MetaTalk

The thread on “Racial slurs that should never be written,” was focused on racial slurs. Several people brought up other types of slurs, but they were told that that thread was not the place to address those slurs. This is the thread to discuss where to address those slurs. [more inside]
posted by NotLost at 6:48 AM - 169 comments

There are at least 2 prolific Twitter accounts that have been actively harassing Mefites (including myself): Mefi Outsider and Go Mefi. It's high time we actually talk about them. [more inside]
posted by divabat at 6:33 PM - 603 comments

We need to talk about how trans issues are handled on MetaFilter. [more inside]
posted by xchmp at 11:09 AM - 387 comments

I was about to post about it when I discovered it has been deleted twice already. While I understand the reasoning, I feel it's important to have a place to discuss the letter and its responses, especially considering many of its signatories have been posted about on Metafilter positively in the past. Ignoring this letter because of how "sucky the sucky stuff is" contributes to hide their willing participation and endorsement.
posted by simmering octagon at 5:30 PM - 56 comments

If you are not signed in to the Facebook empire, Instagram will not show you any content. You can get a little (photo posts, abbreviated profile) if you are signed in to facebook but not Instagram, but if you have opted out of the whole ecosystem you get a login screen on instagram no matter what. This is my experience. Easily reproduced by using a private browsing window. I argue that walled off content not available on the open web should not be FPP material.
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:18 AM - 74 comments

The answer is always going to be "no." No, you can't visit your daughter for her birthday safely just because the number of cases in her town is declining. No, you shouldn't take a road trip so long as you're only going to stop "a few places" where you might be in close quarters with other people. No, it's not safe to have friends over if you have an immunocompromised roommate, even if the windows are open. No. No. The answer is "no." [more inside]
posted by tzikeh at 9:29 PM - 116 comments

The Mefi COVID FAQ requests that posters "Please link to pertinent information from high quality sources, and don't give top-of-the-head "it seems to me" sort of answers." I am regularly seeing Askmefi responses that do not adhere to this guidance and I worry that Askmefi is contributing to misinformation. I'm hoping we can have a conversation about what can be done. [more inside]
posted by Karaage at 9:49 AM - 29 comments

I would really like it if all post links that led to sites with a paywall were so marked with an icon or parenthetical like ($) or something. I don't care so much about comment links but if the link parser was automated then that could be a trivial addition thing. If the catalogue of pay sites was database driven it could be updated in real time. In any case, until there's an automated system, I would really appreciate manual/etiquette related efforts to make it clear which links do and do not go to the open web. Thanks for your consideration.
posted by seanmpuckett at 10:01 AM - 45 comments

I've noticed more and more posts that make use of Unicode characters to simulate fancy fonts in FPPs. This breaks screen readers, often in very annoying ways. For example, “𝒎” is read out by my screen reader as "mathematical bold italic small m". So whole words or sentences of this makes a post impossible to understand. Please avoid. [more inside]
posted by Space Coyote at 8:08 AM - 39 comments

Recently, I've seen several AskMe posts where posters have felt the need to engage in harsh critique of self or others in order to fend off AskMe judgment concerning their taking actions during the pandemic that are clearly driven by need (even potential life-or-death emergencies) and not frivolous. This troubles and saddens me. [more inside]
posted by praemunire at 3:06 PM - 118 comments