An annual "State of MetaFilter" email?

January 2, 2025 5:02 AM

What do people think about starting a tradition of an annual "State of MetaFilter" email to all members for each new year? A lot of changes happened in 2024 (for example: non-profit status, site code rewrite started), not everyone follows MetaTalk, and it would be a way to remind members who haven't participated in a while that MetaFilter is still here to encourage them to participate again.
posted by ShooBoo to MetaFilter-Related at 5:02 AM (24 comments total)

I think the challenge is that as far as I know there’s no means by which to email all the members. But hopefully the staff can weigh in.
posted by warriorqueen at 6:08 AM on January 2

We had that issue on the steering committee when we wanted to email people -- that the sign-up process does not ask for permission to email members so that sending them email might be viewed as spam in Canada or the EU or California or other jurisdictions with stringent anti-spam regulations. The change from a for-profit company to a non-profit might help in that regard?
posted by jacquilynne at 6:35 AM on January 2 [2 favorites]

Mod note: Yes, there's currently no way to directly email all members, though I believe that changinging that is one of the board's priorities.

Just because in a community run site, we'll want to be able to keep members aware of things and where/where/how to vote on various things.

A newsletter might serve a similar purpose. There was one previously, but evidently it was complete hell to format, possibly due to using the free version. If started again, some sort of paid option should be a no brainer.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 6:38 AM on January 2 [4 favorites]

One mod should stay away to insure continuity of government in case of a decapitation strike.
posted by Lemkin at 6:39 AM on January 2 [1 favorite]

"Email all members" seems pretty heavy handed. On the other hand, it'd be trivial to set up an opt-in list of members to subscribe to a newsletter.
posted by bowbeacon at 6:43 AM on January 2 [4 favorites]

A newsletter might serve a similar purpose. There was one previously

And I seem to recall that there was a bunch of criticism over why resources were spent on that vs allocating those resources to the site itself.
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 6:44 AM on January 2

This seems like a good idea to add to the running list of possible initiatives to explore after the transition period, ED hire, etc.
posted by cupcakeninja at 7:00 AM on January 2 [4 favorites]

As a person who already gets too much unsolicited email, even from services I use and like, I would strongly advise against this or, at the very least, making it available on the site and opt-in by default instead of opt-out.
posted by pdb at 9:14 AM on January 2 [3 favorites]

I feel like a "state of the blog" MeTa post (pre-closed, maybe) with a clear-labeled link up top would be a perfectly cromulent solution in the current state. that'd avoid having to deal with the mess that email newsletter formatting can so often be, and would be an entirely opt-in digest for users who actually, y'know, use the website.

in the future, some kind of read-only "news and updates" section might be a nice idea to have a clear spot to be appraised of the site's current state without having to risk interacting with this, ahem, occasionally fraught section of the site.
posted by Kybard at 9:41 AM on January 2 [6 favorites]

Please don’t email me, oh my gosh. I did not subscribe to your newsletter and currently have ~20K unread emails.
Isn’t this what the banner is for?
posted by Vatnesine at 10:49 AM on January 2 [4 favorites]

Also, we already get monthly updates, which are contentious enough. I guess I don’t see the additional value of a yearly update.
posted by Vatnesine at 10:55 AM on January 2

Having a newsletter/email option for site updates is a good idea.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 11:08 AM on January 2 [5 favorites]

That’s what I was thinking too, Brandon. Solves a few problems — it’s opt in, so it doesn’t bug people like Vatnesine (and me), and it’s (I assume) the same content to MeTa readers and MeTa nonreaders, which reduces duplicative work and also reduces the risk that people get inconsistent information.
posted by eirias at 12:04 PM on January 2

not everyone follows MetaTalk, and it would be a way to remind members who haven't participated in a while that MetaFilter is still here to encourage them to participate again

If folks have to opt-in to the newsletter, then only Metafilter participaters will see it (unless I'm misunderstanding), so why not use the banner or frontpage posts to just direct them to updates in MetaTalk, which already exists?
posted by secretseasons at 12:27 PM on January 2 [2 favorites]

Part of the reason for a newsletter would be to update people who visit MetaFilter only erratically and invite/remind them to visit. Banners are transitory -- if you don't visit before it is replaced, you don't see it.

Newsletters are, generally speaking, a very powerful marketing tool and while some people hate that kind of email (see above), they can't be replaced by on-site functions no matter how good the on-site functions are because a big part of the point of them is to reach people who aren't on site.
posted by jacquilynne at 1:11 PM on January 2 [4 favorites]

The standard in many nonprofits is to only send donors donor-specific updates, while maintaining a larger general newsletter for anyone who signs up for e-mail updates (and including a link to sign up to the general email in donor-specific emails). Donor-specific emails might include information like how much they raised and where the money went, those sort of things.

I don't know how that maps on to people who have signed up for the site but don't donate, but there's at least a model for e-mailing donors that's not just "well we have your e-mail so you get all our general updates now."
posted by brook horse at 1:29 PM on January 2 [3 favorites]

It could be worth doing if it can be sent to everyone by default (i.e. opt-out). But if not, don't bother.

Very few people opt in to site newsletters. I hadn't even heard of the failed attempt four years ago. And opt in fails the stated goal of re-engaging disengaged users.
posted by Klipspringer at 7:14 AM on January 3

@klipspringer: The thing is, a non-zero part of those disengaged users presumably disengaged for a reason. And that reason probably had a very large component of "I don't want to interact with this site again" to it, rather than just a case of passive disinterest/fading away. Which would also imply that getting an unsolicited email from this site would have an effect quite the opposite than its intent, I would think.

I'm just not sure what the purpose of a newsletter to every registered user, active or not, would be - people who don't participate aren't doing so for their own reasons, and I'm not really sure a newsletter is the thing that's going to make someone go "wow! I've changed my mind!" at this point in either internet culture or Metafilter's evolution. I could be wrong, but I'd much rather see site resources go towards making the site itself better (which seems to be happening, with the site rebuild) and maybe some sort of outreach to people who haven't used MeFi before, somehow?

I ended that with a question mark because don't actually know what that would look like (I'm not a marketing/outreach person), but once a big chunk of the choir has decided to leave, maybe preaching to them is not the best use of preaching resources, as it were. Maybe it's time to see what bringing in a new choir might look like. Endless permutations of the question "how do we get old users back?" is probably not the way to grow the site, if growing the site is the goal.
posted by pdb at 7:35 AM on January 3

Some lapsed users are angry departures -- though many of those would have buttoned, rather than just gone away -- and some are busy people who have slipped away from the site. An annual/quarterly newsletter or even a one-time update about the transition to new ownership shouldn't be super high effort, and stands to attract back some of the lapsed users and won't make the angry users any more gone from the site. It should definitely be opt in after the first email, but I think there's room for discussion of whether it would be appropriate and legal to send a one-time update that includes news about the community foundation and an opportunity to sign-up for future updates.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:51 AM on January 3 [2 favorites]

Isn't emailing people without an opt-in a GDPR violation? Even once?
posted by biffa at 1:59 PM on January 3

As someone who doesn't pay much attention to site management stuff (and doesn't want to), this would be useful to me because it would be an overall summary. What I see when I click on "site update" requires background knowledge to understand. I only have the vague sense that the site has changed hands a few times, and a comprehensive update might be nice. (Or maybe I'm happier not knowing?!)
posted by metasarah at 3:30 PM on January 3

Isn't emailing people without an opt-in a GDPR violation? Even once?

My understanding is that this belief, while widely repeated, isn't really correct -- that while an opt-in is an ironclad defense, the GDPR offers other avenues as well, including the not-terribly-well-defined "legitimate interest" rationale (that can always be trumped by an opt-out).

But different orgs' guidelines on this seem to vary pretty widely. Definitely worth seeking proper legal advice before sending anything out.
posted by nobody at 5:39 PM on January 3

Is GDPR even relevant for a US LLC?
posted by Klipspringer at 2:40 AM on January 4

A newsletter or some form of email outreach isn't a bad idea despite strong negative reactions above or imagined legal concerns, but the steering committee reports are full of good ideas that haven't been executed and there's no indication anyone has the interest or authority to do so.
posted by theclaw at 7:45 AM on January 4