Item — HN Reader

Sad to hear this.

I got into some ugly argument right on the very first try at participating in a discussion on the site, wasn't really impressed by how the mods handled it (although the one I PM'd was actually quite okay), and never really gave it another try.

I always felt like I'm really missing out and this was probably all just bad luck and a bad combination of personalities in this specific comment thread, but whenever I went back to the site those memories kind of killed the fun for me and I never commented again.

sigh

3 comments

This pretty much happened to me too, a regular user went after me particularly viciously. It was a bad enough experience that I never posted again. That was in 2002/2004-ish. Ten years on and that enormous asshole is still a regular contributor. I have nothing against the moderators, they are some of the best on the 'net. I don't even have a problem with most of the participators there. But there are about three regular users that for me cause so much hatred to well up when I see just their usernames, that I rarely ever go back.

That's not that weird. When I moderated Tagmax, I made it a policy to "welcome people at the door" and try to make their first experience a positive one. My observation was those folks who had a positive initial experience came back and participated enthusiastically. Those who had a negative first experience we seemed to never hear from again.

So I think you aren't at all strange. I don't know what the policies on MetaFilter are but my experience as a moderator suggests that keeping an eye on the site "virgins" and making sure their initial experiences are positive is super important in shaping the site and growing it.

I am sorry you had such a negative experience. I get a lot of value out of MetaFilter, though it has been a long process for me to figure out how to fit in. But, I am not you and some of my issues are specific to me, not to MetaFilter and ...yadda yadda.

Totally agree with you.

I used to read Metafilter for many years, and even paid the $5 to start commenting. I stopped though since unlike many members of that site, I tend to be pretty conservative in my views, and it always seemed as if the mods had a vendetta against beliefs too different from their own. Turned me off completely.

What do you mean by "vendetta"?

I'm not particularly conservative, but I am relative to Metafilter and I've argued center-to-right positions there (for example, pro-life).

I think it's true to say that it can be very challenging to engage the membership in a way that goes against the lefty gestalt, and if/when you do, there are certainly members who will be less than kind or thoughtful about responding to that kind of participation. But I've rarely had any problem with negative attention from the mods, certainly nothing that I'd describe as a vendetta.