Could Fanfare posts be decoupled from their posters? March 5, 2025 2:33 PM Subscribe
Currently, if somebody deletes their account, their Fanfare posts are also deleted. We have no idea how many books, movies, etc. had fanfare posts that have now disappeared. What if, in the new site, when you wanted to make a Fanfare post, the post itself was associated with a dedicated user (maybe "The Opener"), populated with some standard description from some API when possible, and your own thoughts went in your own comment?
I'd lean towards no. Why decouple just one type of post? Either decouple all or none.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 2:38 PM on March 5 [1 favorite]
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 2:38 PM on March 5 [1 favorite]
if you decouple me from Roland Emmerich i will literally rage quit this entire site and burn it to the ground on my way out and drop a boat or seven on it for good measure
posted by phunniemee at 4:13 PM on March 5 [6 favorites]
posted by phunniemee at 4:13 PM on March 5 [6 favorites]
The Speed post has a bunch of "wasn't this posted before" metacommentary.
Why decouple just one type of post?
Because FanFare posts are unique in that they live forever; I quite often search for, read, and comment in posts for shows and movies that were made years before I watched.
And often the comments are far more interesting than the post itself -- many posts are just title / brief description and all the substance is in the ensuing conversation; all that is lost too when closed-account mass-deletions blow holes in FanFare.
Previous deleted threads that were soft-deleted can be similarly scrubbed and republished.
Can be, or will be? As the OP says, we have no idea how much has already been lost.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 5:09 PM on March 5 [16 favorites]
Why decouple just one type of post?
Because FanFare posts are unique in that they live forever; I quite often search for, read, and comment in posts for shows and movies that were made years before I watched.
And often the comments are far more interesting than the post itself -- many posts are just title / brief description and all the substance is in the ensuing conversation; all that is lost too when closed-account mass-deletions blow holes in FanFare.
Previous deleted threads that were soft-deleted can be similarly scrubbed and republished.
Can be, or will be? As the OP says, we have no idea how much has already been lost.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 5:09 PM on March 5 [16 favorites]
Also in that post, DoT realizing how load-bearing his FanFare posting history is: "if I did that, just short of three out of every ten movie posts would POOF."
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 5:11 PM on March 5 [10 favorites]
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 5:11 PM on March 5 [10 favorites]
Fully agree that FF posts should stay in place after an account wipe.
posted by soelo at 6:26 PM on March 5 [3 favorites]
posted by soelo at 6:26 PM on March 5 [3 favorites]
I know we had a "what happens when a user requests deletion" post a bit ago, but I was looking at some of my previous comments recently and realized that our only post (that I could find) about the IRS free direct file program is now deleted. Months and months after it was posted. I don't think that's consistent with a community weblog other than exceptional circumstances. Anonymize the post but don't delete or blank them in the main site, metatalk, ask, and fanfare without a specific request with a good reason for a particular post. Comments can, of course, can continue to be deleted (at first blush).
posted by skynxnex at 6:32 PM on March 5 [8 favorites]
posted by skynxnex at 6:32 PM on March 5 [8 favorites]
our only post (that I could find) about the IRS free direct file program is now deleted
It's here and it's gone because someone had a tantrum.
posted by phunniemee at 6:42 PM on March 5 [9 favorites]
It's here and it's gone because someone had a tantrum.
posted by phunniemee at 6:42 PM on March 5 [9 favorites]
Right, it's deleted so you can only find it if you do extra work. There's absolutely zero reason it should have been soft deleted.
posted by skynxnex at 6:43 PM on March 5 [2 favorites]
posted by skynxnex at 6:43 PM on March 5 [2 favorites]
Also, why are the deletions now marked with a pseudo anonymous account, The Closer, instead of the mod/admin who did it or nothing? This seems like the worst of options. And I know the new site is near but this is a pretty recent thing (January 25) so why bother? What's up? (It also seems like a weird name for account that gets associated with deleting and anonymizing things.)
posted by skynxnex at 8:05 PM on March 5 [6 favorites]
posted by skynxnex at 8:05 PM on March 5 [6 favorites]
boy, that sounds like something that should have been announced
posted by sagc at 8:11 PM on March 5 [4 favorites]
posted by sagc at 8:11 PM on March 5 [4 favorites]
I think the name could have improvement but if you could use that account to find *what* they've deleted then it'd be useful.
And thinking more about other sites, things that have a reason to be deleted should be, but this isn't bluesky. You shouldn't be able to nuke everything you've shared with us that has replies. I know that goes against some other motivations that are good, but it is incredibly disruptive to delete things, without good reason, that dozens of people have contributed to because the person who happened to start it decided to leave the site.
posted by skynxnex at 8:15 PM on March 5 [6 favorites]
And thinking more about other sites, things that have a reason to be deleted should be, but this isn't bluesky. You shouldn't be able to nuke everything you've shared with us that has replies. I know that goes against some other motivations that are good, but it is incredibly disruptive to delete things, without good reason, that dozens of people have contributed to because the person who happened to start it decided to leave the site.
posted by skynxnex at 8:15 PM on March 5 [6 favorites]
boy, that sounds like something that should have been announced
It's part of the standardization of account closures mentioned in the January update. Rhaomi and Frimble are working on that.
posted by loup (staff) at 9:04 PM on March 5
It's part of the standardization of account closures mentioned in the January update. Rhaomi and Frimble are working on that.
posted by loup (staff) at 9:04 PM on March 5
fwiw, I don't have a strong opinion about whether posts on the main site should be deleted, anonymized, maintained, whatever. Fanfare just seems like an easy case because the editorializing can be separated out. I'm glad to hear this is already in the works!
posted by one for the books at 10:22 PM on March 5 [2 favorites]
posted by one for the books at 10:22 PM on March 5 [2 favorites]
okay I have to admit "The Closer" made me cackle, it sounds like some sort of urban-legend ghoul that is haunting Metafilter and slashing threads that wander too far afield after dark
posted by dusty potato at 11:00 PM on March 5 [16 favorites]
posted by dusty potato at 11:00 PM on March 5 [16 favorites]
Also glad to hear this is in works, and reinforcing the I-think-general-vibe that Fanfare posts are less "personal" and more catalogue-ish.
posted by Shepherd at 2:00 AM on March 6 [1 favorite]
posted by Shepherd at 2:00 AM on March 6 [1 favorite]
Thinking about it a bit more -- any way to get a list of the FF threads that were deleted because one or more people left the site? I'm not a MetaTalk frequenter that often, and only popped over here because I had written a lot, and I thought eloquently, about The Menu and genuinely thought my brain was melting when it popped up again fresh as a daisy.
I think FF has genuine value over time as one of the last bastions of actual discussion of film and TV on the Internet, versus a grey goo of AI-generated 'reviews' and comment sections taken over by Russian propagandbots. Both the inherent merit and as a marketing tool / attractor for MeFi as a whole. I feel like it could be as valuable as AskMe over time.
I'd be happy to take on "resetting" lost threads if I could get a list of the ones that were gone.
posted by Shepherd at 2:09 AM on March 6 [10 favorites]
I think FF has genuine value over time as one of the last bastions of actual discussion of film and TV on the Internet, versus a grey goo of AI-generated 'reviews' and comment sections taken over by Russian propagandbots. Both the inherent merit and as a marketing tool / attractor for MeFi as a whole. I feel like it could be as valuable as AskMe over time.
I'd be happy to take on "resetting" lost threads if I could get a list of the ones that were gone.
posted by Shepherd at 2:09 AM on March 6 [10 favorites]
I would love to see this fixed. I hate it when this happens.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 5:51 AM on March 6 [10 favorites]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 5:51 AM on March 6 [10 favorites]
I wonder if a good feature for Fanfare would be a standardized main post and some kind of offset "first poster" comment to allow the person posting the privilege of framing the conversation. I really enjoy when people give their personal context to what they're posting but it may be simplest to split that out on the backend so that the personal stuff can be deleted seamlessly if necessary.
posted by restless_nomad (retired) at 5:53 AM on March 6 [8 favorites]
posted by restless_nomad (retired) at 5:53 AM on March 6 [8 favorites]
That would work alright if we maybe also upgraded the standard info pulls to include stuff like basic/cast crew and maybe a trailer and/or a JustWatch link.
The single line IMDb pulls are pretty underwhelming and lead to the same questions in a repetitive way. "Where is this streaming?" "Is this the one with [actor name]?" Etc.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 5:57 AM on March 6 [1 favorite]
The single line IMDb pulls are pretty underwhelming and lead to the same questions in a repetitive way. "Where is this streaming?" "Is this the one with [actor name]?" Etc.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 5:57 AM on March 6 [1 favorite]
Oh just to be clear, by "standardized" I don't mean "automated", although if we can do that reliably, that'd be great. I just mean that the commentary and the information be split into two sections on the backend, however that makes the most sense.
posted by restless_nomad (retired) at 6:00 AM on March 6
posted by restless_nomad (retired) at 6:00 AM on March 6
That could work, sure. I make so many FF posts, mine (mostly) tilt toward info, but I occasionally riff a bit and I would hate to have to forego that.
growabrain's posts are a better example than mine of movies posted with some personal thoughts. Their posts are good stuff.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:04 AM on March 6 [2 favorites]
growabrain's posts are a better example than mine of movies posted with some personal thoughts. Their posts are good stuff.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:04 AM on March 6 [2 favorites]
skynxnex: "Also, why are the deletions now marked with a pseudo anonymous account, The Closer, instead of the mod/admin who did it or nothing? This seems like the worst of options. And I know the new site is near but this is a pretty recent thing (January 25) so why bother? What's up?"
loup: "It's part of the standardization of account closures mentioned in the January update. Rhaomi and Frimble are working on that."
Yep. Since it's specifically for mass deletes caused by account closure requests, there's no need for a mod to note a specific rule violation against the thread (just the automatic "Poster's request"). A special-purpose account also makes it easier to separate out closure-related deletions from regular ones for stuff like the Infodump and the upcoming moderation log.
Frimble is ironing out a few bugs relating to the deletion and anonymization scripts, but once that's done there will be a post outlining the new options. The goal is to make the process more targeted so people can completely erase their own content while minimizing the collateral damage.
posted by Rhaomi at 12:19 PM on March 6
loup: "It's part of the standardization of account closures mentioned in the January update. Rhaomi and Frimble are working on that."
Yep. Since it's specifically for mass deletes caused by account closure requests, there's no need for a mod to note a specific rule violation against the thread (just the automatic "Poster's request"). A special-purpose account also makes it easier to separate out closure-related deletions from regular ones for stuff like the Infodump and the upcoming moderation log.
Frimble is ironing out a few bugs relating to the deletion and anonymization scripts, but once that's done there will be a post outlining the new options. The goal is to make the process more targeted so people can completely erase their own content while minimizing the collateral damage.
posted by Rhaomi at 12:19 PM on March 6
Sorry if this is already resolved in some other thread, but I think MeFi front page posts should also be anonymised and stay up, instead of being deleted. Once it's up, a FPP belongs to its commenters and readers and the community collectively just as much as to the original poster. I can see that AskMe and Projects posts belong to their OP.
At one point I used the infodump to estimate the number of comments that had effectively been deleted, without commenters' consent, because of the account wipes of other people, and the numbers were even higher than I'd expected.
posted by Klipspringer at 12:31 PM on March 6 [8 favorites]
At one point I used the infodump to estimate the number of comments that had effectively been deleted, without commenters' consent, because of the account wipes of other people, and the numbers were even higher than I'd expected.
posted by Klipspringer at 12:31 PM on March 6 [8 favorites]
Klipspringer: "Sorry if this is already resolved in some other thread, but I think MeFi front page posts should also be anonymised and stay up, instead of being deleted."
Yes, this is going to be part of the new process; posts can be 1) anonymized, or at most 2) anonymized, the poster's own comments removed, and the original FPP text replaced with a brief placeholder summary of the topic and a list of the URLs it contained. This is necessarily a more manual process (working on some scripts to speed things up), but it strikes a good balance between maximizing a person's ability to remove their own words while not overly affecting what others contributed to the conversation.
posted by Rhaomi at 1:36 PM on March 6 [13 favorites]
Yes, this is going to be part of the new process; posts can be 1) anonymized, or at most 2) anonymized, the poster's own comments removed, and the original FPP text replaced with a brief placeholder summary of the topic and a list of the URLs it contained. This is necessarily a more manual process (working on some scripts to speed things up), but it strikes a good balance between maximizing a person's ability to remove their own words while not overly affecting what others contributed to the conversation.
posted by Rhaomi at 1:36 PM on March 6 [13 favorites]
I hope that any zombification of posts, be it on FanFare or another part of the site, would be done only moving forward. Resurrecting the posts of people who closed their accounts and had their contributions removed under previous circumstances would be in Very Bad Faith.
posted by carsonb at 2:26 PM on March 6 [1 favorite]
posted by carsonb at 2:26 PM on March 6 [1 favorite]
The idea is to restore everyone *else's* content, not the person who buttoned. It would be easy to just flip a switch and restore/anonymize posts and comments indiscriminately (which is standard practice most other places). This more involved process is designed to specifically target the closed account's stuff to respect people who don't want to have their words on the site any more. But the language around account closures never included wiping thousands of other people's contributions without their knowledge or consent -- that was just an unwanted (and unadvertised) side-effect of the original quick-and-dirty wipe process. There's no good reason not to undo that unwanted damage where possible, as long as the user's own content remains deleted.
posted by Rhaomi at 2:58 PM on March 6 [3 favorites]
posted by Rhaomi at 2:58 PM on March 6 [3 favorites]
Depressing, because account wipes have absolutely been used to hide bad behavior and simultaneously wiped out extremely very valuable comments. I agree that it would be a betrayal of expectations, but the weirdest thing is any of these "deleted at posters request (due to account wipe)" posts still have the entire post that the OP wrote - you just need to find them via post number/way back machine/external links.
posted by sagc at 2:59 PM on March 6 [2 favorites]
posted by sagc at 2:59 PM on March 6 [2 favorites]
I can see arguments for and against decoupling/preserving regular FPPs.
I do not see any logical argument against preserving FF posts. Even more than on the blue, the value of the page is skewed in the comments rather than the post itself. People don't come to FF to see your post, they come to talk about the movie/show/book/whatever.
It's not exactly an invasion of privacy if the plot blurb from IMDB that you posted gets preserved without your name on it in the interest of not deleting the discussion that other people had.
People can still have their comments scrubbed and if the post itself had personal stuff, we can replace it with a basic plot summary. There's no good reason to nuke other people's contributions to the site via comments if there's a workable process to avoid that.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:16 AM on March 7 [13 favorites]
I do not see any logical argument against preserving FF posts. Even more than on the blue, the value of the page is skewed in the comments rather than the post itself. People don't come to FF to see your post, they come to talk about the movie/show/book/whatever.
It's not exactly an invasion of privacy if the plot blurb from IMDB that you posted gets preserved without your name on it in the interest of not deleting the discussion that other people had.
People can still have their comments scrubbed and if the post itself had personal stuff, we can replace it with a basic plot summary. There's no good reason to nuke other people's contributions to the site via comments if there's a workable process to avoid that.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:16 AM on March 7 [13 favorites]
When someone says something is "one of [something]" that does not imply they think it's the only one. It's "one of." As in: there are others.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:56 PM on March 7 [1 favorite]
posted by DirtyOldTown at 2:56 PM on March 7 [1 favorite]
I don't want my comments being deleted just because another user wants to super-button.
This feels very clear to me. Another user does not have the right to disappear everyone else's comments.
posted by fleacircus at 4:31 PM on March 7 [12 favorites]
This feels very clear to me. Another user does not have the right to disappear everyone else's comments.
posted by fleacircus at 4:31 PM on March 7 [12 favorites]
I think I'm against forced decoupling of FanFare posts.
When I put up a thread for a new show, I try to follow an approach similar to this proposal and make the first comment reflect my personal reviews of the show, and write the main post for a show as more of a description of the series or episode, but sometimes that demarcation gets a bit blurred. But those are also posts that can work. I think my opener for The Company You Keep, for example, demonstrates this. I'm sure people reading the main post thread could tell what I thought of this show, even without my follow-up comment, but I also think the way I introduced the show in the main post was a big part of the reason why people read my post, gave the show a shot, became regular viewers and engaged in ongoing conversation about it.
Similarly, there are times when making Arrowverse posts, I ended up just writing nonsense summaries instead of posting actual descriptions of the episodes. In part, I did this to entertain myself, in part this style seemed to fit with the mood of the shows, and in part, I was hoping to provide at least a chuckle to our group of commentators. An in case anybody needs them, here are some examples from Legends of Tomorrow episodes.
#1.
#2. (not decoupled, but could have been)
#3.
#4.
posted by sardonyx at 6:39 PM on March 7
When I put up a thread for a new show, I try to follow an approach similar to this proposal and make the first comment reflect my personal reviews of the show, and write the main post for a show as more of a description of the series or episode, but sometimes that demarcation gets a bit blurred. But those are also posts that can work. I think my opener for The Company You Keep, for example, demonstrates this. I'm sure people reading the main post thread could tell what I thought of this show, even without my follow-up comment, but I also think the way I introduced the show in the main post was a big part of the reason why people read my post, gave the show a shot, became regular viewers and engaged in ongoing conversation about it.
Similarly, there are times when making Arrowverse posts, I ended up just writing nonsense summaries instead of posting actual descriptions of the episodes. In part, I did this to entertain myself, in part this style seemed to fit with the mood of the shows, and in part, I was hoping to provide at least a chuckle to our group of commentators. An in case anybody needs them, here are some examples from Legends of Tomorrow episodes.
#1.
#2. (not decoupled, but could have been)
#3.
#4.
posted by sardonyx at 6:39 PM on March 7
we have no idea how much has already been lost.
So I got curious about this and ran up a bit of Python against the infodump: 363 deleted posts in FanFare. Some of these are test posts, doubles, spam, and other housekeeping deletions. Filtering to "poster's request" deletion reasons finds 217 deleted posts, although some of those are likely "oops" requests rather than account wipes.
The Closer has deleted 75 posts and they're all from one user's account wipe. 58 of those are movies.
This seems like quite a lot.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 6:40 PM on March 7 [4 favorites]
So I got curious about this and ran up a bit of Python against the infodump: 363 deleted posts in FanFare. Some of these are test posts, doubles, spam, and other housekeeping deletions. Filtering to "poster's request" deletion reasons finds 217 deleted posts, although some of those are likely "oops" requests rather than account wipes.
The Closer has deleted 75 posts and they're all from one user's account wipe. 58 of those are movies.
This seems like quite a lot.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 6:40 PM on March 7 [4 favorites]
This seems like quite a lot.
1.3% of all FF movie posts.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:06 PM on March 7 [1 favorite]
1.3% of all FF movie posts.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 8:06 PM on March 7 [1 favorite]
Why not simply change the meaning of deletion/anonymization in FF to the following: Say user X requests their posts be deleted. Any FF post that they authored would have the following transformations applied:
1) Remove their name (maybe make the post now appear to be posted by some special placeholder account, say, Alan Smithee).
2) Leave the show/movie title together with the Books Included/Show Only classification.
3) Remove ALL content written by them in the body of the OP itself. Leave a note instead that the OP poster's account was erased.
4) Remove all of their comments below the OP (same as any other thread).
This seems like it would fulfill the goals of (1) removing everything personal to the deleted account (2) leaving up others' discussion about the show/movie and (3) not making anyone doubt their memory about whether they had already participated in a thread about that film/movie. If there is concern object to applying this behavior retroactively, only do this moving forward, it would still preserve a lot of the discussions that would otherwise be lost.
posted by axiom at 9:27 PM on March 7 [3 favorites]
1) Remove their name (maybe make the post now appear to be posted by some special placeholder account, say, Alan Smithee).
2) Leave the show/movie title together with the Books Included/Show Only classification.
3) Remove ALL content written by them in the body of the OP itself. Leave a note instead that the OP poster's account was erased.
4) Remove all of their comments below the OP (same as any other thread).
This seems like it would fulfill the goals of (1) removing everything personal to the deleted account (2) leaving up others' discussion about the show/movie and (3) not making anyone doubt their memory about whether they had already participated in a thread about that film/movie. If there is concern object to applying this behavior retroactively, only do this moving forward, it would still preserve a lot of the discussions that would otherwise be lost.
posted by axiom at 9:27 PM on March 7 [3 favorites]
Remove ALL content written by them in the body of the OP itself. Leave a note instead that the OP poster's account was erased.
I don't see any (ethical) reason we couldn't apply this retroactively to the movie threads that have already been deleted and bring those back, especially since the threads are accessible with a direct link. It would honestly be a better wipe for the user than what we have now.
posted by thecaddy at 6:41 AM on March 10
I don't see any (ethical) reason we couldn't apply this retroactively to the movie threads that have already been deleted and bring those back, especially since the threads are accessible with a direct link. It would honestly be a better wipe for the user than what we have now.
posted by thecaddy at 6:41 AM on March 10
our only post (that I could find) about the IRS free direct file program is now deleted
phunniemee: It's here and it's gone because someone had a tantrum.
Yeah I noticed this the other day when I went looking for the Leonard Nimoy memorial thread on the 10th anniversary of his death (Feb 27). I thought I had hallucinated the whole thing as I couldn't find it using any regular search methods -- turns out hippybear made it, and since every post hippybear ever posted to MetaFilter was deleted, it's very difficult to find. I had to scroll back through my comments history to 2015 to track it down through the one comment I (luckily) made on the post.
And that is some serious bullshit. You don't delete big chunks of a site's history because somebody spun out. if someone makes a post on a public web site (community blog), it's public. Especially something that hundreds if not thousands of other people added to with their comments. What the fuck.
posted by tzikeh at 8:22 AM on March 10 [9 favorites]
phunniemee: It's here and it's gone because someone had a tantrum.
Yeah I noticed this the other day when I went looking for the Leonard Nimoy memorial thread on the 10th anniversary of his death (Feb 27). I thought I had hallucinated the whole thing as I couldn't find it using any regular search methods -- turns out hippybear made it, and since every post hippybear ever posted to MetaFilter was deleted, it's very difficult to find. I had to scroll back through my comments history to 2015 to track it down through the one comment I (luckily) made on the post.
And that is some serious bullshit. You don't delete big chunks of a site's history because somebody spun out. if someone makes a post on a public web site (community blog), it's public. Especially something that hundreds if not thousands of other people added to with their comments. What the fuck.
posted by tzikeh at 8:22 AM on March 10 [9 favorites]
^^ And maybe there's a better way to do it but that was all I could come up with.
posted by tzikeh at 8:29 AM on March 10
posted by tzikeh at 8:29 AM on March 10
Also in infodumping curiosity: checking the postdata for gaps in the normally-contiguous postids finds 102 postids that are absent from the infodump. The corresponding FanFare URLs -- at least the few that I sampled -- return "Server Error" pages. Possibly these are from hard nuke-the-account-from-orbit wipes?
Speed might be one of these; no trace of a deleted post for it in the infodump, but commenters in its new post were sure that it had been posted before.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 6:10 PM on March 10
Speed might be one of these; no trace of a deleted post for it in the infodump, but commenters in its new post were sure that it had been posted before.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 6:10 PM on March 10
And that is some serious bullshit. You don't delete big chunks of a site's history because somebody spun out. if someone makes a post on a public web site (community blog), it's public. Especially something that hundreds if not thousands of other people added to with their comments. What the fuck.
Amen.
We're encouraged to keep our FPPs relatively neutral in tone and put our personal opinions in the comments precisely because the thread as a whole is more than just our views as poster—this isn't a personal blog. If people's comments get nuked, that's one thing (although still seriously disruptive to the archive), but taking whole threads with it sucks. It's even worse for Fanfare. If people know that their Fanfare contributions could be deleted at any time because of a single member flaming out, it's going to discourage them from commenting there at all.
I was disturbed when hippybear wiped his account and took a whole bunch of threads with him, and seeing more of it happening in recent weeks has not been reassuring, it's been worse. I realised recently that the entire discussion of a popular BBC series has been wiped because the poster who posted each thread has left. (I commented on one episode, so can still see that single post.) We complain when high-profile media entities wipe their archives—why is this any better?
Another site I frequent that has a 20-year archive doesn't handle flameouts this way. Even though specific members start individual discussions there, if they leave us their work stays on the site but is reassigned to a generic "Workshop" account. Anonymity is preserved, but the whole enterprise isn't brought down by one person's issues.
We could do the same here. Reassign account-wiped threads and comments to Anoymous and leave them in place. Allow departing members to specify certain comments or sentences within comments that might compromise them and delete those, but err on the side of leaving things as intact as possible.
The current approach disrespects the time and effort that everyone else has put into our threads over years or decades, especially when it involves highly active accounts that have been here a long time.
posted by rory at 1:44 AM on March 11 [2 favorites]
Amen.
We're encouraged to keep our FPPs relatively neutral in tone and put our personal opinions in the comments precisely because the thread as a whole is more than just our views as poster—this isn't a personal blog. If people's comments get nuked, that's one thing (although still seriously disruptive to the archive), but taking whole threads with it sucks. It's even worse for Fanfare. If people know that their Fanfare contributions could be deleted at any time because of a single member flaming out, it's going to discourage them from commenting there at all.
I was disturbed when hippybear wiped his account and took a whole bunch of threads with him, and seeing more of it happening in recent weeks has not been reassuring, it's been worse. I realised recently that the entire discussion of a popular BBC series has been wiped because the poster who posted each thread has left. (I commented on one episode, so can still see that single post.) We complain when high-profile media entities wipe their archives—why is this any better?
Another site I frequent that has a 20-year archive doesn't handle flameouts this way. Even though specific members start individual discussions there, if they leave us their work stays on the site but is reassigned to a generic "Workshop" account. Anonymity is preserved, but the whole enterprise isn't brought down by one person's issues.
We could do the same here. Reassign account-wiped threads and comments to Anoymous and leave them in place. Allow departing members to specify certain comments or sentences within comments that might compromise them and delete those, but err on the side of leaving things as intact as possible.
The current approach disrespects the time and effort that everyone else has put into our threads over years or decades, especially when it involves highly active accounts that have been here a long time.
posted by rory at 1:44 AM on March 11 [2 favorites]
> maybe make the post now appear to be posted by some special placeholder account, say, Alan Smithee.
Paphnuty.
This has to be Paphnuty.
Search your feelings; you know it to be true.
posted by glonous keming at 5:47 PM on March 13 [1 favorite]
Paphnuty.
This has to be Paphnuty.
Search your feelings; you know it to be true.
posted by glonous keming at 5:47 PM on March 13 [1 favorite]
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posted by Rhaomi at 2:38 PM on March 5 [16 favorites]