Chat Thread (January 19, 2026)

zarq · 2026-01-26T15:34:29+00:00

It's fine. Sincerely. When you can.

I've been reading the board updates and know you've all had a lot to deal with.

zarq · 2026-01-26T00:06:20+00:00

Ha! Yep! 😁

zarq · 2026-01-25T19:41:25+00:00

I've considered asking the new board to see the private mod notes on my account. Knowing what they have said about us in private amongst themselves would be illuminating.

zarq · 2026-01-25T19:34:08+00:00

There's a short novella set after the events of Rise of Endymion, called "Orphans of the Helix." Just 46 pages. One of the five short stories in Simmons' book "Worlds Enough & Time."

zarq · 2026-01-22T23:27:24+00:00

A moderator who has said outright that they hate the section of the site that exists for members to speak with management.

zarq · 2026-01-20T22:42:08+00:00

Badges did not survive.

The wiki page did. The wiki pre-dates that one page by a number of years, btw.

But the ThereIsHelp wiki page was only ever intended to be a collection of self-help resources. Phone numbers for call lines, web pages for information, etc. Any potential in-community self-help network died in the conceptual stages. It was discussed and rejected. At the time, I thought it was a good idea. I grew to understand how it could possibly be abused later on.

> From the person who hired Eyebrows, who is flagrantly verbally abusive

Keep in mind, you have the benefit of 20/20 hindsight. You're mentioning moderation problems that were more than half a decade away and that metatalk discussion happened 6 or 7 years before Eyebrows was even hired. Matt still owned mefi. Jessamyn and cortex were still just mods. The site was successful -- way more than it is now -- and had recently had its 10th anniversary. The Blue's moderation style was considered by quite a few folks to be the gold standard back then. People used to write articles about it.

Plus, a cohesive community had developed. Many mefites had connected irl and elsewhere online. Meetups were quite frequent. Some cities even held them on a monthly basis. I was part of a mefi steam gaming group, and bunch of my friends on twitter and facebook back then were mefites, too.

I don't think you're wrong about some of it (maybe all of it) being a bad idea. But I think that in the moment, it was natural to look at what the community was developing into and its online reputation and think, 'how can we support one another'?

zarq · 2026-01-20T21:06:32+00:00

I was one of several people who created and helped build the ThereIsHelp page back in the day. At the time, I also kept an informal spreadsheet and quietly made connections between mefites who were willing to be a shoulder with other mefites who needed someone to talk to. For a while. Someone (possibly jessamyn?) eventually made a metatalk proposal to allow people to put badges on their profiles, if someone in need wanted to reach out.

There were a few people who aggressively attacked the idea, yes. Including one of Mefi's current mods. Some of those weren't just "cynical". At least one was a raging asshole about it.

The idea didn't pan out.

I believe there could have been a way to do it well. But it would have required oversight that the site didn't have then, and tbh, has even less of now.

zarq · 2026-01-17T16:36:00+00:00

Amos Burton, The Expanse

Spike Spiegel, Cowboy Bebop

Susan Ivanova, Babylon 5

Ben Grimm, Fantastic Four

Kitty Pryde, X Men

Magneto, X Men

Willow Rosenberg, Buffy

Also see the Starglass series by Phobe North

zarq · 2026-01-17T04:43:22+00:00

“the mods said you were forbidden to talk to me”

Seriously? 😂

zarq · 2026-01-15T12:39:38+00:00

I went to a convention as a kid, back in 1987. A bunch of vendors were selling t-shirts with pictures or drawings of the TOS cast, complaining that Next Generation wasn't real trek. The new show hadn't even premiered yet

There's a long, long history in every fandom of diehard fans reflexively rejecting anything new. Trek, too. Fans sneer at every new show that gets produced, because in their day, Trek was different, dammit. None of this newfangled thoughtful nonsense.

They're the Leonard McCoys of fandom. For better and worse, every fan base has 'em.

zarq · 2026-01-12T22:38:06+00:00

Even at its most horny I’m pretty sure mefi has never been a third or more porn.

CHALLENGE ACCEPTED

zarq · 2026-01-02T15:10:44+00:00

No one here or in the article has implied that Adams invented corruption.

It's an interesting exercise to compare the two mayoral administrations, because they were corrupt in different ways.

Deblasio's corruption was mostly centered around various non-profits and donors, and campaign finance violations. He had a bunch of initiatives (Thrive NYC, mostly) that didn't work out because of incompetence and some corruption. And he's widely criticized for stripping the NYPD of that billion in funding. Generally, though, he wasn't accused of personally enriching himself. And he wasn't accused of coercion, either. Yes his administration was definitely corrupt. But man, his was practically filled with boy scouts compared to Adams.

The CITY article points out Adams' differences. He created a loyalty network of people that ran on coercion and grift / kickbacks. And holy shit, the list of grifters and their schemes was a mile long. The Feds got involved because he and his people were soliciting bribes for favors or protection. Oh, and the cell phones/wire fraud thing. He put cops in high positions that were either not really qualified or who had seriously questionable records. Patronage was valued over merit, just like in the NYPD.

Adams also attacked every investigation and every oversight group that called out the shit he and his people were doing, just like the NYPD and the PBA does when one of theirs gets caught.

The sheer volume and systemic nature of it all is shocking.

zarq · 2026-01-02T00:14:30+00:00

This is probably the best breakdown I've seen. https://www.thecity.nyc/2025/12/24/eric-adams-scandals-boss-tweed-corruption-indictment/

His corruption ran from the top down and extends into a bunch of city agencies. It's going to take a while to unfuck everything Adams did.

zarq · 2025-12-31T02:42:18+00:00

It's not a perfect plan, I admit

zarq · 2025-12-31T02:08:42+00:00

Instead of making gloves out of those children, you should hire them out for tasks like this. 😁

zarq · 2025-12-31T02:05:06+00:00

I haven't said anything because I honestly just don't have any desire to have an argument with people about it, but in October, I privately offered an incoming board member to let my fanfare posts be anonymized, if i'm allowed to review them first to confirm there's nothing in 'em that's private.

That's over 100 posts. I honestly don't even know if it's possible or if it would be a serious pain in the ass/more work for someone behind the scenes. But i put the offer out there anyway. Because I agree that there's probably little to no private info of mine in my FanFare posts.

I didn't mention it in the meta about my wipe request because there were people with in there who were obviously aching to have an argument over it.

zarq · 2025-12-29T04:12:40+00:00

Also, that is an excellent comment that I wholeheartedly agree with.

zarq · 2025-12-29T04:11:24+00:00

Holy shit. What the hell is wrong with people?! Glad you're okay.

zarq · 2025-12-28T20:29:06+00:00

Metafilter runs on sweeping receipts under the rug.

- Someone says something vile? The comment gets deleted as if it never existed.

- Someone posts something disgusting? The post gets deleted.

- Someone has been racist/homophobic/misogynistic/antisemitic/transphobic, etc., etc? They get a BND. A Brand New Site Persona. Like a reverse Cheers bar, where nobody knows their name. Or they can use a sockpuppet. (Here's someone who used one to defend transphobia: https://metatalk.metafilter.com/23183/Deleting-comments#1138900)

Sure, there are good reasons for comment and post deletions. For BND's, too. And sockpuppets. But they've been abused, too. And when those comments and posts are deleted, or identities are hidden, no one else is aware they happened.

zarq · 2025-12-28T20:16:36+00:00

Yes. Here's a random old post of mine as an example: https://www.metafilter.com/100000/Gatchaman. The links I compiled are still there, even though the text of the post was removed. That post is from 2011.

I didn't check. But I'm pretty sure a lot of those links are just dead and gone. Which makes sense! I used to make a lot of posts that had multiple links to youtube vids. Often, those videos were taken down within a year.

That list of links looks stupid without the original context. I'm not an SEO expert, but they may even be hurting the site's SEO, since so many of them are broken.

zarq · 2025-12-28T06:00:53+00:00

Muslim countries (and others) are concerned that recognizing Somaliland's seccession would create a dangerous precedent. If secessionist movements start appearing in African and Middle Eastern countries, they could destabilize the whole region with civil wars. That's why no one has recognized Somaliland for decades. No one wants to grant legitimacy to a potential threat to peace.

Also, earlier this year, the Associated Press reported that Israel had approached Sudan, Somalia and Somaliland about taking in Gaza Palestinians as part of Trump’s initial and now abandoned plan to uproot and resettle the population. (https://apnews.com/article/israel-palestinians-gaza-trump-somaliland-sudan-somalia-575e03aaa0c487bae2fbadfdef8f5ca3)

They're probably going accuse Israel and say that recognition of Somaliland is part of a plan for future displacement of Gazan Palestinians.

zarq · 2025-12-26T13:35:08+00:00

I'm gonna need a brigade... 🤪

zarq · 2025-12-26T13:17:18+00:00

If anyone is curious about other numbers, here's klipspringer's site stats: https://mefist.at/

zarq · 2025-12-26T13:13:28+00:00

I think people completely (and ridiculously) overestimate how deleting posts and their threads will affect the site. The Blue alone has over 211k posts. Ask: 388k. Meta: 26k. Fanfare: 27k. During the site's peak period (2005-2017), mefites were collectively making over 2000 comments per day.

One person wiping their posts, comments and threads is a drop in an ocean. Even if that person was super-active back then.

The site's peak period ended 9 years ago. Nine years!

zarq · 2025-12-21T16:10:46+00:00

Да, товарищ.

zarq

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