MetaTalk

With this FPP as a starting point, I wanted to ask: Is an FPP where every attempt at discussion is impossible because you have to read a book about the subject first, a good FPP? [more inside]
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 5:40 PM - 74 comments

Am still a relative newbie here, and finding MetaFilter a fascinating source of high quality / low noise information and interesting stuff. But am struggling a bit with writing FPPs. So far, have had 7 go up, but 4 pulled. Stressing that am not complaining; every time there's been a reason politely given why, and I've retrospectively thought "Yeah, that's a fair point." But it would be nice to consistently put up interesting and always legitimate FPPs. I feel a bit that am learning the ropes of doing proper FPPs by trial and (often) error - perhaps have gotten practice on other forums, that are slightly or very different to Metafilter, hardwired into me and it's difficult to spot other than retrospectively when it's pointed out. Is there a sandbox area, or some other mechanism for getting other people to look at one's FPP before it goes 'live', to see that it's legitimate (beyond the clear warnings not to self-promote) in terms of content and style and any other criteria? I have no problem with constructive criticism, peer review et al.
posted by Wordshore at 3:28 PM - 91 comments

Deleting Ask.Me answers that duplicate things the original question has already mentioned, is this a new thing or have you always done this? [more inside]
posted by jacquilynne at 12:01 PM - 33 comments

Saying "I have personal experience in this" doesn't invalidate or even contradict information given in ask. [more inside]
posted by xingcat at 11:31 AM - 35 comments

I know that MeFi avoids conflict, but is it entirely fair that MeFi has hosted numerous posts in the past about President Obama and Reverend Jeremiah Wright -- and many, many critical posts about The Church of Scientology -- but that starting a discussion about Mormonism and whether his faith could effect the Presidential election are off-limits? Is it possible for others to create a post that would point out similar official religious criticisms of Mormonism and their ramifications in this election without being similarly deleted?
posted by markkraft at 9:15 PM - 81 comments

Is it cool to ask people why they are discovering a post or comment months after it was made? [more inside]
posted by 2bucksplus at 2:39 PM - 63 comments

I'm going to ask the moderators from other countries not to interfere with our discussion of American politics. It's more difficult for them to deal with this, because we can all get crazy every four years about this and we need to do that, and they need to let us get crazy about this. I'm not going to mention specific instances, but they exist. Please chill out about this. Things will get back to normal afterwards.
posted by twoleftfeet at 1:45 AM - 338 comments

I'd like to have a discussion about use of the word mansplain on this website. Man or woman, doesn’t matter, if you use a word that many people find offensive, they're going to tune out what you have to say. In conversations about gender relations, is the objective to create an atmosphere of mutual understanding, or is it to demonstrate the destructive power of gendered insults by consistently ignoring repeated requests to stop using a word that people feel unfairly defined by? Because those two objectives are not compatible. [more inside]
posted by gman at 4:41 AM - 506 comments

Why was this post deleted? The given deletion reason ("Wacky conspiracy stuff isn't really a good post for Metafilter. -- taz") doesn't really apply to the linked video, which is quite obviously comedy lampooning wacky conspiracy stuff. [more inside]
posted by Sys Rq at 11:08 AM - 121 comments

MetaFilter is not a betting site. [more inside]
posted by gerryblog at 6:11 PM - 71 comments