Walk away from political and news posts if you find yourself getting angry or want to prove a point.

This is the best general-purpose how-to-use-the-internet advice ever. Like, this should be included in every login, every router-admin page… just, fucking, everywhere people interface with the ‚net.‘. A general banner at the top of every page.

Hopefully it‘ll be adopted here going forward
posted by From Bklyn at 3:36 AM on January 14 [18 favorites]

*humming* it’s okay for someone to be wrong on the internet *humming*
posted by lucidium at 3:38 AM on January 14 [17 favorites]

I think that this should be cross-posted to the blue.
posted by ashbury at 5:10 AM on January 14 [4 favorites]

Brandon, we always heard that the megathreads were a moderation nightmare. However, in the current I/P threads, we have what at least looks like a megathread-style approach, a single thread full of updates, analysis and commentary, letting the topic be available to those who want it but not spread out over multiple posts.

Which actually works better for the site--a single regular post with tons of updates, or a larger number of posts that one hopes are well-tagged for people trying to avoid the news?
posted by mittens at 5:23 AM on January 14 [7 favorites]

Can we have some clarification about comments that bring uspol into unrelated posts? Is it okay to flag these as a derail and expect mods to remove them and any related comments? Personally I find that more troublesome than the occasional politics post on the front page (which is easily blocked). I'm talking about people coming into totally unrelated topics just to say something about Trump or politics, not like edge cases that are discussing, say, social issues.
posted by fight or flight at 5:28 AM on January 14 [11 favorites]

Note: Avoid doomsday speculation.
posted by box at 5:59 AM on January 14 [7 favorites]

MetaFilter is not a news site.

As someone who started lurking here in 2014, you could have fooled me! I imagine if someone came across the site today, they'd come off with the impression that the Blue is a mix of arts & culture, politics, breaking news, science and tech, etc. The breaking news part might not be the original intent, but it appears that ship has sailed.

We're open to other suggestions if you got'em!

How hard would it be to create a separate page for news? (and may a suggest a shit-brown color?)
posted by coffeecat at 6:50 AM on January 14 [26 favorites]

How hard would it be to create a separate page for news?

That would be glorious.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 6:53 AM on January 14 [9 favorites]

and I said that for years but was told no,
metaflters not a new site and today I concur.
posted by clavdivs at 7:24 AM on January 14 [2 favorites]

Today I learned that I can subscribe to MyMefi in my favorite RSS reader, just like I can all the other MetaFilter pages. Cool!
posted by Ampersand692 at 7:51 AM on January 14 [2 favorites]

MetaFilter may not have been intended for news, but plenty of "news" does happen on MetaFilter. Heavy emphasis on Filter, as so much of what gets shared here is of much greater value than the stuff I see elsewhere.

I appreciate trying to get ahead of things and maybe people will need reminders
posted by ginger.beef at 8:09 AM on January 14 [3 favorites]

One deleted. Sorry, but as the post says "avoid turning this particular thread into an argument about specific news and/or politics," and that goes double about completely hypothetical very specific bizarre news. (iow, let's not take up a chunk of space and time arguing out something completely made up as an exercise).
posted by taz (staff) at 8:22 AM on January 14 [2 favorites]

Yes but how else can we make up weird edge cases as a reason to not implement changes unless they're flawless.
posted by Diskeater at 8:24 AM on January 14 [12 favorites]

Well, I can see people sort of meandering in their head, "hm... what if," because everyone does that, but we really hope to keep this pretty targeted and get everyone's useful ideas about ways to deal with what's going to be a very difficult situation.
posted by taz (staff) at 8:27 AM on January 14 [1 favorite]

I think resisting the urge to engage in the circular firing squad and/or purity tests with other Mefites would be helpful specifically in the political threads and more generally across the site. As a group I think we have much more in common then not and most of us have a greater desire to see things get better rather than worse. Empathy is better than hate, no matter how frustrated you are about a situation or a particular person's take on a subject.
posted by Ashwagandha at 8:37 AM on January 14 [16 favorites]

Which actually works better for the site--a single regular post with tons of updates, or a larger number of posts that one hopes are well-tagged for people trying to avoid the news?

I strongly encourage multiple, focused posts oriented around a specific topic. Some rudimentary analysis of participation in unfocused megathreads versus topic-oriented threads showed the former to be dominated by a few voices while the latter showed more diverse participation. I can't say whether that helps people avoid the news if that's what they want to do, but I can say that the topic-oriented threads were a better discussion environment than the megathreads.
posted by a faded photo of their beloved at 8:48 AM on January 14 [3 favorites]

I'm curious about whether Metafilter will continue to resist Newsfilter. People like talking about the news!

It's always been a BIT newsfilter. Think of the 9/11 thread! And we have this fight all the time with obituaries.... Even right now there's a random thread about Starbucks' new rules on loitering which is clearly newsfilter.

What's wrong with that?

If you could only watch 2 minutes of the video about the RUSH pinball machine before you got antsy and went to read people talk about how much they hate Starbucks, maybe that's okay?
posted by anotherpanacea at 10:31 AM on January 14 [3 favorites]

News is part of the mix! But some people seem to be thinking that we are here for news, like that's our purpose. It is not! In the beginning, I mean very, very, very beginning, Matt was very much against news stuff, as I remember, and that was when there was a lot of talk and back and forth and the actual phrase "newsfilter" came about, usually as a pejorative. But people did want to talk about some news stuff. Others really, really wanted to avoid news stuff. Now, as always, it's a tough balancing act to give people mostly(!) what they want in a site that feels very personal to them.

One thing that helps is to not go into the sorts of threads you don't want to engage with on the site. I know that sounds simplistic, but sometimes ... I don't know, I guess people feel compelled to do that for whatever their reasons are. Probably different reasons.
posted by taz (staff) at 10:51 AM on January 14 [7 favorites]

Yeah, this isn't about banning news or politics from the site, but how to engage with them under the new Trump era. And how to do so in way that doesn't prompt a lot of fighting that turns people away from the site or causes them to leave.

The nature of the incoming POTUS is to say a lot of shit and do a lot of shit and MetaFilter doesn't need a post for every single one of those things.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 10:57 AM on January 14 [31 favorites]

I think metafilter would benefit from having a separate news filter page. could this be possible with the new redesign. the benefit would be having interesting and odd local news as well as National. This could give an opportunity for international members to post news. it may seem like a compartmentalization but I think it could be a interesting space and see what happens.

I always wanted a separate page for posts in different languages other than English. the only problem I seen with this is some coding and moderating.
posted by clavdivs at 11:04 AM on January 14 [7 favorites]

clavdivs I don't even know what 4D chess would look like but sometimes I think you're playing it
posted by ginger.beef at 11:16 AM on January 14 [6 favorites]

... I'm not going to post here in Dutch for the seventeen members who can read it.
posted by Too-Ticky at 11:18 AM on January 14 [3 favorites]

... I'm not going to post here in Dutch for the seventeen members who can read it.

not ... with that attitude...? hm, i don't think that joke works.

this is a good thread and a good initiative.
posted by Sebmojo at 12:13 PM on January 14 [5 favorites]

A 'News" subsite is a pretty good idea, IMO.
posted by From Bklyn at 1:26 PM on January 14 [2 favorites]

I think metafilter would benefit from having a separate news filter page ... I always wanted a separate page for posts in different languages other than English.

¿Por qué no los dos?
posted by chavenet at 1:27 PM on January 14 [2 favorites]

This might not be the right thread but is metafilter hosted / safely mirrored (idk the terms) as sites like this are a threat to governments like yours (and mine in NZ).
posted by unearthed at 1:29 PM on January 14 [7 favorites]

Piggybacking on what unearthed just said, back in the day - the first, terrible, day that ran from 2016 to 2020 - there was a pinned post in the banner that said something like Metafilter Has Not Been Audited. Actually I have no idea what it said but the idea was that if mefi specifically had been targeted for an investigation, it would be removed. IIRC it was jessamyn's idea and based on something from a library. I know this has nothing much to do with the politics threads, but, um, it might be good to revive it?
posted by mygothlaundry at 1:38 PM on January 14 [14 favorites]

Also just want to add my voice as someone who very much likes the politics threads and in fact they were a huge lifeline for me during the first Trump "administration." I don't comment much in them but I do read and I do appreciate the links that I otherwise would probably not find in the firehose.
posted by mygothlaundry at 1:41 PM on January 14 [6 favorites]

How hard would it be to create a separate page for news? (and may a suggest a shit-brown color?)

Everything old is new(s) again. (Note the pre-Ask colour scheme.)

As others are saying, we've always posted about and discussed news here, but we know that good posts are more than just a news ticker, and single-link breaking news posts with little or no context are usually ripe for deletion. On the other hand, one of our most famous early threads was a single-link breaking news post.

The issue isn't going to be news per se, I suspect, so much as Trump and co.'s conscious strategy to Flood the Zone With Shit as a way of neutering the media. If we have a post about every bit of that shit then we too will be... in the shit.
posted by rory at 2:59 PM on January 14 [7 favorites]

I think this is a great post!

I want to nth that I always liked the politics/megathreads. The variety of links — much vaster than I saw anyplace else — were always huge draw, but so was cross-country/international insight into what was going on.

I also agree they should be somewhat/totally corralled off, or put into their own section since there has always seemed to be 50/50 interest/disinterest in them: If corralling politics off makes the disinterested happy, it will help keep everyone happy.

Finally, apart from better defining what kind of text goes where on the site, I think we should do a far better job of strongly and consistently encouraging good behavior site-wide:

• No circular firing squads and/or purity tests
• No threadshitting, sanctimoniously or otherwise
• No threadjacking
• No cloaked bullying with an air of righteousness or as a shield against any complaints about someone's behavior.

posted by Violet Blue at 3:46 PM on January 14 [6 favorites]

I think opinions on a newsfilter page will fall into splitters vs lumpers. How does one even determine what is news that merits separation? On a site that already has multiple pages that go unread? And posters believe that posting is too difficult/too subject to disparagement? Maybe do a Trump page but otherwise I favor leaving the site as is, doing proper tagging, and not engaging with discourtesy if one must engage at all.
posted by beaning at 5:49 PM on January 14 [2 favorites]

But some people seem to be thinking that we are here for news, like that's our purpose.

Who are these people? I expect some people appreciate some of the news items shared in MetaFilter, some of those people are even posting in this MeTa. But do people think that's the purpose, the reason, for MeFi? Sorry, a certain someone ruined "Some people" claims for me.
posted by ginger.beef at 5:50 PM on January 14 [6 favorites]

Ok, a compromise. Trump news posts are allowed, but only in Dutch.
posted by Vatnesine at 5:56 PM on January 14 [30 favorites]

mygothlaundry:

there was a pinned post in the banner that said something like Metafilter Has Not Been Audited. Actually I have no idea what it said but the idea was that if mefi specifically had been targeted for an investigation, it would be removed. IIRC it was jessamyn's idea and based on something from a library

This is often called a warrant canary and the use of such notices at libraries following the 2001 enactment of the USA PATRIOT Act was Jessamyn’s idea as well. The library signs often read “The FBI has not been here. Watch very closely for the removal of this sign.”
posted by Songdog at 8:52 PM on January 14 [24 favorites]

It would be amazing if Metafilter simply outright refused any single-link uspolitics post about events more recent than two weeks ago.

I joined on 9/11 and I participated in the megathread about it. I had been reading for a while prior and it seemed like a good place to join. That only focused on news occasionally.

Breathless single-link news posts are already available from every other site on the internet. I don’t mind that news is interesting to discuss, but I think the instinct to race to MeFi and post about news before it’s stale, is perhaps key to the concerns facing us this next four years.

It is nice to be on MeFi and to have the option to bring things to the discussion, but each single-link breaking-newsfilter drains a little of the site’s life away each time. This is an intended outcome by the upcoming outrage-generator, who uses the daily outflow of outrage as a smokescreen to disguise motives and choke the opposition’s lungs.

So I’d like for MeFi to acknowledge the tension between “this atrocious thing was said and I want to discuss it with my friends at MeFi” and “this atrocious thing was said and I don’t know how to bear it without passing it on to my friends at MeFi too”. The blue is a designed community and part of that design was, originally, to not be a place where we seek each other’s support in coping with everyday news events.

Is that design statement still accurate? I don’t know. But it definitely is an aspect of what drew me to this site decades ago. Our modern-era tendency to post breaking-newsfilter posts about today’s latest atrocity are simply adding to the journaling, processing, coping, and counseling burdens that we all have to carry these next few years.
posted by Callisto Prime at 9:15 PM on January 14 [11 favorites]

each single-link breaking-newsfilter drains a little of the site’s life away each time.

Clearly some people feel that way, but not all of us do. Sure, let's put a bit more meat on the bones of a post to make it more accessible to all, but I don't think news (which I'm taking here to mean "political news" rather than "look at this cool scientific discovery" news) is inherently a bad thing to post. Some of us are more interested in politics than others (which is fine!), and those of us who are interested appreciate them.

I found the Brexit threads a great feature of Mefi during those years.They were the in-depth magazine articles to Twitter's news-in-briefs. They ended up being in-depth even when started by a short post, because other commenters added detail and context to them. The post is often just a starting point with news posts; the thread's the thing.

I appreciated how those threads let me hang out with the UK tribe here, those of us who had interesting stuff to say and discuss about Brexit because we were living through it. I see others clustering around uspolitics threads in the same way... and other stories of our time, like AI, Gaza, climate. It doesn't seem inherently worse than posts about history attracting all the history buffs, science attracting the scientists, and so on.

I never click through to every single thread on the front page, and don't end up commenting on most of the ones I do read. But I don't see the ones I don't read as draining the site's life away; threads are the site's life, or at least the most obvious sign of it.

Some simple rules of thumb for posters could help. Will this post provide enough context for others to get their teeth into, or is it the newsfilter equivalent of mystery meat? Does it replicate the theme of a recent and ongoing thread, and could it just be a comment in that instead? Does it have the potential to spark discussion, or is it more likely to lead to a thread full of "surely this"? A lot of that's a judgment call, and some posts will get it wrong, but if we do too much second-guessing it'll lead to paralysis, which really does drain the site's life away.
posted by rory at 12:34 AM on January 15 [8 favorites]

The issue isn't going to be news per se, I suspect, so much as Trump and co.'s conscious strategy to Flood the Zone With Shit as a way of neutering the media. If we have a post about every bit of that shit then we too will be... in the shit.

I think this bears repeating. It's not news and must not be treated as such.
posted by mikelieman at 4:44 AM on January 15 [6 favorites]

The issue isn't going to be news per se, I suspect, so much as Trump and co.'s conscious strategy to Flood the Zone With Shit as a way of neutering the media. If we have a post about every bit of that shit then we too will be... in the shit.

And I think that's the issue for me. The US is in store for four years of breathless coverage of every single little thing he says and I would prefer not to have multiple posts a week for every single little bullshit thing he says. He's gonna say a lot of shit to distract and deflect--it's what he does--but we don't need OutrageFilter every time. Frankly, it would exhaust Americans, non-American members of the site, and the mods. We feed into the cycle of it by giving him so much coverage when he does this. Being very ruthless and clear with moderation when something is worth finding substance may be the key in which people get to vent or do a deep dive of the impact.
posted by Kitteh at 5:10 AM on January 15 [16 favorites]

'Some asshole said some shit' is, generally speaking, not news, even when that asshole is the president, and especially not when they say it on social media (or in an op-ed, or on one of the Sunday morning shows, or...)

'Congress passed a law,' or 'the president signed an executive order,' or 'the Supreme Court ruled on a case,' those things are all news, and seem like the kinds of things that, with a modicum of effort on the poster's part, would make a good post.

Similarly, but on the commenting side: 'let's have another argument about leftists vs liberals,' or 'here's my secret plan to win the 2016 election,' or 'now Trump's going to put Canadians in forced-labor camps and Donald Jr. is going to hunt your family for sport'--those are not comments on the news--they're the kind of things that, hearing someone say them out loud, I might move to a different seat on the bus.
posted by box at 5:36 AM on January 15 [8 favorites]

'Congress passed a law,' or 'the president signed an executive order,' or 'the Supreme Court ruled on a case,' those things are all news, and seem like the kinds of things that, with a modicum of effort on the poster's part, would make a good post.

A statespersonlike compromise. (Though as someone who blues as a sanctuary from all that - surely I’m not the only one? - I would still prefer it ghettoized on a sub-site.)

However, I’m not betting my next paycheck on that modicum of effort being made. Nor on it making any difference to the value of the ensuing discussion.
posted by Lemkin at 6:37 AM on January 15 [2 favorites]

...each single-link breaking-newsfilter drains a little of the site’s life away each time.

On the contrary! I'm with rory: I expect that a story on the NYT or the Economist or Twitter comes with slant and agenda -- but a thread here attracts informed comments and helpful context, along with the Usual Cast of commentary, that balances things out a lot.

News/politics posts on MeFi don't have to be up-to-the-minute, and probably benefit from letting a little time elapsing so things can develop -- but banning them or relegating them denies the quality of the commenters here.
posted by wenestvedt at 8:14 AM on January 15 [7 favorites]

It would be amazing if Metafilter simply outright refused any single-link uspolitics post about events more recent than two weeks ago.

don't knock it until you've tried it.

This has been my overall breaking news tactic for the past almost three years now -- ever since Russia invaded Ukraine. Here was a horrific event happening pretty much half a world away that I personally could do NOTHING about in any kind of immediate sense. So I consciously stopped clicking, stopped tuning in, stopped freely offering my precious attention to the ongoing horrors of the abysmal moment (and those who would profit from it) and otherwise carried on with my life -- its everyday duties and pleasures and this's and thats.

Which doesn't mean I ignored what was going on.

Far from it. I was already subscribed to the Guardian Weekly print magazine which had a habit of showing up in my mailbox roughly ten days after whatever worldbreaking-apocalypse-now event had erupted (thanks, Mom). So I got to read generally solid (sometimes great) news and analysis about how THE WORLD WAS FUCKING OVER (or so it seemed at the time) from the perspective of it not actually having happened. I also, of course, talked to friends and neighbours etc. If something truly dire and life affecting was happening RIGHT FUCKING NOW, trust that I heard about it (and trust that it almost never was, regardless of how compelling the video footage was).

Blah blah blah.

TLDR: it worked. For me. My overall mental health has definitely improved. I could go on but this isn't about me. It is about how a community I care about very much may evolve fresh and invigorating tactics toward engaging with the accelerating confusions of the ever evolving twenty-first century now in which we all find ourselves, ready or not.
posted by philip-random at 8:36 AM on January 15 [5 favorites]

How does one even determine what is news that merits separation?

Well, one fairly clear-cut approach would be anything that could be called "breaking news" - assassination attempt(s), Supreme Court rulings, Congressional hearings, etc.

Something is not merely "news" if it involves reporting over some notable time span - say, ProPublica releases a detailed report on corruption in [x] government office.

But I also think a monthly US Politics mega thread, like the I/P threads, would be fine.
posted by coffeecat at 8:37 AM on January 15 [1 favorite]

I think a major fraction of the MeFi community (and not just US-based) is scared and angry about what's happened/will happen (I know I am). There needs to be something here that addresses that. I don't know what that should be but I'm open to anything that helps even a little
posted by tommasz at 8:43 AM on January 15 [6 favorites]

Liveblogging and fanfiction - both joking and doomsday stuff - are my pet peeves in any large thread. The liveblogging is annoying because it is rarely as newsworthy as it may seem at the time. Sean Spicer being 7 minutes late to a single press conference isn't important, but we got regular updates on that in some threads. Him being 20 minutes late on average might be, especially as part of a larger pattern of disrespecting the media.
The incoming administration thrives on attention. We have to find the balance of not giving them too much but also keeping them in check. "We" is the country and not metafilter, but I think that should be a guideline of how much actually ends up posted here.
Fanfiction is just noise and should not be in large threads. Fiction of any kind should be properly labeled, especially when it involves real people and plausible events. We risk becoming a source of misinformation even if the noise aspect wasn't a problem.
I think trying to separate newsy things would end up adding a layer of argument we don't need.
posted by soelo at 9:41 AM on January 15 [5 favorites]

I still think the logistics of separating out news from non-news or even Trump-focused from non-Trump-focused will lead to the mods needing to respond to issues in ways and time frames that will ultimately be unsatisfactory to at least as few people, especially new posters who may already feel nit-picked about formatting and content. And I'm not trying to overthink edge cases but I don't think it takes much effort to look at past posts and see where such an edict could be cumbersome.

For instance, who decides about perceived double posts? Is international news/events also in the news section? Or posts that should have been in the news but are in the general queue? If this is solely in response to Trump, how long does the edict last past his term? Where do posts fall if phrased as "why do republicans" even if content/response veers Trump-ward?

I'd like to see auto-tagging for Trump posts however this would require posters use Trump with a capital T at least once so avoid misuse with trump as a winning maneuver or those who refer to him by other names.

Also would like to see greater visibility for how to tag and how to use tags to make your experience here better. Maybe something like other sites where tags show at the end of the post along with a comment about "see here to block topics" (rather than in the side column and/or FAQ) would improve awareness of these options.
posted by beaning at 9:47 AM on January 15 [2 favorites]

And the monthly queue for I/P posts only works because a few dedicated and educated people with recognized expertise/reputation take a careful approach to this controversial topic. I wouldn't expect the same care for a heavily USA-based topic in a heavily USA-based site. Which poster here would even take this on with the same credibility, comphrehensiveness and insight?
posted by beaning at 9:50 AM on January 15 [2 favorites]

I am also reposting the request to have a politics free option for popular posts and comments. Filters work well for general browsing, but the popular pages get taken over by a single post and its comments all too often.
posted by soelo at 10:42 AM on January 15 [5 favorites]

I would be for the simple distinction that newsfilter posts should come with multiple links that are not all from the same point in time (ie. Today). It sets a minimum bar of research effort that curbs the “did you see the latest?” generic instinct and forces more nuanced consideration of “what prior weft is this latest thread of news woven with?”. Especially given how easy it is to find Gilded Age parallels for so much of our modern corruption! I would love to see news filtered through the lens of history. I love seeing news posts that take the time to arrange a topic, to refer to other MeFi posts previously, to have anything more than just a link and a copy paste of text unmodified from that link. That lowest-effort one-link copy-paste post is a Reddit post to me, not a MeFi post, and that is what I want to see prevented on MeFi in round two of Captain Orange.
posted by Callisto Prime at 1:08 PM on January 15 [5 favorites]

(tldr) more [more inside]
posted by Callisto Prime at 1:17 PM on January 15

I think a major fraction of the MeFi community (and not just US-based) is scared and angry about what's happened/will happen (I know I am). There needs to be something here that addresses that.

I'm down for a conversation about that if it comes in the comments of an article about emotional or social impacts of the [x policy/news item/whatever.] I also am down for people expressing their concern about specific things, like obviously Meta's decisions about hate speech with respect to LGTBQ2S communities will come with emotional reactions about that (or not, but just saying.)

What I don't love and actually this is one of my main reasons to hope to minimize sort of "general Trump" threads is using them like "screaming into the void." I don't think (personal opinion only) MetaFilter's purpose is to provide venting space. It's like salt. A little bit adds context or perspective. A lot ruins the thread for me and I close it up. I don't like to be someone's venting bag...I love to discuss with people and listen but if people are just like "we're all going to be hit by falling meteors and I am scared to look up in the sky and thanks for listening bye" it's just not for me.
posted by warriorqueen at 1:41 PM on January 15 [20 favorites]

I think a useful hard line would be that Trump actually has to do something for it to be accepted as a post. "Trump says this outrageous/stupid/blatantly-attention-grabbing thing" has been a successful tactic to manipulate this site for many years, and perhaps we could collectively decide to stop falling for it.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 3:43 PM on January 15 [10 favorites]

Remember that MetaFilter is not a news site.

There are four posts on the front page alone (at time of writing) that are single-link posts to an abc.net.au news article. I was told by a mod that those posts don't violate guidelines on topic or source. So it sounds like some news posts are ok, but some news posts aren't? Would love to hear clarification on how you determine what news is "interesting." Because it kind of sounds like you're ok with low-quality news posts becoming the norm, as long as nobody is fighting about it within?
posted by soonertbone at 3:45 PM on January 15

I’d be concerned about a new MetaNewsfilter because we don’t have the postership we had in the early 2000s: the more we fracture, the more dilute, we recruit less. Maybe a MetaNewsfilter could liberalise news posting and discussion, but with past drives asking how to revitalize Metafilter I’m worried about the opposite. Before doing such a thing, I would propose a limited trial period on the main page to test interest.

Trump 2.0: personally I’d love contained posts that let people liberally comment “the craziest thing the executive branch did today.” We’re community for discussion, if you don’t want it don’t read it, and I appreciate having it for posterity (I do use Metafilter posts as Newsfilters for topics of interest because y’all are smart and time is limited). But contain it with a mixed model comparable to Freethreads and the recent I/P threads: partially through mod attention, partially spontaneously community regulated once a structure exists. Something I keep pondering that might help to this end would be to have special active posts that didn’t date out at a month, but instead died after a month of inactivity. We could call them dolphins or something akin to whales. If we wanted to get fancy, have some special tag or way they’re linked like USPolitics, because the I/P threads became boom bust cycles of participation when it hit the front page. I could ramble on…

BTW web archive mirrored offshore Trump 1.0
I’m not paranoid and don’t think it’s necessary (yet). But contingencies are nice for rapid implementation.

*I’m guilty of posting slnewsfilter*
posted by rubatan at 4:21 AM on January 16 [4 favorites]

I apologize, I can no longer keep all of this straight any more…

Is there in fact currently a way to block posts based on tags? Because the mods and I will both be happier if I’m not shown posts on particular subjects.
posted by Lemkin at 9:25 AM on January 16

MyMefi is the way to do that. You would use that as your landing page instead of metafilter.com. I don't use it much, but the preferences allow you to have favorite tags and exclude other tags.
posted by soelo at 9:36 AM on January 16 [1 favorite]

MyMefi is the way to do that

oh yeahhh… that’s the stuff…

I thank you, and the mods thank you.
posted by Lemkin at 9:58 AM on January 16

Thoughts on that being the guideline?

Single link posts are ok, but they really need a couple sentences to give context.

As long as these are guidelines and not hard and fast, this one is ok. But, sometimes "mystery meat" is fun. I've seen posts where the entire thing was just one word as a link. (Maybe even just one character? I can't remember.) I'm saying this now because I expect a full on derail in some future posts about "not enough context!"

Posts about an action remain up, while posts about something someone said in the US administration is removed and possibly directed towards an open thread.

NO!!!!!

From the start, free threads have been politics-free. It used to be mentioned in the description on every one and still is, when the poster remembers. Don't bring politics into the free threads.
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 1:04 PM on January 16 [1 favorite]

1. I think it's fine to NOT have political posts in free threads.

2. The repeat discouragement against political posts is misguided. Different people like different things here. You shouldn't be discouraging political threads just because you (Brandon) and/or other mods either don't like to read or moderate them.

3. Allowing one-link-only posts is fine, but they should be the exception, not the rule. It's true there have been some excellent posts with only one link or one word attached. It's also true that if a post is about an essay, say, more than one link may be completely irrelevant. But, in general, you should be encouraging two or three links per post. It's really not that hard to Google a little extra information about topics, and the result is generally a stronger, less dashed off and more accurate (conspiracy-free) post.
posted by Violet Blue at 1:18 PM on January 16 [1 favorite]

Remember that MetaFilter is not a news site. We're a community weblog where people post interesting links.

As I argued above, I think Metafilter should significantly liberalize around newsfilter. Becoming a place where news is discussed by some (and ignored by others) strikes me as an important way to increase membership.

I recognize that this is not the historical or current policy and of course I’ll defer to the mods, but I’d suggest that 2025 may be the year re-evaluate this specific limitation.
posted by anotherpanacea at 1:22 PM on January 16 [4 favorites]

The repeat discouragement against political posts is misguided. Different people like different things here. You shouldn't be discouraging political threads just because you (Brandon) and/or other mods either don't like to read or moderate them.

The reason that political posts are discouraged is that they result in fights. There are 24 years of threads to back up that statement. And the fights aren't contained to those threads, they constantly spill over. Brandon has had to stay pretty much on top of this discussion so it didn't turn into one.

Not every single site on the internet needs to be fighty. Users can go push their political views on people elsewhere.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 1:24 PM on January 16 [6 favorites]

Avoid doom day like speculation
I think this should read "doomsday"

"Mods don't like them" is a big oversimplification. Brandon is not the only mod to speak out against the workload or moderating these threads. It goes back to 2015 at least. They take over the entire site and starve out other conversation. They take up a lot of mod time, which is literally costing the site money. Putting more rules around them is a sensible thing to do.
posted by soelo at 2:07 PM on January 16 [4 favorites]

"The reason that political posts are discouraged is that they result in fights."

So does a lot of bad behavior here. Bad behavior of all kinds should be discouraged.

"There are 24 years of threads to back up that statement. And the fights aren't contained to those threads, they constantly spill over"

Then classify that as bad behavior, and moderate it, too.

"Users can go push their political views on people elsewhere."

Nobody should be pushing their political views on others. Again, that's bad behavior. But nobody should be discouraging a significant part of the Metafilter population from talking about events of the day that may well impact both our lives and those of others worldwide.
posted by Violet Blue at 2:08 PM on January 16 [5 favorites]

Brandon wrote: "Posts about an action remain up, while posts about something someone said in the US administration is removed and possibly directed towards an open thread."

I think you're on to something creating categories of political posts, especially when it comes to Trump, but I don't think speech/action is the dividing line.*

With Trump, specifically, maybe the issue is the (transitory) outrage of the day vs more durable ideas or actions. It can be framed better than that ... Maybe someone can refine it further?

——
*For example, Biden gave a speech today criticizing America's growing oligarchy. Now, there was just a post about oligarchs on the blue, but if there hadn't been, a departing president warning against oligarchy — think Musk and company — is notable, and otherwise worth a post.
posted by Violet Blue at 2:54 PM on January 16

Official vs. unofficial speech?

There might be some details to iron out, but there always are.
posted by box at 3:08 PM on January 16

"There are 24 years of threads to back up that statement. And the fights aren't contained to those threads, they constantly spill over"

Then classify that as bad behavior, and moderate it, too.

and guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people, which is bad behaviour. But sometimes you've just gotta prioritize taking on the loaded weaponry as opposed to waiting until it gets used and then tell the user, "that was bad, go to your room".

And yes I am saying that so-called political threads can be an existential threat to this community. We need to be wary of them. Big time.
posted by philip-random at 3:10 PM on January 16 [1 favorite]

I think it's a fair thing to distinguish between American political posts and everything else and say that single link posts aren't ok for American political posts. We aren't saying that fun mystery meat posts are never ok but that if it's an American political post, if it has just one link, it better be a good one, and have a few lines explaining.

With the "no doomsday" stuff, I wonder what the mood is on fanfiction style comments? (My feeling is to avoid, but satire can be cathartic)
posted by freethefeet at 7:19 PM on January 16

right
posted by Anthony78 at 3:55 AM on January 17 [1 favorite]

I think of the paradigmatic MeFi post as being a single link to something and some sentences that make a pitch for it being worth checking out, so I'd suggest even "single links are okay, but..." might be going too far in (subtly) discouraging that.

In the oldentimes, a single link to a youtube video was looked at askance, but the derisive part of calling something 'SLYT' was the youtube, not the single link.
posted by nobody at 4:19 AM on January 17 [1 favorite]

(sorry, that was in response to Brandon's proposed language, and then also to some other comments here and there, not to the most recent comments.)
posted by nobody at 4:21 AM on January 17

Just a bit of a rewrite for values and positivity. For the record I think this is too long and will be read rarely, but maybe when it's read it will be taken the right way. Also wondering if this will go/has gone to the board for their thoughts?

Rewrite:

Metafilter is a primarily a community site to share neat/interesting/thoughtful content from around the web (and to answer questions.) We value connection and discussion over points-scoring or posting something in order to mock it. Over time some norms and moderation practices have evolved around political posts:

• In general, we value after-the-fact reflective pieces rather than high-adrenaline breaking news (if it's currently on the front page of most news outlets, it might not be right for here.) Additionally, we value information about political action and its impacts over political rhetoric and speculation.
• Single-link posts are welcome with a line or two of context about what makes this particular link valuable.
• Posts about American politics should be labelled with the tag UsPolitics and where appropriate Trump so that members can filter them out. (About tags | Contact us for help with tags)
• Members can use My Mefi to tailor their experience to include or exclude posts with specific tags. (About My Mefi)
• Please avoid doomsday speculation and conspiracy theory information in posts and comments. (see one rationale)
• We always hope to keep the balance of content more towards delight than despair, so we encourage our community to post other things even at times of heightened political activity.
• We always encourage self-care by taking a break if your emotions are running high. We’ll be here after you go for a walk or similar!
posted by warriorqueen at 6:45 AM on January 17 [9 favorites]

Brandon is not the only mod to speak out against the workload or moderating these threads. It goes back to 2015 at least. They take over the entire site and starve out other conversation. They take up a lot of mod time, which is literally costing the site money. Putting more rules around them is a sensible thing to do.

But don't take our word for it! Let's check out what former mod restless_nomad said after the Fucking Fuck threads were retired:

we decided there was no real way to make it fair to both the people who wanted to express that particular emotion and all the other folks who found that emotion, in aggregate, seriously harmful to their own mental health. This wasn't a judgement of the validity of the feeling or even really of the effectiveness of the rhetorical choices being made - it was making people, including the mods, miserable, and that is not good for the site or the people being harmed. (emphasis mine)

posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 9:26 AM on January 17 [4 favorites]

Remember that MetaFilter is not a news site. We're a community weblog where people post interesting links. If you believe that a news or political link needs or has to be on MetaFilter, please reconsider that thought carefully. But if you're sure about it, please take a little time to frame the link(s) in an interesting way.
Single link posts are ok, but they really need a couple sentences to give context.

So for example, no disrespect intended to AlSweigart, but a post that just popped up on the frontpage is something that has no reason to be on this site. It's purpose is explicitly to draw out anger and solicit people to unsubscribe from the NY Times. There's no invitation to discussion, to agree or disagree, just an immediate framing as "The NY Times is making me angry with this Op-Ed, here's how to unsubscribe."
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 9:32 AM on January 17 [9 favorites]

Pluto Gangsta, you're making the same point that many people have been making recently about "dooming": Don't make other people feel bad just because you feel bad.
posted by Violet Blue at 11:39 AM on January 17

In case I wasn't clear — and I don't think it was — not making other people feel bad because you feel bad is an important principle: no name-calling, no dooming, no trolling, no pushing political or other opinion where it isn't wanted. No happy person is doing that s**t, and they shouldn't take it out on others.

I also think some compromise between the politicos and nonpoliticos is only fair, which is why I endorse cordoning politics off into its own section, and not politicizing otherwise nonpolitical threads.

In terms of what kind of political threads should be discouraged ... I mean, I suspect we can all agree that Trump is a chaos monster who generates more news than he should at the best of times — maybe we can pin down the worst of the outrages of the day.

I'm not sure if the official/nonofficial split works since Trump does so much off the cuff, and Musk is his unexpected co-president ... but from Pluto's characterization it sounds like they think the article cited qualifies as "rage bait" which Urban DIctionary defines as "a post on social media by a news organisation designed expressly to outrage as many people as possible in order to generate interaction."

If the general consensus is that's true — that it is rage bait — and we can find a few more examples just to make sure we're defining it properly maybe that gets at Brandon's "speech," concept. Brandon?
posted by Violet Blue at 7:53 PM on January 17

Can we just plan for a mod or trusted poster to have a Trump 2.0 FPP ready? That would help containment.
Plan A: separate freethread and historical events threads
Plan B: single FPP
Is that too optimistic?
Any volunteers?
posted by rubatan at 3:22 AM on January 18 [1 favorite]

The AlSweigart deletion was a bad one. It was not a news link, but rather an op-ed in the paper of record by a billionaire whose work has touched most of our lives. One could say that the additional links AlSweigart added further in the thread should've been part of the FPP in order to contextualize them; one could say that the action item he adds at the end (essentially, "if you feel bad about this, here's something you can do: unsubscribe") is itself a sort of editorializing. One could guess that the conversation in the thread was only going to go one way.

But a flat deletion doesn't really make sense. It wasn't a link that would really fit into any of the existing threads, and it was not simple ragebait. "Bad person does bad thing" is ragebait; "bad person lays out an explanation for the bad things they want to do" is, like with the recent Peter Thiel FPP, a valid basis for a political FPP, even if it is posted in anger. (Another way to say this is: We live in an oligarchy; we need to be able to talk about oligarchic propaganda and make room for our feelings about this, because that is the politics we are currently living through.)

I hope we can maintain these distinctions in the months and years to come.
posted by mittens at 5:15 AM on January 18 [1 favorite]

The AlSweigart deletion was a bad one

It was a terrible post.

Single-link rage bait plus editorializing, not even on a written op-ed, but just a rich dickhead running his piehole.

If there is interesting web content about oligarchic propaganda, let it be shared.

This wasn't that.
posted by Lemkin at 6:18 AM on January 18 [5 favorites]

Look At What These White Male Assholes Are Doing posts with only a single link are expressly designed to gin up outrage, not inform. And given LAWTWMAAD will happen on days ending with a Y, there does need to be more meat on the bone if they show up on the Blue. I don't think that's a big ask!
posted by Kitteh at 6:33 AM on January 18 [4 favorites]

Can we just plan for a mod or trusted poster to have a Trump 2.0 FPP ready? That would help containment.

This MeTa is more populated than one from last month on this topic, so I'm just copy-pasting my proposal:

A general Trump-hate-sink megathread is opened on the Blue. It comes with an advisory: "THIS THREAD WILL BE LIGHTLY MODERATED. THIS THREAD WILL BE DELETED IN ONE WEEK." It won't be deleted as in 404'd, but simply de-listed. Anyone who has the link can still view it. When one of these is closed, Hate-Sink megathread #2 is opened, again for one week and lightly moderated. And so on.

This alleviates the problem of overloading the moderators, it avoids the threads becoming too long, it gives a bit of an advantage to anyone trying to stay current rather than fixate on a single argument. Any Trump-related threads outside the megathreads comes with an added expectation that the should remain tightly on-topic -- i.e. they are not for trauma dumping or "everything sucks and fascism always wins". If they can't stay on topic, send to deleted pile.

posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 6:49 AM on January 18 [1 favorite]

I am down with trying anything

I do wonder about a person's agency in all this. If you know you're not up to engaging with content, then avoid the FPP. If it's a politics derail strongarmed into an innocent thread, that is what mods are for, and flagging.

I realize there's no consensus on this but it really burns my wick when someone posts a lengthy video and you get comments complaining about the length of the video. Or people bitch about a kliuless post. Just keep scrolling is a valid strategy, no?
posted by ginger.beef at 7:07 AM on January 18 [3 favorites]

Just keep scrolling is a valid strategy, no?

I didn't click into the "do dogs watch TV?" post. But the post does not make MetaFilter a worse place by just being there.

A "be so mad at The New York Times for platforming this rich asshole that you cancel your subscription" post makes MetaFilter a worse place by just being there.
posted by Lemkin at 7:24 AM on January 18 [2 favorites]

A "be so mad at The New York Times for platforming this rich asshole that you cancel your subscription" post makes MetaFilter a worse place by just being there.

Exactly, for certain folks Metafilter has become "the place where I come to talk about how F'd we are" and like that starts bleeding over into other conversations and makes people fighty and can effectively just kill other conversations.

There's just not going to be the same sort of problems with other topics that don't have the same numbers of people who deeply identify as the person who cares about them. Like If someone wanders into the pointy shoe thread and really wants to talk about a cool new life form that doesn't even NEED shoes... then nobody is going to get all het up. But if someone wanders into a thread and brings up Climate change, then people will HAVE FEELINGS and start arguing, and people who want to talk about the original article will scroll through and just decide it's not worth it.
posted by Gygesringtone at 8:00 AM on January 18 [6 favorites]

Like If someone wanders into the pointy shoe thread and really wants to talk about a cool new life form that doesn't even NEED shoes

do go on!
posted by ginger.beef at 8:12 AM on January 18 [3 favorites]

A shorter expiration date makes sense, what if the grar/outrage threads were automatically closed after a week or so?
“This thread has been identified as GRAR/OUTRAGE and will be shut down after x days”

The instinct to come back to a flaming rage war is not the kind of thing I personally want to encourage in myself, and maybe none of you want to be pulled in that direction either? People will get pissy though, it will have to be an actual rule that we can point to.
posted by Vatnesine at 8:18 AM on January 18

A "be so mad at The New York Times for platforming this rich asshole that you cancel your subscription" post makes MetaFilter a worse place by just being there.

That's fair Lemkin, I suppose this whole MeTa boils down to the fact that not everyone would agree that the post in question makes MeTa a worse place. We will have this conversation repeatedly so long as MeFi exists, and to some extent that's a good thing. I totally get that a barrage of those posts on the FP, and topic bleed, is a concern. Again, open to trying things (and recent warriorqueen and BB posts are pointing to a direction we can try)
posted by ginger.beef at 8:19 AM on January 18

Brandon, as long as you're answering questions/participating:

You've mentioned before that nested commenting is actually envisioned as part of the promised new site. Are there any other envisioned features that could be helpful either for users reading or for mods moderating US Politics threads that become fighty/traumatic/depressive? For example:

--Ability to freeze/hide certain nested comment threads?
--time-outs from conversations? (Not just a mod warning to stay away, but literally User X cannot comment in Thread Y for a certain amount of time)
--slow mode for threads? (Where every commenter can only leave a comment once every 1/2/6/12/24/whatever hours)

If any of the above seem outrageous, please remember that other sites have had these tools for about two decades.

#pleaseanswer
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 8:41 AM on January 18

Honestly, we're not talking publicly about any of that at the moment. This thread is focused on getting workable guidelines together for the expected onslaught of Trump politics. So let's focus on that for now, please.

There's a site update due out on by Friday which will mention what progress has been made on the new site. This'll be a general site update and nothing particularly specific about the ideas you or others have mentioned in this thread. Those ideas are being collected for later discussion though.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 8:52 AM on January 18 [1 favorite]

The AlSweigart deletion was a bad one

It was a terrible post.

A "be so mad at The New York Times for platforming this rich asshole that you cancel your subscription" post

for me, it all seems to boil down to one of the better conventions we have around here.

Good post = I think people around here might like to see this ....
Not so good post = I think people around here NEED to see this ...

I mean, I get where AlSweigart is coming from, feel at least some of their rage/frustration. But at some point, I think it makes sense for some things to be deemed too raw for the greater good of the community.
posted by philip-random at 9:30 AM on January 18 [2 favorites]

I had flagged AlSweigart's post as rage-bait, in part because rage-bait has become a habit of this user lately - I flagged mainly to make sure mods realized the pattern. I'd say the main problem with these posts is that they discourage users from even reading the link, so in a way they are a zero link post. Looking at their posting history this isn't the norm for them, and they've made lots of thoughtful posts in the past.

I'd say good post = I think a discussion of the linked material would be productive in some way (whether entertainment, thought-provoking, informative, etc.) There have been good posts where the OP will say something along the lines of "I know the content I'm linking to is controversial for [x] reasons, but here is why I think it's worth discussing..." The topic of Silicon Valley elites shifting from mainly supporting the DNC to the GOP is a fine topic to discuss, and interviews with heinous people are often informative of how these people think. I think it would have been fine to keep the post up, but force an extensive edit to the text itself to make it encouraging of engagement rather than just blind rage.
posted by coffeecat at 10:41 AM on January 18 [1 favorite]

Good post = I think people around here might like to see this ....
Not so good post = I think people around here NEED to see this ...

That particular guideline, even as an aspiration, died out close to a decade ago. One way or another Metafilter has collectively decided that it might like to see what other people think it NEEDS to see.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 10:54 AM on January 18

• Please avoid doomsday speculation and conspiracy theory information in posts and comments. (see one rationale)

If you're going to lightly moderate political threads, which I think is a mistake, frankly, but if that's what you're going to do, I think certain behavior needs to have very high stakes attached to discourage it.

The I/P threads have frequently descended into small groups accusing others of being "pro-genocide" and lots of toe-stepping on MeFi's Jewish community. Often those folks were followed throughout the thread and harassed by multiple people. Similarly, in the worst of Trump I political threads, people often won the thread by calling people "racist," "transphobic" and the like — as a general slur, unprovoked by the topic at hand or anything they said. The mods did not discourage or penalize this behavior in any thread that I saw.

If you look in some of the early MFM posts, there are reams of Mefi refugees talking about being harassed, and the mods doing nothing. I think that kind of harassment should be a timeout offense.

____
Edited to say: I'm linking this to the doomsday/anti-conspiracy bullet point because it's the third rung of what has made people miserable here.
posted by Violet Blue at 12:00 PM on January 18

If you're going to lightly moderate political threads

No one who will be moderating threads has said this or is advocating for it.

If you have suggestions for what has been written about the proposed guidelines, everyone is welcome to share their thoughts,
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 12:10 PM on January 18

"No one who will be moderating threads has said this or is advocating for it."

Just to make sure I understand you, the mods plan to moderate the political threads in a normal way?
posted by Violet Blue at 12:12 PM on January 18 [1 favorite]

The guidelines don't address the question, and you're not providing a clear answer. I think you should. The mods have a long history of "lightly editing" the Grey — and since the Grey, like the political threads, are among the most contentious in MetaFilter history, bad behavior in both has led to the loss of many, many users.

Since there is currently no plan for user retention (as part of, say, a larger strategy involving customer user protocol) and there is currently no plan for user expansion (as part of, say, a larger marketing and outreach strategy), I think "normal" or better "exceptionally careful" moderation of both kinds of threads are to the benefit of the site.
posted by Violet Blue at 12:32 PM on January 18 [2 favorites]

We'll have to agree to disagree on whether the question was answered , but to me the proposed guidelines are about dealing with these specific types of posts (Trump/News/politics) in a standard way.

As to plans for user retention and growth, I'd refer you to the board. I'd also advise anyone from making declarative statements about what is and is not happening if they're not on the board or haven't talked to them, but that's up for people to decide for themselves.

Finally, i'd ask you to stick to the subject of the thread and focus on that. You're welcome to start your own MeTa, but otherwise a lot of your questions are veering off into derails within this
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 2:18 PM on January 18

apologies Brandon for the interpolation. two data sets being a broad outline and the other a question of specificity. the guidelines do answer the question of specificity specifically, are the moderators going to be doing something different or more etc. as stated in the guidelines, overtime practices and norms have changed in political threads. broadly, I interpret this as, we're going to plan accordingly. Part of the plan is suggestions.
To digress, I agree with Phillip, AIS, to me wouldn't stunt post or buff one up. I believe this is what they call an edge case which means no harm no foul in the long run. but I would run this piece in a separate page if this is something that's going to be considered and I realize that is a separate topic.

Plan A: separate freethread and historical events threads

I would go with this, most likely a live type thread with inauguration. the historical events through, would leave up to the moderators, it could be a comparison to past inaugurations to the current one with other interesting information or a concordence ofcurrent news of some of the first published actions that are going to take place on day one.
credit due to warriorqueen for a very nice frame work, it encompasses some of the ethos of metafilter and a framework to deal with the reality of political change.

[• In general, we value reflective pieces rather than high-adrenaline breaking news (if it's currently on the front page of most news outlets, it might not be right for here.) Additionally, we value information about political action and its impacts over political rhetoric and speculation.]

I believe the inauguration will be high adrenaline I don't see a way around that.
for the second thread concerning political action as stated above with day one policies, etc. would be a good example and it would be hard to mix that in with the inauguration thread. oddly, to me, the gentle bankers rickroll on some of the "live" threads are interesting, though, this is based partly in past threads. I must remember for some members,this is their sixth president for others their fifth etc.

[• Single-link posts are welcome with a line or two of context about what makes this particular link valuable.]

As a single linker, I don't feel like I shouldn't post them but encouraged to add more context, this is positive advice. the second two points I agree with.

[Please avoid doomsday speculation and conspiracy theory information in posts and comments. (see one rationale)]

I think this is clear and concise because if you took out speculation what doomsday do you have. This encourages other members to keep posting about climate change, political conflicts that are high tension topics but from sound sources.

"conspiracy theory information"
information is a key operative word and I appreciate this wording is clear and concise. In the cookie meta, which is great, I kind of did the conspiracy thing and I think this is differentiated between joking around as opposed to disseminating and spooling conspiracy theories on the blue or interjecting them into a thesis on the grey.

[... more towards delight than despair, so we encourage our community to post other things even at times of heightened political activity.,]

it's been my experience that this does occur while I would encourage encouragement, I think people find the courage and that something inside them that, I don't know, something yearns out usually involves something that touches the heart and mind rather than break it. Adds but does not soley detract from someone or somethings expense.

[Also, consider creating non-political posts that you and the community can enjoy]

DOTs fanfare crosses are a good example. I really can't add much other than maybe to reach out to other members a little bit more often. I would leave this to the reader's discretion. for those of you who already do this, carry on but over the many years it's been my experience sharing a few notes between members perhaps even some thoughts or letters can be a positive experience and it does take time.
posted by clavdivs at 4:23 PM on January 18

Is there some other way to say "political action"? Because I feel like I kind of get what it means having followed the discussion--like a Supreme Court decision, a law being passed, the trillion-dollar coin gets minted--something that actually happens rather than "person said thing"--but the two words themselves, "political action," sound more like, I don't know, a protest or something? Like I don't read that sentence and immediately think, "happening rather than saying."
posted by mittens at 4:28 PM on January 18

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