flagged/require action. Have been workshopping with the other mods, hope to publish it for community feedback sometime next week, say by the evening of Wednesday the 12th, eastern time, in a new MeTa.
Something else has popped up, have to put this off for a day or two, apologies.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 4:14 PM on February 12
Is that a recent escalation? Are these all the same thread or a different thread? Are links available?
I feel like it's a recent thing, yeah.
There are two different threads and most of the comments themselves are currently deleted.
If you are trying to write suggestions rather than your interpretation of policy, then you need to make 1000% clear that's what you're doing.
Good advice within all your comment solotoro, thank you.
In the most detail you can muster, what exactly do the mods think went wrong here? Here being this thread.
Do you mean this MeTa thread or the original thread this MeTa is about?
Otherwise, this past Thursday, I've been working up a short checklist of how mods could approach situations that are flagged/require action. Have been workshopping with the other mods, hope to publish it for community feedback sometime next week, say by the evening of Wednesday the 12th, eastern time, in a new MeTa.
Something else has popped up, have to put this off for a day or two, apologies.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 4:14 PM on February 12
how can "this thread" possibly require clarification. Count this as one of the failures of communication that I'm trying to comprehend.
posted by sagc at 4:30 PM on February 12 [6 favorites]
posted by sagc at 4:30 PM on February 12 [6 favorites]
Fair point!
In the most detail you can muster, what exactly do the mods think went wrong here?
I'd say the biggest issue mod side is the belief that responding quickly is always necessary. Sitting back and doing more listening would have prompted better responses, in retrospect. Bringing up the derailing comments earlier would have been better as opposed to trying to keep them separate. Doing that only manage to reignite arguments.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 5:11 PM on February 12 [2 favorites]
In the most detail you can muster, what exactly do the mods think went wrong here?
I'd say the biggest issue mod side is the belief that responding quickly is always necessary. Sitting back and doing more listening would have prompted better responses, in retrospect. Bringing up the derailing comments earlier would have been better as opposed to trying to keep them separate. Doing that only manage to reignite arguments.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 5:11 PM on February 12 [2 favorites]
We want you to not post every single little thought that pops into your head. Maybe consider filtering a bit.
Best part of the above is that it applies as equally to Brandon as it does to anyone fucking else in this thread.
Fair point!
Wow, you're not taking this seriously at all, are you? Folks have *repeatedly* complained for weeks if not months about the slippery way you deflect criticisms, and then you pull it again with that "what does 'this thread' mean?" shit? What are you learning here, Brandon? Anything at all?
warriorqueen, you're seeing this, right?
posted by catspajamas at 4:34 AM on February 13 [11 favorites]
Best part of the above is that it applies as equally to Brandon as it does to anyone fucking else in this thread.
Fair point!
Wow, you're not taking this seriously at all, are you? Folks have *repeatedly* complained for weeks if not months about the slippery way you deflect criticisms, and then you pull it again with that "what does 'this thread' mean?" shit? What are you learning here, Brandon? Anything at all?
warriorqueen, you're seeing this, right?
posted by catspajamas at 4:34 AM on February 13 [11 favorites]
Asking for the clarification of "this thread", especially from a moderator who has been a Metafilter member for over 20 years, gives off "That depends on what your definition of 'is' is" vibes.
posted by Sparky Buttons at 9:46 AM on February 13 [8 favorites]
posted by Sparky Buttons at 9:46 AM on February 13 [8 favorites]
You're so vain, you probably think this thread is about you.
posted by kirkaracha (staff) at 11:54 AM on February 13 [2 favorites]
posted by kirkaracha (staff) at 11:54 AM on February 13 [2 favorites]
Hi kirkaracha. I don’t understand your comment. Could you help me understand it? I ask since I see the staff badge after your name. Thank you.
posted by Ministry of Truth at 2:34 PM on February 13 [2 favorites]
posted by Ministry of Truth at 2:34 PM on February 13 [2 favorites]
what's absolutely freaky as I thought of this today, now it might have been related to a playlist played in the kitchen but I had the lyric ringing in my head for about 10 minutes of Nova Scotia and the total of eclipse of the sun.
posted by clavdivs at 3:00 PM on February 13 [1 favorite]
posted by clavdivs at 3:00 PM on February 13 [1 favorite]
for about 10 minutes of Nova Scotia and the total of eclipse of the sun
there is tantalizing meaning here that eludes me like the drop of moisture on the lips of a shipwrecked sailor
posted by ginger.beef at 6:17 PM on February 13 [3 favorites]
there is tantalizing meaning here that eludes me like the drop of moisture on the lips of a shipwrecked sailor
posted by ginger.beef at 6:17 PM on February 13 [3 favorites]
or like clouds in your coffee
posted by chococat at 7:25 PM on February 13 [2 favorites]
posted by chococat at 7:25 PM on February 13 [2 favorites]
Ministry of Truth -- in case you haven't caught the references, they stem from this 1970s hit song:
Carly Simon - you're so vain
posted by philip-random at 7:36 PM on February 13
Carly Simon - you're so vain
posted by philip-random at 7:36 PM on February 13
That chorus made me SO mad as a logic puzzle kid and, on reflection, I remain pretty frustrated.
posted by lucidium at 3:35 AM on February 14 [1 favorite]
posted by lucidium at 3:35 AM on February 14 [1 favorite]
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posted by Joakim Ziegler at 4:15 PM on February 5 [12 favorites]