Best Of MetaFilter

Chocolat de Bonnat. Côte d'Ivoire by EverJean (cc by)

I work in southwestern Cote d'Ivoire, just on the border of Cote d'Ivoire and Liberia. The men I employ are largely cocoa farmers, when they're not in the forest taking complex observational data on primate behavior and ecology.

ChuraChura responds to, and takes some issue with, a video of Ivorian cacao farmers tasting chocolate for the first time, plus gives a larger picture of the day-to-day reality of the tough economics of farming in the region.

The Old Room of Macabre Detritus by Stuck in Customs (cc by-nc-sa)

I want to know more about the material culture of a large English country house or great house in the Victorian era. ...if a house like this somehow got frozen in time, and you came along a century later and could wander around inside, what would you find?

Among the answers, Jane the Brown offers a very nice overview of the state of the estate.

Hawaii by tico_manudo (cc by-nc-nd)

My family and I are planning a trip to Hawaii, but we don't know where to even start.

Kathryn gives great, detailed advice for visitors to the Aloha State.

Dad and daughter by Peter Werkman (www.peterwerkman.nl) (cc by)

On a question about dads wanting to learn the basics of feminism to better prepare their daughters for the world, EmpressCallipygos talks about how her dad raised her in a supportive way without deep knowledge of the field.

You don't have to have a degree in women's studies or a nuanced understanding of gender politics to raise independent-minded daughters. My father certainly didn't - he went to trade school instead of college and that kind of theoretical book-study was really not what he was into.

Sex Workers Rights Protest by Eliya (cc by-nc)

FYI, I'm one of the authors. I can answer specific questions.

Mefi's own scunning shows up to comment on a post about what their research revealed when prostitution was inadvertently decriminalized in Rhode Island, and invites comments, criticism, and hypotheses.

On the bottom level there was a trampoline-walkway up to a trampoline spiral which goes up to the middle layer if you don't want to climb the laddery-ramp thing instead. However the laddery-ramp thing was pretty steep and had a rope with loops to hold on to, which let me pretend to be Adam West's Batman, so it was kind of a toss-up as to which was funner between the ramp and the spiral.

Mefite aubilenon reports back first hand on the newly opened "Bounce Below," a giant network of trampolines and slides mounted to the walls of an abandoned Welsh slate mine at heights of 20 to 180 feet off the ground.

talking again by mediamolecule (cc by-nc-nd)

From The Vaults:

How do you fake American?, 2008

... what if you're not an English speaker, and you want to fake-speak English, or more precisely, American? How does it sound?

And more: Imitation English, 2003

What are the stereotypes of the native English speaker's accent as perceived by non-English-speakers?, 2004

How does one speak "pretend English"?, 2005

Linguaesthetics, 2006

198.365 a box full of letters addressed to me, #363 in explore by ashley rose, (cc by-nc-nd)

On a sunny January morning at the Burggymnasium Altena, Herr Hohage instructed us to close the blinds on our floor to ceiling windows. The day before, we had asked him how people could be taken in by [Hitler]. He intended to demonstrate.

In the Hitler practice photos thread, MissySedai recalls her time as a young exchange student in Germany, a shattering classroom lesson on the persuasive power of Adolf Hitler, and the letters home that processed the pain.

kimberly-ellen-hall nottene JULY calendar by brella (cc by-nc-sa)

Viggorlijah posts a Metatalk inviting women to participate in a July experiment to increase front page posts by women: "Women post to the front page proportionally less often, and I want to see if we can shift that. By my calculations ... only about 8% (lowballed because women don't identify themselves always on profiles) of FPPs are made by women. This is much lower than the number of self-reported women on Metafilter, and lower than the percentage of women commenting."