I'd post a dot, but I get enough of him around here, so I don't feel like I'm missing anything.

Matt has his reasons, and even quonsar says he can't blame him for that, but part of what makes this terribly painful is that there are so many people trying to fill the gap, and doing it so very, very badly.

It reminds me of a Malcolm in the Middle episode (yes, kids - all of life's great truths can be found somewhere in MitM) where bully-brother Reese leaves the school and in the void of his absence the entire social structure of the school falls into total apocalyptic chaos and mayhem.

,

If Matt had anything resembling consistent behavior in this regard, I don't think I'd mind.

As it stands we've seen that you can be an enormously dickish right-wing troll and Matt will defend you, but if you're a humorous non-political troll Matt will baninate.

part of what makes this terribly painful is that there are so many people trying to fill the gap, and doing it so very, very badly.

Precisely, taz. Precisely.

I love the q, but the fact that he could be naughty for so long at MeFi encouraged all the witless mini-me-quonsars to start their unfunny engines. Which is as much Matt's fault for trying to be evenhanded, perhaps, as q's, but I don't envy him, with so many people who will doubtless howl for his blood whether he reinstates q or not.

As it stands we've seen that you can be an enormously dickish right-wing troll and Matt will defend you, but if you're a humorous non-political troll Matt will baninate.

That's both unfair and inaccurate, I reckon.

I have many things to say. Not that that matters.

1) Would anyone like a refresher on the First Amendment?

2) Metafilter has become so irrelevant and repugnant to me that I actually dread following links to the site (which I occasionally still do).

2a) I don't expect that to matter to anyone there, or here.

3) I deleted my toolbar link to Metafilter. It was taking up space. The deletion was liberating.

4) I love you people.

5) I don't think bunnies have anything do to with the reasons why this site is so much nicer than the other. I think we have dodgy and taz to thank for their gracious attitudes, and for forming the personality of the site (as mathowie does, albeit in a different way).

6) * mudpuppie thanks dodgy and taz, and worships them with reverence previously reserved for alcohol and dark chocolate *

mudpuppie: I'm with you. I don't bother with MetaFilter anymore. I haven't posted there in better than a month... this place is way more enjoyable anyway. I'm glad I took a look!

you can be an enormously dickish right-wing troll and Matt will defend you, but if you're a humorous non-political troll Matt will baninate

That wouldn't be an unusual decision for a tribunal to make -- there's more expression vested in a dickish political troll than being a dick for its own sake. In any case, others may deserve banination more, but others again have no doubt been cut less slack. If the overall message is that equal treatment should prevail, I agree.

Moderatation of user behavior is a viper pit.

It's a thankless, crappy job. No matter what Matt does, he is going to get critisized. It's a lot of work. A LOT of work, if done properly, and one that ultimately can not be done by one person, or even a few. It actually takes a society.

Once you start banning "bad" people, you give an implicit stamp of approval to people you don't ban. Which creates as much resentment as the banning.

So just let anybody say what the want!

Well, you go that route and you get Usenet -- almost 100% worthless. The whole thing sucks. I am becoming a nihilist more and more as I get older.

My Mom's dog has cancer. It cost a $1,000 bucks to find out (thought it was a tooth ache), and this sweet creature will be dead within the month. It's Matt's fault. or quonsar's. It's all a pile of crap. But what's the alternative?

Matt apparently wants to moderate. On the other hand, he lets a lot of crap through, including stuff by me. He's better off selling the site to AOL or some such place and cashing in on his millions. Mediocrity is the new blue.

I have to admit, if it wasn't for the bumfights in MetaTalk, I probbly wouldn't even visit that site anymore. (But those are usually hilarious...)

1) Would anyone like a refresher on the First Amendment?

I sure would, assuming you have some knowledge I don't indicating how it could possibly apply in any way, shape, or form to this topic.

I'm glad quonsar decided to live.

You are right mudpuppie, but I thought "bunnies" was just a code word for taz and dodgygeezer...

Hey, there is life after bannination.

Myself, I think q is better off here with us bunnies.

You know, it could get pretty nasty, if for no other reason than that just seems like the dominant feeling that steers things these days... So, if it does, I'll just say now that from my point of view, there are no "camps".

We're here as a fun place where mefi/mofi people can just talk and play, and as such we don't have any agenda; we should be a non-political entity as much as possible, in terms of both internet and real life, because if we aren't, it's not going to be possible to be what we want to be: an open place where pretty much anyone can come to relax.

If somebody on Mefi (or anywhere else) wants to be insulting about this site, that's perfectly okay - better than okay - by me, since it means they probably won't be coming here, and that's good. So, if it comes to that, never feel that you need to "defend" metachat; it's better to let stuff pass.

And, obviously, most of us here like and support quonsar, but it's not our role as metachat to form any sort of opinion brigade. I'm a MeFi member, so I'll offer my thoughts on Mefi issues in MetaTalk mostly, and tell you about my weird dreams and my favorite smurfs here, and look forward to hearing about yours, as well. Anger and fighting, not so much.

There's an old saying in the newspaper business:

Never get into a pissing match with somebody who buys ink [electrons] by the barrel.

That being said, the only question settled here is that MeFi is Matt's property. Matt's not a government and doesn't have to grant rights. He's a capitalist and this is how capitalism works.

poor Matt has never been a great admin, he's got a slightly unformed understanding of human behavior, which has often resulted in odd decisions & unbalaced/unfair reprimands. after 5 years it became impossible for me to watch, without my busting out all unpleasant and screechy, so i allowed the bad behavior of certain members to drive me out - and it's funny, because the people that drove me out are some of the more supportive of q's bannination & Matt's tendency toward hypocrisy. i'm looking at you right now Chris ('cause none of the others are here) - i just don't get it, you have been mightily unpleasant over the years, not to mention dwp, by your own admission. you've gotten away with a lot of bs, as have many, many others. specific comments of yours are one of the main reasons why i left, so from where i sit your behavior has been just as destructive as anyone may think q's has been. so has EB's, and jonmc's, and 100's of others' - all people who also contribute positively, just as q has. the place is simply a hotbed of freudian ids run amok, so giving q a harder time than any number of other personalities is dishonest & probably involves no small measure of personal grudginess.

anyway, i don't mention this with any resentment, as i'm actually quite fond of the personalities that drove me away. i'm just an observer, and got sick of observing certain things - especially the hypocrisy. that gets my dander up in ways not much else can.

i also don't understand why q would want back in. the place is a junk heap these days, a shadow of it's former, slightly less junk heapy self.

sorry taz, if my comments violate any happy hoppy bunny standards. i'll likely never post again after today, so i won't become a menace or anything.

btw, i hear by give you official authorization to channel me in any situation that entails kissing nice mefi boys. that was cute, and funny :-D

katygyrl, I'm not worried about you being a menace, and I miss our margarita parties.

(You should come back sometime... You can be the unbunny.)

What's a quonsar? And what's the penalty for saying a word that has been banned on MetaFilter?

What's a quonsar?

quonsar is hardly responsible for her own comments
quonsar is in great shape here
quonsar is puckish and all
quonsar is gone
quonsar is a mine

I guess you're speaking to me, katygrl. If so, I'm sorry for driving you off. I am who I am, warts and all, though, and I will neither apologize for that nor pretend to be something else. If you think me a hypocrite, that's regrettable, but there's little I can say, or care to, for that matter, to disabuse you of the notion.

I let my posting history speak for itself. If I've said nasty things, well, that's life. I don't go looking for trouble, but I will knock someone back on their ass if they start it with me, and I've never claimed differently. I'm far from being a 'nice' man, in many ways, but that's the way I like it. I am, however, honest, loyal, and loving, and those things are worth a lot more than nice. I don't trust nice.

I don't know what I've said at MeFi to have 'been mightily unpleasant over the years,' and how 'specific comments of [mine]' might be 'one of the main reasons why [you] left,' in any way that overshadows the thousands of thoughtful or innocuous or jocular or otherwise inoffensive other things I've said. That kind of suprises me, briefly and mildly, because I don't ever recall saying anything to or about you, ever. I know I've gotten in dustups once in a while with people who take potshots at me -- the most recent being with scarabic a couple of days ago -- but why that should bother you, I have no idea. I'm not even sure it's me you're talking to -- there might be other Chrises in this thread, for all I know.

Regardless, I might suggest that if there are '100's of others' about whom you think the same thing, the problem lies not with not them, but with you. I do not know you well enough to guess whether that might be the case, but it is a fairly reliable rule of thumb.

I for one am not having make-up sex with Q if Matt relents.

I said my piece over in MeTa I guess. I haven't been around either here or there a great deal lately and some of the goss' spoken about in that thread kind of made me pause.

Hmm...taz you are wise beyond your (bunny) ears. I will always like the underlying premise of this place of zero-ish aggression. I bet those who spend much time here wander off with a bit more of a smile inside.

nope, i don't have a problem. i was never especially perturbed by the folks who act out on mefi - that's part of my point, it's inevitable, the entire web is id-run-amok. if you're denying that there are 100's of people acting out on mefi then you may not be looking at it clearly, or you're just too used to being in the fray. singling q out is ridiculous and dishonest when you take everyone else's behavior into consideration. uhm, look at you saying 'oh well if i've said mean things, that's life' come on man :-D well, by that same token, tough luck if quonsar mentioned the fish in his pants.

anyway, it wasn't anything you directed at me personally - which is why i don't take it as such - it was just me falling into a category of poster which you (and several others) publicly deemed as moronic and unacceptable. since mefi was becoming too tedious for me at that point, i decided to take your comments as an exit route out. since then the time i spend online has been much more rewarding & relaxing, so thanks for that - sincerely. i was really wasting my time, and getting a bit stressed out by the argumentative egomaniacs.

btw i don't trust "nice" either. nice is boring, and often a facade for some serious ugly. and nice has got nothing to do with it.

OK, fair enough. I never thought you 'moronic', though, not for a second. I feel bad that you might've thought so. For what it's worth, much as I've been known to makes jokes about newbs and stuff, I try not to categorize people, preferring instead to offend them on a case by case basis. Heh.

oh. so you people can see mefi?! i thought it had been down the last few days. i'm getting constant timeouts. the dns is resolving to 70.86.84.162 - is that right?

well, ignore that, it's back now.

he probably died he's really old

; o

I'm a big fan of rocking the boat from time to time, and a little dissent and monkey wrenching in the right hands can be quite a bit of fun. It keeps things interesting, especially in a community as huge as MetaFilter. But only in the right hands - someone that's actually clever, understands moderation, and knows how to balance it with substance. And even then, more than a few of them and it all falls apart.

As bad as MeFi has gotten, I still can't believe it's not worse. All it takes are a few doofuses (doofesi?) to run unchecked to leave a bad taste in your mouth. I still regularly find lots of good over at MeFi, but it takes more work than it used to. There's more crap to sift through, but there are still some great discussions and links to things I simply would not have found otherwise. MeCha is my first stop every sign-on, but I still visit MeFi at least once a day. Sure, sometimes it's just to see the train wreck d'jour, but often it's because I know there's good stuff there.

And I also am quite grateful to taz and the geezer for setting up shop here and setting the tone. I've had a lot of fun here and hope to call this place home a long time to come.

Taz and the Geezer? That sounds like an 80's cop show.

Tonight, on a very special episode of Taz and the Geezer, Nancy Reagan and Mr. T. stop by the Geezer household after Taz is caught _________.

Tune in for wacky and madcap shenanigans on this week's hilarious episode of Taz and the Geezer. They're positively zany!

He's an English bobby out of his depth in the violent streets of New York. She's a tough, uncompromising female cop fighting prejudice in a mans world. Together they are:

TAZ
   and the
      GEEZER

Roll credits!

what's quonsar's opinion on the matter? i don't see any comments from him about it, except the link jessamyn referred to, saying he wanted out.

has he said he wants to go back on irc or something? or is he posting using a pseudonym?

just seems like another opinion-fest unless there's some real difference of opinion between him and the mefi admin.</opinion>

I've had a hard time understanding quonsar, especially recently. When I started reading MeFi, it seemed pretty clear that q was an asshole, and was highly revered because he had been an asshole from way back in the day. He was "character". Like an old man with an attitude is called "cantankerous" in an affectionate way, while a teenager with an attitude is called a "cocky asshole" in an unaffectionate way.

Then I came to MetaChat, and (except for the barbs at matt), q seemed like a much mellower, nicer, way-less-disagreeable guy. A pleasant chap.

Then back over at MeFi, and he's an asshole again.

After a while, I realized that there is no deciding if quonsar is an asshole or not. Or, rather, that it's all an academic issue. What's important, to me, is that quonsar is an asshole on Mefi, and a right bloke on Mecha. So I like things the way they stand: banned in MeFi, active in MeCha.

And for the folks who say "anyone who dislikes quonsar does so because of some personal problem": the strongest thing I can remember quonsar saying to me is "you've got bugs in your bread", and I can't remember if we've ever actually disagreed on anything, so if it was a personal dislike, I have no idea what the personal problem that triggered it may have been.

what's quonsar's opinion on the matter? i don't see any comments from him about it, except the link jessamyn referred to, saying he wanted out.

3 months ago i was told by jessamyn when she closed my account at my request that since it was voluntary all i had to do was request reinstatement from either matt or herself. i assumed that they had consulted on that and were in agreement. either i was wrong about that or he has decided that decision is inoperative.

in any event, that fudd/bugs photoshop made the entire thread worthwhile!

MetaFilter sucks more every day.

/wakko

q, that fudd/bugs photoshop made all of MetaFilter worthwhile for a few hours...

Quonsar: What would be different if you came back now? Do you think you'd have the same problems with your comments being deleted, etc?

Also, I vote that the Fudd/Bugs picture replace the bunnyheadzombiboy on the sidebar to MetaChat.

and doing it so very, very badly.

you're assuming that quonsar's output was always, ahem, stable, which it wasn't -- he played with highly flammable material, sometimes he was very funny, sometimes he was desperately unfunny (imo, of course). but yeah, he's difficult to ape -- he finds that difficult himself, I guess.

personally I am grateful that Mr q. hangs out here with us (hi quonsar!). this is a great place to be, a great great great place to be, and I am actually so insane to think that quonsar is a good, decent man (I even told him personally, ie by e-mail, a long time ago, and he rightly made fun of me)

quonsar, don't take it personally.

I could send you five bucks and you could be bunniefire over there. It's be worth the outlay to see THAT.

As to moderation, I really think it depends on what Matt had for breakfast on a given day, etc. It has never made consistent sense to me (except for my exile, which was probably a healthy thing for me at the time.)

But the truth is that MeCha is what I always really wished Metafilter would be. I am a very, very happy bunny these days. I wuvvies you all.

As to moderation, I really think it depends on what Matt had for breakfast on a given day, etc. It has never made consistent sense to me

Yup--it's a growing problem, and now that he'll be devoting more time to mefi will get worse.


It is fun here : >

Well seeing as you and stav have made up can we make up too tracy ?
I was awfy hurt you didnt like my golf flag photo you know.

And i want a cuddle.

quonsar - email me. we need to catch up.

pieoverdone at gmail dot com

I had written up the following screed to post on MeTa but (surprise, surprise) it has fallen over and I can't post it there:

As much as I hate to say it, if I was in mathowie's shoes, I would probably ban quonsar too. Not because he has a net negative impact on the site, because I don't think he does (his gross negative input is certainly no worse than many other users who don't have the positive input to balance it out), but simply because of the constant jibes about the unreliability of the site over the last year or so. I can imagine that that would get old pretty quick. I would have banned a lot of others though, if only for the sake of consistency.

The big difference that I see with what quonsar says, though, is that he is usually right. The constant jibes about ColdFusion would piss me off no end, mostly because I would know that I was in the wrong - the site was unacceptably unreliable for something so large and still is*. The constant comments that "I am working on it and it seems much better now" with no noticeable improvement seemed to me like a kid with his fingers in his ears saying "I can't hear you", when it was clear to everyone else that nothing much was changing (although it has gradually got better over time).

If it is a bannable offence to direct comments at another member, we should all be banned. I agree that it is usually bad form to address the person rather than the issue, but sometimes the person becomes the issue and this is often where we saw quonsar at his best – taking someone down a peg when it was needed. Over time, I have seen that this has become more of a problem and some of his comments have become more personal than they should have. But still, I believe that his net contribution is far greater than many other users.

The comment that this “feels more like silencing a critic than getting rid of noise” seems to fit well to me. It is completely mathowie’s choice to do so, of course, and I have already said that I would probably do the same. Still, it feels wrong for some reason.

The one thing that only mathowie knows, of course, is how much of quonsar’s content was deleted. If, to pluck a figure out of my arse, 50% of his comments were deleted, the signal to noise ratio would obviously be unacceptable and a ban is completely in order. I would be surprised if this was the case, though.

In reality of course, it matters not a speck of shit on the bottom of a shoe what any of us feel about this – mathowie will (and should) make his decision based on his own judgement.

*Fortunately, I have developed a habit of copying text in the comment box before trying to post anything on MeFi, or I would have lost this particular comment twice when trying to preview it.

I was really rooting for him to pass me. Looks like he won't get the chance, now.

What matteo said -- and what dg said.

The basic problem for me is that q is a critic who was mostly right and mostly on the money at the taking-down-a-peg and mostly funny. Yet it was only barely mostly, like the vote for George Bush. ;-) And what happened was a lot of people came along to do his schtick for him, and they're not as good, not as funny, rarely on the money -- just doing it for the pleasure or the exhibitionism. q was and remains the only one who coudl be, at times, brilliant and indispensable, and yet on balance he was dispensable from the point of view of the larger community.

Matt seems to be weakening.

i know some pissed off portugese people in rhode island.
*sigh*

look, just because people may not understand what's been said or a joke made, it doesn't mean it was without meaning, and declaring it so doesn't change that.
i'm sorry if i've been less than excessively pedantic about anything i may have ever posted anywhere meant, except i'm not.
just because you don't get it doesn't make it nonsense. Aping the obvious identifiers drives home the how much was lost in translation.

what was all that about? what other people already said.

we is this and us is that and this is something or other but this--

if metachat really just is where jon gets to put all his extra inanity to spare mefi or konolia's new family or any of this "THIS IS METACHAT" catchall--
that is what really bugs me
and makes me belong here less and less

don't go back to rockville, q
but if you must, just be you up front and honest with no apologies

well, i've just gotten home and finished reading all the stuff here and in metatalk and would make just one observation: 203 deleted comments would include all comments in entire threads deleted by matt for whatever reason. i often posted most frequently in threads that matt subsequently deleted. its disingenuous for him to bandy the number around without clarifying that. its also suspect that they can even be counted - in the green and the gray, comments and threads that are deleted supposedly disappear forever. in the blue, threads are merely hidden rather than deleted, but i've always thought individual comments which were deleted went away forever as well. strange.

Teh Final Whirred?

Matt strikes me as being just a little too concerned with being "in charge" of what is, admittedly, Matt's site.

And that's ruining the charm of Matt's site, which for me was the diversity of voices there, some very different than (and even critical of) Matt.


(Full disclosure: I often felt Matt resented the MetaFilthy extension for "showing him up" by adding functionality to Matt's site that he was unable or unwilling to add himself.)

if we're gonna bandy theories, i've got a few, just not gonna put 'em here and now, except:
i think people forget he's a human, and human, and actually pretty damn sensitive (in the sense that stuff can really hurt his feelings) in that respect, not that any "overt sincerity" isn't an act in a way--
--i'd just like to say that however well meaning or idealistic intentions are, i think there has been precedent of needing other people's aid in setting the tone and atmosphere he would like and that make him comfortable and i'm not just talking about mefi and i'm cutting myself off because none of this means anything--

really, all in all, i think he is a basically good guy, but a good leader knows how to pick a sound council or cohorts to make up for their shortcomings or at least give them some balance or be a sounding board--
katygirl hit's on it some, but (as someone who does more than i should on my own) it's not easy to ask for or find reliable help, so in the end it's just safer to try and do it on your own.

so while i work on that problem myself, i hope he can find a way to, too.