Comments on: What would happen if you split MeFi into two "teams"?

What would happen if you split MeFi into two "teams"?

jkottke — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 00:31:55 -0800

What would happen if you split MeFi into two "teams", each a community of its own? This isn't a serious suggestion, but it's a fun possibility to entertain. More inside »

By: jkottke

jkottke — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 00:33:36 -0800

The basic idea here is that you randomly split the MeFi membership into two equal parts, about 7,000 members to a team. The front page would be split down the middle, with one team's posts on the left and the other's on the right. Each team could recruit new members, but no one could be a member of both communities (a system for dealing with this would have to be concocted). Few other new guidelines or changes would be needed. Each team would act like its own community under the existing MeFi rules.

Karma creates competition within communities, with members tailoring their comments in order to get good ratings (with good and bad consequences). There's a bit of friendly rivalry between communities such as Plastic, MeFi, Fark, and Kuro5hin, but what would competition between two mini-MeFi's look like?

Would the competition between the two teams raise the level of posts and discussion? Or would the teams use up too much energy calling each other names...or at least become so preoccupied with the competition that little else would be discussed? How would the identity of each team evolve? Would MeFiA become NewsFilter, while MeFiB, trying to differentiate itself, becomes TechFilter? Or would they both remain diverse, with a little bit of everything? (Are there any real world analogues that would be useful to examine in thinking about this?)

By: girlhacker

girlhacker — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 00:51:04 -0800

Hmmm...an interesting idea!

There is an economic theory that supports that competition often ends up with the two sides looking exactly the same. It is like elections with 2 candidates starting on the left and the right, then as time passes and they try to get more and more of the voters from the other side, they become more and more alike. You end up with 2 boring moderates in the middle. It is the same way with lots of products ... BK adds chicken, MickeyD has to add chicken. Detergent A adds special bleach for color, detergent B has to do it too.

Of course, with dynamic leadership and the spark of competition, we could end up with two sparkling communities. And I'm interested to see what would happen with duplicate posts... each side may want to discuss an interesting topic, so each would have a post about it ... but maybe they'd choose not to since the discussion could end up mirroring the other side.

By: chaz

chaz — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 01:39:49 -0800

i like it. a unique way to make things better

By: MiguelCardoso

MiguelCardoso — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 01:51:58 -0800

I say let's do it. It's not only a good idea - setting it up would be fun and a lesson in itself. I don't know about the random selection though. I say let the oldies(user numbers under 7000)and the newbies(over 7000)have it out!

Then we'll see, bwahahahaha!

*Let's whack'em, guys!*

By: MiguelCardoso

MiguelCardoso — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 01:55:30 -0800

Are guest stars allowed?(obviously and furiously thinking of waving some serious payola round holgate's way. That's Figo for all you football fans).

By: lucien

lucien — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 01:56:56 -0800

Oh boy, I can just see the sparks fly if cold chef and Miguel got put into two different classrooms...er...I mean "teams"

By: riffola

riffola — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 01:57:25 -0800

Hey Miguel that's not fair, do you realises how many people no longer like MeFi on our side of the 7000?* It wouldn't be fair to us eltists. ;)

* Ignore the fact that it's cool to diss MeFi.

By: tamim

tamim — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 01:57:33 -0800

[W]hat would competition between two mini-MeFi's look like?

It'll depend on who is on which team. If one side has most of the haiku, photoshop, in-joke, 'cursor-always-on-post-button' members, it'll generate a lot more posts and comments than the other side. It'll also generate disproportionately high noise than the other side. Average members in the team with more 'self-appointed-MeFi-cops' will be less comfortable in that half of NewMeFi.

Would the competition between the two teams raise the level of posts and discussion?

No. Even though there is no real competition, the perceived rivalry between Fark, MetaFilter, K5 and Plastic has not changed the level of posts or discussion in any of the sites. These 'relatively new' sites have not changed the posting and discussion habits in older communities like Slashdot.

[W]ould the teams use up too much energy calling each other names...or at least become so preoccupied with the competition that little else would be discussed?

No. Since you are limiting membership to one group, there will be not much incentive to call others names. The sense of 'competition' will be there; just as it is there between Fark, MetaFilter, K5 and Plastic. Just like the sense of competition isn't overwhelming and taking precedence over posting and discussion habits in any of the four places right now, I don't think anything will change then. Arguments can be made about the 'loosely held federations' in Dave Winer Communities^TM and LiveJournal, but they too are not preoccupied with their rivalry with any of the other four 'communities' either.

How would the identity of each team evolve? Would MeFiA become NewsFilter, while MeFiB, trying to differentiate itself, becomes TechFilter? Or would they both remain diverse, with a little bit of everything?

I think both sides will hit an equilibrium of a good mix within a few weeks, but the immediate posting patterns will be dictated by the make-up of the membership.

Some MetaFilter members always have some sort of 24 hour news channel turned on and rush to CNN.com to find a link to post on the front page. Unlike FreeRepublic, where members are much more news-savvy and will post to the actual news item, MetaFilter members have a habit of suffering from a restless, first-post syndrome; and more frequently will settle for a link to CNN's home page instead of searching for a specific page about the breaking news item.

Discussing technology issues, at least in depth, requires a degree of knowledge and expertise currently missing from not only MetaFilter membership, but also blog readership as well. I am not in anyway saying that members here are dumb, idiot, and technophobes. Far from it. I am thinking along the lines of Francis I, the king of France, and Leonardo da Vinci. King Francis hired da Vinci to be his "person with skill." While Francis talked of abstract concepts in his mind, da Vinci drew them up and tried to make them a reality. It also helped that da Vinci was a visionary himself. Most MetaFilter members can write a Bible with conceptual hot air, but few can actually talk about technology in depth. Anil's post about weblogs vs. journalism generated 19 comments, while his entry about "web's maturation as an application platform" got only 2. The membership's impatience and lack of desire to 'dig deep' shows in technology threads. While everyone here is infatuated with everything Google, if you look carefully, all of those front page posts are of cursory issues, almost always found on the index page of Google.com. I have yet to see someone link to Google's failures: in business (yes, there have been a few high profile ones) and in technology (yes, there are navigational difficulties).

In both cases, almost always the discussions will have a few anchor members championing their pet issues, be it general news or technology. Just like there are 'Israel-Palestine thread regulars' now, there'll be 'technology-thread-regulars' then. There'll be the resident libertarian, the resident conservative, the resident what have you in both sides.

By: MiguelCardoso

MiguelCardoso — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 01:58:54 -0800

No, no, no! ColdChef is technically a newbie because he gets deleted a lot.

By: riffola

riffola — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 01:59:41 -0800

Ooh we have tamim, jonmc, Coldchef, Neale, and more. Alright Miguel bring out the gloves, we'll duke this out at high noon.

By: MiguelCardoso

MiguelCardoso — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 02:04:48 -0800

Right, Riff. I just knew something felt right when we exchanged ICQ numbers way back when. Tamim alone is a separate, winning team. So that others have a chance, I vote Tamim for umpire.

By: Frasermoo

Frasermoo — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 02:09:29 -0800

if we have a volume competition i want the Cardoso there on my side.

i sit in quiet awe. Miguel, what do you do for work?

By: MiguelCardoso

MiguelCardoso — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 02:12:27 -0800

Well, Frasermoo, for one thing, no mini-golf of a Friday morn. You do realize the mini-golf must end if you're to contribute to the team don't you?

By: Frasermoo

Frasermoo — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 02:26:15 -0800

mini golf is too dangerous. I can just about get away with MeFi (i think) as it is largely text based and people think I am doing something intellectual.

Putting greens don't provide the visual deception that is needed to hide my procrastination.

By: adrianhon

adrianhon — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 03:04:25 -0800

Speaking of hiding procrastination, I've always been impressed by the efforts of the Impreza Web Owners Club chat mailing list (I-Chat), who changed their name to Tech-Net so they could fly under the corporate radar.

By: charlesw

charlesw — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 03:16:05 -0800

jkottke [W]hat would competition between two mini-MeFi's look like?
Tamim pints out a problem: It'll depend on who is on which team.

My Solution:

Perhaps a regex guru would rise amoung us, query all the posts for content by username and give us a list of who comments on what- and that would help us to divide even teams.. ?

jKottke's idea of introducting competition for the sake of betterment is a great idea and I think has been pretty successful- Operating Systems, Learning Institutions, etc.

By: gleemax

gleemax — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 03:54:52 -0800

It is like elections with 2 candidates starting on the left and the right...

There's an idea right there. The others could be shuffled together and doled out randomly. (The user ID number is way cooler, though, and I only say that because I want to be on the cool team.)

By: kv

kv — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 03:58:24 -0800

One of the reasons I like Metafilter is that it hardly has any competition - there's only one moderator, and there aren't any ratings for the quality or quantity of posts or comments - the only competition is really the highness/lowness of one's user ID. There's enough competition in the world already. Long live chilled Mefi.

By: ParisParamus

ParisParamus — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 04:07:20 -0800

What would stop people, over time, from creating a separate identity and being on both teams? I'm not talking about genetic cloneing (although that would work too), just signing up as a member of the other team.

By: Perigee

Perigee — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 04:54:00 -0800

Uh-uh..Oooooh no. I've been through this before, in dodgeball. I HATE being picked last. And then only if the team that picks me gets first ups..

By: nedrichards

nedrichards — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 05:36:02 -0800

Use user ID's but odd numbers stay one side and even numbers stay have to go and sit in the other corner. It would rule.

'We Have Miguel!' [a saying so close to, 'you sunk my battleship' to be less funny[

By: briank

briank — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 05:52:01 -0800

1. Where do we find an island big enough for two teams of 7,000? Can we not have dorky team names like Ungowa and Wacka-Wacka?

2. Do we have to go around mostly naked? Eat bugs? Build our own huts?

3. If you thought the backstabbing was bad before, just wait until the first Tribal Council for this baby.

4. First Immunity Challenge -- replace the MeFi search feature with one that actually works.

5. Motto: "Outwit Outspeak Outblog"

By: martz

martz — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 06:14:11 -0800

How about a draft ? like when we were kids and wanted to play soccer. Two kids will stand up to each other and pick the members of their teams, one by one.
Maybe at a later stage people will use their weblogs to get drafted into the MeFi rival teams, and star-posters will be paid millions, just like the NBA, only geek.

By: werty

werty — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 06:28:02 -0800

If we go shirts-n-skins I want to be on the skins side.

By: Apoch

Apoch — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 06:32:49 -0800

But how do we pick captains?

By: mkelley

mkelley — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 06:35:53 -0800

I want to be on the team with Matt, Jason and Miguel....

By: mkelley

mkelley — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 06:41:20 -0800

...but seriously, The more people you group together, the more likely you have "rabblerousers" who want to split the group up. This would be an internet example of "the miracle of life".

MeFi:Team Meiosis

By: yhbc

yhbc — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 06:43:20 -0800

the team with Matt, Jason and Miguel

That would be the odd-numbered team. mk, this is sounding like a better deal all the time.

By: macadamiaranch

macadamiaranch — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 06:44:11 -0800

By: straight

straight — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 06:48:28 -0800

So we'd keep one frame blue and make the other one green?

Isn't this the sort of thing that brought down the Roman Empire?

By: ebarker

ebarker — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 07:10:43 -0800

If that smarmy Jeff Probst shows up, I say we kill him and eat him.

Maybe taunt him a little first.

Because you know, if you taunt him after the killing and eating, it just kind of loses something.

By: jpoulos

jpoulos — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 07:29:07 -0800

It'd be Lord of the Flies, baby. Who wants to be Piggy?

By: Marquis

Marquis — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 07:39:35 -0800

Who wants to be Piggy?

all right. fine.

By: Melinika

Melinika — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 07:46:31 -0800

Three teams, not two, would prevent black-or-white duality-type syndrome.... and moderate mush with each side growing ever closer to the middle.

Neither polarize nor mush!

By: mattpfeff

mattpfeff — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 07:54:20 -0800

You'd need some disincentive for one team to copy the other team's posts. People wanting to be able to discuss them things on the other side will be incentive to copy -- and you'd risk having too big-ass MetaFilters with all the same good stuff, and the only differentiation being the forgettable posts.

If the smaller sizes of the respective teams made for a stronger feeling of community, the threads might be better, though....

By: bshort

bshort — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 08:15:35 -0800

So a person could only post within their team's side, but would they also be restricted in the posting of comments? It seems that the amount of comment fluff would only increase if people could only post to their team's posts.

By: goneill

goneill — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 08:38:17 -0800

Maybe a b-site? As in somewhere else? I'm frightened of changing metafilter. It's the constant in my life. I come to work make tea and read metafilter. Please don't change it.

On a non-related note. Who wants to convene in Austin and take the Chef hostage and force him to return? We can take Greyhounds from all over the country with our laptops in hand. It'll be an all - US MeFi gathering, like a big party - forties, truck stops... You haven't lived until you've taken a bus across the country.

By: hijinx

hijinx — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 08:45:22 -0800

Two thoughts:

1. Why two? Why not three or four, forthat matter? It would be interesting to see if the MeFiFactions divvied themselves up kind of naturally, though; would MeFiOne balance out? MeFiTwo focus on the Middle East? MeFiThree focus on in-jokes from MeFiMama?

2. Seems like this could both destroy and rebuild the MeFi community simultaneously.

goneill: I'm frightened of changing metafilter.

It's already changed more than any of us could have ever imagined.

By: jonmc

jonmc — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 08:46:35 -0800

Is it just me or does this whole idea sound vaguely like the Stanford Prison Experiment and no I don't mean the band.

You know divide people into two groups randomly and watch and see what sparks fly and rifts develop. You're a sick,sick man, kottke. :)

By: Kafkaesque

Kafkaesque — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 08:50:35 -0800

Can I join Team Apathy?

By: yhbc

yhbc — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 08:55:15 -0800

You don't fool me, Jon. You just want to wear shades.

By: moz

moz — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 08:56:54 -0800

i really dislike the "karma" that is in use in some community websites. it promotes the idea that people should contribute postings and comments; that if those are high quality then you must be a better member. i'd rather people not be assholes, but i'd also rather they be themselves. if you'd rather sit at a table, drink and watch people dance rather than go out on the floor yourself, i say more power to you (i'm pretty well the same).

as you might conclude from my dislike of karma, i don't care much for raising the level of contribution to its highest mark. i have in the past but i have changed my mind. i'd rather people didn't feel that metafilter is a My Dick Is Bigger Than Your Dick contest where the goal is to slag off as often and as brutally as possible. i'd rather they take a break from mefi when their points of view are both unchanging and repeated, several times a day, for many days.

By: me3dia

me3dia — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 08:59:04 -0800

I kinda like the idea of putting it on some subsite.

Another issue -- double-posts. Major news would end up getting posted simultaneously (or damn close) on both teams' sides, causing conniptions in a number of members.

How to handle it? Does Matt rule on which was the better post, or is speed the only arbiter? Would the offending team get penalized, and what would that penalty be?

By: jonmc

jonmc — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 09:00:35 -0800

that's eerie yhbc, about 3 years ago, I actually looked like that guy.

By: SpecialK

SpecialK — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 09:00:59 -0800

We already have two metafilters: Metatalk and MeFi. The distinction between them is blurring; only that MeTa is still just ever so slightly more of a self-indulgent wankfest than MeFi is...

Oh, and JKo, gotta say that I'm a regular reader, but interesting propogation with posting to MeTa and then posting on your blog as well...

By: yhbc

yhbc — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 09:06:19 -0800

I had a hunch you might have.

By: Shadowkeeper

Shadowkeeper — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 09:18:51 -0800

What would competition between two mini-MeFi's look like?

Less filling! Tastes great!
Less filling! Tastes great!
Less filling! Tastes great!
Less filling! Tastes great!
Less filling! Tastes great!

By: RobertLoch

RobertLoch — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 09:25:50 -0800

You would have to add a defector component to make sure that it really got nasty.

By: mcwetboy

mcwetboy — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 09:31:16 -0800

This is an interesting idea, though not, I think, for Metafilter — a neat project for elsewhere. Competition aspect needs to be strengthened somehow though. And it would have to be very silly, irreverent.

By: goneill

goneill — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 09:43:00 -0800

Oh, I like the idea of defectors...

That sounds like fun - secret luring threads, spies, intrigue...

By: iceberg273

iceberg273 — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 09:48:07 -0800

Maybe a better idea would be to have smaller teams of metafilistines (ten or so, perhaps) competing on another page [or maybe another site] in the style of Neale's Great Blog Off.

In fact, the system could be set up so that if two people had an argument about what made a BetterFilter, they could each choose up a team and test their theories empirically.

By: metrocake

metrocake — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 09:54:30 -0800

:: jaw progressively dropping ::

I'm in, but I vote for a "no-pancake" rule -- any mention of pancakes is grounds for immediate disqualification...

By: evanizer

evanizer — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 10:07:21 -0800

I think the whole idea stinks. I like Metafilter because it is totally simple and bare, without convoluted ratings systems and 'teams' etc. That kind of incestuous competition is really boring and pointless. Why this constant desire to change a mostly good thing?

By: hijinx

hijinx — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 10:21:54 -0800

evanizer: That kind of incestuous competition is really boring and pointless. Why this constant desire to change a mostly good thing?

Some would argue that MeFi has gotten really boring and pointless. I would be one of them and, naturally, I would not blame Matt for it.

That said, while Jason's suggestion isn't "serious", I think it's an idea worth exploring.

By: judith

judith — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 10:29:49 -0800

i've always been curious about the way electronic communities seem to follow the same "rules" and tendencies christopher alexander outlines in a pattern language in his entry on communities of 7000. he sees that as the largest number for certain kinds of affinity and group interaction, and it definitely seems that metafilter changed character somewhat when it reached that size. splitting into communities of roughly that size would certainly be an interesting experiment.

By: Seth

Seth — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 10:32:51 -0800

Red rover, red rover, send jkottke* right over...

*or whoever...

By: evanizer

evanizer — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 11:16:50 -0800

Some would argue that MeFi has gotten really boring and pointless. I would be one of them...

Then why are you here? This is what I don't understand. Metafilter is just a website, like any other. If it doesn't suit you, there are plenty of others to go to. Why this constant harping and these vague pronouncements of problems, especially from people whose presence here is minimal?

And I would argue that Metafilter is a much smaller group of people than the actual number of members suggests. This has been discussed before, but I wish someone would write some kind of script to find out how many of the members have posted links or comments in the past month. Or past six months. I bet it would be many fewer than 13979.

By: mathowie

mathowie — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 11:38:25 -0800

I have a script that checks the number of registered users that regularly hit the site. Here are the current stats:

Logged in during the last month: 2674
Logged in during the last week: 2133
Logged in during the last day: 1532

These are a bit lower than similar stats done 3-4 months ago, when the numbers were in the 3k range instead of 2k. Perhaps that is a sign of some stagnation and loss, or perhaps it is standard attrition rate, it's just that there are no new populations allowed in to replace them, and months ago, there were at least some sort of way into the site as a new member.

Keep in mind this is only registered users, there's no record of unregistered (beyond access logs)

By: Mack Twain

Mack Twain — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 11:41:47 -0800

"Outwit Outspeak Outblog"...My God, it really is looking more and more like September 10th!

By: BlueTrain

BlueTrain — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 12:13:38 -0800

or perhaps it is standard attrition rate, it's just that there are no new populations allowed in to replace them, and months ago, there were at least some sort of way into the site as a new member.

I'd put money on this theory. As I mentioned in a thread a couple weeks ago, when you get the new server, increasing MeFi's population is definitely a good idea because I think a lot of members are getting a little pissy with one another. But again, what method would you implement to gain these new members will play a vital role into the direction of this site.

By: vacapinta

vacapinta — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 12:25:06 -0800

judith: This is not a community of 13,000 people. As evanizer has reminded us, a small proportion of these signed-up members are actually 'active' members. Another segment are just 'dead' - signed up and disappeared.

Dead - signed up. never came back.

Lurker - signed up but has never posted. When and if they make a 'first' comment, do not assume they have not been paying attention.

Transient - Drops by and posts occasionally on a topic that interests them. These people have a life outside of Mefi :)and do not necessarily consider it their community but rather a website that they visit and occassionally find entertaining.

Poster - Feels some attachment to Mefi. Posts and comments.

Super-Poster - Feels strong attachment to MeFi. Posts and/or creates threads in MetaTalk because they feel strongly about the growth of MeFi.

In fact, I would guess that the largest number of Mefi users are 'transients' - they stop by Mefi occasionally, read a thread or two, perhaps make a quick comment. Are they part of this community? I think its hasty to use alexander's generalizations about real-world communities and bring that to the web.

I think the experiment is interesting because it is un-tried. My own feeling is that it might briefly raise the qualities of the posts, as each member tries to increase their 'status' within their own community but that it would quickly devolve into snarkiness and name-calling. Remember, each group will be reading the other group's posts and will be able to respond to them within their own threads.

The truth is that I don't know. Different communities evolve differently sometimes under the same cicrumstances. Sometimes an entire community rallies around one or a few members and takes their cue from them. This is not something you can create a mathematical model for. Jason proposes a (hypothetical) empirical test. I like that.

By: spaceboy86

spaceboy86 — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 12:27:42 -0800

I agree with Tamim that community members shy away from technical issues. But, I think, for a different reason than Tamim suggests. Technology and communication theory are different beasts entirely, and writers tend to know more about communication than technology. Very often, sites like anildash are read because of the unique quality of the personality of the author—his communication skills. Still, just because people like him doesn't necessarily mean they will always have the requisite level of technical knowledge to comment on what he has to say.

Needless to say, when technical difficulties arise, the technical naturally rise to the issue. Hence Blogger, Greymatter, and Movabletype.

Missingmatter pointed out an article in The Economist that could help balance the groups if such a team division were made. It reports recent findings that the zip compression algorithm can be used as a measure of the entropy (tendency of chaos) of a document. It works by determining how often the same phrases are used within the document (or group of documents). With a little post tracking, the relative entropy of a user could be calculated, allowing a spread spectrum for each team.

The bottom line: An equal number of people likely to post "MeFi Sucks" on each team, an equal number of "salient issue" loggers who only post about one topic, and an equal number of diversity junkies.

I'd be wary of political gerrymandering, even in good-spirited fun. =]

By: vacapinta

vacapinta — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 12:32:26 -0800

Anil's post about weblogs vs. journalism generated 19 comments, while his entry about "web's maturation as an application platform" got only 2.

True, Tamim. I have plenty of real-world people to discuss the web's maturation as an application platform with. I dont feel a need to discuss it on Anil's weblog. Nobody I know, on the other hand, is interested in discussing weblogs. People come here for the type of discussion they can get nowhere else.
(on preview, what spaceboy86 said)

By: yhbc

yhbc — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 12:41:35 -0800

Note that we shook out at least two of vacapinta's "lurkers" in yesterday's commercial jingles thread. Thread quality will build on itself if more members want to participate!

By: liam

liam — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 13:28:29 -0800

Can I be a super-transient?

By: judith

judith — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 14:54:30 -0800

i'd argue that it is a community of 13000+ users, just not a community of 13,000+ active users. and that in any community scenario, real or virtual, that you have people who speak up and people who don't. i'm sure there are plenty of people that don't show up in official usage statistics who still read metafilter every day and see themselves as part of the community. and i'm curious as to what the percentage of "active" users was when the entire community was only 7000 people, or 5000, or 3000, compared to now.

By: anildash

anildash — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 15:09:04 -0800

There's something quite weird about being cited as an example for an argument.

just because people like him doesn't necessarily mean they will always have the requisite level of technical knowledge to comment on what he has to say.

I'd agree with this wholeheartedly. The majority of my site's audience, judging by the feedback I get, finds my technical posts either incomprehensible or uninteresting. But I don't, for the most part, spend my real-life time talking about the web as an application platform, so that got a lot of my attention. I'm pretty bored (my own complicity notwithstanding) with conversation about weblogs on their own.

Back to the topic at hand, teams would only improve MetaFilter if everyone agreed on what the goal was, or what would improve MeFi. Then they could compete at progressing toawrds that goal. But as long as some people's definitions of a better MeFi include more news posts, and some include the chin-scratching, very-interesting-but-little-discussion posts, and some include ha-ha chatfests, the teams would only serve to encourage more of what we already have.

By: jcterminal

jcterminal — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 15:14:09 -0800

/me picks dong_resin and wonderchicken.

By: ljromanoff

ljromanoff — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 15:58:08 -0800

Does the MeFi World Champion get to make appearances for both teams?

By: clavdivs

clavdivs — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 16:55:12 -0800

second the resin/chicken team. Hey lj.

By: hijinx

hijinx — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 18:04:28 -0800

evanizer: Then why are you here? This is what I don't understand.

I haven't been. Check my profile. Look at the last time I posted a link, and note that comments have been scarce. I don't regularly participate here. I scan, yes. Read, occasionally. Participate, very rarely.

If it doesn't suit you, there are plenty of others to go to.

And I do.

Why this constant harping and these vague pronouncements of problems, especially from people whose presence here is minimal?

Because I care, okay?

By: jonmc

jonmc — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 18:11:05 -0800

second the resin/chicken team..

Sounds like a horror movie:
Nothing Can Prepare You For....Attack of the ResinChickens!....coming to a theatre near you...

By: Kevin Sanders

Kevin Sanders — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 19:14:16 -0800

Jason, you need to cut down on watching the WWF.

By: kindall

kindall — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 21:48:45 -0800

I think Jason's idea could be the seed for a very interesting site. But it would not be MetaFilter.

By: owillis

owillis — Fri, 19 Apr 2002 22:14:45 -0800

But it would not be MetaFilter.
Amen.

By: ZachsMind

ZachsMind — Sat, 20 Apr 2002 01:00:40 -0800

It would not work and is an absurd concept. Fun to play with theoretically, but it would never work for MeFi in real life. Both "parties" would be busier trying to outdo one another, and the original impetus which drives MeFi would be lost. The reason why MeFi exists in the first place would be forgotten. MeFi is for filtering the Web. Looking for pages of note and contemplating issues of the day. Sharing and communicating. Not competing. There's enough word wars in here without purposefully encouraging them.

Create a separate site. Start from scratch. Participants can sign up for either the 'red' side or the 'blue' side and they compete for content or being funnier or using bigger words or whatever. It's a fun idea. Somewhere else.

By: crunchland

crunchland — Sat, 20 Apr 2002 07:01:29 -0800

What those potential other sites "somewhere else" don't have are the huge number of active users already here, and without them, the idea doesn't have the slightest chance of flying.

By: mikewas

mikewas — Sat, 20 Apr 2002 08:31:47 -0800

Rather than Shirts and Skins, why not Pants and Skins?

We'll see how the team-building goes from there.

By: kindall

kindall — Sat, 20 Apr 2002 09:31:34 -0800

What those potential other sites "somewhere else" don't have are the huge number of active users already here, and without them, the idea doesn't have the slightest chance of flying.

That's like saying Web sites can't succeed until they're already successful.

By: crunchland

crunchland — Sat, 20 Apr 2002 10:39:18 -0800

Not all web sites. But this particular game that Kottke suggests would really only work with a large user base.

You can't play poker with only one card.

By: kindall

kindall — Sat, 20 Apr 2002 13:38:10 -0800

Oh, I think a dozen or so people would do for starters if they were dedicated enough.

By: ZachsMind

ZachsMind — Sun, 21 Apr 2002 15:39:03 -0800

I strongly doubt anything JK undertook online would have difficulty finding a user base in a relatively short amount of time. I repeat. It's a fun idea. It could work. Just not in MeFi.