Gifting a Metafilter account

February 16, 2006 7:47 AM

Can I give the gift that keeps on giving? Meaning, a mefi account? As it stands I could pay the five bucks and sign somebody up, but the giftee wouldn't have any control over her username or password and can't change them after the fact.
posted by Saucy Intruder to feature requests at 7:47 AM (19 comments total)

You could set $5 aside and give that person a card saying "Hey, I'm going to give you a MeFi account. Pick your username and password."
posted by trey at 8:00 AM on February 16, 2006

Do you hate this person?
posted by selfnoise at 8:24 AM on February 16, 2006

I actually did what trey suggested with a couple of friends, but I made sure they were already lurking and still sent them links to the new user page and the guidelines.
posted by Penks at 8:52 AM on February 16, 2006

I've bought an account for two different people. I just emailed Matt and he set up a temporary sign-up page so that they could enter their own info. I forget how I handled the donation part though...
posted by iconomy at 9:05 AM on February 16, 2006

Wow, I want to do this. How about a "Give someone an account" system?
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 9:57 AM on February 16, 2006

MetaFilter: The gift that keeps on giving I hate you and your agenda.
posted by Plutor at 9:59 AM on February 16, 2006

Huh, I gave a gift account once- never realized they couldn't change the password. Looks like I have a new sock now!

I keeed, I keeed. YouKnowWhoYouAre, I wouldn't do that to you.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 11:05 AM on February 16, 2006 [1 favorite]

I gift myself sockpuppets regularly. I'm half the 30k-ers. I'm the reason Matt was able to quit his job.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is that I have no one to love. =(

The Gift of Mefi is something I've wanted to see for awhile. Another good idea coming from livejournal to Mefi?
posted by Eideteker at 11:14 AM on February 16, 2006

Yes, I know some fresh meat who is too chicken to sign up for his own account.
posted by keswick at 11:26 AM on February 16, 2006

I've paid for an account for two of my friends, both of them longtime lurkers, and they have been too terrified by you all to post anything at all.
posted by ori at 11:47 AM on February 16, 2006

My Metafilter account is a gift. I thought I was borrowing the money as i don't have a credit card or a paypal account. When I tried to pay it back; he donated my "payback" to the local foodbank.

My benefactor asked me what user name and password I wanted. It was simple.
posted by reflecked at 12:21 PM on February 16, 2006

dang .. I need a punctuation checker.
posted by reflecked at 12:22 PM on February 16, 2006

I just sent $6 (to cover fee & percentage) via paypal to my buddy suess and told her "sign up so that smartalec doesn't rib you about 'crashing' mefi meetups." I suppose she could have just spent it on something else, and it would have been nice to keep paypal from double-dipping but.. *shrug*

Seems easier than Matt coding up support for gift certificates.
posted by phearlez at 1:56 PM on February 16, 2006

Seems easier than Matt coding up support for gift certificates.

A system that would pay for itself. I'd use it.
posted by geekyguy at 4:42 PM on February 16, 2006

You're forgetting that this feature would lead to more revenue per coding hour than any other thing implemented on mefi in the past year. They're sort of like those Dunkin Donuts debit cards. Liquid crack - in debit card form!
posted by Saucy Intruder at 6:10 PM on February 16, 2006

Screw gift accounts. I want Matt to give us donuts.
posted by nebulawindphone at 7:11 PM on February 16, 2006

You're forgetting that this feature would lead to more revenue per coding hour than any other thing implemented on mefi in the past year.

In that it might make $20-200 in a year and most of the rest don't make anything directly? Sure. But nothing's stopping a motivated individual from doing what I did. In fact, now that I look at the PayPal exact costs I could have just sent my friend $5 - there's no fee for her if it's funded out of my bank account.

So what you're proposing is a feature that's completely unnecessary to anyone who's really motivated. How many sales could that reasonably expect to provide? Enough to justify 4-40 hours of Matt's time? It seems unlikely to me.
posted by phearlez at 11:27 AM on February 17, 2006

Saucy Intruder got tired of me IM-ing him about MeFi, so he signed me up for my own account. He would have sooner, but, as selfnoise pointed out, he had to hate me first.
posted by Sprout the Vulgarian at 7:42 AM on February 23, 2006

I hate you!
posted by Saucy Intruder at 11:33 AM on February 24, 2006