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.

One comment removed at the member's request.

Hey, this thread is about Taylor Swift, so let's not divert that topic into opinions about Star Wars, thanks. No comments have been removed.

Ask MetaFilter has a stricter policy for commenting in that the comment should answer the question and refrain from just posting one's opinion.

aleph: "I can volunteer for small. My (current) health precludes large. This sounds large. Contact me for small." We do not have the ability to close comments on any site other than MetaTalk. Please do not respond in this thread, just head over to the linked thread if you wish to declare yourself interested in running for a seat on the board.

Link fixed !

Two comments removed at the members request

This is a post encouraging people to join the MetaFilter board.

mediareport: "Yeah posting the call for candidates on a Friday night wasn't ideal, which is why it is important that Brandon or one of the other mods follow up on this comment suggesting they'd be happy to add a link to a call for candidates to declare to the sidebar, banner and all of the subsites."

Links have been added to the banner and sidebar.

Here's some suggested verbiage for the posts:

Hi all,
Brief reminder that MetaFilter is a community run site, with a board of directors that are responsible for managing the site.

Currently we have a three member Board, and were looking at planning elections to vote in a new board. If you're interested in running for a seat on this new board, please declare your intentions in this MetaTalk thread.

We're still figuring exact details (like the new board will probably have more than 3 members) but for now we're looking to see how many people would be interested in running for a seat. So again, if you're interested, please declare in the above mentioned thread. This doesn't bind to do anything, just that you're interested.

Here's a few background links with recent discussions:
🗣 Discussion about the current and future bylaws

💬 Talk about how to run an election for new board members

How's that sound?

mediareport: "is there anyone on staff or the IUB who is prepared to answer specific questions about the new financial documents? If so, who is that person? If not, why not?"

The Board is aware that people have various questions and they're the best ones to answer these specific questions.

mediareport: "Well dang, looks like someone has just posted a thread for candidates to declare. Excellent. Brandon, I believe you'd recently written* you would put links to a candidate declaration thread in the sidebar and banner. Can you please do so now? Thanks.

*I'd find it but there's a tornado nearby I definitely remember it tho"

Can do, but we currently have a bunch of links in the nav bar, so adding more might break the site for a minute, so lets see how this goes! Mentioned only if case people see the site do...something odd for a few seconds.

lapis: "I would suggest updating the text of this post to say "Here are the current bylaws of the site" rather than saying they're a draft of proposed bylaws."

Text in post updated!

Have let the board know that people have questions about the P&L reports and financials!

Lemkin: "All 3 of them." Comment removed. Lemkin, try to avoid derailing a post with your personal opinions, particularly when they don't address the subject of the post, please and thank you.

Lemkin: " After a groggy wake-up, Hutan was reportedly soon back to regular habits: exploring his habitat… and grooming himself. I would call that “looking for an escape” and “attempting to cope with the stress of imprisonment”. Not a zoo fan." When starting out a thread, please to encourage discussion about the subject of the post and less about an individual's personal opinion of zoos. The quoted comment has been removed for derailing the post.

Two comments deleted. Remember that Ask MetaFilter comments should address the main question being asked, as per the content policy.

Post moved below the fold because it was breaking the front page for some users.

Just a mod note responding to flags on this and other recent MeTa post that was asking about past MetaFilter or Ask MetaFilter posts: It's totally ok to ask about previous site posts on MetaTalk, it's part of the function of this subsite. People can use AskMe instead, but posts like these are totally fine for MetaTalk. But please just use one or the other, not both, thanks.

trig: "Looking at the footer, I see "Moderation Review" but I don't think that's very self-explanatory. Maybe a caption like "Got a concern about moderation?" would help - similar styling as the "Join 8,311 readers..." caption under "Fund Metafilter". And I'd also put a link to the form in the Contact Us page. (To be honest, a prominent link there might be enough to make the footer link redundant, but then again redundancy's fine.)"

Apologies for late reply, we're looking into this too.

egypturnash: "Mostly I’ve just been working on the comic and drawing smut. The first chunk of the comic is almost done and I should actually promote it soon." Personal projects can be posted to MeFi Projects!

One deleted. Requested title edits have been made!

One comment requesting a deletion, deleted, as per poster's request.

It is regrettable that: "I'm sorry for not being up on the discussion surrounding this, but is it intended to be a permanent part of the header, or is that just to bring initial attention to it, and eventually it'll move somewhere else, say to a menu, or the footer?"

The link to request a Moderation Review is already in the footer! It's on the right side, under the Contact Us link, where it'll remain for the future, pending the site redesign or a request from the Moderation Oversight Committee to move it.

We'll leave the link in the nav bar for a few more days for higher visibility, then remove it from the there.

One comment posted in the wrong thread deleted.

litera scripta manet: "It looks like several members in the other election related thread have said they'll post a MeTa asking who is interested in running. Now, I guess that would still need mod approval and all that."

That should not be a problem.

One duplicate comment deleted.

ssg: "Brandon or another mod, can you share some details on how the sussing out of sock puppets might work? Is there anything in the database that indicates known or potential sock puppets? Or are we just working off of email addresses used to sign up and other similar data?"

Short answer: yes, there’s backend stuff to detect sock puppet accounts, but as a non-technical person, I can’t and won’t get into details.

Things always go badly when a non-techie attempts to explain technical stuff to people who are familiar with the technology (ie coding).

Probably not a great idea to go into details. No need to leave doors open.

One comment removed. Folks, pleass answer the question. If you don’t have an answer, feel free to skip this thread.

unearthed: "I really wonder if Lemkin and HearHere in this thread are truly human themselves as they don't seem able to read the room"

Feel free to disagree with any member on the site, but implying that they're not human is uncalled for, unnecessary, and frankly cruel. Please don't do this to other people, it's a low blow and does nothing to help any disagreements.

mediareport: "It would be great if whatever MeTa post is made next week asking for candidates to declare would be highlighted in various ways by the mods - sidebar, posts at all subsites, banner, etc, as has been suggested multiple times in these threads - but if we have to do it without that help I'm sure we'll manage."

It's happened pretty much any other time there's been elections or something major, see no reason for it to be different now.

I'd advise sending an email when folks want things added to the nav, sidebar, or posts on subsites so that we're aware of when to do it and any relevant verbiage to include. Yes to all these things.

One comment removed as the writer changed their mind about making a comment.

One comment deleted. Comments in AskMeFi should answer the question being asked rather than discussing it's formulation.

Lemkin: "Mods, please delete the post. I also encourage you to update the policy."

The post has been deleted, leaving this thread for those who still want to discuss AI content in posts.

ominous_paws: "suck shit" Comment removed for being a crappy first comment in a thread. It's fine to disagree with or dislike the subject of the post, but please be more articulate about why you dislike it. If you can not or do not want to be clear about your dislike, feel free to move on to a different thread, or create you own about a subject you do like.

Noting the flags on this post with AI generated content. Leaving it up for now, because there's no rule or guideline against a post that has AI content, the only rule we have applies to comments. That said, it would be best if anyone does make a post with AI content that it be tagged "AIcontent" (which I've now added to this post) so that people can use MyMeFi to filter out posts tagged as such. All that said, if people that wish to talk about whether AI content should be posted to MetaFilter at all, feel free to create a MetaTalk post for the community to discuss. That discussion should not be had in this post, and comments attempting to do so will be removed.

One comment calling another Mefite "bald-faced liar and totally full of shit" deleted. While MetaTalk is very lightly moderated, name calling, is still against our content policy. Please do not do that.

By OP's request, changed "from sea level summit" to "from sea level to summit"

tivalasvegas: "So, here's the thing. This sounds like a great idea. I'm all for it. BUT. Is this a priority?"

I believe you were just making it point with this example, but just want to make it clear that no one is making this a priority (being able to link serial posts or doing it manually for tinyfryingpan). It was just a neat idea adn Kirkaracha is probably just throwing it on a list.

Otherwise, the site update will be out next week, we're aiming for May 29th and hoping (fingers and toes crossed) to include the financial info in it.

No absolute promises because I'm not involved in correcting, checking, or finalizing the info (and thus can't speak to specifics), but people are working and hoping to finish this project.

Furnace of Doubt: "I would be fine with that email, but I also have a lot of non-binary friends, so I'm not sure how more conservative co-workers would react. Your proposed email sends friendly enough to me. Maybe change "should be used" to "I prefer they be used"?"

Hi, just a note that the wording "I prefer they be used" can be seen as offensive and transphobic. There is no "preference", a person's pronouns are what they are and no one should have to say they have a preference on that matter. A person's pronouns are their pronouns, period.

Final update from the OP:

It turns out the scene was from Season 4, Episode 1 of Parks and Recreation:

Andy: Hey, so Tom offered me a job again. As my manager, what do you think I should do?
April: Well what do you want to do?
Andy: I think it’d be kind of cool to work for Tom.
April: So take it.
Andy: But working at a start-up can be kind of risky.
April: So don’t take it.
Andy: But Tom told me to follow my dreams.
April: So take it.
Andy: But this isn’t my dream.
April: So don’t take it.
Andy: I don’t know what to do.
April: Me neither.
Andy: You give such good advice. Babe, I love you.
April: You’re welcome.

Thanks all!

One comment and a reply to it deleted. Do not make jokes about race and ethnicity, even if it's about fictional characters.

No comments removed; just noting that the comment above from donnagirl about anotherpanacea is picking some flags and while we will not remove it, let's please avoid drawing attention/calling out buttoned users.

One deleted, wrong episode!

Two deleted, poster’s request.

No deletions made but let's about derail about word count.

kirkaracha: "Since serial posts are OK, would it be useful to have a new feature to navigate between the posts in a series? Like an index or table of contents."

This would be very cool and useful in these circumstances. Thanks for the suggestion, I'll relay it to the development team! :)

Fixed!

Rash: "I don't set policy, but if I did these types of posts would not merely be allowed, but encouraged. (That is, if they aren't already.)"

The unwritten rule is that anything that doesn't cause a problem is fine.

So if someone wanted to do a series of posts on how different types of paint dry on different types of materials that would be fine.

Thinking about it as a I write this comment, a series of posts about a subject could also be a great way of teaching about a subject. Say I wanted to do a post about X, but there was a lot of information, too much for a single person to learn and put in a post. Breaking that learning up into several posts would be a good way to digest and share that information.

nightcoast: " mods, please correct the title, it should be Montague'd!" No worries, fixed!

donnagirl: "Also I just realized that this is the slowness thread not the most recent site update thread."

Here's the link to the most recent site update thread

One deleted, poster's request.