1. So one of the things I do at Metafilter is delete, for one reason another, a small portion of the posts that our users put up on the front page each day.

2. For example, this was a double post, and those are routinely removed — once something has had a shot on Metafilter, that’s pretty much it.

3. When we remove posts, we leave a deletion reason explaining to whatever degree with think is necessary what’s going on with the deletion, so that the poster and any curious readers have a little context for why the post went away.

4. (Posts that are deleted remain viewable at their original url, as in (2) above, but don’t show up to search engines or get listed in the site archives, etc.)

5. If the reason for deletion is pretty much self-explanatory and there’s nothing really at stake emotionally with the deletion (i.e. it’s not a contentious issue, no malicious intent on the poster’s part, no apparently newbie confusion, etc), I might provide a sillier or jokier reason than normal.

6. For example, again, the deletion reason in (2), where I went sort of meta-memetic, as such:

This post was deleted for the following reason: now we just need someone to combine this with that old tapestry-art meme and call it “thru thou” and the last track will be called “Play Him Hence, Lute Cat” and we’ll basically be all set. — cortex

7. Sometimes, people will read these deletion reasons and laugh to themselves and then that’s all that happens.

8. But sometimes, they will draw an awesome picture of Lute Cat.