Usually anonymous questions are posted within a few days. Some types of questions may not be approved such as illegal, repetitive, trollish, unanswerable or obvious questions, or ones that don't appear to require anonymity. If you have a question about the status of your anonymous question, you can contact mathowie or jessamyn.
(tags: anonyme askmetafilter anonymous askme ) April 20, 2006 - back to questions

Ask Metafilter questions need to have some possible answer or should be asking for information that will be put to some practical use. Chatty open-ended questions diminish the usefulness of Ask Metafilter and push other questions off the front page. If you want to avoid having your question flagged and possibly removed, here are some things to avoid.

- Questions where everyone's answer is equally valid along the lines of "What's your favorite X?". Maybe there is a reason you want to know? Super, just put it in your question.
- Asking the question and giving your own answer before getting the answers of others, saying some variant of "I'll go first" If you can authoritatively answer your own question, it's probably not right for AskMe.
- Questions with no problem to be solved or where the problem is some variant of "I'm curious if other people feel like I do"
- Open-ended unanswerable or hypothetical questions like "What if Hitler had never been born?" or made up "what if" science questions. Creating arbitrary constraints and then playing "what if" is not a good use of AskMe.
- Questions that are some version of "What is the deal with X?"or "X sucks, am I right?" tend to not go well on Ask MetaFilter. Please do not rant on AskMe and pretend it is a question.

Put another way "...if your motivation for asking the question is 'I would like to participate in a discussion about X,' then you shouldn't be doing it in AskMe. If your motivation is 'I would like others to explain X to me,' then you're probably OK."
(tags: askme askmetafilter chatfilter deletion ) May 3, 2006 - back to questions

Sometimes, but rarely. It's against the rules to link to your own site, a site that you host or contribute to substantially or a site of someone who is a close friend or relative of yours. People who self-link in front page posts on MetaFilter will have their posts removed and their account banned. Transparency and honesty are important to the community and we rely on users to abide by the guidelines and participate honestly.

Including a link to your own site in a comment is okay provided that it has some relevance to the topic being discussed and is not your only form of site particpation. Random off-topic insertions of self-links into other posts are discouraged and such links may be removed.

Linking to your own site in an Ask MetaFilter question is only okay if it has something specific to do with the question being asked, for example "Can you look at my logo and tell me why everyone thinks it looks like a devil?" or "What else do I need to do to this website to make it ADA compliant?" Other self-links will be removed.

Ask MetaFilter questions that seem to be thinly veiled self-promotion will be removed. Do not use Ask MetaFilter to drive traffic to your site or your friend's site or sell a product or service. Questions that seem to be being asked with the intent to promote a poster's product or service or friend's product or service will be removed and the participating accounts banned. Feel free to include a link to your work in your profile and people can click through to it. If you are unsure about a specific example, please contact us.

Please use MetaFilter Projects for self-promotion and tooting your own horn.
(tags: askme askmetafilter self-link projects selflink ) May 10, 2006 - back to questions

There are several boxes to fill in when posting an AskMe question. The box called "your question" will be the part of the question that appears on the main page. This should be a short version of your question. The next box called "extended explanation" will be the [more inside] part of your question and can be as long as you want. The words "more inside" will automatically be added to the end of your question. The "Headline/Title" box will create a title for your post that is only visible when people view Ask Metafilter via RSS. Please do not use this box to include information that is necessary to your question because people viewing your question on the web site will not see it on the main Ask MetaFilter page, they will only see it when they view the question on its own page.
(tags: askme askmetafilter moreinside ) July 21, 2006 - back to questions

You can't delete or edit your own post once you've submitted it, so be sure to use the preview and spellcheck features. If you want to have your post removed, contact one of the admins. Please do not post a question to AskMe assuming you can have it removed once it has been answered. This is unfair to the people who answered the question and diminishes the usefulness of the site.
(tags: askme askmetafilter delete ) August 22, 2006 - back to questions

Ask MetaFilter has more strict guidelines than MetaFilter. If an Ask MetaFilter thread is removed, there will be a reason for deletion at the old URL for the question. Ask MetaFilter questions should have a purpose or a problem to be solved. Since members get one AskMe post per week, please do not try to jam multiple questions into a single question, a few related questions in one post are fine.

Common reasons for thread removal are chatfilter questions, open-ended hypothetical questions, rants posing as questions, questions asking how to do things that are illegal or borderline illegal, questions asking for detailed personal/private information, "why does X suck/not suck?" questions, and nonsense questions.

Ask MetaFilter comments should address the question being asked. Common reasons for comment removal are gratuitous wisecracks, derailing/ranting/axegrinding, picking a fight with or heavy chastising of the question asker, single word posts (yes, no, maybe &c.) and other non-answers that should probably be brought to MetaTalk.
(tags: askme askmetafilter comments posts ) September 10, 2006 - back to questions