Metabiorhythms July 3, 2007 4:30 PM Subscribe
I'm a heavy user. I read a LOT of posts. So, I'm amused at how my usage of this site has developed and cycled, and I'm interested in hearing anecdotes from others about patterns or changes in their mefi experience. More inside.
While it's not directly addressing the question as posed, this thread from a couple days ago has a lot of how-I-read-the-site nuggets.
posted by cortex (staff) at 4:37 PM on July 3, 2007
posted by cortex (staff) at 4:37 PM on July 3, 2007
Actually, I joined, posted once, got no response, lurked for a few years, the re-emerged on the blue and a legend was born.
posted by jonmc at 4:40 PM on July 3, 2007
posted by jonmc at 4:40 PM on July 3, 2007
cortex! Come back here and answer the question! Inquiring minds!
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 4:40 PM on July 3, 2007
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 4:40 PM on July 3, 2007
I'm kinda like jomnc. Except for the "legend was born" part. Saw Metafilter mentioned on one of those "Web Log" things we used to have back in 2000, signed up, then promptly forgot about it for quite a while. Nowdays I hit the grey first to make sure I haven't missed a vital flame-out, then check the blue for anything interesting, then check the green.
posted by Jimbob at 4:54 PM on July 3, 2007
posted by Jimbob at 4:54 PM on July 3, 2007
I have a deep love for MetaTalk. I tend to read MeFi less often, and skim AskMetafilter, but definitely see cycles of questions that I am not useful for and some spate of "oh, maybe I can answer that." Music happens on weekends, because it's blocked at work. I am too lily-livered to post much of anything.
posted by that girl at 4:59 PM on July 3, 2007
posted by that girl at 4:59 PM on July 3, 2007
I join, read, comment, make a painfully stupid post to meta, hide, sneak back in, comment, and remind everyone that I once made a painfully stupid post to meta.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
posted by davejay at 5:00 PM on July 3, 2007
Lather, rinse, repeat.
posted by davejay at 5:00 PM on July 3, 2007
I lurked for ages until they opened Music. When I discovered it I couldn't resist and joined.
I fell in love with it, and I was discombobulated with what seemed like an eternal dry spell in Music recently.
Now, thanks to Sir chuckdarwin, Music is thriving again, and I am actually very thankful for the opportunity you gave me indirectly to say: chuckdarwin, if I was in charge of handing out the Nobels, you would be looking at air-tickets to Oslo.
posted by micayetoca at 5:14 PM on July 3, 2007 [1 favorite]
I fell in love with it, and I was discombobulated with what seemed like an eternal dry spell in Music recently.
Now, thanks to Sir chuckdarwin, Music is thriving again, and I am actually very thankful for the opportunity you gave me indirectly to say: chuckdarwin, if I was in charge of handing out the Nobels, you would be looking at air-tickets to Oslo.
posted by micayetoca at 5:14 PM on July 3, 2007 [1 favorite]
I only read the site to see what Ambrosia Voyeur has to say.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:22 PM on July 3, 2007
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:22 PM on July 3, 2007
I only read the site to see what Brandon Blatcher has to say.
posted by solotoro at 5:26 PM on July 3, 2007
posted by solotoro at 5:26 PM on July 3, 2007
I only read the site to see what I had to say. Usually the next morning.
posted by jonmc at 5:27 PM on July 3, 2007 [6 favorites]
posted by jonmc at 5:27 PM on July 3, 2007 [6 favorites]
I lurked the blue and green for a year or two before I joined. AskMe was the reason I joined, 'cause I kept seeing questions I could answer sink to the bottom of the screen with no responses and it drove me !@#$%^ nuts.
I keep MeFi, AskMe, MeTa and my comments open in separate tabs and cycle through them all day.
I get most of my web fun here, so the chances of me posting anything that hasn't been seen already is pretty slim.
posted by lekvar at 5:50 PM on July 3, 2007
I keep MeFi, AskMe, MeTa and my comments open in separate tabs and cycle through them all day.
I get most of my web fun here, so the chances of me posting anything that hasn't been seen already is pretty slim.
posted by lekvar at 5:50 PM on July 3, 2007
An amount of the site is placed on a spoon with some water. All the threads are crushed out of the front page and then its heated until it starts bubbling (don’t continue boiling it, as this burns the content out). If the messages don't seem clear, you can add some citric acid, but be careful with this as it can cause a nasty burn (rash on your arm).
Once the messages seem clear, a small filter (cigarette filter/cotton wool) is added and the messages are drawn into the syringe through this, to filter out any grit. The solution shouldn't be scalding hot as this damages the veins and all air bubbles must be removed from the syringe before injected. Once a vein is located and the needle inserted, the plunger is pulled back to make sure that the needle is in the correct place - indicated by blood flowing into the barrel of the syringe. The messages are then pushed slowly into the vein. Many users then backwash, which means that when its finished, they pull back a few mils of blood and then push back in, which rinses out the barrel making sure that they get every last comment.
posted by Dave Faris at 6:00 PM on July 3, 2007 [8 favorites]
Once the messages seem clear, a small filter (cigarette filter/cotton wool) is added and the messages are drawn into the syringe through this, to filter out any grit. The solution shouldn't be scalding hot as this damages the veins and all air bubbles must be removed from the syringe before injected. Once a vein is located and the needle inserted, the plunger is pulled back to make sure that the needle is in the correct place - indicated by blood flowing into the barrel of the syringe. The messages are then pushed slowly into the vein. Many users then backwash, which means that when its finished, they pull back a few mils of blood and then push back in, which rinses out the barrel making sure that they get every last comment.
posted by Dave Faris at 6:00 PM on July 3, 2007 [8 favorites]
I have a similar pattern to jonmc. I was on a bit in 2004, then wandered off for a few years. I'll admit, at first when I'd read mean things people would say to eachother, I didn't know how to not take it personally so I got turned off & walked away. Then I started looking at it again when I began working at home. By that time my skin was thicker & I started having more fun here. Now I mostly use it to avoid concentrating on things I'm supposed to be concentrating on. Every once in a while I realize I need to go back to actually being productive so I shall probably disappear again someday. But of course after a while I'll dramatically reappear again with a gigantic "Taaa Daaaaa!" to see if anyone remembers me.
But honestly? I only read the site to see what jonmc has to say about what I have to say.
posted by miss lynnster at 6:00 PM on July 3, 2007
But honestly? I only read the site to see what jonmc has to say about what I have to say.
posted by miss lynnster at 6:00 PM on July 3, 2007
And unlike Dave Faris, I prefer an intravenous drip.
posted by miss lynnster at 6:01 PM on July 3, 2007
posted by miss lynnster at 6:01 PM on July 3, 2007
Hmm, that's funny, lekvar! That's why I joined too, after years of lurking. When I first started reading Metafilter, memberships were closed, then open for about an hour a day or something like that. I never managed to sign up quickly enough. I was happy enough to lurk. But then, I kept seeing AskMe questions that I thought I could answer helpfully, so I got sucked in.
I am addicted to AskMe. I check it a lot--although I check the blue a lot too. I'd say I spend about 80% of my internet time reading Metafilter. Eek.
Maybe one day I'll post something on the blue. But so far everything that's occurred to me would have been a double.
On preview: Dave Faris, ha! That's a little too close to home.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 6:02 PM on July 3, 2007
I am addicted to AskMe. I check it a lot--although I check the blue a lot too. I'd say I spend about 80% of my internet time reading Metafilter. Eek.
Maybe one day I'll post something on the blue. But so far everything that's occurred to me would have been a double.
On preview: Dave Faris, ha! That's a little too close to home.
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 6:02 PM on July 3, 2007
I discovered Metafilter following September 11 2001, and was initially attracted to the intelligent and insightful discussion. I suppose I hadn't really considered Americans to be either intelligent or insightful and over the years this place has raised my opinion of US Citizens.
I read the blue the most, it is like reading the world news section of Wednesdays newspaper - on Monday.
I have never really been that keen on the green.
posted by Samuel Farrow at 6:55 PM on July 3, 2007
I read the blue the most, it is like reading the world news section of Wednesdays newspaper - on Monday.
I have never really been that keen on the green.
posted by Samuel Farrow at 6:55 PM on July 3, 2007
I've been lurking forever (best guess is summer 2001, because I came here for 9/11), but even after finally joining it took me more than 6 months to post anything. Like many others, I just couldn't help myself and started to chime in on Ask. Just recently posted for the first time on the blue, never really had anything that I felt was worthy of an FPP.
I do most of my commenting on the green, but I read a lot of MeFi too, depending on the content and on how much time I have. I have only recently (last year or so) started poking my head in here. My iPod is full of stuff from Music, which I've been checking at least once a week since the beginning (thanks for my awesome collection!).
There are definitely cycles in how much time I spend here each week, though, and it's pretty much tied in to the amount of sniping or whining in the comments. If there are a few days where the threads I read degenerate into a bunch of name calling, I'll usually skip coming all together for a few days before being sucked back...
It's primarily tied to RL though. The more stuff I have going on, the less I read and the less I post. With husband out of town and the weather too hot to go outside, I've been posting a lot lately.
posted by gemmy at 7:06 PM on July 3, 2007
I do most of my commenting on the green, but I read a lot of MeFi too, depending on the content and on how much time I have. I have only recently (last year or so) started poking my head in here. My iPod is full of stuff from Music, which I've been checking at least once a week since the beginning (thanks for my awesome collection!).
There are definitely cycles in how much time I spend here each week, though, and it's pretty much tied in to the amount of sniping or whining in the comments. If there are a few days where the threads I read degenerate into a bunch of name calling, I'll usually skip coming all together for a few days before being sucked back...
It's primarily tied to RL though. The more stuff I have going on, the less I read and the less I post. With husband out of town and the weather too hot to go outside, I've been posting a lot lately.
posted by gemmy at 7:06 PM on July 3, 2007
AskMeFi caught my eye first, by way of its compassionate, quirky, and hugely informative responses. And for the longest time I thought of the site as a kind of collective Dear Abby with major ‘tude and coolness, along with some mitigating common sense and a few token idiocies. I was extremely humbled by how helpful the responses were for my first post.
And then I happened on a thread where a couple of MeFites came to "fuck-you-no-fuck-YOU" blows over noisy kids in airplanes. My first response: I’m outta here. My second: holy crap, that was entertaining. Where can I find more of this? And Lo! An addiction to MetaTalk was born.
I'm a little embarassed to admit it, but some of the collective MeFi writing style crept into my e-mails at work, and for a few weeks I was at serious risk of losing my job for excessive snarkiness. Anyway, that’s neither here nor there.
I lurk, post, cower, lurk, post, and so on. As with any extended community there are the usual turnoffs (in-jokes and [temperate] hostility to n00bs) and the usual attractions (sheer brilliance and zaniness).
I do like the way number one starts most of his posts with "yeah." It seems to set the tone for the laconic goodness of this place, while providing a suitable pause before the comedic and potentially deadly sting.
posted by YamwotIam at 7:39 PM on July 3, 2007 [2 favorites]
And then I happened on a thread where a couple of MeFites came to "fuck-you-no-fuck-YOU" blows over noisy kids in airplanes. My first response: I’m outta here. My second: holy crap, that was entertaining. Where can I find more of this? And Lo! An addiction to MetaTalk was born.
I'm a little embarassed to admit it, but some of the collective MeFi writing style crept into my e-mails at work, and for a few weeks I was at serious risk of losing my job for excessive snarkiness. Anyway, that’s neither here nor there.
I lurk, post, cower, lurk, post, and so on. As with any extended community there are the usual turnoffs (in-jokes and [temperate] hostility to n00bs) and the usual attractions (sheer brilliance and zaniness).
I do like the way number one starts most of his posts with "yeah." It seems to set the tone for the laconic goodness of this place, while providing a suitable pause before the comedic and potentially deadly sting.
posted by YamwotIam at 7:39 PM on July 3, 2007 [2 favorites]
I lurked for several years reading only the blue, then became enamored of the green, which is where I leave most of my (not many) comments nowadays. Until you're a commenter, MeFi is a links blog (then it's a bulletin board); it returns to links-blog state once you've gotten tired of endless replays of, like, the 36 canonical flamewars.
AskMe is interesting to me now for two reasons: (1) genuinely helpful questions I wouldn't have thought of, and (2) the endless, astonishing stupidity on display in the 'relationships' questions. My misanthropy gets lubed, stroked, and cuddled in those threads. Not least the 'I love him/her but he/she treats me like shit, what should I do?' stuff, with its inevitable kneejerk 30x-chorus of 'Get therapy!' Bless this place.
posted by waxbanks at 7:48 PM on July 3, 2007
AskMe is interesting to me now for two reasons: (1) genuinely helpful questions I wouldn't have thought of, and (2) the endless, astonishing stupidity on display in the 'relationships' questions. My misanthropy gets lubed, stroked, and cuddled in those threads. Not least the 'I love him/her but he/she treats me like shit, what should I do?' stuff, with its inevitable kneejerk 30x-chorus of 'Get therapy!' Bless this place.
posted by waxbanks at 7:48 PM on July 3, 2007
No one really likes to discuss the details of their addictions.
posted by caddis at 7:48 PM on July 3, 2007
posted by caddis at 7:48 PM on July 3, 2007
Joined, obsessed, left for two years, came back, snowball started rolling down the hill, now I can't turn it off... please.. someone... turn it off...
please?
posted by blue_beetle at 8:07 PM on July 3, 2007
please?
posted by blue_beetle at 8:07 PM on July 3, 2007
I was just thinking about this AV after reading the post cortex linked to.
I lurked here for a year or two because I try to not to spend too much time on the internet. And link aggregators help me find the good stuff quickly. usually it was robotwisdom, mefi and cup of chicha (when it was active - god I had a crush on that girl - Nathalie Chicha where are you?). Mefi began to take over and I think that one thing that sucked me in was that it has always run a little slow for me. So I would click on a post, it wouldn't load, so I would click on the comments to see if people thought the link wa worth it or not. Then I got addicted to the personalities.
I went from the blue to the green for a while, but lately I have realized that I don't visit ask much at all, and i need to change that, because for all the noise, it is still pretty amazing that strangers help each other like that with so little friction. I NEVER went to meta, but lately I check it first, because I still have a crush on a lot of the personalites around here and most days, that is where they can be found.
posted by vronsky at 8:12 PM on July 3, 2007
I lurked here for a year or two because I try to not to spend too much time on the internet. And link aggregators help me find the good stuff quickly. usually it was robotwisdom, mefi and cup of chicha (when it was active - god I had a crush on that girl - Nathalie Chicha where are you?). Mefi began to take over and I think that one thing that sucked me in was that it has always run a little slow for me. So I would click on a post, it wouldn't load, so I would click on the comments to see if people thought the link wa worth it or not. Then I got addicted to the personalities.
I went from the blue to the green for a while, but lately I have realized that I don't visit ask much at all, and i need to change that, because for all the noise, it is still pretty amazing that strangers help each other like that with so little friction. I NEVER went to meta, but lately I check it first, because I still have a crush on a lot of the personalites around here and most days, that is where they can be found.
posted by vronsky at 8:12 PM on July 3, 2007
Lurked on and off for a year or so, some heavy lurking the last 6 months before I finally signed up. When I have a day job, I read it at work. When I don't have a day job, I read it at work. When I don't have a job, I just read it and read it.
Skim the blue, only jump into threads if it seems some interesting discussion might come about. Posting a rare fpp but that usually ends up a shame spiral. For a while I AxMe-d like crazy, now I just skim and jumped in based on prurient interest or otherwise something that resonates personally and I feel I can contribute. On the gray, I jump in when it looks like it will be fun, which varies depending on how much time I have.
posted by SassHat at 8:20 PM on July 3, 2007
Skim the blue, only jump into threads if it seems some interesting discussion might come about. Posting a rare fpp but that usually ends up a shame spiral. For a while I AxMe-d like crazy, now I just skim and jumped in based on prurient interest or otherwise something that resonates personally and I feel I can contribute. On the gray, I jump in when it looks like it will be fun, which varies depending on how much time I have.
posted by SassHat at 8:20 PM on July 3, 2007
Phase 1: stumbled on a thread with impressive discussion of Beethoven of all things. Wow, this in informative, intelligent. I want in.
Phase 2: read about everything on metafilter. Wow.
Phase 3: felt an alienating effect of hanging out on mefi on my emotional life. Stopped hanging around here so much.
Phase 4: skim for the highlights: informative posts, interesting discussions and really non-sensical threads. But these are not as much fun without the images. Trying to avoid aspects that I find irritating: prominent-mefites-culture, in jokes, american politics threads (I'm not from the US) and a lot more things. And yeah; that's a lot.
Usage: reading when I can't sleep.
I'm amazed that people read mefi at work. I can't combine any reading of mefi at all with my responsibilities at work. Are most mefites at-home workers and lowest rung grunts? I can't imagine.
I have often wondered about anonymous askmefi questions on embarrassing topics: if you don't want to be known as asking you can't be surprised that I don't want to be known answering from my experiences.
And a really stupid thing; I keep being fascinated by the fact that most of you live in the US (and Australia and UK) and that everything is in a foreign language to me. I don't know why that would be so interesting. I guess it's virtual travel; really meeting another culture instead of looking at the scenery.
At least meeting you guys has mitigated my view of Americans. This view used to be skewed by WW II. I was raised a bit to be thankful that the Brits, Canadians and USians liberated us from the Germans.
With Bush et al. this had really swung the other way.
Oh man; 5 am. I've got a heavy day at work in front of me and still can't sleep.
posted by jouke at 8:31 PM on July 3, 2007
Phase 2: read about everything on metafilter. Wow.
Phase 3: felt an alienating effect of hanging out on mefi on my emotional life. Stopped hanging around here so much.
Phase 4: skim for the highlights: informative posts, interesting discussions and really non-sensical threads. But these are not as much fun without the images. Trying to avoid aspects that I find irritating: prominent-mefites-culture, in jokes, american politics threads (I'm not from the US) and a lot more things. And yeah; that's a lot.
Usage: reading when I can't sleep.
I'm amazed that people read mefi at work. I can't combine any reading of mefi at all with my responsibilities at work. Are most mefites at-home workers and lowest rung grunts? I can't imagine.
I have often wondered about anonymous askmefi questions on embarrassing topics: if you don't want to be known as asking you can't be surprised that I don't want to be known answering from my experiences.
And a really stupid thing; I keep being fascinated by the fact that most of you live in the US (and Australia and UK) and that everything is in a foreign language to me. I don't know why that would be so interesting. I guess it's virtual travel; really meeting another culture instead of looking at the scenery.
At least meeting you guys has mitigated my view of Americans. This view used to be skewed by WW II. I was raised a bit to be thankful that the Brits, Canadians and USians liberated us from the Germans.
With Bush et al. this had really swung the other way.
Oh man; 5 am. I've got a heavy day at work in front of me and still can't sleep.
posted by jouke at 8:31 PM on July 3, 2007
I prefer the green to everything and it's what I discovered first and where I spend the most time. I only read the grey to see what Blazecock Pileon and puke & cry say because they either make me laugh or say what I am thinking in a better way than I would. Otherwise I find most of the conversation on the grey skippable because I don't feel like watching flameouts unless they are REALLY good. I go back and forth on the blue. Sometimes I spend a lot of time reading posts and checking out links, other times I neglect it for days/weeks.
posted by sneakin at 8:43 PM on July 3, 2007
posted by sneakin at 8:43 PM on July 3, 2007
I arrived via either MetaFilter's Own Growabrain of MonkeyFilter, back in the olden days before 30k. I had been lurking for a while, until I saw an AskMe about a CBC radio show that I totally nailed, but still have not received a much-deserved checkmark for. My first FPP was an all-YouTube extravaganza, whose videos have all since been removed. I slaved over that sonofabitch for four fricking hours before cutting everything but the clips.
Much of my time used to be spent clicking on MeFi, AskMe, MeTa links in my browser's nav bar, but now I do much of my navigating from My Comments page, and since I started using RSS, have spent far less time in the 'Filterverse in general. I subscribe to the feeds for Music, which I truly love, as well as Projects, and AskMes tagged with comics.
90% of my MetaTime is spend on the Blue & Grey, and it's become pretty rare for me to browse the Green proper. The only thing more limited than my interests and knowledge is my patience for people's problems, and I haven't missed it at all. I'm thinking about doing the same for MeTa, which is starting to irritate more than I should let it.
Uh, this post excluded.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:52 PM on July 3, 2007
Much of my time used to be spent clicking on MeFi, AskMe, MeTa links in my browser's nav bar, but now I do much of my navigating from My Comments page, and since I started using RSS, have spent far less time in the 'Filterverse in general. I subscribe to the feeds for Music, which I truly love, as well as Projects, and AskMes tagged with comics.
90% of my MetaTime is spend on the Blue & Grey, and it's become pretty rare for me to browse the Green proper. The only thing more limited than my interests and knowledge is my patience for people's problems, and I haven't missed it at all. I'm thinking about doing the same for MeTa, which is starting to irritate more than I should let it.
Uh, this post excluded.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:52 PM on July 3, 2007
After signing up, I'm finding I check the links at metafilter before reading the comments instead of v.v.
posted by acro at 8:59 PM on July 3, 2007
posted by acro at 8:59 PM on July 3, 2007
I lurked forever (blue, green and gray)... I felt like I knew everyone and I was familiar with the various dramas, in-jokes and flameouts that had occured over the years... Then, last year, vacapinta posted that he would pay for accounts for the first 10 people who emailed him... I sent him an email, and I got an account... I always check the blue first, then the green, then the gray... Every day, multiple times per day... I'm an at-home mom, so I'm able to pop in and out whenever I get a chance... I'm totally addicted.
posted by amyms at 9:00 PM on July 3, 2007
posted by amyms at 9:00 PM on July 3, 2007
- Denial ("No, no, no! This isn't happening to me!")
- Anger ("Why is this happening to me?")
- Bargaining ("I promise I'll be a better person if it goes away!")
- Depression ("I don't care anymore.")
- Acceptance ("I'm prepared for whatever it can throw at me.")
posted by Dave Faris at 9:06 PM on July 3, 2007 [1 favorite]
- Anger ("Why is this happening to me?")
- Bargaining ("I promise I'll be a better person if it goes away!")
- Depression ("I don't care anymore.")
- Acceptance ("I'm prepared for whatever it can throw at me.")
posted by Dave Faris at 9:06 PM on July 3, 2007 [1 favorite]
I read blue, green, and gray in Bloglines, and tab out the stuff that looks interesting. The downside to this method, I've found, is that Bloglines doesn't show you how many comments posts have received. Therefore, sometimes I don't catch the dramafests until someone points them out here.
Yes, I just called that a downside.
posted by gnomeloaf at 9:14 PM on July 3, 2007
Yes, I just called that a downside.
posted by gnomeloaf at 9:14 PM on July 3, 2007
I was linked to the green and I've been hooked since. I'm still waiting to make that killer post that I can remind people of every time people question my brilliance. Until then..
posted by PuGZ at 10:07 PM on July 3, 2007
posted by PuGZ at 10:07 PM on July 3, 2007
impressed my friends with (a) bizzare knowledge that I seemed to throw into many conversations, (b) relevant website/webincident that i could cite regarding any story (c) my cache of interesting and addicting websites that I would casually show others when we were all bored, all via the blue. Then joined, followed by the green and the gray. still, its mostly lurking.
posted by milestogo at 10:22 PM on July 3, 2007
posted by milestogo at 10:22 PM on July 3, 2007
I lurked for a few years, realized just after christmas for whatever reason that I should just join already, worked my way up to #1 on the posting index during winter break (making up for my years of being unable to comment, I guess), and then became just a regular member when school started up again, and here I am now.
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 10:55 PM on July 3, 2007
posted by CitrusFreak12 at 10:55 PM on July 3, 2007
I discovered Metafilter following September 11 2001, and was initially attracted to the intelligent and insightful discussion. I suppose I hadn't really considered Americans to be either intelligent or insightful and over the years this place has raised my opinion of US Citizens.
You're apparently being confused by the Canadian 5th columnists...
I find I cycle on and off mefi, usually get fed up with the more intolerant knee-jerk political or religious stuff, then come back to see if everything's settled down again. It always has - thanks to moderation it would appear. Seriously, these people must have one of the more increasingly difficult jobs on the web keeping this place reasonable-discussion-friendly.
posted by scheptech at 10:58 PM on July 3, 2007
You're apparently being confused by the Canadian 5th columnists...
I find I cycle on and off mefi, usually get fed up with the more intolerant knee-jerk political or religious stuff, then come back to see if everything's settled down again. It always has - thanks to moderation it would appear. Seriously, these people must have one of the more increasingly difficult jobs on the web keeping this place reasonable-discussion-friendly.
posted by scheptech at 10:58 PM on July 3, 2007
My boyfriend showed me askme and we read it for about a week before we realized it was part of a larger site. I generally read askme first, then metatalk, and then mefi if I have the time to actually follow the links and read the discussions -- it's such a time suck that I've learned not to even go to the blue unless I have the time to read it. I tend to spend a lot more time on the site during the school year; less since summer started. And always heavy on the lurking.
posted by lilac girl at 10:58 PM on July 3, 2007
posted by lilac girl at 10:58 PM on July 3, 2007
I have no idea what led me here in the first place and I have even less of an idea why I stay. I do know it is addicting. I started with the green only. Then I realized there was a grey. While the grey is good reading, it can get real annoying so I started looking at the blue. The blue took a while to grow on me, but it is fascinating. I rarely read the comments on the blue. I find that if a post is well crafted, I get all I need out of the post. I would rather form my own opinions and just saying, "Great article" does not add much to a discussion. I find that some posts lead me to places on the internets that I would not have otherwise have gone and I am happy to have taken the trip.
As time has gone on, I found that a lot of the green was relationship stuff and questions that were opinion oriented. I like the factual questions where the is a definitive answer to a specific question. That is rarely happening these days so I read the green less and less.
I add too that there was a point where the whole site bothered me because of all the carping in the grey and the inside jargon etc, so I stopped coming at all. I was sucked back in for some reason and well... here I am posting to one of those questions that I didn't think I ever would. YMMV.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 11:06 PM on July 3, 2007
As time has gone on, I found that a lot of the green was relationship stuff and questions that were opinion oriented. I like the factual questions where the is a definitive answer to a specific question. That is rarely happening these days so I read the green less and less.
I add too that there was a point where the whole site bothered me because of all the carping in the grey and the inside jargon etc, so I stopped coming at all. I was sucked back in for some reason and well... here I am posting to one of those questions that I didn't think I ever would. YMMV.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 11:06 PM on July 3, 2007
Yeah, this makes me think of an alternate metafilter-related sociology post... I've had a peculiar time of it evangelizing. I got my SO to join obviously, easy peasy, and another friend, but, well, once I'm a few drinks down I do a rotten job of explaining why this is the best place to spend my internet time. I'm just all "people are smart and there's moderation, glug glug. But that'ssss so important."
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 11:09 PM on July 3, 2007
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 11:09 PM on July 3, 2007
I talked about MeFi a little too much to a few friends. Now they lurk heavily. I asked them politely to get out of my internet life, but it didn't help and was my fault anyway.
posted by k8t at 11:23 PM on July 3, 2007
posted by k8t at 11:23 PM on July 3, 2007
lurked, lurked, lurked
(signups opened)
joined
snarked, snarked, snarked
posted
(comments)
asked, asked, asked,
answered, answered, answered
posted
(to metatalk)
metup, metup, metup
posted
(to music)
lurked, lurked, lurked
posted by Jon Mitchell at 12:09 AM on July 4, 2007
(signups opened)
joined
snarked, snarked, snarked
posted
(comments)
asked, asked, asked,
answered, answered, answered
posted
(to metatalk)
metup, metup, metup
posted
(to music)
lurked, lurked, lurked
posted by Jon Mitchell at 12:09 AM on July 4, 2007
Unlike Dave Faris & Miss Lynnster, I prefer an anal suppository.
Not for reasons of enjoyment. It just seems more...appropriate?
posted by UbuRoivas at 12:45 AM on July 4, 2007 [1 favorite]
Not for reasons of enjoyment. It just seems more...appropriate?
posted by UbuRoivas at 12:45 AM on July 4, 2007 [1 favorite]
As for the question: I've always regarded the blue as the 'real' MetaFilter. The green is a handy tack-on optional extra (but with a poor signal-noise ratio for things I might know or be interested in) and the grey is only for the in-jokes, snarks & the cabal. My usage corresponds with this hierarchy.
Having chosen not to have the intarwebs at home (until very recently), I found that I never had time to research & put together decent posts, so left that to others who would contribute better stuff. Surfing during coffee breaks & slowtime at work means making many comments, few posts.
Um, what else? Think I stumbled upon this place via wood s lot, endured an eternity of forced lurking during the membership freeze, signed up the very moment I refreshed & found membership to be open again. It's always cute to look up somebody's profile & see November 18, 2004, as this suggests another brother or sister who came out of exile in a similar manner.
posted by UbuRoivas at 12:55 AM on July 4, 2007
Having chosen not to have the intarwebs at home (until very recently), I found that I never had time to research & put together decent posts, so left that to others who would contribute better stuff. Surfing during coffee breaks & slowtime at work means making many comments, few posts.
Um, what else? Think I stumbled upon this place via wood s lot, endured an eternity of forced lurking during the membership freeze, signed up the very moment I refreshed & found membership to be open again. It's always cute to look up somebody's profile & see November 18, 2004, as this suggests another brother or sister who came out of exile in a similar manner.
posted by UbuRoivas at 12:55 AM on July 4, 2007
I had a friend who told me about the place. We'd be out having a drink, and talking about whatever, from politics to music to sex, and he'd end up bringing up something he'd read linked off of mefi. Usually it was kind of silly, but sometimes it was to something I really felt smarter and/or better off for having read or known about. He was pretty self-conscious about it, since I'd constantly make fun of him for reading "blogs," which at the time I'd assumed were pretty much introverts and nerds talking about introverted and nerdy things. But I actually started browsing the blue, and found it a great way to spend some time at work if I had a free 5-10 minutes. And once memberships opened, I still took a few months before I took "the plunge" and started commenting. And even longer before I had the courage to do an FPP.
I try to avoid the gray these days, since it's obviously a "release valve" for bullshit masquerading as a place for substantive feedback about the site. This used to bother me, but now I see it's kind of a brilliant set-up. The green has never appealed to me though, although I've used it and benefited from it a few times. It's just -- too obvious? Too predictable? "Dear Askme: How do I stop fucking up my life?" I mean, I've asked myself the same question before, but I don't like the parading and preening. Not that there isn't more to it, but that's the type of stuff I just can't get around or manage to ignore.
But this is very true, what Miss Lynnster wrote: "By that time my skin was thicker & I started having more fun here." That's what's kind of interesting and a bit depressing about mefi, as much as I love the place -- you kind of have to toughen up really quick if you decide to comment with any frequency.
(That friend of mine had a name btw -- dhoyt. And to this day y2karl and I'm pretty sure a few others think that I'm him. Good times.)
posted by bardic at 1:08 AM on July 4, 2007 [1 favorite]
I try to avoid the gray these days, since it's obviously a "release valve" for bullshit masquerading as a place for substantive feedback about the site. This used to bother me, but now I see it's kind of a brilliant set-up. The green has never appealed to me though, although I've used it and benefited from it a few times. It's just -- too obvious? Too predictable? "Dear Askme: How do I stop fucking up my life?" I mean, I've asked myself the same question before, but I don't like the parading and preening. Not that there isn't more to it, but that's the type of stuff I just can't get around or manage to ignore.
But this is very true, what Miss Lynnster wrote: "By that time my skin was thicker & I started having more fun here." That's what's kind of interesting and a bit depressing about mefi, as much as I love the place -- you kind of have to toughen up really quick if you decide to comment with any frequency.
(That friend of mine had a name btw -- dhoyt. And to this day y2karl and I'm pretty sure a few others think that I'm him. Good times.)
posted by bardic at 1:08 AM on July 4, 2007 [1 favorite]
WOWzerz go go gadget-swoon.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 1:34 AM on July 4, 2007
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 1:34 AM on July 4, 2007
OK, I'm coming out. I have studied the histories. I am a retro-mefi'er. I was born too late ! Too late!
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 1:36 AM on July 4, 2007
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 1:36 AM on July 4, 2007
I lurked for yonks, then when I decided to take the plunge found that sign-ups had closed (and wasn't cunning enough to do the trick with the URL that got some folk in at that time). This was enormously frustrating, though possibly a good thing - by the time I could sign up, I had a good feel for the place, and had gulped down the MetaTalk archives, so didn't act like a tit when I started commenting (well, I don't think I did, at least!) and have only got into one regrettable argument, due to posting while drunk. I'd like to post more, but never quite muster the energy, or just put stuff on my own site instead (and I obviously have very mainstream tastes, as everything that I think about posting and decide not to always shows up in a couple of days anyway).
Now, as always, I'm mostly here for the links on the blue, and read almost every post there via RSS, commenting relatively rarely. I tend to hit MetaTalk first on the web (it's what comes up when I type 'm' in my address bar!) because, presumably due to some terrible defect in my brain, I actually really enjoy reading the beans-overthinking policy disputes, discussion of the impact of new features, &c..
I kind of can't stand AskMe, to be honest - it feels like a completely different site, with completely different users, talking about stuff I have little interest in. That said, I have used it a dozen times, and received really great answers, so I subscribe to a few category feeds and leave the odd answer when I can, to return the favour.
As for cycles, aside from the switch from enforced lurking to being able to post and comment, I don't think my use of the site has changed at all over the years.
posted by jack_mo at 1:57 AM on July 4, 2007
Now, as always, I'm mostly here for the links on the blue, and read almost every post there via RSS, commenting relatively rarely. I tend to hit MetaTalk first on the web (it's what comes up when I type 'm' in my address bar!) because, presumably due to some terrible defect in my brain, I actually really enjoy reading the beans-overthinking policy disputes, discussion of the impact of new features, &c..
I kind of can't stand AskMe, to be honest - it feels like a completely different site, with completely different users, talking about stuff I have little interest in. That said, I have used it a dozen times, and received really great answers, so I subscribe to a few category feeds and leave the odd answer when I can, to return the favour.
As for cycles, aside from the switch from enforced lurking to being able to post and comment, I don't think my use of the site has changed at all over the years.
posted by jack_mo at 1:57 AM on July 4, 2007
I'm dhoyt.
posted by Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America at 2:42 AM on July 4, 2007
posted by Mr. President Dr. Steve Elvis America at 2:42 AM on July 4, 2007
dhoyt was four five different people, all of them extremely banned.
Goodbye, Mr President. It was nice knowing you.
posted by UbuRoivas at 3:09 AM on July 4, 2007
Goodbye, Mr President. It was nice knowing you.
posted by UbuRoivas at 3:09 AM on July 4, 2007
I can't remember how I learned of MetaFilter or exactly when I began lurking. I wish I did—I wonder if I emailed anyone about it and I could find out from old email?
Anyway, I think I began lurking at the end of 2002. It was definitely after there ceased to be any new signups at all. (Anyone remember when that was?)
From Day One, it was about the very intelligent discussion and interesting personalities for me. I quickly devoured the site, reading every bit of it daily (which wasn't so hard back then, with only MeFi and MeTa and 16K members, far fewer active). I read a bunch of archived threads, too, becoming acquainted with all of the in-jokes and the threads that spawned them.
This lurking and total consumption of the site went on for a long time. I think it must have ceased by the end of 2003 because I have never read all of AskMetaFilter. I don't think in all my decades of being online in one form or another have I been so deeply immersed in an online culture I didn't actually participate within, and I really felt like I knew most of the personalities intimately. In fact, often I'd find that I was more aware of a poster's history and personality than many of the other active members were.
Frustrated in not being able to join, after about six or eight months, I turned to the IRC channel, #mefi. At the time, the regulars of the channel were real old-timers, sub-10Kers, who already had begun to participate less and less on the site and had formed a small cabal on the IRC channel. There were also a few newbies, like myself, who found their way to IRC as a means to participate.
In April of 2004 I was able to join when Matt opened the site to new memberships at noon for two days. He had planned to accept ten new members each day at noon, indefinitely, IIRC—but some error in his script allowed about 60 or so of us each of the two days, the first and second of the month, and then he just gave up on the plan. It wasn't until November of that year that he opened membership completely, with the $5 donation.
For about a year, I think, the blue remained the focus of MetaFilter for me, and I participated heavily in commenting there. However, because my interest in personalities and drama was always part of my attraction to MetaFilter, from the beginning of my membership I read and participated in MetaTalk. Even so, during my first year here I would still check the blue first, MeTa was secondary.
I commented heavily everywhere. Too heavily—only when the November members came aboard did I leave the #1 spot on the contribution index. In my first few weeks here I was made quite welcome and often complimented. Then, things went downhill. People got tired of my long-windedness and pedantic, lecturing personality, as well as my pious earnestness. More than a handful of people really came to hate me and I took a lot of abuse and engaged in a lot of flamewars. I brought a lot of this on myself—not all, perhaps even not most, but enough. In the Summer of 04, I went to my first of only two meetups, that one a small meetup in Austin I helped to organize.
I'd say that the Fall and Winter of 04-05 was a low point for me on MetaFilter. There were more than a few threads where I became very upset, took personal attacks very seriously, and got my feelings hurt very badly. Yet I kept coming back. There were two reasons for this. The first was that I was unwilling to be driven off...or, rather, to feel as if I had been driven off. (It's not that there were more than two or three people who actually cared enough to be trying to "drive me off"—it's a mistake to ever think anyone here ever actually cares that much.) The second is that a lot of the problems I was having here were problems I'd had whenever I participated online heavily—I'd been online in various places since the early 80s and, dammit, I was determined finally to learn how to modulate my personality, control my behavior, and insulate myself from having my feelings hurt because I thought that MetaFilter was worth it enough to me to make the effort.
As new members came aboard, things changed slowly but surely. Me and the very few other higher-profile Aprilfolk were no longer the only new kids on the block. There was lots of discussion and some grumbling about how the newbies were changing MetaFilter. I felt, not only as a fellow newbie, but as a long-time lurker, that the newbies were truly a breath of fresh air, a new wind that expanded the mefiverse in good ways.
By the Summer and Fall of '05, I began to get a better handle on my participation here, toughened up a bit, and people had become a lot more used to my presence, as well. I began to concentrate more on MetaTalk, not the least because mid-2005 was a time when NewsFilter peaked at MetaFilter, in my opinion, and I very disliked that increased emphasis. I can't recall the details, but I'm pretty sure that sometime in late 05 or the beginning of 06 I became a little fatigued, finally, with MetaFilter and I went on a semi-sabbatical from it. Not actually leaving it alone for days or weeks at a time, but just spending less of my time on it every day.
Sometime early in 2006 I think I accelerated and completed a transformation in my personality and my participation in MetaFilter. First and foremost, I became much more thick-skinned. I did this partly by just not caring as much. I also became slightly intentionally amnesiac—I deliberately don't really remember who I've argued with after a couple of days. I also avoid arguments unless I'm really upset and when I'm really upset I also tend to write a comment and then simply delete it. Or, if I do get pissed and get into a fight, I usually don't care much about it more than five minutes later. I stopped reading very many of the threads in the blue altogether, only scanning most posts and following some links but hardly ever commenting in the threads. I avoided the political threads altogether, and still do, mostly, to this day.
By the Fall of 06 I'd reached an equanimity about MetaFilter that was pretty comfortable and where I avoided a lot of the negative crap that had previously always left a bad taste in mouth. However, in November I had a bad stretch of several arguments where I think that other people behaved badly, I found myself conflicted and upset in a way I hadn't been for over a year, and I decided to quit, though without anything definite about it. I spent a week mostly avoiding MeFi, then didn't read it at all for another week, maybe read it again one or twice, and then completely stopped. By the end of December, I'd not been on MeFi or read it for weeks and I intended to never come back. Note that I never posted anything to this effect—it annoys me when people announce that they are leaving.
This continued in February or so, where I capriciously decided to browse MeFi a few times, then I eventually commented. And then I was back.
For a long time now MeTa has formed my "portal" into MeFi. I think the blue has gotten much better again, rising out of the depths of mid-05, so I do find I read MeFi proper more than I had been. I've occasionally read and participated regularly in AskMe on a few short but extended occasions—the longest when I was seeing AskMe questions at the top of my My Yahoo! page I use as my personal web aggregator. Otherwise, I've never been hugely interested in AskMe and have been curious as to why so many other people find it their chief draw to MetaFilter. I find that I am most interested in either technical/science questions I can definitively answer, or relationship questions, which I find compelling and interesting. But mostly AskMe is MehMe, to me.
I find I miss some of the old-timers that have left or mostly left MetaFilter. But the only one I strongly wish would return is Miguel. Which is odd, because he annoyed me more often than not when he was here.
Discovering that people that seem "established" and relatively "high-profile" like yourself, Ambrosia Voyeur, are 40K members and relative newbies never ceases to delight me. It makes me happy to see that MeFi continues to draw new, interesting and memorable people, year after year.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 3:47 AM on July 4, 2007 [4 favorites]
Anyway, I think I began lurking at the end of 2002. It was definitely after there ceased to be any new signups at all. (Anyone remember when that was?)
From Day One, it was about the very intelligent discussion and interesting personalities for me. I quickly devoured the site, reading every bit of it daily (which wasn't so hard back then, with only MeFi and MeTa and 16K members, far fewer active). I read a bunch of archived threads, too, becoming acquainted with all of the in-jokes and the threads that spawned them.
This lurking and total consumption of the site went on for a long time. I think it must have ceased by the end of 2003 because I have never read all of AskMetaFilter. I don't think in all my decades of being online in one form or another have I been so deeply immersed in an online culture I didn't actually participate within, and I really felt like I knew most of the personalities intimately. In fact, often I'd find that I was more aware of a poster's history and personality than many of the other active members were.
Frustrated in not being able to join, after about six or eight months, I turned to the IRC channel, #mefi. At the time, the regulars of the channel were real old-timers, sub-10Kers, who already had begun to participate less and less on the site and had formed a small cabal on the IRC channel. There were also a few newbies, like myself, who found their way to IRC as a means to participate.
In April of 2004 I was able to join when Matt opened the site to new memberships at noon for two days. He had planned to accept ten new members each day at noon, indefinitely, IIRC—but some error in his script allowed about 60 or so of us each of the two days, the first and second of the month, and then he just gave up on the plan. It wasn't until November of that year that he opened membership completely, with the $5 donation.
For about a year, I think, the blue remained the focus of MetaFilter for me, and I participated heavily in commenting there. However, because my interest in personalities and drama was always part of my attraction to MetaFilter, from the beginning of my membership I read and participated in MetaTalk. Even so, during my first year here I would still check the blue first, MeTa was secondary.
I commented heavily everywhere. Too heavily—only when the November members came aboard did I leave the #1 spot on the contribution index. In my first few weeks here I was made quite welcome and often complimented. Then, things went downhill. People got tired of my long-windedness and pedantic, lecturing personality, as well as my pious earnestness. More than a handful of people really came to hate me and I took a lot of abuse and engaged in a lot of flamewars. I brought a lot of this on myself—not all, perhaps even not most, but enough. In the Summer of 04, I went to my first of only two meetups, that one a small meetup in Austin I helped to organize.
I'd say that the Fall and Winter of 04-05 was a low point for me on MetaFilter. There were more than a few threads where I became very upset, took personal attacks very seriously, and got my feelings hurt very badly. Yet I kept coming back. There were two reasons for this. The first was that I was unwilling to be driven off...or, rather, to feel as if I had been driven off. (It's not that there were more than two or three people who actually cared enough to be trying to "drive me off"—it's a mistake to ever think anyone here ever actually cares that much.) The second is that a lot of the problems I was having here were problems I'd had whenever I participated online heavily—I'd been online in various places since the early 80s and, dammit, I was determined finally to learn how to modulate my personality, control my behavior, and insulate myself from having my feelings hurt because I thought that MetaFilter was worth it enough to me to make the effort.
As new members came aboard, things changed slowly but surely. Me and the very few other higher-profile Aprilfolk were no longer the only new kids on the block. There was lots of discussion and some grumbling about how the newbies were changing MetaFilter. I felt, not only as a fellow newbie, but as a long-time lurker, that the newbies were truly a breath of fresh air, a new wind that expanded the mefiverse in good ways.
By the Summer and Fall of '05, I began to get a better handle on my participation here, toughened up a bit, and people had become a lot more used to my presence, as well. I began to concentrate more on MetaTalk, not the least because mid-2005 was a time when NewsFilter peaked at MetaFilter, in my opinion, and I very disliked that increased emphasis. I can't recall the details, but I'm pretty sure that sometime in late 05 or the beginning of 06 I became a little fatigued, finally, with MetaFilter and I went on a semi-sabbatical from it. Not actually leaving it alone for days or weeks at a time, but just spending less of my time on it every day.
Sometime early in 2006 I think I accelerated and completed a transformation in my personality and my participation in MetaFilter. First and foremost, I became much more thick-skinned. I did this partly by just not caring as much. I also became slightly intentionally amnesiac—I deliberately don't really remember who I've argued with after a couple of days. I also avoid arguments unless I'm really upset and when I'm really upset I also tend to write a comment and then simply delete it. Or, if I do get pissed and get into a fight, I usually don't care much about it more than five minutes later. I stopped reading very many of the threads in the blue altogether, only scanning most posts and following some links but hardly ever commenting in the threads. I avoided the political threads altogether, and still do, mostly, to this day.
By the Fall of 06 I'd reached an equanimity about MetaFilter that was pretty comfortable and where I avoided a lot of the negative crap that had previously always left a bad taste in mouth. However, in November I had a bad stretch of several arguments where I think that other people behaved badly, I found myself conflicted and upset in a way I hadn't been for over a year, and I decided to quit, though without anything definite about it. I spent a week mostly avoiding MeFi, then didn't read it at all for another week, maybe read it again one or twice, and then completely stopped. By the end of December, I'd not been on MeFi or read it for weeks and I intended to never come back. Note that I never posted anything to this effect—it annoys me when people announce that they are leaving.
This continued in February or so, where I capriciously decided to browse MeFi a few times, then I eventually commented. And then I was back.
For a long time now MeTa has formed my "portal" into MeFi. I think the blue has gotten much better again, rising out of the depths of mid-05, so I do find I read MeFi proper more than I had been. I've occasionally read and participated regularly in AskMe on a few short but extended occasions—the longest when I was seeing AskMe questions at the top of my My Yahoo! page I use as my personal web aggregator. Otherwise, I've never been hugely interested in AskMe and have been curious as to why so many other people find it their chief draw to MetaFilter. I find that I am most interested in either technical/science questions I can definitively answer, or relationship questions, which I find compelling and interesting. But mostly AskMe is MehMe, to me.
I find I miss some of the old-timers that have left or mostly left MetaFilter. But the only one I strongly wish would return is Miguel. Which is odd, because he annoyed me more often than not when he was here.
Discovering that people that seem "established" and relatively "high-profile" like yourself, Ambrosia Voyeur, are 40K members and relative newbies never ceases to delight me. It makes me happy to see that MeFi continues to draw new, interesting and memorable people, year after year.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 3:47 AM on July 4, 2007 [4 favorites]
Where's the ritual in that, UbuRoivas?
I learned about Metafilter from an article in Wired magazine. It was probably late 2000. It's been downhill for me ever since. I tried leaving for awhile, several times. I even had the password on my old uid randomized and just lurked for awhile, but when I accidentally reset the cookies on my browser, I lost the ability to track new comments, so I coughed up another $5, promising myself I would not get sucked back in. You can see how well that worked out.
posted by Dave Faris at 4:42 AM on July 4, 2007
I learned about Metafilter from an article in Wired magazine. It was probably late 2000. It's been downhill for me ever since. I tried leaving for awhile, several times. I even had the password on my old uid randomized and just lurked for awhile, but when I accidentally reset the cookies on my browser, I lost the ability to track new comments, so I coughed up another $5, promising myself I would not get sucked back in. You can see how well that worked out.
posted by Dave Faris at 4:42 AM on July 4, 2007
I first saw the site in early 2001. I didn't get it. I moved on. Then in the wake of Kaycee Nicole, I saw enough references to Metafilter that I decided to try again. It was a dull summer so I read a lot of the archives and got hooked (reading so much of the archives probably contributed a lot to me getting used to reading passively rather than posting). I made a couple n00b posts and then shied off from posting. That kind of stuck, and lurking ensued. I got into the habit of reading the blue a couple times a day.
I don't know at what point I started reading MetaTalk, but once I did, it was blue, then grey. Reading MetaTalk, I became more aware of/interested in the personalities. At this point I shifted to grey, then blue. The frequency increased. At various points I got annoyed with certain attitudes (LOLXIANS, boyzone, etc), and "quit" reading for a couple weeks, but always came back.
The introduction of AskMe changed my pattern once again. Green, grey, then blue, and even more often. I started commenting slightly more often as questions came up that I could answer. Today it's the same order, plus I check music and projects every couple of days. I now keep a window with AskMe open in the background of my work and go through that pattern automatically whenever I come to a stopping point - approximately 1.2 billion times per day.
posted by waterlily at 5:55 AM on July 4, 2007
I don't know at what point I started reading MetaTalk, but once I did, it was blue, then grey. Reading MetaTalk, I became more aware of/interested in the personalities. At this point I shifted to grey, then blue. The frequency increased. At various points I got annoyed with certain attitudes (LOLXIANS, boyzone, etc), and "quit" reading for a couple weeks, but always came back.
The introduction of AskMe changed my pattern once again. Green, grey, then blue, and even more often. I started commenting slightly more often as questions came up that I could answer. Today it's the same order, plus I check music and projects every couple of days. I now keep a window with AskMe open in the background of my work and go through that pattern automatically whenever I come to a stopping point - approximately 1.2 billion times per day.
posted by waterlily at 5:55 AM on July 4, 2007
Dave Faris: Don't talk to me about rituals. I kicked long ago. Now I just take it up the ass. Ethereal Bligh's long long post, for example.
posted by UbuRoivas at 6:11 AM on July 4, 2007 [1 favorite]
posted by UbuRoivas at 6:11 AM on July 4, 2007 [1 favorite]
But the only one I strongly wish would return is Miguel. Which is odd, because he annoyed me more often than not when he was here.
I have the same conflicted reaction to Miguel. (Come back, Migs, so we can beat you about the head and shoulders again, you lovable Portagee!) But seeing this chatfilter MeTa post makes me feel he's with us in spirit.
I like lots of punctuation in MeTa comments! How do you feel about punctuation and MeTa?
posted by languagehat at 6:16 AM on July 4, 2007
I have the same conflicted reaction to Miguel. (Come back, Migs, so we can beat you about the head and shoulders again, you lovable Portagee!) But seeing this chatfilter MeTa post makes me feel he's with us in spirit.
I like lots of punctuation in MeTa comments! How do you feel about punctuation and MeTa?
posted by languagehat at 6:16 AM on July 4, 2007
I, for one, am somewhat ambivalent! That is, about the use - or non use - of what? - I forget. No matter. And yet I will, Bog willing, continue in the use of: commas; colons; s'colons; u.s.w., ad. naus.
posted by UbuRoivas at 6:24 AM on July 4, 2007
posted by UbuRoivas at 6:24 AM on July 4, 2007
The last thing Metafilter needs is the return of another self-important blowhard. I hope Miguel is happy in whatever he's doing, but with the US election already heating up, I don't think we'll see him any time before late 2008.
posted by Dave Faris at 6:29 AM on July 4, 2007
posted by Dave Faris at 6:29 AM on July 4, 2007
I eat here. The tacos are great, but watch out for the Kool-Aid.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:11 AM on July 4, 2007
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:11 AM on July 4, 2007
This blue site would keep appearing in search results for cool odd things I was trying to investigate. Eventually I just started going right to the filter. I signed up for an account when I realized I had something to say. This coincided with a time in my life when I needed something outside of my small, real life world to take part in, then after a bit realized I was commenting or posting just for the hell of it, because I could. Now I've put a stop to that and try to contribute in a useful way.
I took a break from the blue when I realized that I had to skip fully half the front page because they were audio/video/YouTube links. Now I skim for whatever piques my interest.
MetaTalk is possibly the most addictive. It is like a 24 hour soap opera that I can tune into anytime and these characters will just be doing their little antics for me, in text, on my computer screen! And, HEY, it's interactive!
I used to read AskMe more, it feels repetitive now. I also read it more when I used to feel like I was actually learning something. I currently have no illusions about that and occasionally read it simply for entertainment's sake.
posted by bobobox at 8:04 AM on July 4, 2007
I took a break from the blue when I realized that I had to skip fully half the front page because they were audio/video/YouTube links. Now I skim for whatever piques my interest.
MetaTalk is possibly the most addictive. It is like a 24 hour soap opera that I can tune into anytime and these characters will just be doing their little antics for me, in text, on my computer screen! And, HEY, it's interactive!
I used to read AskMe more, it feels repetitive now. I also read it more when I used to feel like I was actually learning something. I currently have no illusions about that and occasionally read it simply for entertainment's sake.
posted by bobobox at 8:04 AM on July 4, 2007
I always read Metatalk on Saturday mornings from my bed with a hangover on my Nokia N73.
posted by Jofus at 8:12 AM on July 4, 2007
posted by Jofus at 8:12 AM on July 4, 2007
I was actually a little surprised that none of the first ten comments contained a coy "Miguel?" Surprised and pleased—I wish he'd drop by a little more often than he does, but it's refreshing that the Era of Migs is long enough past that we can have a let's-talk-about-Metafilter thread like this without a big argument.
I find these sorts of discussions fascinating. I can't recall how my involvement with mefi in my first three years or so evolved, but at some point I settled in on Metatalk as my HQ, and for reasons that probably have overlap a good bit with whatever drove Miguel to start all those navelgazers:
Metatalk is a place without purpose. You can use Metatalk for things—calling out a post/comment/user; questioning site policy; organizing a meetup—but none of those things are what Metatalk is, they're just common functions at this point. It just is. It gets used, and sometimes it gets overused and people push back and sort of collectively (or even, on occasionally, officially) proscribe certain types of posts, but it's essentially a free-for-all. So Miguel was never really wrong to ask whether and how often we ate baklava while posting; it just got old with repetition.
There's a lot of fascinating people-watching on the green and the blue, when you read around the ostensible content of the links and questions and comments, and I think that's what makes it such a compelling place still after all these years (and what makes the steady influx of new blood such an important and healthy part of the life-support system). But that's nothing to Metatalk. This is the heartbeat, the glowing, vital center, the anthropological goldmine. This is where, more than anywhere, the site tries to define itself, it's members stake out territory for good or ill, profit or exile. What happens in the grey may not be as compelling to the casual reader as the blue or the green—really, I'd be shocked if it were—but it's an incomparable source of insight for anyone whose feet have been gotten truly wet, who isn't just reading Metafilter but trying to understand it, be it in their own collaborative way.
The occasional stunner of a moonbat thread over here, where someone manages to aggressively not get the site, really underscores for me just how much of a sense of identity (however many-headed and self-conflicted and indefinable) the site and this part of it specifically has developed over time. We may not be able to say what Metafilter is, but there are moments when it becomes shockingly clear just what it isn't.
So I like these threads. I kind of hope we see more of them—in moderation, certainly—going forward. Migs had the right idea, he just had it too often and too long and too Cardosoically to get away with it. This sort of self-examination and survey, done now and then, makes for a good read, and makes a nice break from the callouts and WTFs that necessarily comprise much of the Metatalk experience.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:43 AM on July 4, 2007 [3 favorites]
I find these sorts of discussions fascinating. I can't recall how my involvement with mefi in my first three years or so evolved, but at some point I settled in on Metatalk as my HQ, and for reasons that probably have overlap a good bit with whatever drove Miguel to start all those navelgazers:
Metatalk is a place without purpose. You can use Metatalk for things—calling out a post/comment/user; questioning site policy; organizing a meetup—but none of those things are what Metatalk is, they're just common functions at this point. It just is. It gets used, and sometimes it gets overused and people push back and sort of collectively (or even, on occasionally, officially) proscribe certain types of posts, but it's essentially a free-for-all. So Miguel was never really wrong to ask whether and how often we ate baklava while posting; it just got old with repetition.
There's a lot of fascinating people-watching on the green and the blue, when you read around the ostensible content of the links and questions and comments, and I think that's what makes it such a compelling place still after all these years (and what makes the steady influx of new blood such an important and healthy part of the life-support system). But that's nothing to Metatalk. This is the heartbeat, the glowing, vital center, the anthropological goldmine. This is where, more than anywhere, the site tries to define itself, it's members stake out territory for good or ill, profit or exile. What happens in the grey may not be as compelling to the casual reader as the blue or the green—really, I'd be shocked if it were—but it's an incomparable source of insight for anyone whose feet have been gotten truly wet, who isn't just reading Metafilter but trying to understand it, be it in their own collaborative way.
The occasional stunner of a moonbat thread over here, where someone manages to aggressively not get the site, really underscores for me just how much of a sense of identity (however many-headed and self-conflicted and indefinable) the site and this part of it specifically has developed over time. We may not be able to say what Metafilter is, but there are moments when it becomes shockingly clear just what it isn't.
So I like these threads. I kind of hope we see more of them—in moderation, certainly—going forward. Migs had the right idea, he just had it too often and too long and too Cardosoically to get away with it. This sort of self-examination and survey, done now and then, makes for a good read, and makes a nice break from the callouts and WTFs that necessarily comprise much of the Metatalk experience.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:43 AM on July 4, 2007 [3 favorites]
Some time in 2001, maybe '02, I read about Metafilter in Powazek's book. With only time enough for one site of that kind I chose the darkness of slashdot instead. There I wandered aimlessly, never fitting in and ultimately departing for good. I think it was the whole karma thing. Effectively timing my departure poorly I was unable to register at Metafilter upon coming back and so got tied up elsewhere under a different username and I would not have come back here if it weren't for the unveiling of AskMeFi which I read a fair bit before sign ups were announced and I joined up.
Now I read a few of the green category feeds regularly at lunch and peruse the gray randomly when I can -- that's about it now. I occasionally have an idea or a link for a post to the blue but rarely find I have the time to act on it. If I did more home recording I would post to music much more but I really only have studio or band demo type recordings to share. I have three different sites that I keep thinking I'll post to projects as soon as I fix them up, which I never do. All this to say that despite the rare amount of commenting/posting and the narrow band of reading I do on the site, there are still daydreams and nightmares that are infected by the blue, gray, or green and the personalities that inhabit them.
posted by safetyfork at 9:44 AM on July 4, 2007
Now I read a few of the green category feeds regularly at lunch and peruse the gray randomly when I can -- that's about it now. I occasionally have an idea or a link for a post to the blue but rarely find I have the time to act on it. If I did more home recording I would post to music much more but I really only have studio or band demo type recordings to share. I have three different sites that I keep thinking I'll post to projects as soon as I fix them up, which I never do. All this to say that despite the rare amount of commenting/posting and the narrow band of reading I do on the site, there are still daydreams and nightmares that are infected by the blue, gray, or green and the personalities that inhabit them.
posted by safetyfork at 9:44 AM on July 4, 2007
Heh.
Ethereal Blighs comment that reads as if copied from a dedicated 4-volume mefi journal. Impressive and a bit eery in a self-referential way.
Cortex growing mystical about metatalk of all places, italicizing 'be'.
Be the ball!
posted by jouke at 10:29 AM on July 4, 2007
Ethereal Blighs comment that reads as if copied from a dedicated 4-volume mefi journal. Impressive and a bit eery in a self-referential way.
Cortex growing mystical about metatalk of all places, italicizing 'be'.
Be the ball!
posted by jouke at 10:29 AM on July 4, 2007
I let myself be prolix, or, more accurately, just tediously detailed in the comment for the sake of posterity. Er, not in any self-important sense of "posterity", but just that it wouldn't harm anything to narrate my experience of MeFi up to the present. I'm a bit obsessive/compulsive: I like completeness and the idea that this narrative will be here in the archives long after I can remember any of the things I documented. That's what the profile is for, I guess, but, hey, I'm not the one who started this thread. :)
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 12:51 PM on July 4, 2007
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 12:51 PM on July 4, 2007
he just had it too often and too long and too Cardosoically to get away with it.
I have no other comment other than I like the word Cardosoically. I would like it added to the spellcheck.
posted by Stan Chin at 1:14 PM on July 4, 2007
I have no other comment other than I like the word Cardosoically. I would like it added to the spellcheck.
posted by Stan Chin at 1:14 PM on July 4, 2007
I used to read lifehacker every day, and would read the green when lh posted links to some of their favorite questions. Pretty soon I was mostly reading AskMe and ignoring lifehacker.
As a lurker, I was frustrated to see questions go by unanswered when I could have contributed. Still, the thing that finally got me to sign up was the investigation of the viral marketing site that turned out to be for a lame ski resort. I didn't have anything to contribute to that effort, but I was so amazed by the resourcefulness of the community that I knew I wanted to be a part of it.
Once I joined, I developed a system. Here's how it goes: Open new browser window to AskMe. Scroll through questions and open any interesting-sounding ones in new tabs. If there's something I think I might be able to answer, jump in and comment right away. Otherwise, move original tab to Recent Activity to see how the discussion is going in places I've commented. Next, load MeTa and open any interesting-sounding threads in new tabs. By now I've got 10-20 tabs open full of stuff to read, and I just read them in order as I run into free time throughout my day (compiling, need to kill 5 minutes before a meeting, etc.) If I run out of tabs before I run out of down-time, I check the popular favorites on the blue.
About a week ago I had a fairly realistic dream, but I noticed that the airplanes in the sky were casting shadows on the sky itself. My reaction in the dream? "That's weird, I better find a computer so I can ask Metafilter about how that's possible." I'm not sure what to think about this, that the site has become so ingrained in my thought processes that it shows up in my dreams.
And with that, it's time for me to go play outside.
posted by vytae at 1:37 PM on July 4, 2007
As a lurker, I was frustrated to see questions go by unanswered when I could have contributed. Still, the thing that finally got me to sign up was the investigation of the viral marketing site that turned out to be for a lame ski resort. I didn't have anything to contribute to that effort, but I was so amazed by the resourcefulness of the community that I knew I wanted to be a part of it.
Once I joined, I developed a system. Here's how it goes: Open new browser window to AskMe. Scroll through questions and open any interesting-sounding ones in new tabs. If there's something I think I might be able to answer, jump in and comment right away. Otherwise, move original tab to Recent Activity to see how the discussion is going in places I've commented. Next, load MeTa and open any interesting-sounding threads in new tabs. By now I've got 10-20 tabs open full of stuff to read, and I just read them in order as I run into free time throughout my day (compiling, need to kill 5 minutes before a meeting, etc.) If I run out of tabs before I run out of down-time, I check the popular favorites on the blue.
About a week ago I had a fairly realistic dream, but I noticed that the airplanes in the sky were casting shadows on the sky itself. My reaction in the dream? "That's weird, I better find a computer so I can ask Metafilter about how that's possible." I'm not sure what to think about this, that the site has become so ingrained in my thought processes that it shows up in my dreams.
And with that, it's time for me to go play outside.
posted by vytae at 1:37 PM on July 4, 2007
Have fun. Don't mind all those FUCKING ANNOYING BANGS.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 2:32 PM on July 4, 2007 [1 favorite]
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 2:32 PM on July 4, 2007 [1 favorite]
I found the site when the Kaycee thing blew up. I lurked in the blue obsessively until I could sign up. From then on my participation seems to mostly stem from what I'm doing in life. Student, deskjob, unemployed = high activity.
Even with high activity on the site I don't think I'm a very big commenter. I'm sure my comment history gets surpassed by some users in their first few months. I don't know what dictates whether I comment or not. I'm sure I've gone for months of daily reading without a single comment.
Most of the time on the blue I will skip the links and just read what people have to say about them. Like EB, the conversations and personalities have been and continue to be a big draw. Being more interested in the conversation lead me to prefer the gray for awhile and I hit that before or even instead of the blue for a time.
My relationship with the green is strange. I'll read every question for a week, then none for a few months, then again for a couple of days, etc.
Right now I mostly access the site through RSS and recent activity, which means I'm probably missing some good stuff. I should probably check out the recent favourites, but I haven't really gotten around to it.
posted by ODiV at 2:57 PM on July 4, 2007
Even with high activity on the site I don't think I'm a very big commenter. I'm sure my comment history gets surpassed by some users in their first few months. I don't know what dictates whether I comment or not. I'm sure I've gone for months of daily reading without a single comment.
Most of the time on the blue I will skip the links and just read what people have to say about them. Like EB, the conversations and personalities have been and continue to be a big draw. Being more interested in the conversation lead me to prefer the gray for awhile and I hit that before or even instead of the blue for a time.
My relationship with the green is strange. I'll read every question for a week, then none for a few months, then again for a couple of days, etc.
Right now I mostly access the site through RSS and recent activity, which means I'm probably missing some good stuff. I should probably check out the recent favourites, but I haven't really gotten around to it.
posted by ODiV at 2:57 PM on July 4, 2007
I'm sure my comment history gets surpassed by some users in their first few months.
Hm, upon investigation of some profiles, maybe not.
posted by ODiV at 2:59 PM on July 4, 2007
Hm, upon investigation of some profiles, maybe not.
posted by ODiV at 2:59 PM on July 4, 2007
FUCKING ANNOYING BANGS. they found us. nowhere is safe.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 4:20 PM on July 4, 2007
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 4:20 PM on July 4, 2007
Found the site mentioned on k10k in connection with one of them the5k.org competition things. Lurked and very sporadically commented for a while when dreamless was still around (any dreamless peeps in the hizzaus?), briefly became more active when dreamless went lights out then tapered off a bunch when I went back to school. Came back a bit more active when I started work again/askme showed up. Became even more active when I switched jobs/started reading through rss. Which leaves us with today.
posted by juv3nal at 5:05 PM on July 4, 2007
posted by juv3nal at 5:05 PM on July 4, 2007
I was stalking someone.
...
In the beginning, there was much lurking. Then came the blue.
These days, I'm mostly about the grey.
There's still nothing like the classic mefi for finding the best web content out there.
Askme still has the occasional Jerry Springer drama.
And I will still go to Music when I am jonesing for some new cortex mixes, or snarky mefi inside jokes set to tunes, if only for the sheer silliness factor.
But the grey is the heart of it all these days.
posted by misha at 5:39 PM on July 4, 2007
...
In the beginning, there was much lurking. Then came the blue.
These days, I'm mostly about the grey.
There's still nothing like the classic mefi for finding the best web content out there.
Askme still has the occasional Jerry Springer drama.
And I will still go to Music when I am jonesing for some new cortex mixes, or snarky mefi inside jokes set to tunes, if only for the sheer silliness factor.
But the grey is the heart of it all these days.
posted by misha at 5:39 PM on July 4, 2007
I think I went the Slashdot / Kuro5hin / Metafilter route. I lurked for a long time, joining in December 2004. I still lurk for the most part. I strongly believe in the idea of staying silent unless I have something useful to add.
I could easily spend all of my time here. I fanatically read the gray. It gives me a digest of site happenings and drama. Someday I'll have more time to contribute. Until then I will enjoy lurking.
posted by SteveTheRed at 5:39 PM on July 4, 2007
I could easily spend all of my time here. I fanatically read the gray. It gives me a digest of site happenings and drama. Someday I'll have more time to contribute. Until then I will enjoy lurking.
posted by SteveTheRed at 5:39 PM on July 4, 2007
I just signed up last week after having visited the site almost daily and sometimes obsessively for, at a guess, 7 years or so. I think my first visit was via a link at obscurestore, but I don't remember for sure.
I guess it's a little weird to have been essentially a voyeur of the community for so long. One of the factors that led to my signing up was Music, which is ironic because I really hardly ever listen to music. But I was bored one day and heard some good stuff there, and noticed that if I was a member I could download the stuff I liked. I've also read quite a few AskMe's where I felt that I could answer -- actually once or twice before I signed up, I tracked down the poster through their public profile information to send an answer by email.
Ultimately I signed up to post a job to Jobs. I'm a recruiter and figured I would give it a shot. Now I have an FPP I want to make, but I'm not allowed to post it until I write some more comments, which seems odd from a signal/noise perspective.
As a signed-in user it's strange to not have ads all over the place, and the site feels strangely cluttered with all of the little [+] and [!] links that I never saw before. And I have to say, I was expecting something more majestic in appearance instead of this very humble comment text box :)
I guess this long post doesn't really answer the question that was posed, but as a long time lurker I know it won't be the first time a comment was tangential to the topic of the FPP.
posted by sevenyearlurk at 5:45 PM on July 4, 2007 [1 favorite]
I guess it's a little weird to have been essentially a voyeur of the community for so long. One of the factors that led to my signing up was Music, which is ironic because I really hardly ever listen to music. But I was bored one day and heard some good stuff there, and noticed that if I was a member I could download the stuff I liked. I've also read quite a few AskMe's where I felt that I could answer -- actually once or twice before I signed up, I tracked down the poster through their public profile information to send an answer by email.
Ultimately I signed up to post a job to Jobs. I'm a recruiter and figured I would give it a shot. Now I have an FPP I want to make, but I'm not allowed to post it until I write some more comments, which seems odd from a signal/noise perspective.
As a signed-in user it's strange to not have ads all over the place, and the site feels strangely cluttered with all of the little [+] and [!] links that I never saw before. And I have to say, I was expecting something more majestic in appearance instead of this very humble comment text box :)
I guess this long post doesn't really answer the question that was posed, but as a long time lurker I know it won't be the first time a comment was tangential to the topic of the FPP.
posted by sevenyearlurk at 5:45 PM on July 4, 2007 [1 favorite]
Saw MeFi in my referral logs in 2000, joined, wrote one or two comments, then lurked for 5 years (even forgetting I was a member, to be honest), then remembered by username & password.
Still haven't posted to the blue, may never.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 7:58 PM on July 4, 2007
Still haven't posted to the blue, may never.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 7:58 PM on July 4, 2007
I joined years ago and I tend to alternate between taking months off at a time and then spending every waking hour here. quonsar once accused me of being a sockpuppet because of my posting habits. I often accuse quonsar of storing fish in his pants, but thankfully can't personally verify that fact. Although the smell alone makes it circumstantially obvious.
posted by spiderwire at 8:15 PM on July 4, 2007
posted by spiderwire at 8:15 PM on July 4, 2007
cortex: in moderation, certainly
groaaaaaaaaaaan.
Something interesting I've noticed is that I post here to keep my snarking abilities up -- not that they're really all that good in the first place, but certainly better than what they'd be without MeFi. I find that without posting here, I tend to be a lot less quick-on-the-draw -- and experience a great deal more staircase wit -- in everyday life.
posted by spiderwire at 8:26 PM on July 4, 2007
groaaaaaaaaaaan.
Something interesting I've noticed is that I post here to keep my snarking abilities up -- not that they're really all that good in the first place, but certainly better than what they'd be without MeFi. I find that without posting here, I tend to be a lot less quick-on-the-draw -- and experience a great deal more staircase wit -- in everyday life.
posted by spiderwire at 8:26 PM on July 4, 2007
Do you call that snark? Juvenile groaning? Why don't you slam the door and storm off to your room?
I'm not very good at snarking either unfortunately as you can tell.
posted by jouke at 9:07 PM on July 4, 2007
I'm not very good at snarking either unfortunately as you can tell.
posted by jouke at 9:07 PM on July 4, 2007
My husband is here and it's the only way I can communicate with him. [Hi!]
Sometimes the little transparent apple on the lid of his Mac laptop glows blue, when it doesn't I know he's in the grey or reading the Guardian.
posted by BAKERSFIELD! at 9:11 PM on July 4, 2007
Sometimes the little transparent apple on the lid of his Mac laptop glows blue, when it doesn't I know he's in the grey or reading the Guardian.
posted by BAKERSFIELD! at 9:11 PM on July 4, 2007
I don't know that I can sum it up... I used to blog a lot more than I do these days (it was a bit much, really) and I used to mine the blue for fodder. After a while, I decided to have a go myself. Was there a point where the site wasn't taking on new users at all? I seem to remember trying to sign up some years back...
Anyway, I'm here now in the loving embrace of the data and that's all that counts.
Sorry about that smoking thread, I didn't think it was going to turn into a fistfight.
posted by chuckdarwin at 8:25 AM on July 5, 2007
Anyway, I'm here now in the loving embrace of the data and that's all that counts.
Sorry about that smoking thread, I didn't think it was going to turn into a fistfight.
posted by chuckdarwin at 8:25 AM on July 5, 2007
I lurked here for a long while, even after I got an account. Then, one day, and for no apparent reason, I decided to come out of my shell. Now I comment a lot more. Perhaps miss lynnster is right and I just needed to wait until I got a thicker skin.
I also have noticed that my writing style here has crept into my interoffice correspondences. This is both good and bad; good because I take the time to proofread make sure that I'm making some modicum of sense, and bad in that, on occasion, I let my snark flag fly. Fortunately I have been able to keep it fairly light and, thus far, have not been fired because of it.
posted by quin at 9:46 AM on July 5, 2007
I also have noticed that my writing style here has crept into my interoffice correspondences. This is both good and bad; good because I take the time to proofread make sure that I'm making some modicum of sense, and bad in that, on occasion, I let my snark flag fly. Fortunately I have been able to keep it fairly light and, thus far, have not been fired because of it.
posted by quin at 9:46 AM on July 5, 2007
Dude you are related to Harry Houdini, which pretty much means you can do whatever you want, carry on.
posted by Samuel Farrow at 11:26 AM on July 5, 2007
posted by Samuel Farrow at 11:26 AM on July 5, 2007
I signed up last week after resisting for... I don't know, but since before September, 2001, because I was already fully addicted when the towers fell and this is where I went first.
Being able to post will wreck me; I signed up anyway because Thomcatspike came up in conversation last week and a couple of people were wondering about him. So I paid $5 so I could ask what happened to him. It's probably an inappropriate question. I liked that guy. I miss him.
I don't remember how I found the site because I don't remember where I used to go before I found the site. I like blue best. I like long, silly, disputatious threads that feed my addictive need to hit "refresh" and sit boiling with anticipation waiting for the page to load and show me the bandwidth exceeded frog.
If I were to post my inappropriate Thomcatspike question, it would be a gray question, right, not a green question?
posted by Don Pepino at 12:41 PM on July 5, 2007
Being able to post will wreck me; I signed up anyway because Thomcatspike came up in conversation last week and a couple of people were wondering about him. So I paid $5 so I could ask what happened to him. It's probably an inappropriate question. I liked that guy. I miss him.
I don't remember how I found the site because I don't remember where I used to go before I found the site. I like blue best. I like long, silly, disputatious threads that feed my addictive need to hit "refresh" and sit boiling with anticipation waiting for the page to load and show me the bandwidth exceeded frog.
If I were to post my inappropriate Thomcatspike question, it would be a gray question, right, not a green question?
posted by Don Pepino at 12:41 PM on July 5, 2007
I found metafilter in late 2000, after the New Yorker's Rebecca Mead wrote "You've got blog" about megnut and kottke and other early blogs, and I went and searched out the web sites of everyone mentioned and followed the links here. I spent a lot of time being jealous, because I had a web journal too, but I felt like I didn't compare to the awesomeness of the early A-list types.
When I first happened on metafilter, there was very little like it in the world, and didn't really understand the value of the comment section at all. At first, I just read metafilter for the links, which back then really did attempt to be the "best of the web."
I joined, then I noticed that there was some amazing discussion here. I probably made a few fpps, and was pretty active on the blue for about 2 years, then on-again-off-again active for another year or two. During that time, I would periodically check in on metatalk.
In early 2004, I discovered the green. It was love at first site.
Now, with occasional exceptions when I'm on vacation or too busy in my regular life, I check ask.metafilter.com several times every day. At least once a week or two I'll have a burst of prolific commenting -- I'm not sure if the quality of the questions fluctuates or if it's just my mood. I'll occasionally post a question, usually in a moment of non-sober judgment.
I check metatalk every few days to see if I've missed anything I should care about. I tend to make comments in metatalk even if I don't think I'm contributing to the discussion just because I want to say "I was there" when other people are being interesting.
I check the blue every few weeks, if that. I don't think the main metafilter page is really the best of the web any more. It hasn't been for a long time. I'm not that into the evolution where huge posts with dozens of links about obscure topics get plaudits, and I'm sick of political discussions and newsfilter. When something really amazing makes it to the blue, someone usually references it on metatalk or it makes it to the sidebar, and that's enough for me.
posted by croutonsupafreak at 1:52 PM on July 5, 2007
When I first happened on metafilter, there was very little like it in the world, and didn't really understand the value of the comment section at all. At first, I just read metafilter for the links, which back then really did attempt to be the "best of the web."
I joined, then I noticed that there was some amazing discussion here. I probably made a few fpps, and was pretty active on the blue for about 2 years, then on-again-off-again active for another year or two. During that time, I would periodically check in on metatalk.
In early 2004, I discovered the green. It was love at first site.
Now, with occasional exceptions when I'm on vacation or too busy in my regular life, I check ask.metafilter.com several times every day. At least once a week or two I'll have a burst of prolific commenting -- I'm not sure if the quality of the questions fluctuates or if it's just my mood. I'll occasionally post a question, usually in a moment of non-sober judgment.
I check metatalk every few days to see if I've missed anything I should care about. I tend to make comments in metatalk even if I don't think I'm contributing to the discussion just because I want to say "I was there" when other people are being interesting.
I check the blue every few weeks, if that. I don't think the main metafilter page is really the best of the web any more. It hasn't been for a long time. I'm not that into the evolution where huge posts with dozens of links about obscure topics get plaudits, and I'm sick of political discussions and newsfilter. When something really amazing makes it to the blue, someone usually references it on metatalk or it makes it to the sidebar, and that's enough for me.
posted by croutonsupafreak at 1:52 PM on July 5, 2007
I think I've determined that MeTa misuse and corresponding cries of abuse ebb and flow in a cycle of maybe two months per specific complaint.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 9:39 PM on July 5, 2007
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 9:39 PM on July 5, 2007
davy can be happy that he is being mentioned in a positive way, because he kept mentioning this site on alt.angst and that was how I discovered it (longtime lurker everywhere because I'm usually hideously embarrassed by anything I write on the internet). I constantly read everything on the blue, green and grey and when I finally get caught up with all the current stuff I mine the archives because my life is dull and this isn't. And even when it is, it isn't, because there's always a link to follow which leads to another link etc which is very cool indeed and that is why I sometimes feel the need to say that my name is Linda and I'm an internet addict. My brother, who feels pity for his poverty stricken sister, paid for my account and so now I can add comments like this, which will probably make me feel hideously embarrassed tomorrow.
posted by h00py at 7:23 AM on July 7, 2007
posted by h00py at 7:23 AM on July 7, 2007
Hideous embarrassment is par for the course, h00py. Welcome belatedly aboard.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:40 AM on July 7, 2007
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:40 AM on July 7, 2007
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posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 4:31 PM on July 3, 2007