Askers are asking multiple questions in AskMe threads

December 31, 2004 2:53 PM

Stop cheating.
posted by rushmc to Etiquette/Policy at 2:53 PM (44 comments total)

You got it, boss.
posted by cmonkey at 2:55 PM on December 31, 2004

I disagree, just to make the thread more interesting.
posted by Navek Rednam at 2:56 PM on December 31, 2004

I won't link to anyone to embarrass them, but since mathowie instituted the "one question a week" rule in AskMe, we have already begun to see people shamelessly try to cram multiple questions into their one weekly post. Clearly, an end run around his intent should not be allowed, but I'm not sure that there's anything we users can do to stop it (other than destroy AskMe threads with complaints, or clutter MeTa with same, neither of which seem desirable or particularly effective). Perhaps an announcement/request that people not do this is in order, mathowie?
posted by rushmc at 2:56 PM on December 31, 2004

What if it's a question posing as a riddle?
posted by docpops at 3:00 PM on December 31, 2004

...wrapped in a fluffy pastry?
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 3:16 PM on December 31, 2004

If it's embedded inside a [MI], I've got no problems with it. If people don't want to answer, they're free not to.

But yeah, a simple, "One question per" rule is a lot easier.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 3:17 PM on December 31, 2004

...and jumping on a trampoline of discontent?
posted by buriednexttoyou at 3:17 PM on December 31, 2004

I agree. It plays hell with readability of threads, isn't fair to people who do save their questions, and all the cheat-y questions we've seen so far don't seem to be of the urgent nature that some people predicted might make the "one a week" rule untenable.
posted by jessamyn at 3:40 PM on December 31, 2004

Is the "$1 per additional question" proposal coming into effect soon? That might solve the problem.
posted by weston at 4:03 PM on December 31, 2004

might help solve the problem, that is, providing a way other than cheating to actually ask two questions.
posted by weston at 4:03 PM on December 31, 2004

Start lying.
posted by sled at 4:31 PM on December 31, 2004

Stop the insanity!
posted by joelf at 5:54 PM on December 31, 2004

Stop in the name of love! (Some people call me the Hamster of Love...)
posted by wendell at 6:16 PM on December 31, 2004

That's me, wendell.
posted by squirrel at 7:54 PM on December 31, 2004

Let's not forget that part of the value of the site, as envisioned, was as a searchable repository of questions and answers. This value will be greatly diluted if the questions aren't kept separate.
posted by rushmc at 9:21 PM on December 31, 2004

rushmc makes a good point.

If the questions aren't seperate it ruins the value of the site.

You could be searching for a question about a movie and end up with the movie in the main question, but a secondary question inside will take over and there will be few answers about the movie, or none if the thread is taken over with the secondary question.
posted by kamylyon at 9:40 PM on December 31, 2004

And the search works so well now?
posted by fenriq at 10:55 PM on December 31, 2004

Clearly, an end run around his intent should not be allowed, but I'm not sure that there's anything we users can do to stop it (other than destroy AskMe threads with complaints, or clutter MeTa with same, neither of which seem desirable or particularly effective). Perhaps an announcement/request that people not do this is in order, mathowie?

It's become increasingly clear to me that Matt doesn't care in the slightest what we do with MetaFilter. So long as nobody burns the place to the ground, he's only going to half-assedly enforce his (only partially-articulated) "rules". If he doesn't take the guidlines seriously, then I don't see why we should take them seriously.

Face it: MetaFilter is a free-for-all.
posted by gd779 at 11:08 PM on December 31, 2004

I propose the following for those who post multiple questions in a single AskMeFi post: Discourage the practice with complete and utter silence. Just like you're not suppost to feed trolls- don't feed the practice of multiple questions.

Peer pressure can be exerted more ways than with flames.
posted by Doohickie at 12:16 AM on January 1, 2005

fenriq: Yeah, so let's make sure to make it worse ;)
posted by abcde at 1:00 AM on January 1, 2005

gd779 that's where the 'self-policing' thing comes in. It might just be possible to run this place well with flames and peer pressure instead of only relying on the hand of god. Though it will get messy, to be sure :)
posted by Space Coyote at 3:44 AM on January 1, 2005

Thank you abcde.
posted by kamylyon at 6:51 AM on January 1, 2005

I propose the following for those who post multiple questions in a single AskMeFi post: Discourage the practice with complete and utter silence.

I'm already doing that, but it only takes one person to screw that up, if they have an answer to share.
posted by rushmc at 9:20 AM on January 1, 2005

But it feels so good to be bad.
posted by Juicylicious at 10:53 AM on January 1, 2005

If he doesn't take the guidlines seriously, then I don't see why we should take them seriously.

Space Coyote said it first, but I'm gonna say it louder and with more bile:

This is supposed to be a self-policing community, god damn it! That is the point of the site! The reason you should take the guidelines seriously is because by not taking the guidelines seriously you make the site suck balls. It is not Matt's job to make us behave. Please, please don't say that again.
posted by Hildago at 11:13 AM on January 1, 2005

The reason you should take the guidelines seriously is because by not taking the guidelines seriously you make the site suck balls.

Self-policing requires a consensus about what "sucks" and what doesn't, and there's no consensus on that anymore. Any attempt to enforce a self-determined standard of behavior through flaming is therefore doomed to failure. Unilateral flaming in the name of "self-policing" will only serve to perpetuate MetaFilter's reputation as an uncivil, aggressive, and overly-critical snarkfest, where even the slightest mistake is attacked without mercy. Since there will always be MeFites who defend the standards you think are too low, the behavior you condemn as "bad" will almost always receive enough support to continue. And why shouldn't it? I paid my $5/signed up just like you; who are you to tell me what to do? And so the trend towards the lowest common denominator continues.

I think the truth is that as long as we're not hugely abusive, Matt just doesn't care what we do here. If he doesn't care, I really don't see why we should. Each to their own. Just scroll past it. MetaFilter is what we make of it, and who are you to tell me what to do? That's the prevailing sentiment around here, and only Matt can change it (by providing clear and unambiguous guidlines and strictly enforcing them until they're commonly understood and accepted). In the meantime, MetaFilter is a free-for-all, whether we say it is or not. There are no rules here anymore, except one: don't act so egregiously that you piss Matt off enough to get banned.
posted by gd779 at 12:41 PM on January 1, 2005

Hildago hit the nail on the head.
posted by raedyn at 12:45 PM on January 1, 2005

For the record, my comments should not be understood as approving of this state of affairs. I'm just recognizing it as reality, in the hopes that this recognition will eventually spur real change.
posted by gd779 at 1:24 PM on January 1, 2005

I think gd779 is basically right (taken in the context of the followup clarification). There are some hard fast rules (self-link spamming, goatse), but everything else is so "guideline" based that in reality it means everybody has a different idea of what Mefi should be, and in reality "self-policing" means people in Camp A shouting at people in Camp B for some issue, followed by people in Camp B shouting at people in Camp A for some other issue. Unless everyone knows more or less what policies or values they're supposed to be policing, self-policing just turns into yelling at people to stick to your interpretation of what Mefi should be, and in reality pretty much everything sticking except for the particularly egregious examples.

I'm not saying Matt should set a lot of hard, fast rules, but some very specific guidelines / examples of "good" and "bad" would probably make self-policing more directed and marginally more unanimous (or whatever the term is for "more, but not totally, unanimous")

Of course, I'm not above it, because I sure as hell think people should stick to my interpretation of what Mefi is. But if matt says something that indicates I'm wrong on some issue, I'll sure as hell shut up about it.
posted by Bugbread at 1:33 PM on January 1, 2005

gd, I agree with you that public humiliation isn't the best way to maintain a community. I don't think constant supervision by Matt is either. However, if we have a "do as thou wilt" policy, then just tell people to scroll past what they don't like, we no longer have a community, just a link-dump and forum.

We don't need to precisely define standards, either -- that's a losing game. What works best is when everyone participating in Metafilter "gets" that they are in a community, and behaves differently than they would with strangers. Standards simply arise informally out of a knowledge of the idiosyncracies of that community, just like they do in a group of friends. That's what we need.

I think one of the biggest problems is that not everybody likes that idea, but instead of just going to one of the million other internet forums where this experimental model isn't being used, they decide to stay here and--it almost seems--try to make Metafilter like everywhere else.
posted by Hildago at 2:22 PM on January 1, 2005

That was very astute, Hildago.
posted by Kwantsar at 2:37 PM on January 1, 2005

This is supposed to be a self-policing community, god damn it! That is the point of the site!

But you have to recognize that there are some things we can do and some things we cannot. That, too, is part of the system as designed.
posted by rushmc at 2:40 PM on January 1, 2005

Welcome to the world of unintended consequences. Hope you like your stay.
posted by euphorb at 2:56 PM on January 1, 2005

if we have a "do as thou wilt" policy, then just tell people to scroll past what they don't like, we no longer have a community, just a link-dump and forum... Standards simply arise informally out of a knowledge of the idiosyncrasies of that community, just like they do in a group of friends. That's what we need. I think one of the biggest problems is that not everybody likes that idea, but instead of just going to one of the million other internet forums where this experimental model isn't being used, they decide to stay here and--it almost seems--try to make Metafilter like everywhere else.

The alternative to a "do is thou wilt" policy is... what, exactly? "Do as Hildago wilt"? There is no other alternative.

In the absence of a central lawgiver, there are only two possible states: 1) "do as thou wilt" or 2) constant political fighting over what MetaFilter should be (leading to periods of conflict between Camp A and Camp B or, occasionally, to periods of consensus, as Camp A temporarily triumphs over Camp B).

Say, for the sake of example, that I (and some of my friends) like political threads and that you (and some of your friends) don't think they're appropriate. How, exactly, should this situation be resolved? There are precisely two possibilities. If I don't capitulate to you, then you will accuse me of following a policy of "do as thou wilt" and "trying to make MetaFilter like everywhere else" (because I'm ignoring the standards generated by "the idiosyncrasies of the community", which in truth almost always reflects merely the preferences of a minority of MeFites, and certainly never reflects a unanimous consensus). On the other hand, if I do capitulate to you, then I'm simply following your vision of MetaFilter. Of course, the next time we disagree on a standard of behavior, it may be my turn to cloak my substantive desires in the guise of responding to "the idiosyncrasies of the community".

Your assertion that people who don't like this policy are trying to "make MetaFilter like everywhere else" turns out to be, at bottom, either confused and ultimately incoherent, or a clever and convenient rhetorical club which you (and I) can use against competing visions of MetaFilter.

The interesting thing is that the "winner" will generally be the Camp that cares about the site less (or, to put it in other words, the Camp that advocates lower standards), because the group that cares more will get disgusted by the damage caused by the constant fighting, more disgusted by the lowered signal-to-noise ratio (as their political enemies don't capitulate); at some point, this disgust will cause them to leave MetaFilter altogether. So, sooner or later, "do as thou wilt", or something very close to it in practice, becomes the accepted law.

Which is why self-policing, in the absence of clear guidelines or an effective Admin, always trends towards the lowest common denominator. And that is why a change is needed.
posted by gd779 at 3:02 PM on January 1, 2005

In other words, the "do as thou wilt" people are members of the community too, and they have just as much right to advocate that vision of MetaFilter as you have to advocate your vision of MetaFilter. By opposing "do as thou wilt", you're advocating some (unmentioned and implicit) ad-hoc standards of community behavior. So at the end of the day, when you say "don't make the site suck and don't advocate a standard of 'do as thou wilt'", you're getting to determe what "sucks" and what doesn't; additionally, and conveniently, by determining what sucks and what doesn't, you're implicitly excluding all of the things you don't like and none of the things that you do like from the ad-hoc standards of appropriate "community behavior" that you hope to promote. So, at bottom, what you really mean is merely "do what I think you should do".

So when you say "don't advocate explicit standards, because everybody else has them, and why don't you just go there?" what you mean is "I basically like the way things are now, or maybe I think the explicit standards that would be developed would leave me with less power and make the site less like what I want it to be, so just do what I think you should do and everything will be fine".

If you really, really thought the site sucked, but you still cared enough to not leave, wouldn't you advocate explicit standards (as rushmc tried to do with the narrow issue of multiple-question posts at the beginning of this thread)? Of course you would.
posted by gd779 at 3:23 PM on January 1, 2005

I think you're assuming a lot about other people's positions now, gd779, and making a lot of circular statements.

For example, while I basically agree with you, statements like "by determining what sucks and what doesn't, you're implicitly excluding all of the things you don't like and none of the things that you do like from the ad-hoc standards of appropriate 'community behavior' that you hope to promote" are wrong by virtue of the word "all". Personally, I exclude pron from what should be on the site, despite the fact that I like pron. I do this not because I think pron shouldn't exist, but because it's one of the clear standards of the site that pron is not linked to. So I am excluding one of the things I like from the ad-hoc standards of appropriate 'community behavior'.

Still, while I acknowledge that the argument above may be taking the single word "all" to task too far, the following statement seems mostly tautological:

"So when you say 'don't advocate explicit standards, because everybody else has them, and why don't you just go there?' what you mean is 'I basically like the way things are now, or maybe I think the explicit standards that would be developed would leave me with less power and make the site less like what I want it to be, so just do what I think you should do and everything will be fine'.

First, if anyone argues that something should stay the way it is, they are arguing that the way it is is the good way. So, yes, it means "I basically like the way things are now". I'm not sure your point in rephrasing it. It seems a bit tautological. So does the second part. "Explicit standards would leave me with less power and make it less like I want it to be" is actually almost another tautology, in that the way it is "less like I want it to be" is having explicit standards. That is, "Explicit standards would leave me with less power and make it have explicit standards".

As you point out, right now it's a free for all anyway, so nobody has any power except number 1. That reduces it to "Explicit standards would result in Mefi having explicit standards". Once again, true, but I don't quite see what you're getting at.

I do agree that if you thought the site sucked, but you cared, you'd advocate explicit standards. I just think your characterizations of people with opposing viewpoints seems a little circular.
posted by Bugbread at 3:42 PM on January 1, 2005

It seems a bit tautological.... "Explicit standards would leave me with less power and make it less like I want it to be" is actually almost another tautology, in that the way it is "less like I want it to be" is having explicit standards. That is, "Explicit standards would leave me with less power and make it have explicit standards". As you point out, right now it's a free for all anyway, so nobody has any power except number 1. That reduces it to "Explicit standards would result in Mefi having explicit standards". Once again, true, but I don't quite see what you're getting at.

I think this will make more sense if you add "I don't like explicit standards because" to the beginning of each statement you quote, and remember that those statements are intended to reflect Hildago's views on the subject. Therefore, instead of reducing to "explicit standards would result in Mefi having explicit standards", Hildago's arguments reduce to "I don't like explicit standards because explicit standards would result in Mefi having explicit standards" which reduces to "I don't like explicit standards" which implies "I don't like explicit standards, and you shouldn't either", which reduces to "do what I want", which is an irrelevant argument because I'm as much a member of Metafilter as Hildago, and I have the same right to advocate for my vision of Metafilter as he does.

Does that make more sense?

I was responding, in other words, to the implication I read in Hildago's last post, which was "MetaFilter: Love it or leave it".

Personally, I exclude pron from what should be on the site, despite the fact that I like pron.

When I said "like", I didn't mean "personally like", I meant "like on MetaFilter" either for personal reasons or out of a desire to be considerate of others.

if anyone argues that something should stay the way it is, they are arguing that the way it is is the good way.

Not necessarily. I can believe that MetaFilter is bad (or, at least, not perfect) now, but I can simultaneously believe that a change would make it worse. Then I woudl argue that Metafilter should stay the way it is; because even though the status quo may not be what I personally desire, it's the lesser of two evils. That was all I was saying there.
posted by gd779 at 4:03 PM on January 1, 2005

But I don't want my larger point to get lost, which is that, insofar as Hildago wants to find some murky middle ground between "do what thou wilt" and explicit standards as laid down by Matt, he is simply saying - at most - "do what I want, not what thou wilt", and he is probably doomed to failure, to boot, because internet communities without a strong admin or explicit standards necessarily trend towards "do as thou wilt" over time.
posted by gd779 at 4:08 PM on January 1, 2005

Does that make more sense?

Yes.
posted by Bugbread at 4:43 PM on January 1, 2005

The very thing that gd779 says is not working is working I believe, and has been for years, and is (if I'm right about Matt, and I think I am) an astonishingly clever and consistent experiment in the nature of community, online or otherwise.

More blood and feathers have been flying with the recent influx of members, certainly, particularly after such a long period of population stagnation, but I continue to think that this experiment just may perhaps be doomed to failure -- for the same pessissimistic reasons that people dismiss pure anarchy as impossible, their belief that human nature is basically bad -- I'm not so sure it is, and it's fascinating to watch and be a part of, regardless.

Like some democracies, it's stumbled along quite well despite its own inherent contradictions and messiness, and is still vibrant, when given the opportunity to be, thanks in no small part to the combination of a hands-off leader and a concerned, engaged citizenry.

It is in the intersection of the desires of the active members of the community that standards and rules, unspoken or otherwise, are born. This is as it should be.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:08 PM on January 1, 2005

I disagree that the increase in argument and unpleasantness around here has been due primarily to the new members, the election, or any such factor. Rather, I think it is the direct result of mathowie's refusal to participate even to the level he customarily has in the past.

While clearly he doesn't want to micromanage the site (and equally clearly, we wouldn't want him to), there is a certain level of top-down management required for the site to operate in the way it has been designed to. But now he refuses time and again to even comment in MetaTalk threads (like this one) which would resolve a particular issue by alerting people to his perspective and preference. This happens time and time again...a legitimate question/issue is posted, people debate it ad naseum, and it is left uncommented upon by mathowie and therefore sits, unresolved and unsettled, to pop up again and again to cause more internecine warfare.

Obviously, not every type of issue falls into this category or could be resolved so simply. But many do and could, yet he won't address them. In many cases, the negative tone-setting arguments could be avoided entirely if he simply kept the membership posted as to the status of the site. There would be no need for a Meta post asking for a certain feature for the 1000th time (one that has already been promised and is supposedly in the works) if there was a post or sidebar notice apprising people of its status--and therefore no resulting fight in the thread. But instead there has been nothing posted in the sidebar since October 19, and no one knows the status of the programmer supposedly hired with the new-member windfall to do some of the much needed improvements around here, or anything else. It is impossible for anyone to help "self police" effectively in the dark.

There are enough things for people to argue about here legitimately. I cannot fathom why he won't step in to avert the ones where it is in his power (and only his power) to do so (we're talking maybe one thread every 3-4 days...nothing onerously time-consuming). He used to, and until he does again, things will never get better around here.
posted by rushmc at 6:57 PM on January 1, 2005

Clay Shirky's speech -- A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy -- at the O'Reilly Emerging Technology conference in Santa Clara (April 24, 2003) is relevant to this discussion.

"So there's this very complicated moment of a group coming together, where enough individuals, for whatever reason, sort of agree that something worthwhile is happening, and the decision they make at that moment is: This is good and must be protected. And at that moment, even if it's subconscious, you start getting group effects. And the effects that we've seen come up over and over and over again in online communities."
posted by ericb at 7:29 PM on January 1, 2005

In the absence of a central lawgiver, there are only two possible states: 1) "do as thou wilt" or 2) constant political fighting over what MetaFilter should be

On all but its worst days, Metafilter has no active central lawgiver, and doesn't fit either of those cases you describe. I think you're presenting a false dichotomy.

One piece of evidence for this is that Metafilter has a pretty good reputation as a civilized place, moreso than most other places on the web, and Matt has never been as authoritarian as most other admins.

Some have even gone so far as to say that it's the lack of ubiquitous management on Matt's part, and the presence of an involved community, which has given Metafilter whatever success it's had so far.

How does this fit in with the two possible states you listed? My view is that it's evidence against it.

I was responding, in other words, to the implication I read in Hildago's last post, which was "MetaFilter: Love it or leave it".

Let me just say that that's definitely not what I intended the statement to mean. I can see how you might have drawn that conclusion, but it's not what I had in mind when I wrote it.
posted by Hildago at 10:55 PM on January 2, 2005

Also, and politeness aside for a minute, your reductio ad absurdum restatement of my argument:

Therefore, instead of reducing to "explicit standards would result in Mefi having explicit standards", Hildago's arguments reduce to "I don't like explicit standards because explicit standards would result in Mefi having explicit standards" which reduces to "I don't like explicit standards" which implies "I don't like explicit standards, and you shouldn't either", which reduces to "do what I want", which is an irrelevant argument because I'm as much a member of Metafilter as Hildago, and I have the same right to advocate for my vision of Metafilter as he does.

Is utter bullshit. Insulting, too.
posted by Hildago at 11:02 PM on January 2, 2005