MetaChat - I'm calling you out

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25 August 2005

I'm calling you out Meef isn't fun anymore Meef is a community site + We are all members ------------------------- Let's make Meef fun!→[More:]
Tomorrow is Friday. I challenge you to make a post to MetaFilter. Something wonderous and strange. Sensless and ridiclous. Beautiful and fragile. Pointless and arbitrary.

Don't self-censor. Don't pre-censor fearing what the haters will say. It's your site as much as it is theirs. This isn't about improving post quailty, and I don't have a gift certificate for you. This is about having fun and not ceeding MF to the snarkers, bickers and critics.

Do it. Do it! DOOOO EEEEEEET!!!!!!

post by: Capn at: 13:23 | 56 comments

Woo, sorry, didn't mean to take up so much front page real-estate, got a lot of extra line breaks in there somehow.

(fixed the extra lines -taz)

posted by Capn 25 August | 13:24

*Hugs the Capn*

Sorry, I just woke and am feeling very huggy at the moment.

posted by Frisbee Girl 25 August | 13:30

Two things:

1. Where is anastasiav (because your idea reminded me of her)? And for that matter, where's ethylene? I miss them both.

2. Sorry for derailing your other thread with all the talk about blow jobs.

3. I'm not really sorry, but thought it would be nice if I pretended that I was.

4. I think this idea of yours is a good idea.

5. Ok that was 4 things. Sorry.

6. 5. It was 5 things. Sorry.

7. Geez if I would just stop numbering the list I wouldn't have to keep adding to it to change the count. So now it's 6 things, right?

8. Ack. Now it's 7 things! How high can you count, Capn?

9. Can you count higher than 8? Because I think it's 8 things now.

10. Ok I know what to do. I'll just make this one, this #10 one, be about # 11 instead of #10, that should do it. Then I don't have to make another thing after this thing.

11. It worked! So it's 11 things, not the original 2 that I said it would be. Carry on.

posted by iconomy 25 August | 13:34

aww, iconomy, it was me that derailed Capn's last thread. Now, I'm a MeFi n00b thru and thru, and in fact I've never made a FPP. Have only had two good ideas, and similar threads were posted while I was developing them.

That said, if I can't work on something, I will at least go be a cheerleader and make positive comments.

posted by gaspode 25 August | 13:38

Two things:

1) This is a tasty callout

B) anastasiav was going on vacation after the contest, wasn't she?

posted by taz 25 August | 13:40

etylene said she was going to resume her brea away from us - she promised to return 'though I'm not sure when.

Speaking of missing folk - anyone seen andrew cooke lately?

posted by dodgygeezer 25 August | 13:42

Part 2 of the equation isn't true.

posted by Hugh Janus 25 August | 13:44

I'd like to call out all Earth Citizens. Doom is your new lord!

I think Anastasiav organized the Maine meetup, which I will attend if I can overcome my crippling social anxiety. If I see her there I'll ask her where she is.

posted by selfnoise 25 August | 13:44

If I see her there I'll ask her where she is.

heh.

posted by taz 25 August | 13:49

Also, I humbly suggest you tag the post with "DoIt"

posted by Capn 25 August | 13:51

Let's make Meef fun!

the fun police will simply delete it.

posted by quonsar 25 August | 13:52

I challenge you to make a post to MetaFilter. Something wonderous and strange. Sensless and ridiclous. Beautiful and fragile. Pointless and arbitrary.

Seriously, anything senseless, ridiculous, pointless or arbitrary will be deleted.

I recommend that everybody make their wonderous posts HERE instead of there.

We could use some blue-style fpps here for all to enjoy and comment on.

posted by mcgraw 25 August | 14:00

mcgraw, how many of your posts got deleted? I thought they were allowed to stand, despite the complaints about them.

posted by agropyron 25 August | 14:08

dodgygeezer, I seem to recall a. cooke mentioning his work situation changing.

posted by safetyfork 25 August | 14:15

Cap, I like the balloon post, and I like how it mostly just confuses people, and I like that iconomy has called herself out for having a previous great post. I have to say, though, that after reading Proust for an hour, MeFi really loses by comparison, balloon FPP or not. Not so MeCha.

posted by omiewise 25 August | 14:25

omiewise, I'm going to make you a crab-shaped balloon hat.

I still can't believe Capn's balloon post hasn't been deleted yet! I would so love to know how many people flagged it...hee.

posted by iconomy 25 August | 14:29

i'm in. Maybe the CarrotTop? ; >

posted by amberglow 25 August | 14:30

For a long time I used to go to bed early. Sometimes, when I had put out my candle, my eyes would close so quickly that I had not even time to say "I'm going to sleep." And half an hour later the thought that it was time to go to sleep would awaken me; I would try to put away the book which, I imagined, was still in my hands, and to blow out the light; I had been thinking all the time, while I was asleep, of what I had just been reading, but my thoughts had run into a channel of their own, until I myself seemed actually to have become the subject of my book: a church, a quartet, a metafilter post about balloons, the rivalry between Francois I and Charles V. This impression would persist for some moments after I was awake; it did not disturb my mind, but it lay like scales upon my eyes and prevented them from registering the fact that the candle was no longer burning. Then it would begin to seem unintelligible, as the thoughts of a former existence must be to a reincarnate spirit; the subject of my book would separate itself from me, leaving me free to choose whether I would form part of it or no; and at the same time my sight would return and I would be astonished to find myself in a state of darkness, pleasant and restful enough for the eyes, and even more, perhaps, for my mind, to which it appeared incomprehensible, without a cause, a matter dark indeed. -- M. Proust. :)

posted by safetyfork 25 August | 14:54

Good question, agropyron and you do have a point. I think there have been more fpp deletions there recently. But maybe you're right and i was wrong on that.

...despite the complaints about them.

Actually, there was more support than there were complaints which surprised me, really.

posted by mcgraw 25 August | 15:05

Touching Things Is Fun!

posted by yhbc 25 August | 15:06

how could you leave Buster (NSFW) out, cap'n?

posted by amberglow 25 August | 15:41

safetyfork, I stand corrected.

posted by omiewise 25 August | 15:46

I accept your challenge, and will post mightily.

(Although I'd like to point out that I've made two posts already in the past seven days.)

posted by me3dia 25 August | 15:51

Touching Things Is Fun!

I've had nightmares about eyeballs in my palms. Two greasy eyeballs staring back at me. There wasn't much poo-touching though. There might have been some bum squeezing but that happens so often in my dreams that it's probably better to ask when don't I dream about touching bums. I was accosted by a bum once. I was in NYC and he followed me around for a good twenty minutes, shaking a stick at me and calling me Melanie. "My names's not Melanie," I thought. "You're crazy, hobo." Finally I ducked into a map stand and the nice Korean man behind the counter chased the hobo away.

posted by LeeJay 25 August | 16:21

Insanity Test
Or make a self-post showing yourself in your underpants. I’d guess it would be better if you made a thread that had members ~~commenting~~ posting pictures in it.

posted by thomcatspike 25 August | 17:05

I'd comment favorably in any post showing a user in his/her underpants.

posted by taz 25 August | 17:39

*not particularly funny line about having a post in my underpants*

posted by PinkStainlessTail 25 August | 17:58

Darn. I have a great picture of me in my panties, but it's on my home machine.

posted by Specklet 25 August | 18:49

*hilariously funny line about a really good thread in my underpants*

posted by taz 25 August | 18:52

*pathetic line about mom washing snark marks out of underpants*

posted by danostuporstar 25 August | 19:51

*not particularly funny line about having a post in my underpants*
Then stick a sock in it...or a fish, or an other object of your choosing ;D

posted by thomcatspike 25 August | 19:57

I'm so there. Now, let me sober up.

posted by seanyboy 25 August | 20:36

I have a picture of myself in my underpants, but how it got in my underpants I'll never know.

posted by puddinghead 25 August | 23:08

I just DidIt a litle premature.

posted by danostuporstar 25 August | 23:18

I once shot an elephant in puddinghead's pajamas

posted by Capn 25 August | 23:22

What were you doing in puddinghead's pajamas?

posted by iconomy 26 August | 00:03

Done.

posted by yhbc 26 August | 00:07

More to the point, what whas the Elephant doing in puddinghead's pajamas?

posted by dg 26 August | 00:12

Fun, yhbc (those koit animations rule, thanks) ... but no "DoIt" tag?

posted by danostuporstar 26 August | 00:13

Ack! You're right!

posted by yhbc 26 August | 00:14

Done too : >

posted by amberglow 26 August | 00:55

Done.

posted by selfnoise 26 August | 07:20

Mine was flagged mercilessly. At least I got the sensless and ridiculous part right.

posted by danostuporstar 26 August | 07:52

I challenge you to make a post to MetaFilter. Something wonderous and strange. Sensless and ridiclous. Beautiful and fragile. Pointless and arbitrary.

At the risk of being a lone voice of dissent it seems to me that the negativity that's perceived in commentary at MeFi has less to do with the content of the posts (to an extent) and more to do with the dominance of snarkists with consequent reduction in 'better quality' comments from other members.

So, to combat this negativity I would suggest that rather than people remaining silent or busting a gut to find 'fun things' or running away from the site that, irrespective of the snarking, people try to either add encouraging, polite, interesting or positive comments to posts.

Fun posts are fun all the time. Good comments are good all the time. The problem from my view is that people harbour grudges, attack personalities, try to out snark, point score with vituperative sarcasm and otherwise derail, destabize and victimize.

In my humble opinion (and I am surely no saint) we should be trying to advocate that people act more like they do in the green. I say make the blue the new green.

I'd rather we had a day in the blue where only positive comments are allowed, or at least, no negativity about either the post, the poster or subsequent member commenters was allowed.

This is at least 1/2 the reason I like hanging out in MeCha from time to time. That and the fact that the chicks are here. There's a sort of unwritten law or whatever that we don't harass or criticize (welll, much) and it's that feeling/tolerance that I would like to see -- although it is and always has been there -- dominate in the blue.

posted by peacay 26 August | 08:13

Done.

posted by seanyboy 26 August | 09:27

Thanks for adding the DoIt! tag, I'd missed that memo.

Dano's post got deleted with a snippy snappy message about keeping metachat on metachat. I think that means he wins.

posted by selfnoise 26 August | 09:44

sorry dano - looks like you lose. i have to say i loved that gorgeous george clip!

posted by dodgygeezer 26 August | 10:46

or win depending on your point of view

posted by dodgygeezer 26 August | 10:46

Done. Hopefully nine-foot catfish and giant roadside attractions in the same post qualifies as "wonderous and strange." Oh, and seanyboy, great post.

posted by brainwidth 26 August | 10:57

And done. Eggs and fractals are wondrous, strange, and a whiff of bunny, Easter bunny.

posted by WolfDaddy 26 August | 11:14

Done.

posted by me3dia 26 August | 12:35

My attempt

posted by dodgygeezer 26 August | 12:40

Check out the blog ad I got for your post me3dia
≡ Click to see image ≡

posted by Capn 26 August | 12:41

bah.

posted by dabitch 26 August | 13:40

What's the worst that could happen?

posted by Capn 26 August | 15:57

Oh, the blog ad changes...
The one I got originally was "Click this link or we'll shoot this polar bear"

posted by Capn 27 August | 08:52

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