Or, yanno, just a "hey, check this out. [link]" Because--as both you and KRyan seem to be misunderstanding--this isn't a popularity contest or an open debate. The people who a meta post are contacting are not the moderators or the citizens; it's the site owners, whose Elf Eyes See All, even deleted comments.
In that context, arguments that mxy "hides behind his moderator powers" or anything else like that are either deliberate excuses to avoid action, or indicate grave misunderstanding of the SE oversight process.
(Can you tell that I've lost patience with this whole "show up in chat and spew bile while whinging that it's useless to act" thing? KRyan used up what little I had left while you were gone.)
Meta posts, by their very existence, document the history of the thing and call the attention of the SE Overlords who read every. single. meta. post.
Comments and chat rants do nothing but rile up bad feeling and poison the whole thing by making it unclear who "started it" and making it hard to take the complaints seriously when they come from petulant potty-mouths.
