reedbird_hill: "Hopefully, in the future, advances in asymmetric drone warfare will make concentrations of elites like this inadvisable." This comment has been removed, but responses left up. MetaFilter's Content Policy does not condone or advocate violence against anyone, please do not do this anywhere on the site.

They sucked his brains out!: "If Texas wants to salt its earth and poison its people, let them kill themselves and their children." This comment has been removed, but replies left up. MetaFilter has a firm rule about advocating or wishing for the death or harm of others. Do not do this here.

Press Butt.on to Check: "Sorry my my existence offends you or your scrollbar is broken or whatever." Several comments remove. Press Butt.on to Check, please take a break from this thread.

Removed a double comment

Alvy Ampersand: "I think I've been pretty fair-handed and non-aggressive in my attitude and comments towards the Board and Mods but who the fuck are you to check my ID? How fucking dare you."

Yeah, no one is or will be requesting anyone's personal ID, full stop. Never gonna happen and if anyone ever does do that, please report it.

Several Deleted, please answer the question and review your comment to ensure it can be understood by most users before posting.

The derail/back and forth between users needs to stop. If you've commented several times back-to-back in the thread already, please take a break and leave room for others to participate.

adrienneleigh: "Perhaps Brandon could be prevailed upon to add this post to the alert bar, as he has done in the recent past for election-related posts?"

This has now be done, thanks for your patience.

In the future, I'd recommend posting the suggestion in the thread and email the mods via the contact form. I've been off four a couple of days, so wasn't aware of messages.

Several comments that do not answer the question deleted.

Two comments deleted. Let's avoid doomsday speculation but more importantly, let's drop the 'Israel, Zionism and the Jews' comments. Conflating these, is antisemitic and goes directly against our content policy.

Tagged as USPolitics

Tagged as USPolitics

Post updated as requested above.

One comment deleted. Let's avoid all caps comments, more over if it's to say you wish violence on other people, which goes against our content policy.

No comments deleted but please remember that the OP is asking for documentaries, so please avoid other pieces of media.

Added to US politics sidebar

One comment removed at user's request

The MetaTalk queue has been turned off.

There is a one hour delay between being able to post, to prevent spamming, or accidental repeat posts, but that's it.

Yes, it was published immediately, the MetaTalk queue is off, folks can discuss that in the previous thread.

One derailing comment removed. No one needs to know who is in a member’s killfile.

Comment that was just a dot (.) has been removed, as it wasn't answering the question.

sotonohito: "So pigs hiding their faces and refusing to identify themselves has resulted in a person dressing up like a pig to murder Democratic lawmakers. I assume for the pigs that's a mission accomplished moment?" Just noting that we've received several flags about this comment and its use of "pigs" to refer to cops. Doing that doesn't violate guidelines, so we're leaving the comment up and as is. That should not construed as agreement with the use of the term pigs, just that members have a wide latitude in their choice of language.

Diskeater: "Any chance you'll have the time to address the brigading concerns once the queue issues are sorted out?"

Derailing comment removed. There have been a couple of previous mod notes (1, 2)about these sort of comments from you Diskeater, and since they seem to be continuing after requests for them to stop, we're going to move on to timeouts if another one is made.

No one wants to do that, we're in agreement that you have every right to question Board or staff statements and actions, but you can't keep derailing other threads to do. This the thread about elections, please keep queries and/or complaints about elections to that or similar threads. Link to this comment has been MeMailed to Diskeater.

tclark: "This, and much more like it to come, became inevitable when Biden didn't prosecute the attempted coup. And then again when everyone just ate up the propaganda that of course it was clear that Harris was too soft on Israel." This info/opinion expressed here may be considered relevant to these events, but please folks, don't relitigate the 2020 or 2024 US elections, keep the comments focused on this event, thanks. No comments have been removed.

Just a note that after testing just now, the queue is still up, am looking into what's happening, in order to complete the removal. Thanks for your patience, we'll get this fixed, will update when I have more information.

One comment has been removed. Diskeater, following mods around the site to repaste a comment you've already posted in MetaTalk is not ok. Please stop doing that or we'll have to start issuing timeouts. To be clear, derailing any thread with comments that aren't related to the thread may result in removal of the content and repeatedly doing this can result in a timeout. This is the second time, you've done this, please stop.

One duplicated comment removed

Please remember that comments wishing harm on others go against our content policy. I've removed a few comments for this reason and kept some that were borderline (continue flagging if you believe they should be deleted). I've left the derail about Israel/US good/evil, but let's focus on sharing relevant news rather than targeting individual users in arguments. Also, adrienneleigh, please consider taking a step back and allowing others to carry on with the thread.

One comment deleted as requested.

Brandon chiming in:

Having slept it, I'm in full agreement that deletion isn't the only tool in the moderation tool box and it should rarely be the first used in removing a post a member made.

That said, I do think it works in thise specific situation because:

The post was trying to incorporate a joke to make a point
The joke was inflammatory in a post about an inflammatory situation (Israel and Iran)
The post was was being flagged as offensive
There were comments in the thread saying the title was offensive
The creator of the post was staring to argue with people who objected to the joke
It was single link post, easily redone
The post had only 24 comments total (not 40 as some say) at the time of deletion, which seemed low, considering some of the comments didn't have anything to do with the subject (aka arguing about the jokey title).

So removing the post seemed like the best option in this case, in terms of resetting the thread so that people would focus on the incident and not how the post was created. If I had to do over again, I would have encouraged the creation of other post in the deletion note, while suggesting the removal of joke title and the explanation of the joke within.

Definitely keeping in mind that deletion should rarely be done.

Brief shouting match deleted. Please let's do this without the name-calling.

Corrected Bridges' birth year.

Couple of comments removed. There's a MeTa thread for discussing the previous post and/or moderation decisions, please feel free to post in that thread and avoid derailing comments in this one, thanks.

Previously. [Content warning: banned joke] The deletion of that post is being discussed in MetaTalk. Otherwise to those flagging this post for being a single link, that's totally fine, single link posts do not break the guidelines

The post was flagged as offensive several times, a few mentioning the title.

Feel free to redo a post about Israel attacking Iran of course, but perhaps this isn't the time to be clever with the title and subject, based on flag feedback. Not everyone has to be on the same wavelength about this, but if people are calling the post offensive and wanting to talk about that instead of the event itself, it's probably good to make the post differently.

prismatic7: "And this will get moderated to fuck, because god forbid a foreigner use the sacred right of free speech for cursing." This comment is totally fine moderation wise, carry on!

Made this a Rewatch at poster's request.

Made this a Rewatch at poster's request.

Based on the comments in this thread we have decided to close this thread. There are already other open threads about governanace, MetaTalk and the Meta Queue.

Please continue the conversation there and let us know if anything else is needed.

None of this is meant as a "told ya so". We do support the removal of the Meta Queue and recognize that this change will come with new complications but I'm sure we can sort them out with your input.

Based on the comments above and here it looks like the best course of action is to close both threads given that there are others already open about governanace, MetaTalk and the Meta Queue.

Please continue the conversation there and let us know if anything else is needed.

Noting that this post wouldn't have been approved under the old rules as it could have been a comment under the various other governance threads open at this moment. We approved right away given that the Meta queue is going away but please be mindful if there are other related discussions open already.

One comment deleted as requested.

One comment deleted. Comments in AskMeFi should answer the question being asked rather than arguing with other users.

Added to uspolitics sidebar

Added to uspolitics sidebar

Added to uspolitics sidebar

General note: mods are just reading and listening for the moment, seems the best thing to do at the moment.

As to a specific comment about about removing a former account that doesn't appear to have been properly removed, we're looking into it.

Link fixed, post reopened!

JHarris: "Yeah, sorry about the title, I went back and forth on it. "Alotta Individuals" is a much better title. If the mods want to change it, I'm fine with it." The title has been changed.

OP, please send us an email to let us know what the URL should be and we'll open this back up.

Lemkin, your comments are contributing to a huge derail of the thread and your comments are accumulating a great number of flags. Please take a break from the thread now, thanks.

Please note that the "Staff & SIte Info" link that was in the site banner has now moved to the footer, and is now titled "Site Information". The link to the Moderation Log is also now in the footer, under the title "Recent Mod Actions"

Added to uspolitics sidebar

Two comments deleted as requested.

Typo in the title? Possibly meant "Romania has thousands more brown bears..." ? Yup, fixed!

Tagged as USPolitics

Lemkin: " Lemkin, I hope you're bearing up okay under the stress of all this goshdarned attention that you definitely don't want at all.

I was asking for it with that short skirt, I guess."

The original comment has been removed, but also reproduced here so people can see what was written.

Whatever was intended by writing that comment, it's coming off poorly and being seen as a joke about rape. Everyone please avoid making jokes about rape, they're never funny.

They sucked his brains out!: "I hope the mainstream media takes a few more rubber bullets as memorable souvenirs for the immense damage they have wrought upon democracies worldwide." This comment was removed for advocating violence, which the Content Policy, responses left up. Do not advocate for shooting anyone, please leave that out of any discussion on MetaFilter.

added to US politics sidebar

sickos haha yes dot jpg: "why do you keep posting AI stuff when it’s a clear source of conflict that people could use a break from" reedbird_hill: "why do you keep posting AI stuff when it’s a clear source of conflict that people could use a break from I mean, I enjoy some of these posts, but it’s kind of becoming Lemkin’s blog?" Lemkin: " I mean, I enjoy some of these posts, but it’s kind of becoming Lemkin’s blog? I’ll run the next one by you first to see if it’s one of the kind you like. In the meantime, you can make more posts of your own, do a MetaTalk callout, or - thinking outside the box - FIAMO." Just noting and removing these derailing comments. Criticism of a post's topic is fine, but please be constructive in the criticism or disagreement of a post's topic.

One comment removed. Please focus on helping the OP and lets avoid comments that are not above the OP's question.

Hi, Brandon the mod chiming in.

ChatGPT is a contentious subject and that's mostly wants going in here, IMO. Some people loathe the topic and don't want to see any more about, while others want to talk about it a lot because it is so impactful on society.

So everyone please be mindful if you're making a post about AI/ChatGPT. Making the posts is fine, it's not a taboo subject. Sometimes people want to talk or share about something that's interesting, but MeFilter isn't occurring in an abstract discussion in a class. Real people are being affected by this technology and there's a lot of negative thoughts and feelings about it.

That's no excuse for members to be posting derailing or abusive comments. If the comments are derailing/abusive/attacking please flag them as such, so mods can take a look. Not everyone has to like or agree with the subject or premise of a post and it's fine to chime in with criticism or disagree, but keep in constructive and focused on the subject of the post. Mods might leave notes and remove content if that's derailing the post.

Clearly us mods could have done a better job in this instance, mostly due to the it being the weekend and less coverage. I'll go through the threads to see if anything needs to be removed or notes left, that'll be an ongoing process through the night, so bear with me there.

Bunch of comments removed discussing Murderbot's gender, which has not been revealed in the show yet. This is a show only thread, dealing with what's transpires on the shows, so please avoid dropping knowledge until it's revealed on the show, thanks!

If anyone wants their removed comment MeMailed to them to repost without that gender discussion, just MeMail me!

Lemkin, the personal digs and insults aimed at users for their posting frequency needs to stop immediately. You've commented in this thread countless times doing the same thing, and it's not OK.

BCMagee: "I just hope Trump never gets lured onto one of these, and if so that it doesn't ply a route through shark-rich waters, and if so that the ferry doesn't spring a small, non-buoyancy-threatening leak near the battery compartment. Because goodness knows what Trump might do. Sorry that was a typo. I'm ambivalent-to-curious about the outcome of such a happenstance." This comment has been removed as President Trump has noting to do with this Australian story, so let's leave him out of the discussion, thanks!

More comments removed that want to talk about about the poster or people responding to the poster. Please just focus on the subject of the post, not people commenting, thanks.

Lemkin: "This is incredibly interesting. However, it involves the use of LLMs. So I’m afraid I must call for you to be launched into the Sun. Nothing personal." HearHere: "A thesaurus might tell you that “sprint” relates to “dash” and “run,” but it won’t show you how it connects to “athlete,” “track,” “competition,” or “speed” — 🏃🏻" Both of these comments have been removed. Lemkin and HearHere please focus your comments on engaging with the subject of the post and avoid derailing the subject, thanks.

Several comments removed. It you want to talk about the mod note, please take it to MetaTalk or email the mods, thank you.

One comment removed. Please remember that this is a hypothetical question, so mentioning how a real life wrecker service handles getting the car from the bottom of the canyon doesn't answer the question. The poster wants to know about what could happen after that.

lookoutbelow: "FWIW I submitted a contact form request just now requesting input from site staff on the sidebar questions.

If I can summarize:
Who writes it?
What is its purpose in the staff's view?
Why are there so many repetitive messages relating to AI?"

Hi there lookoutbelow, I'm responding to you here publicly instead of the email.

The Best Of blog is solely written by me. Previously the purpose of it was share stuff the community generally seemed to like or to share specific stuff that had been flagged as fantastic. The current focus, as defined by me, is exploring how the blog (or the writings) could potentially be used entice or encourage non members to sign up for the site.

To that end, I've been focusing on what sort of value or interest the site would have non members. Being non AI, where all the comments are written by people seems like a good thing to highlight. But yeah, it may be a bit heavy handed as i'm not great at writing sales copy, so it's been a bit of learning experience. Will probably tone it down a bit and see what sort of measuring of stats can/should be done of those posts and the blog and whether the site should be doing more social media and if so, how to do it.

But first, I wanted to see how I cope with writing this style of copy amidst other duties before seeking suggestions/help.

sickos haha yes dot jpg: "why do you keep posting AI stuff when it’s a clear source of conflict that people could use a break from " Hi all, couple of things about all this. 1. Please don't derail a post by making a post about the poster. There's a subject of every thread and a basic principle of the site is that you talk about the subject, not the poster. Just move on from the post about a subject you don't like or preferably create a post about something you do enjoy talking about. 2. Lemkin, you're coming off as hostile in terms of repeatedly posting about a subject you know that upsets people. I'm not saying to stop about posting about AI, at least not at this point. But as someone who posts a lot (which is fine), you need to be aware that this is a community site and be mindful of bringing up subjects that anger parts of the community. No comments have been deleted, but it's time for people to move on and stop derailing this post. If the derailing continues, we make start removing comments and if that doesn't help the situation, may be forced to issue time outs.

trig: "Thanks Brandon. I meant, has the Metafilter staff - or whoever is making decisions at this point - approved it in principle, as a policy?"

My understanding is that pretty much everyone on staff working with the assumption that a block feature will be a feature of the new site at some point after its initial launch. Please feel free to ask this question in the latest Site Rebuild Update.

Ok, have signed MetaFilter.com with UptimeRobot to monitor the site. It's the free version, checks the site every five minutes and if it's down, will send an email to the mod email, which all the mods can see.

Told the rest of the staff about this on Slack and posted the account login info to the mod slack, so that any staff member will be able to login to UptimeRobot. Have pinned that and the BlueSky account info in a channel on the mod Slack for easy reference.

This isn't a perfect solution, just a halfway decent option as staff discusses ways to be alerted when the site is down, so that the community can be notified that we're aware and working on it.

mediareport: "The thingabob will automatically monitor the site and send Slack notifications to the mods and update Bluesky

Apparently that solution didn't work this time?"

Kirkaracha was referring to the new site with that comment, have confirmed that with him earlier this evening

trig: "I MeMailed all three members a message that was put together with input and support from this thread. I know Rhaomi and Adam have been logging in to the site. Gorgik has not commented or posted since April. I also MeMailed him two weeks ago, to which he never responded.

I'll MeMail you the message I sent him and would be grateful if you could pass it on to him. I prefer not to use email in communications with the board or mods."

Hi trig,
Thanks for your patience here, it's been a busy day at Mefi, so it's taken me a while to respond.

I did MeMail Gorgik a message that people have questions about things and those questions are things only the Board can answer and linked him to your above comment. I'll also leave a note on Slack in the channel for the Board letting them know that members have questions and plans they'd like to discuss with the Board and that they've left MeMail messages at all three of their individual MeFi accounts.

I would advise that concerns also be emailed to the Board at [email protected] as I believe that's the Board's preferred method of communication.

None of this should be interpreted as me avoiding helping the community with their concerns. But as this is a Board matter, it's best that these concerns be directed to them and addressed by them to avoid any sort of miscommunication by involving a person in the middle.

I'm happy to relay that members have questions and concerns that need to be answered and/or addressed by the Board and left a link to your above comment in the Board's Slack channel,

Let me know if I can be of other assistance!

lookoutbelow: "FWIW I submitted a contact form request just now requesting input from site staff on the sidebar questions"

Yes, it's been received, but will reply in thread by tomorrow (Saturday the 7) afternoon, thanks for you patience.

One comment removed, posted in wrong thread.

a non mouse, a cow herd: "922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a: "Are we just approving all MetaTalks now?"

Yes.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 1:40 PM on June 6 [+] [⚑]

Does that mean we can post more often than once every 7 days?"

Soon, probably by the end of next week, if not sooner.

922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a: "Are we just approving all MetaTalks now?"

Yes.

Lemkin: "I’ve submitted a MeTa request in which we can discuss this post. Now this thread can be the good-faith discussion of the mission statement that the OP intended."

It has been posted

Here's the reviewed P&L for May apologies about the delay but this literally included going over hundreds of records that were automatically miscategorized. The volunteer outside of the board was helping us reviewing the discrepancies and reporting artifacts from the transition to the Foundation that Adam has mentioned already. Also, cash on hand as of May 31 was $127,746.

Turns out it was a problem when updating ssl certificates and no one was near an actual computer at the time, so it was matter of getting home to fix it.

downtohisturtles: "Do all the mods have access to it or is it one person doing everything BlueSky related?"

All the mods have access to the BlueSky account, but obviously we're going to review things to make sure staff and the community are notified more quickly.

Added to US politics sidebar

egypturnash: "I just assume anything that opens with an AI image is also AI-spawned text, and thus not worth my time to read." Comment removed. It's fine if you don't like a particular post, but there's no need to come into the post and tell us you don't like it.

BlackLeotardFront: "Oops - minor typographical error results in a lost space between late and Emahoy in the first sentence. Could a mod add that and delete this? Thank you!!!" Done!

Hey all, talked to loup a few minutes ago, they're still working on the issue, hoping to have it fixed by Friday afternoon, but no specific guarantee.

Will check back with them tomorrow.

Wordshore: "Recipe: proper cheese on toast"

Please don't do this, it can be considered dismissive of the post and your fellow member.

It's totally fine to comment that that you're confused by a MeTa post and ask for clarification. It's also fine to just skip the post and not leave any comments.

But don't try to shutdown or dismiss concerns that people might have by posting recipes. No one wants their thoughts or concerns to be dismissed or ignored, so please don't do it to others.

Wordshore: "Recipe: proper cheese on toast"

Please don't do this, it can be considered dismissive of the post and your fellow member.

It's totally fine to comment that that you're confused by a MeTa post and ask for clarification. It's also fine to just skip the post and not leave any comments.

But don't try to shutdown or dismiss concerns that people might have by posting recipes. No one wants their thoughts or concerns to be dismissed or ignored, so please don't do it to others.

Jessica Savitch's Coke Spoon: "Is he still dressing like a midget gangster?" Hey just a heads up that using the term 'midget' is considered offensive, so we advise people to use 'little people' instead. Yes, that may not have the same bite in conversation, but that's the point.

inflatablekiwi: "Yeah....I messed it up in 2 places in the post. I've contacted the mods to change it...." No worries, fixed the two instances!

Ok, here's what's going on with the delay on the May P&L report.

Turns out that despite being redirected to the new account, some payments and debits are going to an old account. The board is working to resolve the issue, no specific ETA on that.

The main post will be updated in a few minutes with this info.

"principle purpose” changed to “principal purpose?” in previous comment at member's request.

Accidental comment deleted.

NotLost: "I have submitted a post calling for an election in June."

Just FYI, I don't see a post in the queue. Maybe you didn't hit the final submission click? Either way, I'll be around most of the night, so will be able to approve whatever is submitted.

Let me know if something did go wrong and we'll get it fixed.

A few comments deleted. Remember that Ask MetaFilter comments should address the main question being asked, as per the content policy so let's avoid a derail about crypto and privacy.

One comment referencing chat GPT that is also a derail, deleted.

Mod note referencing a deleted comment removed.

Alright, a few comments derailing the thread have been deleted. If you've been going back and forth with other users in this thread, please take a break.

One deleted at user's request.

The OP wrote "If so, what is the source of this idea? I would like to see an article, if you have it."

So if people do know of published sources of the ideas the OP is asking about, it would be helpful to the OP to share those links.