Selflink prompts pony request

September 16, 2000 3:46 PM

Baylink self-blogged!

Alright. Flamage in this situation being pointless, this basically just cemented an idea I've been rolling around in my head for the past day or two.

I propose a "metaprojects.metafilter.com" or somesuch location for self-blogging.

more inside...
posted by cCranium to MetaFilter-related at 3:46 PM (11 comments total)

There's a lot of highly creative people that frequent Metafilter, as I'm sure we all know.

As such, there's an awfully good chance that a lot of these people are involved with really good projects that it's impossible for us - well, me at least - to keep track of. I can't go to everyone's personal site, as much as I'd like to, to keep track.

Something that would allow us to post threads information and/or links to stuff we're working on might just be a good idea.

Suprisingly enough, I'm not actually working on something I'd want to self-blog. I do, however, want to know what my peers are working on.

Many good thoughts and ideas can come from peer reviews, and Metafilter is full of peers who's reviews I'd respect, and who I trust to be more in-depth than "d00d jor zl73 SuX0rs" type comments.

Plus, if I ever do stumble across an idea that I think other people would like, I wouldn't mind bragging about it without violating rules.
posted by cCranium at 3:49 PM on September 16, 2000

"Flamage in this situation being pointless".

Does that mean you don't think it's *necessary*... or just that you don't think it will do any good?
posted by baylink at 5:05 PM on September 16, 2000

From the guidelines:

"Posting a link to your homepage and asking for feedback is a bad post. Self-promotion isn't what this site is about."

Hopefully, comment is unnecessary.
posted by baylink at 5:09 PM on September 16, 2000

baylink: a bit of both. :-) Mostly unnecessary though.

I realize that self-promotion isn't what this site is about, which is why I suggest another, under the metatalk umbrella, that it *is* about.

People who aren't interested don't go there.

I don't know, I just think that MeFi's becomming a community hub (err... buzzwordy? hrm... too much talking with the marketing folk or something :-) that could expand to a lot of good things.

I realize that Matt's terribly busy, and that this obviously wasn't the point of MeFi, but MeFi's grown and changed, even over the few months I've been here. *shrug* It's just a thought. They're rare enough for me I figured I'd share. <grin>
posted by cCranium at 5:39 PM on September 16, 2000

Eep, don't reference my blog at me. That's just creepy, it isn't often done. :-)

See, I agree with you that readers would find it interesting, which is the point of my suggestion. I think that MeFi can and should be kept reasonably 'pure' though.

Sure, you only break the rules once in a blue moon, but when 1500 (at last check, which was weeks, if not months, ago) people do, blue moons (and therefore smurfs!) become a common occurance.

A specific place to break the rules means MeFi can continue being a source for discoveries, as opposed to advertisements.

If there are other sites out there that will let people do this, I'd be happy to hear of them. My only criteria is that the people doing so are of the caliber I expect from MeFi regulars.
posted by cCranium at 8:54 PM on September 16, 2000

I've been thinking about this for quite a while, if you just finished some new mega project and wanted to share it with others there's not a lot of avenues. You could ask a friend to blog it on metafilter, or wait until a stranger finds it and blogs it here. Or you can sign up under a false name and post it.

What I want to add to metafilter is a site that acts much like metafilter but is about self-promotion only.

I was thinking of putting it at announce.metafilter.com

and running the last five posts in a side bar feed at metafilter. I want to add a bunch of feeds (like metatalk) to metafilter, but I'm being careful to not make it too "portal-y"

when the ticketstubs project is done (yeah, I'm working on it), I'll work up the announce section and integrate everything with the main metafilter site.
posted by mathowie at 11:54 PM on September 16, 2000

I think that would be a nice approach to the thing, Matt. I understand perfectly what you mean about the Blue Moon Syndrome... and I'd hate to see the place turn into Slashdot; that might be the best of both worlds.
posted by baylink at 11:48 AM on September 17, 2000

One other observation: what I was doing wasn't quite the same as what cCran was talking about... mine was more an "event" posting... but I think announce actually covers all of that.

You might have more stringent restrictions on posting to announce, though; keeping the traffic down there will be the only way to make it useful.

The ability for posters to delete posts there might be helpful, too.
posted by baylink at 8:23 AM on September 18, 2000

As far as integrating it with metafilter goes, why not just go ahead and give users the option to display the last five (or whatever) "promotion-tagged" links right in with normal mf. Maybe in a different color, or something. Posters would just check the "self-promotion" box when posting a link, and users can decide what they want to do with them.
posted by Lirp at 7:18 PM on September 23, 2000

That's an idea, too.

It seemed to me that merely *labeling* the posting performed the same function, and that was why I did so.

Further thoughts, Matt?
posted by baylink at 6:15 PM on October 5, 2000