MetaTalk

It's weird for me to post one of these about my own FPP. But I have noticed a pattern of every post that discusses weight loss/obesity/medical issues (regardless of the context) devolving into people talking about how yeah, bad stuff happens, but you really should lose weight, you know! And then people describing why no, really, they can't or have trouble, and being generally disbelieved, and it all goes downhill. This is a pointless and unpleasant discussion. But we always end up there instead of discussing the underlying political/sociological issues or what have you. I think there's a lot to be said about healthcare, sexism, and how we treat fat people and fatness in that post. But...that's mostly not what happened.
posted by emjaybee at 2:50 PM - 337 comments

I could not find anything specific concerning this in the FAQ. However, since field recordings of nature/city soundscapes may not meet the traditional definition of a "music composition", I wanted to get some clarification. [more inside]
posted by nightrecordings at 4:57 PM - 33 comments

I'm not sure if this is the right way to go about this, but I wanted to express that I'm pretty shocked at this thread on Etsy banning Wiccan items going on right now. [more inside]
posted by Sangermaine at 12:58 PM - 302 comments

Perhaps this is confirmation bias, but it seems to me that many FanFare threads have descended into “this show or movie is bad, and you are a bad person for watching it.” This, despite that fact that the people making these statements are clearly (hate?) watching the show or film. [more inside]
posted by digitalprimate at 9:12 AM - 131 comments

While a hard bright line has been maintained against actively doxxing people in comments on Metafilter, where do we stand about FPPs and comments that link to sites which expose details of people's information and home lives against their will? Most recently, the recent FPP about doxxing members of the intelligence community, to include photos of them, their family, details of where they live, and which cars they drive, etc. Can we, and should we, do better? [more inside]
posted by corb at 4:57 PM - 133 comments

I truly don't understand why NotATailor's post was deleted, I was really looking forward to hearing the stories of others on this topic. [more inside]
posted by drfu at 11:59 AM - 119 comments

We've all seen it -- "brown people" used as an ironic way of saying "X is racist": whether it's accusing anyone in the U.S. military of "[doing] horrible things to foreign brown people" or an academic "getting a disproportionate amount of crap because he's siding with brown people over white people" or even about how "The 'aliens built the pyramids' notion is a recent iteration of an long-term ongoing narrative stating that 'Those brown people couldn't possibly have done this'." [more inside]
posted by Etrigan at 3:20 PM - 81 comments

Since WomensMarch, I've been making more FPPs off and on when something interesting crosses my path. So far, I'm generally pleased with how they've gone, but I've noticed some interesting variation. It's been making me curious, and I thought I'd ask more experienced posters: what kinds of advice do you have for new posters on the Blue? What kinds of things have you noticed that change how people respond to a post? How much effort do you put in when framing things?
posted by sciatrix at 1:23 PM - 81 comments

This thread, which discusses the NY Times article on raising teenagers is extensively cited in today's NY Times magazine. In particular, GuyZero, Sangermaine, Sys Rq, and Corb's comments are quoted!

Hello and welcome NY Times writer, whoever you are!
posted by jasper411 at 7:47 AM - 450 comments

Metafilter as a general policy does not consider offsite behavior from the moderator perspective unless it is something ridiculously egregious. If you want to talk trash on a user here over on Reddit, more power to you. I think that's kind of jerky if you make a habit out of it, but whatever. People need an outlet. This is not in general a bad policy at all. I like that I can be more free wheeling with my commentary elsewhere without it potentially souring my relationship with this community. So in general, there is a firewall between offsite and onsite behavior and the potential for mod involvement. We've had debates about to what degree that should be the case in the past, but I think the consensus has been pretty clear that this is the right way to go so I don't really want to re-fight that battle. [more inside]
posted by Drinky Die at 3:42 PM - 150 comments