Feeling crowded?

April 13, 2008 3:51 PM

Growth

The Metafilter membership on April 6, 2008 was stated on the blue as 71008. Today, one week later, it is stated as 71807. That is just about 100 noobs a day. How does mathowie have time for anything but processing applications?

posted by Cranberry to MetaFilter-related at 3:51 PM (150 comments total)

They're not "applications" that have to be considered and accepted or rejected. I should think it's automated, and Matt has nothing to do but chuckle gleefully at his $500 daily bank deposits.
posted by orange swan at 3:55 PM on April 13, 2008

What's the callout about?
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 3:56 PM on April 13, 2008

Well, they're not even necessarily people who have paid the $5 either, are they? The number of users on the front page is really sort of deceptive, and shouldn't be trusted.
posted by Dave Faris at 3:57 PM on April 13, 2008

probably only 40 or 50 paid for their account (just a guess without doing a db query) for the week.
posted by mathowie at 4:01 PM on April 13, 2008

40 or 50 a day, or a week?
/just curious
posted by Cranberry at 4:04 PM on April 13, 2008

What's the callout about?

Illegal immigration.
posted by hackly_fracture at 4:04 PM on April 13, 2008 [5 favorites]

This will dwendell.
posted by mds35 at 4:05 PM on April 13, 2008 [1 favorite]

Feeling crowded?

Well, no, because this is the INTERNET.
posted by liquorice at 4:08 PM on April 13, 2008

Keep in mind that 20 or thirty a day are probably my sockpuppets and new Astro Zombies.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 4:09 PM on April 13, 2008 [4 favorites]

For the week, in total. 5-10 a day is normal for completed signups around here. Sometimes when we get big press, a ton of people sign up but only 1-5% pay for the account and once in a while I get an angry email saying it shouldn't cost anything.
posted by mathowie at 4:11 PM on April 13, 2008

chuckle gleefully at his $500 daily bank deposits.

I always picture it being delivered to a sharkskin-suited matt (flanked by cortex and jess) in a stainless steel suitcase, like dope money.
posted by jonmc at 4:14 PM on April 13, 2008 [1 favorite]

"...5-10 a day is normal for completed signups around here"

So $25-50 a day supports mathowie, cortex, and jessamyn.

Clearly we need some help here. Is Sally Struthers available?
posted by mr_crash_davis at 4:15 PM on April 13, 2008 [2 favorites]

Thank you. *will wait for greater population expansion before selling out and moving to a condo*
posted by Cranberry at 4:15 PM on April 13, 2008

Don't forget the hermitosii, Flo.
posted by yhbc at 4:17 PM on April 13, 2008

Sometimes when we get big press, a ton of people sign up but only 1-5% pay for the account

Huh. I just logged out to check the sign-up process, since that seemed like a crazy abandonment rate. I hadn't realized that the $5 isn't actually mentioned on the registration page itself. No wonder so many folks don't make it all the way through the funnel. Not saying it's a bad thing, but what's the thinking about surprising them at the end?
posted by mumkin at 4:22 PM on April 13, 2008 [2 favorites]

Is Sally Struthers available?

No, she's too busy teaching starving children gun repair. We may have to get Jerry Lewis.
posted by jonmc at 4:22 PM on April 13, 2008

Do you think those luxury bike saddles grow on trees??
posted by fire&wings at 4:34 PM on April 13, 2008

Well, they're not even necessarily people who have paid the $5 either, are they? The number of users on the front page is really sort of deceptive, and shouldn't be trusted.
posted by Dave Faris at 10:57 AM on April 14 [+] [!]

probably only 40 or 50 paid for their account (just a guess without doing a db query) for the week.
posted by mathowie at 11:01 AM on April 14 [+] [!]

so roughly 40 out of 800 went all the way & paid their $5?

if we extrapolate from that ratio, does this mean that there are only around 3,600 members, rather than the 71,800 claimed on the front page?
posted by UbuRoivas at 4:54 PM on April 13, 2008 [1 favorite]

Ubu, you and I and the others who joined in the Gold Rush of 11-18-04 knew we would pay $5.00 for the privilege of joining. According to mumkin, it could be a surprise to others who think everything on the internet should be free.
posted by Cranberry at 5:08 PM on April 13, 2008

I hadn't realized that the $5 isn't actually mentioned on the registration page itself. No wonder so many folks don't make it all the way through the funnel.

Wow, I hadn't realized that either. Totally not shocked people don't make it.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 5:09 PM on April 13, 2008 [2 favorites]

So 90-95% of potential user numbers just vanish into the ether? That's unacceptable. Those numbers deserve their chance to shine.
posted by adamrice at 5:10 PM on April 13, 2008

In the January data dump, it looked like there were around 35k completed registrations, and around 13k active users (individuals who commented in 2007).
posted by team lowkey at 5:14 PM on April 13, 2008 [3 favorites]

in other news (not really front-page-worthy) Australia now has a female Governor General.

she also doubles as the commander-in-chief of the Australian Defence Forces.

i just thought i'd mention that, because it's kind of awesome.

(as everybody would know already, our Deputy Prime Minister is also a woman, and New South Wales has had a female governor since 2001)
posted by UbuRoivas at 5:16 PM on April 13, 2008 [1 favorite]

and once in a while I get an angry email saying it shouldn't cost anything.

Yeah sorry about that, I set a script up a few years ago and just left it running.

Following on from Ubu, is there any way to cull incomplete sign-ups? 71,000 expressions of interest is a far cry from 71,000 members. Maybe read the number of 'user pages' generated would give a more accurate figure (assuming incomplete signups don't generate one...)?
posted by cosmonik at 5:20 PM on April 13, 2008 [1 favorite]

if we extrapolate from that ratio, does this mean that there are only around 3,600 members, rather than the 71,800 claimed on the front page?

There are actually only six MetaFilter users. Matt and Cortex are the same person; emelenjr, Blazecock Pileon, tehloki, and I are a single poster; SCDB represents, for better or worse, half of all AskMe answers by hundreds of various posters; most FPPs are automated bots that comb Google News, Everlasting Blort, BoingBoing, and Huffington post every 15 minutes for new links and Wikipedia cross-references; all the MeTa callouts are randomly generated from a Perl script a la the old Kant text generator; and quonsar sometimes logs into his jessamyn sockpuppet account to post.

HTH
posted by Mikey-San at 5:21 PM on April 13, 2008 [13 favorites]

(I would've thought that FPP worthy, Ubu, if there were enough interesting links beyond news.com.au. Especially in the context of a certain other country, Whose Name You Shall Not Mention, that may soon also have a female head of state, Whose Name You Also Shall Not Mention)
posted by cosmonik at 5:22 PM on April 13, 2008

Especially in the context of a certain other country, Whose Name You Shall Not Mention, that may soon also have a female head of state

Gabon? No, no...wait...I got it: Sri Lanka?
posted by Burhanistan at 5:23 PM on April 13, 2008 [1 favorite]

"i just thought i'd mention that, because it's kind of awesome."

Awesome if you're an Aussie feminist, which as we can extrapolate from the figures in this thread is about .00001% of all paid Metafilter membership, placing them just behind active furries and just ahead of Colombian transsexual street mimes.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 5:24 PM on April 13, 2008 [1 favorite]

disclaimer: that was in no way haterade, only caricature
posted by Mikey-San at 5:29 PM on April 13, 2008 [1 favorite]

Feeling crowded?

Well, no, because this is the INTERNET.

This is where one makes a "Trucks and Tubes" joke, right?


Just think if you had to send Matt $5 in gift certificates to get in - imagine how many Chicken McNuggets, or Double Scoops at the 31Flavors that would buy...
posted by pupdog at 5:36 PM on April 13, 2008 [1 favorite]

When I think of the five dollar membership fee, I hear in my head the voice of the receptionist guy on the phone when, years back, I'd call for a car service in Brooklyn. In those days, I'd generally be taking a car service car to lower Manhattan, and from my neighborhood that was usually a five dollar charge. The guy on the phone would always pronounce it "fie" (rhymes with pie) "dollah". "It'll be fie-dollah". So I imagine Matt saying it like that, each time a new member joins.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 5:37 PM on April 13, 2008

Fie dollah, no holla.
posted by rtha at 5:46 PM on April 13, 2008

With gas and food prices going up and all I think Matt should raise the entry fee to $10. I am sure Fiona needs a new pair of shoes. However, it would be interesting to see what the breakdown is between ad revenue and sign-up fees, but only if Matt feels comfortable sharing.
posted by caddis at 5:48 PM on April 13, 2008

For as little as a dollar a day, you too can be an asshat online.
posted by mattbucher at 5:53 PM on April 13, 2008 [1 favorite]

That is just about 100 noobs a day

When, pray tell, does one go from being a "noob" to a "member of the community"? Kind of a silly, 1337-speak (and exclusionary) word, "noob"...

Yours truly,

A noob
posted by KokuRyu at 5:57 PM on April 13, 2008

Definitely among the cheapest least expensive thrills available.
posted by owhydididoit at 5:57 PM on April 13, 2008

Noobs. Sheesh.
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 5:58 PM on April 13, 2008

it would be interesting to see what the breakdown is between ad revenue and sign-up fees

I have no clue, but it sure seems like the ads pay more.
posted by owhydididoit at 5:59 PM on April 13, 2008

Fie dollah

Me snark you long time.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:00 PM on April 13, 2008 [9 favorites]

it would be interesting to see what the breakdown is between ad revenue and sign-up fees

I doubt that's necessary, caddis. Assuming that the rate of completed registration (paid) is a constant 50 users/week, that's $13,000/year. Mathowie is making a full-time job of Metafilter (and PVRBlog, etc.), and a part-time job of it for the rest of the team. I'd say that ad revenue has to be the overwhelming portion of the income. That or he's relying on his huge stockpile of dented canned goods to see them all through.
posted by mumkin at 6:02 PM on April 13, 2008 [1 favorite]

What, you don't get chargebacks for ads clicked through on your posts? It's a profile setting you might've overlooked.
posted by Burhanistan at 6:07 PM on April 13, 2008

When, pray tell, does one go from being a "noob" to a "member of the community"?

Around the same time we stop being our mothers' babies.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 6:16 PM on April 13, 2008 [2 favorites]

KEEEEEL THE N00BZ!!!!!!!

Oh wait.
posted by Fuzzy Skinner at 6:16 PM on April 13, 2008

The signup page mentions the $5 in the last two paragraghs. And yeah, ad revenue is really what pays the bills, the new user signup don't even cover the cost of servers.
posted by mathowie at 6:19 PM on April 13, 2008

"..ad revenue is really what pays the bills..."

Oh, great, we're all producing content for The Man.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 6:24 PM on April 13, 2008

"..ad revenue is really what pays the bills..."

hm, can't remember seeing one ad on this site... Where do they hide? I'd click it.
posted by kolophon at 6:33 PM on April 13, 2008

Awesome if you're an Aussie feminist, which as we can extrapolate from the figures in this thread is about .00001% of all paid Metafilter membership, placing them just behind active furries and just ahead of Colombian transsexual street mimes.

Now I feel kinda kinky. That's an interesting place to be in the middle of, I have to say.
posted by h00py at 6:35 PM on April 13, 2008

"The last two paragraphs" are on a separate page, though, which is kinda the point. You can choose your username, password, enter your real name and email address before you ever click to the page which tells you "fie dollah".
posted by yhbc at 6:37 PM on April 13, 2008 [1 favorite]

And yeah, ad revenue is really what pays the bills, the new user signup don't even cover the cost of servers.

And advertisers who see '71,000 users' on the front page (and don't bother researching any further) might be more inclined to spend the big ad bucks. Which is fine, because I fully support milking ad companies for every last penny we possibly can, as long as it doesn't mean we actually see any ads.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:38 PM on April 13, 2008 [2 favorites]

Oh, great, we're all producing content for The Man

hey, those Suicide Girls have bills to pay, you know. do you think all those tatts & piercings & underwear come for free?
posted by UbuRoivas at 6:38 PM on April 13, 2008 [1 favorite]

the new user signup don't even cover the cost of servers.

Don't forget the site and server fund mentioned on the MeFi About page. Just think about how much MeFi response and availability have improved in the past couple years. Much of that is attributable to great work by mathowie and pb. But the hardware helps too. So can we.
posted by netbros at 6:40 PM on April 13, 2008

It does seem sort of goofy that if you just hit the New User link the $5 fee (which is really a pretty unusual feature) is not prominent on the page where you provide your initial personal information. Why not mention it in the first line and probably eliminate the majority of not-quite signups?
posted by nanojath at 6:41 PM on April 13, 2008

Advertisers don't care about how many members there are. In fact, they don't care if you're a member or not, just whether you see and click through their ad.
posted by smackfu at 6:43 PM on April 13, 2008

Decided to go grocery shopping after my wife saw some minute maid juice boxes in a circular on special at target stores .. She did a search for printable coupons online ,and to my surprise she found some minute maid coupons for target stores . She printed ten coupons and got ten boxes of minute maid practically free ... (lol) . Why can't us men think of these things ? Lol
posted by UbuRoivas at 6:48 PM on April 13, 2008 [10 favorites]

The signup page mentions the $5 in the last two paragraghs

Sorry if I'm misrepresented things, Matt, but what signup page is that? When I click the New User link in the header when not logged in, the page I get, a form asking for all of my account and contact details. It's only after I click the Register button that I'm told about the $5 account activation business. There aren't really any paragraphs of copy.

Am I somehow not getting a real new user signup experience when I log out? Should I be getting routed through the newuser.mefi page at some point? It mentions the signup fee in the last two paragraphs, but I don't see a link to it from join.mefi.
posted by mumkin at 6:49 PM on April 13, 2008

Ugh, what happened to the grammar in that comment? S'what I get for logging in and out several times in the middle of composing it. Sheesh.
posted by mumkin at 6:52 PM on April 13, 2008

I was under the impression that the $5 was tax-deductable. Amirite? I kinda need to know asap...
posted by Ivana Shtup de Naparino at 6:52 PM on April 13, 2008 [1 favorite]

just whether you see and click through their ad.

Really, just whether you see it. Conversion from online ads is horrendously low. Most folks won't even look at something they perceive as an ad.
posted by owhydididoit at 6:53 PM on April 13, 2008

Huh. Seems more than a little bizarre to me that there would be user numbers assigned to people who haven't even completed the sign-up process.
posted by orange swan at 6:55 PM on April 13, 2008

Always dial J-E-L-L-O, and if the ‘lime’ is busy, you can still get strawberry, raspberry, cherry, orange, and lemon.
posted by [more inside] at 6:56 PM on April 13, 2008

Huh. Seems more than a little bizarre to me that there would be user numbers assigned to people who haven't even completed the sign-up process.

It's a vast right-wing conspiracy. Black box blogging.
posted by Anne Coulter's Butt Plug at 7:03 PM on April 13, 2008

Oh, great, we're all producing content for The Man.

For this man, it's an honor.

Mathowie for President!
posted by caddis at 7:05 PM on April 13, 2008

KokuRyu writes "When, pray tell, does one go from being a 'noob' to a 'member of the community'? Kind of a silly, 1337-speak (and exclusionary) word, 'noob'..."

When the current user count on the front page is greater than 2X your userID. If the user count is at least an order of magnitude greater than your userID you can claim Elder status.
posted by Mitheral at 7:07 PM on April 13, 2008 [1 favorite]

Just think if you had to send Matt $5 in gift certificates to get in - imagine how many Chicken McNuggets, or Double Scoops at the 31Flavors that would buy...

I hope, for Matt's sake, that such a plan would include an alternate choice of Weight Watcher's certificate to offset consumption of copious amounts of "chicken" and ice cream.
posted by the littlest brussels sprout at 7:17 PM on April 13, 2008

Advertisers don't care about how many members there are. In fact, they don't care if you're a member or not, just whether you see and click through their ad.

Well, that's just plainly false on the face of it. If there are 100X page views to a site as opposed to X, it's clear that more people are seeing the ads in question (though as mentioned it's not so much impressions as it is click-throughs that count these days), and a greater number of pageviews raises the potential number of click-throughs (by exactly how much is the $64,000 question, of course).

That said, since ads are served exclusively (mainly?) to people who are not logged in (see Matt's article here), raw page view totals that would be a better measure than actual members for an advertiser to consider. Whether potential advertisers ask Matt about this is his business, figuratively and literally, though.

Regardless, it seems to follow that the larger the number of members, the more popular the site, and the larger number of non-logged-in views as well.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 7:19 PM on April 13, 2008

owhydididoit: Really, just whether you see it. Conversion from online ads is horrendously low. Most folks won't even look at something they perceive as an ad.

That's very true.
posted by flatluigi at 7:25 PM on April 13, 2008

a part-time job of it for the rest of the team.

Full time for me, actually.
posted by jessamyn at 7:35 PM on April 13, 2008

Full time, part time, I think you all need a raise!
posted by madamjujujive at 7:46 PM on April 13, 2008

I was under the impression that the $5 was tax-deductable. Amirite? I kinda need to know asap...

I'm amortising mine over a five-year period.

Unfortunately, the falling US dollar has caused my tax benefit to be less than planned.
posted by UbuRoivas at 7:47 PM on April 13, 2008 [3 favorites]

When does the pension kick in?
posted by loiseau at 7:56 PM on April 13, 2008

Sometimes when we get big press, a ton of people sign up but only 1-5% pay for the account and once in a while I get an angry email saying it shouldn't cost anything.

So the most recent bump, presumably spurred in part by a recent prominent story explicitly asking if Metafilter's nature owes anything to the $5 sign-up cost, is producing a rash of potential members who are surprised by the a $5 fee?

Something tells me we can muddle along without those lightning-fast thinking machines.
posted by Elsa at 8:01 PM on April 13, 2008 [1 favorite]

The newuser.mefi page should be the first thing seen since it explains it all. I'll make sure that's put back as the new user sign up link
posted by mathowie at 8:05 PM on April 13, 2008

in other news (not really front-page-worthy) Australia now has a female Governor General.

Only in Australia.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 8:21 PM on April 13, 2008

Jessamyn, I thought you were a librarian.
posted by konolia at 8:32 PM on April 13, 2008

When the current user count on the front page is greater than 2X your userID. If the user count is at least an order of magnitude greater than your userID you can claim Elder status.

I'm no longer a noob!
posted by misozaki at 8:41 PM on April 13, 2008

But you're not too old to go over my knee, young'un, and don't you forget it!
posted by orange swan at 9:03 PM on April 13, 2008

Coupons for everyone!
posted by Sailormom at 9:22 PM on April 13, 2008

I'm curious if there is a way to make a reasonable guestimate (that's a scientific term) about the number of regular visitors without an account. Cookies logging visits by non-logged in users perhaps?

I started hanging out in early 2001 (I actually found about about the first plane crashing on 9/11 when I checked MeFi that morning) but didn't think I had too much to contribute for awhile and then signups were closed and I'd miss the lotteries, etc. So it took 3.5 years of fairly regular readership for me to become a "member".

I wonder how unusual/typical my experience is.
posted by afflatus at 9:26 PM on April 13, 2008 [1 favorite]

Jessamyn, I thought you were a librarian.

I am also a librarian. I am not a full-time librarian.
posted by jessamyn at 9:27 PM on April 13, 2008

Just take the user count off the front page, it only confuses people and generates Metatalk posts.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 9:51 PM on April 13, 2008

Speaking of the actual user/number of user numbers issued ratio:
Was there a great renumbering at some point? According to the old profile page URL, I was user 942 in a previous life, which seems unlikely.
posted by ctmf at 10:00 PM on April 13, 2008

Just take the user count off the front page, it only confuses people and generates Metatalk posts.

By that logic, AV, we should disable comments as well.

I'm not saying that's a bad thing.
posted by cosmonik at 10:05 PM on April 13, 2008

Don't forget the hermitosii,

YM hermitoses. HTH.

FYI.
posted by dersins at 10:15 PM on April 13, 2008

Full time, part time, I think you all need a raise!

mjjj for finance chair!
posted by cortex at 10:23 PM on April 13, 2008

Ok, I changed the header/footer links to point at the new user page that explains it all. I think it got changed accidentally about a month ago to the simple signup form.
posted by mathowie at 10:49 PM on April 13, 2008

Try not to hate me, mathowie. I did not mean to launch a monster thread or extra coding work. I was just curious.
posted by Cranberry at 11:20 PM on April 13, 2008

It seems like it would be easy to count only paid-up users on the main page.
posted by delmoi at 12:19 AM on April 14, 2008

jessamyn wrote: Jessamyn, I thought you were a librarian.

I am also a librarian. I am not a full-time librarian.

Does stewarding Ask MeFi not count as some new form of librarianship? (Not taking the mick, it just occurred to me that helping people access information is pretty much the core of both jobs...)
posted by jack_mo at 2:46 AM on April 14, 2008

Gabon? No, no...wait...I got it: Sri Lanka?

No, silly, they've already had a female head of state!
posted by liquorice at 3:54 AM on April 14, 2008

Does stewarding Ask MeFi not count as some new form of librarianship?

I think so, particularly AskMe, but some people always want to know what library you work in.
posted by jessamyn at 4:36 AM on April 14, 2008

in other news (not really front-page-worthy) Australia now has a female Governor General.

Only in Australia.

...err....not really...
posted by BozoBurgerBonanza at 6:06 AM on April 14, 2008

in other news (not really front-page-worthy) Australia now has a female Governor General.

Only in Australia.

...err....not really...
posted by meech at 6:25 AM on April 14, 2008

...err....not really...

Is that a link to a photo implying that she looks mannish and thus is somehow not female?
posted by jessamyn at 6:54 AM on April 14, 2008

I think they're links to the Governor Generals of Canada and New Zealand, but I can't really tell on the second one. Isn't that Clark, the PM?
posted by mosessis at 7:09 AM on April 14, 2008

No, that's Dame Silvia Cartwright, our previous governor general. The current one is a fat Indian dude.

Incidentally our last two prime ministers have been women. The current one since 1999. (I'm kind of loathe to count the previous one, as she wasn't actually elected - she rolled the previous leader of her party and took the top spot.)

At one point the speaker of the house, the chief justice, the governor general, and the prime minister were all women. (Three of those four spots are currently held by women.)

Pretty good, I reckon.
posted by The Monkey at 7:30 AM on April 14, 2008

Ambrosia Voyeur, this is for you...

MetaFilter: It only confuses people and generates MetaTalk posts.
posted by Mister_A at 8:08 AM on April 14, 2008 [1 favorite]

That Canadian gal is hot!
posted by Mister_A at 8:09 AM on April 14, 2008 [1 favorite]

It seems like it would be easy to count only paid-up users on the main page.

Yeah, I should (it'd be something like 38-40k I suspect), but I wanted to avoid the inevitable "zomg if you multiply that by $5 (ignoring the first 17k were free), in four years the site has earned more than I make from minimum wage and is therefore worthy of my scorn!" I guess I should just change it, but we'd also have the "but why is my ID in the 80k range when the front page says there are 40k users?!" But mostly it's because I find public discussions of how much a website makes based on whatever scraps of data can be found to be pretty distasteful, so it's purposely vague.
posted by mathowie at 8:09 AM on April 14, 2008

Pretty good, I reckon.

Well, NZ was the first country to extend women suffrage, so you started off on the right foot.
posted by goo at 8:16 AM on April 14, 2008

mr_crash_davis : placing them just behind active furries and just ahead of Colombian transsexual street mimes.

If only I had $5 for every time I've been in that position.



(What? We all shop at the same grocery store.)
posted by quin at 8:44 AM on April 14, 2008

Well, you could maybe remove the reference all together, then. No one doubts that the site is as popular as it is. There may be no reason to even need to reiterate it, especially if it causes problems when it's inaccurate or accurate.
posted by Dave Faris at 8:49 AM on April 14, 2008

Not taking the mick...

SPEAK AMERICAN.
posted by kittyprecious at 9:07 AM on April 14, 2008

obviously matt subcontracts with Diebold for the user count.
posted by quonsar at 9:11 AM on April 14, 2008 [1 favorite]

Dave's is not a bad suggestion re: removing the number of user accounts from the front page. Who needs it?
posted by Burhanistan at 9:15 AM on April 14, 2008

...it's purposely vague.

Why not just have it read "Thousands of members" then?
posted by timeistight at 9:17 AM on April 14, 2008

That Canadian gal is hot!

At the 2005 Parliamentary Press Gallery Dinner, where, traditionally, political figures make speeches caricaturing themselves, she said - among other things, and this is sort of from memory: "Why did the Prime Minister pick me? Well, I'll tell you the truth -- Not because I am a woman. Or an immigrant. Or black. He gave it to me...

because I'm hot!"

I liked it, anyway. I doubt it would have been as funny if she was the first female GG, but she's the third, or something, so it was just amusing. To me, anyway.
posted by blacklite at 9:21 AM on April 14, 2008

Yea that is pretty funny blacklite.
posted by Mister_A at 9:27 AM on April 14, 2008

Yeah, you're right, it's wrong when it's accurate, wrong when it's vague, so I removed it.
posted by mathowie at 9:30 AM on April 14, 2008

*braces for wrong-when-it's-missing metatalk thread*
posted by cortex at 9:32 AM on April 14, 2008 [1 favorite]

VOTE NO ON USER COUNTS: WRONG WHEN ACCURATE, WRONG WHEN VAGUE, WRONG FOR THE HOME PAGE, WRONG ON IRAQ.
posted by mathowie at 9:54 AM on April 14, 2008 [3 favorites]

End of an era.
posted by timeistight at 9:56 AM on April 14, 2008

"Why not mention it in the first line and probably eliminate the majority of not-quite signups?"

Because Matt makes most of his money by selling the contact info of folks who don't complete the sign-up for kickbacks on Nigerian 419 scams and penis-enlargement spam.

His kid gotta eat, yo, and she don't eat $5 at a time.
posted by klangklangston at 10:06 AM on April 14, 2008

jessamyn: I am also a librarian. I am not a full-time librarian.

wait wait wait. I know I'm late to the thread, but I thought you were full-time awesome, and the rest were things you did on the side.
posted by heeeraldo at 10:14 AM on April 14, 2008

Well, Aren't you guys used to being damned if you do and damned if you don't, Matt? Just seemed like a pointless metric. "Billions and Billions Served" does make more sense.
posted by Dave Faris at 10:16 AM on April 14, 2008

Thanks, Matt! That'll be my I-always-get-what-I-want for the day. :P
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 10:17 AM on April 14, 2008

Matt's like a modern day Robin Hood, man. Robbing from the uncompleted signups to give to the penis size.
posted by cortex at 10:27 AM on April 14, 2008

Why not just have it read "Thousands of members" then?

"Billions and Billions Served" does make more sense.

I AM A HUMAN BEING! I AM NOT A CHEESEBURGER!
posted by yhbc at 10:35 AM on April 14, 2008

Ich bin ein Hamburger.
posted by Dave Faris at 10:52 AM on April 14, 2008

The whole reason I come to this site is to watch the member ticker slowly creep up. I have broken the refresh button on the screen from hitting it so much (I was informed recently that my refresh technique was substandard, inasmuchas this is not a touch screen. C'est la vie.). Anyway, does someone have a rusty hacksaw or Quebecois industrial manufacturing facility that I can use to sever my right hand?

TIA
posted by Mister_A at 10:56 AM on April 14, 2008

Ich bin ein Hamburglar,

"Robble, Robble."
posted by quin at 10:58 AM on April 14, 2008

Don't ditch the numbering system! I like being a 69-er!
posted by Fuzzy Skinner at 11:06 AM on April 14, 2008

It's gone! No user count to monitor. Guess I'll have to get a new hobby. Maybe I could go to the Laundromat and watch the clothes go around, but it just won't be the same.
posted by Cranberry at 11:17 AM on April 14, 2008

Here are some displays of ever climbing numbers that might keep you occupied until the authorities come.
posted by Dave Faris at 11:22 AM on April 14, 2008 [1 favorite]

ctmf writes "Speaking of the actual user/number of user numbers issued ratio:
"Was there a great renumbering at some point? According to the old profile page URL, I was user 942 in a previous life, which seems unlikely."

There was but it's always been sequential by sign up order. At one point Matt removed a bunch of cruft and renumbered, I used to be in the 17Ks, but a substantial change like you indicated isn't possible.

timeistight writes "End of an era."

It's easy to derive. Check the front page for deleted items. Find the one where the user has been banned after one week and three comments. Observe his userID. Increment the user page number until you get a run of numbers that don't resolve. Regress to the previous last good number and bask in the glory of the old user count.
posted by Mitheral at 11:28 AM on April 14, 2008

EPIC
posted by [son] QUAALUDE at 12:08 PM on April 14, 2008

KokuRyu: When, pray tell, does one go from being a "noob" to a "member of the community"? Kind of a silly, 1337-speak (and exclusionary) word, "noob"... "

You stop being a noob once your user number drops below 30000
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 1:25 PM on April 14, 2008

30000? Pfft.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 1:46 PM on April 14, 2008

I remember trying to sign up with a different username and getting righteously peeved when I saw the username in question belonged to an account that was never activated fully (from the aggregate of usernames, et. al., that was posted here by Cortex awhile back).

I DEMAND THE RELEASE OF THESE DEAD USERNAMES TO BUILD MY SOCKPUPPET ARMY.
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 2:24 PM on April 14, 2008

probably only 40 or 50 paid for their account (just a guess without doing a db query) for the week

You mean we're supposed to pay for each week? OMG I owe you $860!
posted by Neiltupper at 2:43 PM on April 14, 2008

Dave Faris:Thanks a bunch for the links. Increasing national debt, increasing cost of Iraq folly, decreasing Social Security trust fund - now I am too depressed to go watch the Laundromats. I shall just sit here quietly sobbing about the check I just mailed to the IRS.
posted by Cranberry at 2:46 PM on April 14, 2008

I shall just sit here quietly sobbing about the check I just mailed to the IRS.

Oh right! I knew there was something else I had to do today.
posted by jessamyn at 2:51 PM on April 14, 2008

Only in Australia.

...err....not really...

That was a reference to the, shall we say, evangelical interpretation of the "Only in America" nonsense in this thread. Sorry for the obscure reference.
posted by Durn Bronzefist at 3:33 PM on April 14, 2008

"That was a reference to the, shall we say, evangelical interpretation of the "Only in America" nonsense in this thread. Sorry for the obscure reference."

Oh, Durn, y'forgot that antipodeans don't matter.
posted by klangklangston at 8:25 PM on April 14, 2008

from my point of view, that's quite correct.
posted by UbuRoivas at 8:40 PM on April 14, 2008

Only in Australia

...err....not really...

What, Australia got a female governor general in some country OTHER than Australia? Now that's progress!
posted by cosmonik at 6:10 AM on April 15, 2008

Fosters is Australian for "female governor general." It's available nearly everywhere!
posted by klangklangston at 8:31 AM on April 15, 2008

I wonder what the distinct count of users logged in in the last 30 days is (for reading or posting) across all of the metafilter hegemony. Cortex?
posted by felix at 10:23 AM on April 15, 2008

As it happens, that's something we've got handy, so:

11,793 mefi
10,922 askme
7,644 metatalk
4,114 music
3,313 projects
4,321 jobs

That's distinct logged-in users hitting each subsite. A lot of folks visit more than one part of the site, so the sum total of distinct users hitting the site is almost certainly a lot less than the sum of those numbers. Adding the Okay, For The Whole Site Now numbers to the tool that generates those would be a good idea, actually.
posted by cortex at 10:30 AM on April 15, 2008

7,644 metatalk

This is the one that counts.
posted by timeistight at 12:31 PM on April 15, 2008

This is the one that counts.

It's the one that sort of blows my mind, honestly.
posted by jessamyn at 12:38 PM on April 15, 2008

I like to think it represents a slow but unstoppable swelling of the ranks of oldish-schoolers. Once you're making sure to hit the grey at least once a month (or in the case of 3,622 of those, once a week), you're on the path to true mefitedom.
posted by cortex at 12:56 PM on April 15, 2008

I had a slow but unstoppable swelling once. Cortisone to the rescue.

never actually had an unstoppable swelling
posted by Burhanistan at 12:58 PM on April 15, 2008

Fosters is Australian for "female governor general." It's available nearly everywhere!

Erm, everywhere except Australia.
posted by goo at 2:42 PM on April 15, 2008

12,000 active Metafiltrationistas is a hefty chunk of change, but I have to admit it was lower than I expected by about one order of magnitude. On the other hand, I was thinking of all visitors, so assuming a 1-5% account signup uptake rate, that puts the number pretty close.
posted by felix at 2:44 PM on April 15, 2008

By the way, that means that if we convinced everyone active in the last 30 days to move to Pecos, TX (2007 population 11,183), we could elect Matthowie mayor by simple majority and declare independence.
posted by felix at 2:51 PM on April 15, 2008

Yeah, the headcount of monthly active logged-in users is peanuts to the non-logged-in traffic.
posted by cortex at 2:51 PM on April 15, 2008

"Erm, everywhere except Australia."

Well, yeah. There you just call it "female governor general."
posted by klangklangston at 3:12 PM on April 15, 2008

Once you're making sure to hit the grey at least once a month...

Is it weird that I check it a couple-three times a day? I mean, if someone has a meltdown, I want to know about it early on, what with having to sharpen pitchforks and make popcorn and stuff.
posted by rtha at 3:39 PM on April 15, 2008

Well, yes, it's weird. But it's the best kind of weird.

There was a point after we set up the admin-alert emails for new metatalk posts at which I realized that I was in fact no longer doing an hourly refresh of the metatalk front page, and that was a weird moment.
posted by cortex at 3:53 PM on April 15, 2008

I am just here to watch the colors change.
posted by Cranberry at 4:19 PM on April 15, 2008