Mitheral: "It is unclear whether it is anonymous to MeFi admin accounts."

The admins can see who gives guest accounts, yes.

away for regrooving: "Wait, any non-logged-in person can send themself a gift account? Seems potentially exploitable! "

Nah, if the email already exists, no account is made and if a different address is used, someone still has to pay the $5 for the account, so there's no secret about who it is.

1. Is Metafilter policy, "do not say 'Fuck x' where x is anyone."

Yes, in most cases. Allow me to explain, historically there has been no prohibition on non-hateful cursing into the void on the site, but cursing at another person (be it a member, staff, or other people). However, we always try to lean towards leniency, there are exceptions when it comes to public persons, and the subject at hand. Saying fuck [x] in an obituary post about said person is not the same as in a post about their work, or some terrible thing they have done, and even then there are, and will be exceptions.

Admittedly, that mod note, could have used more context. On top of the name calling it was early threadshitting and also a potential derail. Now, if there's a desire to set policies that are clearer and less obscure in their application, that is something I think we all support and can work towards with the new board once seated.

With a new board being seated in about 20 days (eta of November 18th), this is certainly something that could be brought up again sometime soon.

Just coming to clarify because this comment is getting flagged: Actually, saying "fuck someone" does fall under the "Be considerate and respectful" section of the guidelines and the "Name calling" section of the content policy.
However, this is also why we maintain lighter moderation on MetaTalk; it's the place where you can voice concerns, frustrations, and disagreements freely. So while this does technically go against our guidelines, we're probably not going to delete it.
That said, we do hope members can keep in mind that the people being called out here are fellow community members volunteering their time to help.

Do we, as a community, think that cursing public figures for their public actions should be forbidden? And do we know where the line is dividing people like NPH from people like JKR?

Speaking as a mod, these two questions are the most important ones to decide upon, IMO.

Because ause "fuck bernie sanders" and "fuck trump" and "fuck gen z" will probably have different reactions on MetaFilter.

tivalasvegas: "Yeah, AFAIK you can simply contact the mods to request that they post your contribution anonymously to the relevant post."

Yes, this is currently the only way to post anonymously on any MetaFilter site.

Bottlecap: "I already did. And it is my understanding that you can read all memail anyway."

Mods can not read memail. We have to get frimble to check it out. I

f something is going on in MeFiMail please let us know by sending examples of it to us via the contact form or have the person receiving them send us examples.

Anytime that happens, for any member, send us the MeFiMail.

Bottlecap: "Hey everyone, and mods especially, “the moon and I” is sending weird doxxy memails about zarq. I think this behavior merits a time out at the very least."

Please use the contact form to send the mods examples of this behavior, and we’ll take it from there.

No comments removed as MetaTalk has slightly lighter moderation, but please let's avoid calling other members names (dick, in this instance).

brook horse: "I don’t know how mods feel about their job...

It's neat and interesting, but It can be difficult at times, of course, but any job can be. From waiting tables to graphic design freelancing to delivering mail to MeFi mod, people can be brutal with their comments, or as I like to say "The people are definitely peopling today". In these instances it's best to focus on what the actual problem or request and deal with that, as opposed to negative attitudes. It's the other person's choice to be how they are and isn't a reflection on me..

But for MeFi, I do think having mods spend a lot or even most of their time in MeTaTalk isn't great and ideally they'd be spending more time on other parts of the site, encouraging more conversations in the various posts. I described the job as a "facilitator of fun" during one conversation with the interim board and I like that idea.

Have been going back and forth with Rhaomi in email this morning and here's a summary of what's going on:

The large quantity of FPP posts that zarq created would have meant removing a lot of contributions from other people who have participated in the threads. Manually removing the personal information would have required a lot of manual work.

So a new script was developed by Rhaoni (over several months) to go through a user's posts and remove the content of the person requesting an account wipe, while preserving the comments and links that were made in those posts.

Here's how that process works, explained to me this morning by Rhaomi:

The only things remaining from the original FPP are 1. the title (which is part of the URL), 2. the tags (which are a shared site resource), and 3. the raw URLs from the post. Everything else written by the user requesting the wipe is erased, including any original writing that could possibly identify them. The original post text, no matter how long or how simple, is replaced by a brief independently-written one-line description of the topic for context.

This process was developed by Rhaomi over the past few months to comply with any account wiper's request, while still keeping the links and comments of those who had commented on the post.

This new script was run last night on zarq's FPP posts on Metafilter.

That's what I know and understand as of this point.

Whoot, brand new day and times for the site! Congrats to everyone on the new board!

To be clear, I'm not against getting rid of the queue.

No specific data on hand about deleting posts from un-queued sites.

Projects is different though because it's specifically for "for members to toot their own horn and link to something that they have done". Do we care if someone signs up just to post their project on Projects? If someone signs up and puts up a link to a 'One Day Bathroom Remodel' site and says they were the designer for the site, do we let it stand? Matt (the original creator of MetaFilter) thought commercial projects were fine, but things have changed in those 20 years.

Not a big concern, IMO, at the moment. If it starts turning into that, we can rethink things. Probably worth thinking about what constitutes a Project, because shockingly there isn't a firm definition in the FAQ.

No major spam in Projects, it's pretty quiet in general.

For submissions, I would just review them and make sure the project was doing what it said it was doing. There's only two I can think of that I rejected over the past year, one was asking for help with a game design and the other was essentially a stunt post.

If we remove the queue, I'd expect more spammy posts over time, because people, but we'll see.

glonous keming: "ren't there already gaps in mod coverage or am i misremembering that?"

There are gaps ranging from 1-6 hours during weekdays, to a 16 hour gap over a weekend evening.

restless_nomad: "I also don't know if literally everyone is a contractor "

Everyone is a contractor. Mods, loup, developers, all contractors,

Brandon Blatcher: "Hey, just ran through some tests where I created a post for the FPP, Ask, Anon Ask, FanFare, and MeTa, that order. The system correctly posted the FPP, then has glitched where a message is posted saying an old post was deleted, but it wasn't wasn't. Have let frimble know about that, they'll look into it."

Frimble has fixed this, deleted posts are showing up in the mod log with their reason. Note that currently if the deletion reason is edited, a new entry appears in the log for the same post, which is ok, but I'd say it's fine in the sense of members being able to see everything that was done/edit differences.

Brandon Blatcher: "The queue button turns red after 48 hours, I think, still testing this part (will know this evening around 8pm ET). "

Yep, the "button" turns red after 48 hours.

Otherwise, looks like staff was approving anon AskMe's within on a much tighter time frame (a couple of hours) with no issues.

According to Brandon Blatcher, all anonymous AskMes are automatically delayed at least 48 hours.

There's an update to this, I was incorrect.

I wait for the queue button to turn green (as demonstrated here)before checking and approving anon AskMe's. That button turns green after 22 hours (created a test post to verify this).

So the Anon AskMe's are not automatically delayed for 48 hours. They do sit in a queue for 22 hours before the system "green lights" them for a mod to review and post. But the posts can be reviewed and published at any time once they're in the Anon queue.

The queue button turns red after 48 hours, I think, still testing this part (will know this evening around 8pm ET). I've only seen the red button once or twice, when we were checking with other mods about a problematic post, so it did sit for a while.

Apologies for confusion, hope this clarifies things

Klipspringer: "It was launched in March 2025 as "a log of official mod comments and post deletions". However at some point recently the page title has changed to "Recent moderation comments" and it doesn't appear to list deleted posts any more. Could we be told why deleted posts are no longer listed?"

Hey, just ran through some tests where I created a post for the FPP, Ask, Anon Ask, FanFare, and MeTa, that order. The system correctly posted the FPP, then has glitched where a message is posted saying an old post was deleted, but it wasn't wasn't. Have let frimble know about that, they'll look into it.

Checked the wayback machine and the mod seems to have always said "Recent moderation comments". Can you pinpoint a time when it said otherwise?

Talked with loup, we agree it would be best if the newly elected MeFiCoFo Board (voting ends October 14) makes the decision on whether to expand the current moderation log.

plagued out moggies: "I believe there are still some questions for loup from the anon-delay thread. "

Loup was notified of this.

Klipspringer: "for the next (October) site update could we have an update on the Recent Mod Actions page?"

Checking with frimble and loup about the questions!

Also, a delay might be a good thing, as people do write us sometimes, asking to remove their post from the Anon Queue .

The weekends have the longest time between shifts, between 12-19 hours currently. So there will be delays at times.

umber vowel: "
I have another question: Is it expected that moderators will read every AskMe question that gets posted? Is it up to individual mods how much they want to read of the site, as long as they're responding to flags?

It's just surprising that no one noticed those two duplicate questions before approving them. The topics were pretty memorable."

It is expected that we read most of the site, but that isn’t always possible, depending on what else is going. Something public or private might be happening that demands more immediate attention.

Is anything else arbitrarily delayed?

Everything else in the queues is posted as one gets to them on their shift.

Loup's off until tomorrow, but they touched bases on the Slack a little while ago.

It won't be a problem to approve Anon AskMe's during a mod's shift, once they've read them and verified they're not breaking any policy or law (my words). I'll start doing that later tonight.

Posting a link to this MeTa in the mod Slack so that others be aware as they come on shift.

jacquilynne: "Anonymous question submitted."

Approved the test Anon post and it appeared live immediately.

Will delete the test in a minute, but here's the text from the post:

Test
1:38PM Eastern Time
posted by anonymous to Technology at 1:40 PM - 0 answers +

] So yes, Anon AskMe's could be approved any time after they're submitted

Hi, I'd like to do a test of the anon queue and am requesting ONE person respond to this comment. Then that SINGLE person will go and create ONE anon AskMe labeled TEST and in the text of the question will post the time they submitted it and what time zone they'rei n. That test anon question will be approved and then quickly removed and we'll see what happens.

Basically, I'm pretty sure we can approve anon questions whenever, but want to test that assumption.

One comment deleted. Please refer to the AI Generated Content section of the Content Policy.

phunniemee: "Can we get any info on how the anon ask me queue currently works?"

Post appears in queue and stays there for 48 hours. From landing page of the backend, mods can see the number of posts in the Anon and other queues (no there is not a MeTa queue, the text was just left there, all MeTas are immediately posted).

After 48 hours (i think), the grey circle turns Green, letting us know to manually approve an Anon post.

After a certain amount of unknown time, the circle can red, letting us know a post is overdue.

Oh, the moderation team will be posting the ThereIsHelp link in suicide related posts, to remind people they don't have to face things alone, reaching out is a courageous step, and help is closer than they might think

mediareport: "I've sent this request via the mod contact form as well. This should be something easily remedied during the next mod's next shift, and I'm expecting it to happen quickly, since the voting period has now begun. Thanks."

Your request has been sent to the Election Committee, who have to approve any changes. Then the changes will be communicated to frimble, who is the only one who has access to edit the particular page.

Thanks for your patience.

Hey, thanks for asking about this.

My understanding is that we post or message the person directly with the ThereIsHelp link in situations when someone seems danger of committing or idealizing suicide. The most recent question wasn't explicitly either of those, so it falls in a gray area and looking at it, I think it's ok to leave it up since people are commenting about why it's not a good idea.

Being more liberal about posting the link is a good idea, so I'm mentioning it in the mod Slack to get everyone on the same page. Thanks for the suggestion!

At the Election Committee's request, am closing up this thread. If people have any questions or concerns, they can post in the "Reminder of end of campaign period" thread.

Several comments removed by commenter's request

pro-tip: If you send a message now, it will have been done...

Good point, I scheduled an email to remind me to send one in two days. Thanks!

Closing this thread because the Campaign Period has ended. Voting is scheduled to begin on Oct 1, per the Election Timeline. Thank you to the candidates and to everyone that posted questions to them.

Closing this thread because the Campaign Period has ended. Voting is scheduled to begin on Oct 1, per the Election Timeline. Thank you to the candidates and to everyone that posted questions to them.

Closing this thread because the Campaign Period has ended. Voting is scheduled to begin on Oct 1, per the Election Timeline. Thank you to the candidates and to everyone that posted questions to them.

Closing this thread because the Campaign Period has ended. Voting is scheduled to begin on Oct 1, per the Election Timeline. Thank you to the candidates and to everyone that posted questions to them.

Closing this thread because the Campaign Period has ended. Voting is scheduled to begin on Oct 1, per the Election Timeline. Thank you to the candidates and to everyone that posted questions to them.

Closing this thread because the Campaign Period has ended. Voting is scheduled to begin on Oct 1, per the Election Timeline. Thank you to the candidates and to everyone that posted questions to them.

Closing this thread because the Campaign Period has ended. Voting is scheduled to begin on Oct 1, per the Election Timeline. Thank you to the candidates and to everyone that posted questions to them.

Closing this thread because the Campaign Period has ended. Voting is scheduled to begin on Oct 1, per the Election Timeline. Thank you to the candidates and to everyone that posted questions to them.

Closing this thread because the Campaign Period has ended. Voting is scheduled to begin on Oct 1, per the Election Timeline. Thank you to the candidates and to everyone that posted questions to them.

Closing this thread because the Campaign Period has ended. Voting is scheduled to begin on Oct 1, per the Election Timeline. Thank you to the candidates and to everyone that posted questions to them.

Closing this thread because the Campaign Period has ended. Voting is scheduled to begin on Oct 1, per the Election Timeline. Thank you to the candidates and to everyone that posted questions to them.

Thyme is off for a couple of days, I'll drop a note to them when they're back on Sunday.

plagued out moggies: "Like, here’s a simple, specific question: has loup been actively managing the BIPOC board minutes situation? If yes, how do they think they’re doing? If no, why not?"

I do not know and they're off for the weekend, so the soonest you could get an answer to that is probably around Monday afternoon.

For folks who want to minimize their presence on the site, here's what frimble suggested when we were talking about it the other day:

* Checking in your MetaFilter preferences that "Minimal Profile for non-members" is turned
* Reviewing what platforms are in "Also On" because they appear here https://www.metafilter.com/contribute/socialexplorer.mefi (only available to logged-in members, but regardless) ]

It's also worth noting that a Twitter/X account was trying to get right wing social media to attack the site by screenshotting some of the charlie kirk thread. Please remember that the web is very public and there are some ugly corners of that want to hur

mediareport: "Can you please point me to the mod comment noting that Brandon's mod-announced deadline for the BIPOC minutes to be posted by the end of August would not be met?"

There wasn't one, will keep that in mind for the future.

plagued out moggies: "So, in all honesty: who’s running the ship, mods?"

Same as it's been for a while, loup oversees the mods and we keep them in the, um, loop, of what we're working.

Changed 25 to 23 in post and deleted first comment at the user's request.

chasles: "I agree, seems an easy change. "

Minor note, the About page isn't editable by the mods, it'll have to go through frimble, to edit on the back end. Not a big deal, just a heads up.

One comment removed for posting in the wrong thread.

NotLost, give it about an hour, there's a small speed bump to prevent spamming.

Hid the countdown timer behind the details tag, just click the arrow if you want to see the time left

Added 99_'s candidate statement to their post.

Added 99_'s candidate statement

infinitewindow: "what happened to Lemkin? Fuuuuuck"

His account was suspended after trollish behavior regarding AI/LLM posts. We communicated to him that certain behavior regarding AI/LLM posts and arguments needed to stop in order for his account to be reinstated.

phunniemee: "Well, posts to the blue require a link. I assume that the link that has apparently been removed (used to be we changed those to example.com, guess that changed) had something more obvious in it."

Yeah, the usual procedure is as phunniemee described, change the url of a spammy link to example.com. But in this case, the link was just raw unlinked html (https://metafilter.com as opposed to metafilter). So removing that unlinked html text removed any indication of where the link was.

In those situations in the future, we'll leave a note indicating the html/link was removed

Here's a link to the Election Timeline MetaTalk post, which outlines and gives dates for the various steps in the election process.

automatronic: "Did they actually pay $5, or just make up a really good story?"

They actually did pay $5!

Comments opened, pulposus

Comments opened, phunniemee

Comments opened, Previous username Jacen

Comments opened, 99_

Comments opened, Kybard

Comments opened, jimw

Comments opened, Joakim Ziegler

Comments opened, creatrixtiara (formerly divabat)

Comments opened, DarlingBri

Comments opened, chasles

Comments opened, adrienneleigh

Comments open, main thread

To me it sounds like someone realizes that they created more of problem for themselves than they intended and are now asking for the discussion to move on without them. Seeing at they've cited fears of harassment, it would be totally fine to do that. There's no need to demand that they must participate, nor that we focus on them.

Finally, it's important to note that harassment of another member is strictly forbidden and anyone experiencing should let the mods know and we'll deal with it.

The Pluto Gangsta: "Brandon, as long as you're here do you want to comment on why, when other comments were modded out of that thread, the mod didn't name the poster even when they quoted the comment, but you decided to reproduce not only my comment but to put me on blast specifically? Kinda feel like you put a target on my back there."

There are 5 official mod comments in that thread (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), 4 of them by me, 3 of which use the MeFi Quote feature to name who made the comments. You are not specifically being called out, it's just a function of being on the internet and the convenience of using MeFiQuote.

Otherwise, am going to leave the mod comment as is and request that everyone avoid bringing up The Pluto Gangsta anymore in this thread. It's not a command, just a request on their behalf.

About larger questions:
Mods should moderate comments and situations as they normally do on the site, with little regard as whether a person is a board member or not. There are probably hypotheticals where board status might matter, but I view that more as sending a message with advice or about some site history, but that's about it. Moderation should proceed as on escalating scale that starts with talking and requests and only moving on to ban if nothing else works. Definitely worth considering how to work out a such a situation if things go that way. But having to go that route will be a rare thing is my guess. Still worth considering ahead of time, IMO.

the north sea: "I am pretty nervous about posting this"

Thank you so much for taking the time and making the effort. You points are non-American thoughts 💭 and necessary for the community to be reminded of.

i used to be someone else: "just want a little more clarity on this mod decision

Removed a comment saying "The only good nazi is a dead nazi" because site's Content Policy discourages calls for violence.

Sure, the full comment was "He was a nazi. The only good nazi is a dead nazi." That comment was in reference Charlie Kirk and went a little over the line, in terms of advocating for his death. I should have made that clearer in the deletion note.

warriorqueen: "I can't express strongly enough my appreciation for the committee members who have stuck through that, but I personally have found that really wearying - to a degree that I know I am not leading it right and am a bit jumpy."

Thank you and all the members of the MOC for the work y'all have done.

FInally, candidate statements will be live in in the A.M. of Friday, September 12, starting after midnight. It'll probably take an hour or two to post and link everything, but it's happening!

darkstar: "Arg. That first para should end “…behavior may warrant moderation.”"

Fixed!

HearHere: "^ mods, can you please italicize the top portion of the above comment (missed edit window)"

Original comment edited, comment requesting change removed.

Okay, added the threshold to the post text.

The self nomination period for the election of the MetaFilter Board has ended, so this thread is now closed.

The next stage in the election timeline will be the Campaign Period, which begins on Friday, Sept 12 at 12:01am ET, 2025 and ends on September 26th, 11:59pm ET, 2025

During the Campaign Period the candidate statements will be posted in MetaTalk, allowing the community to interact with the candidates.

Eastern timezone, post updated

No need for apologies, it's not spamming! Something seems to be up server side, have tagged frimble to look into.

I ended up emailing you to your gmail with the statement to verify things! Sorry for all the tech issues!

Hey chasles, was just about to email you, as we got three emails from you with your statement. I'm going to take one of them and toss it in a Google Doc for your to verify it's correct, will send the link to that Google doc in a few minutes.

paduasoy: "I suppose what I meant about where to report this is more, is there any point? Is this useful to the site?

Screenshots of the error would be best, but lacking that, a note would be fine, be it email or a MeTa post, just so we can tell if something is going on for a lot of people or just a few. I don't see an error recorded for the glitches you mention paduasoy.

But I am currently just using the free version UptimeRobot, the paid version of Cloudflare no doubt has more robust monitoring. I don't have access to that yet, frimble is working on getting me access, not current eta on that.

Posting about server errors is fine here or folks can make a MetaTalk post or email mods via the Contact Us form. Thanks!

One comment removed and Press Butt.on to Check suspended for 24 hours for continuing to argue with another member after twice being asked to stop.

Several comments deleted. As Brandon pointed out, name calling goes against the Content Guidelines but moreover, Press Butt.on to Check and Pseudonymous Cognomen please take a step back and let the conversation move on without your participation, this is not a thread for you to pick a fight with one another.

Pseudonymous Cognomen: "
lol a turd calling the kettle shit

Oh look, one of MeFi's resident genocide apologists has something to say! (you can fuck off, btw.)"

Press Butt.on to Check: "lol a turd calling the kettle shit"

Both of you need to knock off the name calling right now, it goes against the Content Guidelines. If y'all continue that line of behavior, you may be removed from the site.

This thread is about one of the most hated people in the world, y'all have a big target in him if dislike needs to expressed. There's no need to turn that on other members of the site.

No comments have been removed at this point.

One double posted comment removed.

Yes, that was dumb mistake on my part.

The original comment has been restored, left a comment in the thread noting the mistake, and sent a note with an apology to the person who originally made the comment.

Candidate list:
Updated 12:40am ET 8/30/2025
Updated 11:30pm ET 8/31/2025
Updated 11:51pm ET 9/1/2025
Updated 09:19pm ET 9/2/2025
Updated 03:00pm ET 9/3/2025

One comment deleted. As per the content policy: do not query ChatGPT or other LLMs and then post the output unless the discussion itself is about those types of tools

Note that after talking it over with NotLost, staff is requesting candidates include their username in the subject line of the email in the following format:
"Candidate Statement: Username"

The original post has been edited to reflect this change in verbiage.

NotLost requested that a comment of theirs be removed and that was done.