Where to find good responses to chatty questions?

March 21, 2007 6:07 PM

Where do I go to ask chatty, open-ended questions to a community as cool as the MeFi community?

Most online forums make me want to throw up in my own mouth, but not this one. The MeFi guidelines are pretty clear about what kind of questions to ask and what kind not to ask, and I think it works well. So where can I go to pose semi-wanky questions to non-wanky people?

posted by nímwunnan to computers & internet (19 comments total)

Pubs are excellent.
posted by unSane at 6:12 PM on March 21, 2007

SomethingAwful has an Ask/Tell forum.
posted by Jairus at 6:16 PM on March 21, 2007

I'm guessing here that you don't mean "wanky" in its onanistic sense...
posted by DenOfSizer at 6:26 PM on March 21, 2007

Metachat?
posted by paulsc at 6:42 PM on March 21, 2007 [3 favorites has favorites]

A number of us post on metachat.org as well. It's more open to pointless/silly/chatty threads.
posted by tylermoody at 6:43 PM on March 21, 2007

Metachat, for sure. It's even cooler than Metafilter, but they aren't so interested in responding to questions as having a good chat. Not that that is a bad thing, it's often fun. Also, threads only live for hours, not days, so ask while the volume is high, like after dinner.
posted by caddis at 6:46 PM on March 21, 2007

Metachat. That's what it's for- chatty stuff not suitable for regular MeFi.
posted by MadamM at 6:49 PM on March 21, 2007

I go to 3waction.com
posted by joannemerriam at 7:07 PM on March 21, 2007

Like Jairus, Something Awful's forums.

There. I said it.
posted by unixrat at 7:19 PM on March 21, 2007

SA's signal to noise ratio is slightly different than mefi's
posted by sid at 7:35 PM on March 21, 2007

The folks at the Straight Dope Message Board are pretty smart and pretty hip. The forums you would probably be most interested in for this type of wankery would be "Great Debates", "In My Humble Opinion", and "Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share".

The only downside is that it's a $15/year subscription — but it's very much worth it. I usually hang around "General Questions", which for my money is the equal of Ask MeFi as far as factual answers, without a question/fortnight restriction.
posted by Johnny Assay at 7:54 PM on March 21, 2007

Seconding Straight Dope Message Boards and Three Way Action. Or thirding.
posted by Savannah at 8:29 PM on March 21, 2007

Hah. I had almost forgotten about 3wayaction.com...
posted by drstein at 9:07 PM on March 21, 2007

Please don't clutter up MetaChat with "semi-wanky questions". It's a community, not the go-to site when you want to know how often people piss in their garden or whatever.
posted by cmonkey at 1:01 AM on March 22, 2007 [2 favorites has favorites]

It's more open to pointless/silly/chatty threads.

Absolutely untrue. My attempt to be chatty/silly there got me a permaban with extreme prejudice. The mod there is a cold and humorless person.
posted by Meatbomb at 6:52 AM on March 22, 2007

I've looked for something as good as Metafilter, but I couldn't find it. It's a unique environment full of mature people. Such a thing is stunningly rare out there on the Internet.

And that's why I stumped-up my $5 to join a few weeks ago.

{grouphug—ahhhh...}
posted by humblepigeon at 7:34 AM on March 22, 2007

The mod there is a cold and humorless person.

how untrue, they are one of the friendliest group of mods on the internets, but you still have to respect the community. You must have been pretty naughty to get kicked out of that place.
posted by caddis at 7:58 AM on March 22, 2007

Hah. I had almost forgotten about 3wayaction.com...
posted by drstein

Come visit! It's free again, and I am 99% sure your account is still open.
posted by astruc at 8:45 AM on March 22, 2007

Adding, the correct URL is http://www.3WAction.com.
posted by astruc at 8:47 AM on March 22, 2007