I’m getting quite annoyed with MetaFilter, again. It’s not that the posts aren’t good – they are, I’ve seen some moderately good ones recently. It’s that I cannot sum up the enthusiasm to take part in discussions any longer. A thread about the link between autism and vaccines caught my eye today, and I was considering making a reply to some of the awful thinking that was going on in there, went the thought went through my mind, “What’s the point? It’s not as if anyone will actually bother reading or responding to your post properly.”
As I’ve said before, there comes a time when an online community grows too big for unmoderation. MetaFilter passed that stage a long, long time ago, and it’s truly a wonder how it hasn’t collapsed into a heap of trolling yet. Either the user numbers have to go down, or a new moderation system must be put in place. I can’t be the first person who’s been put off from posting in threads due to their precipitous decline in quality.
mssv 