February 19, 2005

12:15 PM

Anyone get the feeling that the overall appeal of Metafilter threads has sharply degenerated in the past few months? I used to think $5 for posting priveleges was a bargain. Now I think it's about right. So much trivia. So little time. Maybe there should be some rating system for threads like Slashdot has for its posts?
posted by DirtyCreature to etiquette/policy at 12:15 PM (76 comments total)

Do you mean you see a degeneration of the content of the threads (the comments) or the threads themselves?

And, personal opinion here, I disagree that emulating Slashdot is a good way to improve the quality of Metafilter.
posted by cortex at 12:21 PM on February 19, 2005

So much trivia. So little time.

Define trivia. I think the Jeff Gannon story is trivial, but other people might site this or this.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 12:27 PM on February 19, 2005

cite. (trivial, i know...)
posted by quonsar at 12:32 PM on February 19, 2005

I don't know, my problem with MeFi right now is that I'd really like to see a post on the Chika Honda situation one of these days
posted by matteo at 12:33 PM on February 19, 2005

Other than this one or an update?
posted by Jim Jones at 12:47 PM on February 19, 2005

*whoosh*
posted by quonsar at 12:52 PM on February 19, 2005

*looks up*
posted by matteo at 12:53 PM on February 19, 2005

Heh heh. Once again, my prescient warnings are not heeded. Cassandra's fate is always to be correct, never to be believed. Alas, alas, to be a genius out of one's time.
posted by Hildago at 1:10 PM on February 19, 2005

Good grief!
posted by mds35 at 1:12 PM on February 19, 2005

I don't think emulating slashdot is a great goal either, but each day it seems more and more clear to me that Mefi could use some sort of formal voting system. I'm not sure whether that means on posts, comments, or just general site policies, but the idea that there is a democratic process available to community members seems to help communities as they grow larger.

I wish everything could be settled purely by discussion, but it gets harder and harder to use that method when you have so many different people voicing their opinions. Maybe community leaders would help.

It sounds kind of silly when I read it, like we're starting a country or something, but I really like this place and I'd like to see the community stay strong.
posted by spaghetti at 1:23 PM on February 19, 2005

Anyone get the feeling that the overall appeal of Metafilter threads has sharply degenerated in the past few months?

nope!
posted by mcsweetie at 1:25 PM on February 19, 2005

Well, it's true that I'm not commenting as much these days, but no, I don't agree. In fact, I think somewhere between $10 and $20 per-MONTH is the value.
posted by ParisParamus at 1:29 PM on February 19, 2005

Best fiver I've spent.
posted by AlexReynolds at 1:33 PM on February 19, 2005

I tend to agree with Paris. While I probably wouldn't pay $20/mo. (mostly because I can't afford it), I would happily pay something monthly. There are some things I hope will change here, but even if they don't, the place is still worth more than the cost of admission to me.
posted by spaghetti at 1:35 PM on February 19, 2005

I would absolutely love some sort of karma-like thing here. I think we could pull it off without it becoming the irritating popularity contest it is at Slashdot.

It could be simple, as in you'd click a button to vote that you liked a post. Then you could have a page called like "Best of MetaFilter" where it would list the threads voted the best. This could also serve to show new people what's considered good, and might end the obnoxious and on-going "best of the web?!" MeTa threads. The list of best-voted threads would be your answer.

Likewise, you could additionally have a button "don't like the post" and if perhaps a thread received enough negative votes, well, I don't know... something mild, like an e-mail to them, or something severe, like the MeTa gestapo shows up at their place and goes at their fingers with a sushi knife.

Either way, I think a voting system of some sort around here could a) do wonders for the "self policing" aspect of this site, b) take some stress from mathowie's shoulders, c) generally increase the quality of the site, and d) lastly, make people think a little more when doing posts.

Just, you know, MHO.
posted by xmutex at 1:39 PM on February 19, 2005

I think it is amusing that someone who has been a member for about as long as I have - i.e. since 11/04 - would post this. BTW, I disagree. Also, I got my five bucks worth.
posted by fixedgear at 1:41 PM on February 19, 2005

The community is strong as long as our voices are heard--witness the recent Suicide Girls thing, and all these MeTa threads.
posted by amberglow at 1:45 PM on February 19, 2005

Anyone get the feeling that the overall appeal of Metafilter threads has sharply degenerated in the past few months?

Yep. I read the front page far less these days.
posted by CunningLinguist at 1:53 PM on February 19, 2005

I'm all about purging metafilter's database of anyone that joined after around 02'. Things haven't been the same since then, but people are just starting to notice now.

I'd like there to be colorcoded circles next to the member's name so I can weed out newbies and their ridiculous posts without going to the trouble of looking at their member info.
posted by banished at 1:58 PM on February 19, 2005

To clarify, different color codings for the year they joined.
posted by banished at 1:59 PM on February 19, 2005

Too many people think that "Metafilter has gone downhill recently."

Metafilter has never been some idyllic haven for the untainted best of the internet. There has been a great increase in volume, and the internet has not been increasing at the same pace. So, what comes up to Metafilter has spread out over time. If you're interested in a narrow definition, then the signal-to-noise ratio has really gone into the crapper. However, the greatest part of Metafilter still consists of things that are interesting to a notable portion of people, with some sort of redeeming value in art, academia, or entertainment.

That, and with new blood, Metafilter itself evolves. Nothing stays the same forever.

On preview- Nice elitism, banished. Please tell me you're being sarcastic.
posted by Saydur at 2:00 PM on February 19, 2005

ok, now, in a totally nonsnarky way -- for a change -- I have to point out that the best way to increase the overall appeal of the Front Page is to post something good on it.
posted by matteo at 2:00 PM on February 19, 2005

I think we're running out of web to filter, personally.
posted by abcde at 2:04 PM on February 19, 2005

cite. (trivial, i know...)

Not at all. Thanks!

Kids: know you're homophones lest ye end up looking like an idiot!
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 2:57 PM on February 19, 2005

Ok I've been giving a rating system some thought and here is a simple scheme I would propose that I believe would improve the quality and also be relatively very easy to implement.

For each post , calculate its "Respect Rank" as follows

10 * A + SUM(a1, a2,.....,ap)

where A = the length of time the poster of the thread has been a member of Metafilter for.
a1, a2, .... ,ap are the lengths of time the individual posters to the thread have been members for.

Allow people to set a minimum threshold Respect Rank they would like to view.

After this scheme has gone live for a period of time, you could modify the formula by including the average Respect Rank of each member's previous posts into the calculation so that threads of newbies who post widely respected threads are given a boost.
posted by DirtyCreature at 2:57 PM on February 19, 2005

I've only joined as a member recently, but I've been hanging out here a long time. I agree - there is a quality problem, especially in FPPs.

There is plenty of good web out there. But lately, MeFi's been very heavy on Meta and very light on Filter. To me, the problems break down like this:

1. New members seem to be in a race to get their first FPP, which leads to some pretty lame posts. This has knock-on effects such as the recent surge in callouts, some justified and some not. Maybe new users should be required to make more comments/wait a few weeks before they can make an FPP.

2. Post are getting long-winded. Giant link-fests like this and this are cumbersome. They make the front page look ugly, and they make the site less useful because you can't figure out which is the good link. Other users shouldn't need a mini-lecture to enjoy a site that is the 'best of the web'. Just post a cool link with a concise description, and flesh it out in the comments!

I don't think purging new members, instituting color codes or setting up a of voting system is the best way to solve these problems.

Perhaps some firmer editorial guidelines would help. Beyond that, there is not much more that can be done besides keeping up (constructive) criticism about problem threads in the comments or in MetaTalk.
posted by nyterrant at 2:59 PM on February 19, 2005

I've followed some arguments deep into the archives and it seems that a constant here, other than the good far outweighing the bad, is people complaining about the declining character of MeFi.

I agree with matteo. If all the people who start these doomsday MeTa threads would spend their time posting really brilliant FPPs, everyone would get a lot more enjoyment from the site.
I'm also not so sure about rating threads. I think we'd find that farting pigs are a lot more popular than Pico.
posted by underer at 3:02 PM on February 19, 2005

Also, has anybody noticed that there hasn't been any good music since <insert year here>?
posted by spock at 3:06 PM on February 19, 2005

I don't know, my problem with MeFi right now is that I'd really like to see a post on the Chika Honda situation one of these days.

I'm prepared to put my posts to the test of universal respect rather than my own "my threads are good because I and a handful of my holier-than-thou friends say so" standards. How about you?

If my threads fall below a high threshold of respect and it improves the overall quality of Metafilter, I'm all for it. I'm here for a good read.
posted by DirtyCreature at 3:12 PM on February 19, 2005

hey, look at my fafblog treason post--it became a good serious discussion of treason (after techgno had to shit, of course)
posted by amberglow at 3:22 PM on February 19, 2005

I think it's improved. We're back to "neat things on the Web" instead of being the Plastic.com it's ok to like. Neat things on the web will seem trivial because for the most part neat things on the web don't change the world. Sometimes it's ok to be entertained by trivial things.

Of course, if you don't like neat things on the Web, then it might seem disappointing. There's always Plastic, though.
posted by mendel at 3:23 PM on February 19, 2005

Metafilter is worth every penny I paid for my membership.
posted by crunchland at 3:28 PM on February 19, 2005

As pointed out by fff a few days ago, we have had some great FPP's here recently.

The front page is as good now as it ever has been, especially since it stopped being as purely election/iraq filter that it has been the last two years. Perhaps that is what you are missing?
posted by Quartermass at 3:29 PM on February 19, 2005

I'm also not so sure about rating threads. I think we'd find that farting pigs are a lot more popular than Pico.

I'm too much laughing now.

but seriously, folks... I've gone back and forth on this idea, and I guess I still haven't made up my mind how I feel about it. In one way, I think that if we had a kind of "invisible" voting thingy wherein the top-rated X-number posts show up on a best-of page, it would probably be a good thing and give people some idea of what they should strive for, as well as offering an alternative "condensed" version of the front page.

On the other hand, I bet it would mean that a lot of the posts that I adore would never, ever show up there, which would be a disincentive to some of the people who happen to be digging up terrific things that the membership at large may not be very interested in.
posted by taz at 3:43 PM on February 19, 2005

This place has really gone downhill since the election [and its related posts] ended.
posted by sciurus at 3:55 PM on February 19, 2005

"...hey, look at my fafblog treason post..."

Maybe the discussion was good (it didn't seem that great when I looked at the thread yesterday), but that doesn't make it a good post. Techgno's criticism was fair.

Fafblog may qualify as "best of the web", but it isn't a great find these days considering that everyone already knows about it. Brad DeLong quotes from it every week, and has for months. The Crooked Timber folks quote from it frequently. Probably Atrios does, too, though I don't read him. I'm sure others. How you, amberglow, as someone so US political, only now discovered Fafblog seems strange to me.

It would have been a good post a year ago.

Some people around here say that MonkeyFilter sucks. But their (our) little community of 2K people consistently finds and posts good links that appear on MetaFilter a few days to a week later.

I don't think that mefi's quality has declined that much. It has a little because there's more quantity, and the quality of a lot of that is about like amberglow's fafblog post. Meaning: low. There was a time when you'd see cool new things on metafilter first. More frequently these days, it's here last. In this way, metafilter's become more an aggregator of web filters than a first-order, pioneering web filter.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 4:04 PM on February 19, 2005

It could be simple, as in you'd click a button to vote that you liked a post.

This exists. It'd be cool if more people used it.
posted by Wolfdog at 4:06 PM on February 19, 2005

Metafilter has rarely, if ever, been first--from the olden days until now--go to filepile if you want first. All links come from seeing them other places or from a member stumbling upon them, or from a member's already existing interest in a topic/subject/news.

Fafblog has never been a FPP before--in fact, the only other result for them in a google site search is a comment I made in Oct with a quote from them, to my knowledge. also, i said it was a new favorite, not that it was new.
posted by amberglow at 4:11 PM on February 19, 2005

go to filepile if you want first.

How do you get there?
posted by greasy_skillet at 4:19 PM on February 19, 2005

While I think my membership was well worth the money, I also do think a rating system could help the site. I was not aware of Wolfdog's link before this thread, and it would be interestingto see what happened if more people used it. What is the main argument against such a system? The popularity contest aspect?
posted by rooftop secrets at 4:23 PM on February 19, 2005

By using DirtyCreatures equation for a good post, Postroad's "maybe bush was right" thread with a single link to an editorial would be easily the highest rated post since the beginning of February. Many comments by older users, posted by an older user, and the highest comment count of any thread.

And on the Mefi:Remixed, 10 of the 24 Rated Excellent posts are from 'new' users.
posted by Arch Stanton at 4:33 PM on February 19, 2005

I don't see how any kind of karma/rating system could avoid eventually becoming a popularity contest. As much as I disagree with many of the more conservatives voice on MeFi I think it would be a shame to see them silenced or relegated to some sort of low karma ghetto.

My intial thoughts were along the lines that rating a thread rather than a member would be useful but even that has it's problems. We're an awfully diverse bunch and I don't think that catering to a majority is particularly useful -- for example, I'm a typophile and find links about fonts and typefaces interesting but doubt that very many others do.

One of MetaFilter's strengths is the variety of content and we have managed to come very close to the ideal of offering something for everyone. I think that any sort of user moderation would only diminish that variety. It could also lead to a very vocal subset of the membership establishing too much control over the page -- casual users, while reading and enjoying a post, may not comment very often or take the time to 'rate' a post while others may feel compelled to run around modding down every single post by their MeFi nemesis while encouraging their buddies to the same.
posted by cedar at 4:35 PM on February 19, 2005

google it, greasy (you're not supposed to link to it here for some reason or other)
posted by amberglow at 4:40 PM on February 19, 2005

By using DirtyCreatures equation for a good post, Postroad's "maybe bush was right" thread with a single link to an editorial would be easily the highest rated post since the beginning of February.

So be it. The system is not a measure of excellence. It's more a measure of triviality and disinterest.


And on the Mefi:Remixed, 10 of the 24 Rated Excellent posts are from 'new' users.

According to my proposed scheme, newbies who consistently make respected posts, quickly have their posts ranked highly. Oldtimers who post poorly, quickly have their respect lowered. Length of membership is just a starting point for the recursive calculation.
posted by DirtyCreature at 4:46 PM on February 19, 2005

that Remixed is a good reason why ratings and subjective criteria don't work so well--a Law and Order tv listings page? best of the web?

We all like different things--we all bring different things to the tablefrontpage. It's all good.
posted by amberglow at 4:50 PM on February 19, 2005

(-1, troll)
posted by graventy at 4:51 PM on February 19, 2005

Saydur, it was sarcasm. Sorry if it wasn't clear enough to all.
posted by banished at 4:51 PM on February 19, 2005

MetaFilter is now neither meta nor a filter. Discuss.
posted by jkottke on September 22, 2001

It's all good. Please let's go back to two or three MetaTalk posts a week.
posted by gleuschk at 5:00 PM on February 19, 2005

Maybe it would help Meta / Mefi if Ethereal Bligh wasn't so god damn patronising.
Some of us are not totally US orientated or want to be. Also some of us do other things than stare at the computer screen all day. Fafblog was new to me. Whether it changed my life or not is irrelevent. I have the option of staying or scrolling on.
posted by adamvasco at 5:17 PM on February 19, 2005

Yeah, I think so.

But slashdot is a lot worse. And Kuro5hin is horrible. Maybe we could decrease the blue-posts per day per user?
posted by delmoi at 5:17 PM on February 19, 2005

Not to sound like a hippy...but I hate "point systems." I hate trying to quantify and tabulate the interractions of a community.
posted by tpl1212 at 5:34 PM on February 19, 2005

"Maybe it would help Meta / Mefi if Ethereal Bligh wasn't so god damn patronising."

No, that wouldn't help.

"Some of us are not totally US orientated or want to be."

I agree and that's one reason why US political posts have one strike against them from the get-go. That's more an argument against fafblog as FPP than against.

"Also some of us do other things than stare at the computer screen all day."

Then you're less likely to discover new post-worthy things., leading you to post less than other people. That's fine. But it's not an argument for mefi being your one-stop source for everything and anything you'd like to see or know about. If you want news stories, go to news sites.

"Fafblog was new to me. Whether it changed my life or not is irrelevent. I have the option of staying or scrolling on."

That you can "scroll past it" is the weakest defense of an FPP there is. That's an argument allowing anyone to post anything.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 5:55 PM on February 19, 2005

DirtyCreature, what on earth made you think this post would make a good MeTa thread? You don't give a single example to back up your point; you don't seem to care that vague navel-gazing posts like yours dramatically reduce MetaTalk's signal-to-noise ratio for others, and you obviously don't have a clue that the $5 membership fee promised you nothing beyond what you yourself have to offer Metafilter.

In short, you just did the very thing you're moaning about: posting without thinking carefully about whether a post would be useful, interesting or otherwise valuable to the community. On any meaningful ranking of MetaTalk posts, the one you just made would fall somewhere between abysmal and laughable.
posted by mediareport at 6:24 PM on February 19, 2005

That you can "scroll past it" is the weakest defense of an FPP there is.

Yeah, but EB if you look at the number of times people use it, you can't just write it off like that. A large number of people here (myself included) subscribe to this way of thinking, and I think it helps me enjoy the blue a lot more.

I can't dictate what others will post, and others have no idea what kind of posts I will like. Thus, if I am not interested, I "scroll past." Simple right? In the process, there are active Mefi users whom I never come into contact with because I have little to no interest in the sorts of things they are interested in (and vice versa I am sure). No harm no foul.

What I would rather see is more categorization in the blue (ala the newly implemented categories in the green).
posted by Quartermass at 6:27 PM on February 19, 2005

Fafblog may qualify as "best of the web", but it isn't a great find these days considering that everyone already knows about it.
Nuff said. I did not know about it but then i'm not"everybody" in your little world.

If you want news stories, go to news sites.
I will go to whatever sites I want to without your patronising. However they are quite often in a different language so I do not reference them here.

I have the option of staying or scrolling on Thank you scarabic
I regret to say ethereal bligh that I use my scroll bar quite often when I see your name. I also yawn.

As to dirty creatures original comment - 3 months is but a short while - maybe I spent more than $5 and I get a lot of bang for my buck but when I pay my entrance to the zoo theres also a lot of elephant shit to look at.
posted by adamvasco at 6:42 PM on February 19, 2005

Not to sound like a hippy...but I hate "point systems." I hate trying to quantify and tabulate the interractions of a community.

My feelings exactly. Metafilter is hardly quantifiable.
posted by Quartermass at 6:44 PM on February 19, 2005

Not sure why I was thinking of scarabic I should of course be thanking Quartermass * doffs cap in direct of*
posted by adamvasco at 6:45 PM on February 19, 2005

Yeah, no shit mang!

I'll see you in Metatalk, asshole.
posted by Quartermass at 6:47 PM on February 19, 2005

I'm all about purging metafilter's database of anyone that joined after around 02'.

I rather think you should be purged.
posted by mcsweetie at 6:47 PM on February 19, 2005

posted by quonsar at 6:53 PM on February 19, 2005

No bovine fisting allowed.
posted by euphorb at 7:04 PM on February 19, 2005

Maybe we could decrease the blue-posts per day per user?

That's a great idea! I think we should limit all post to the MeFi network to 0 per user! Boy howdy, will things improve then!
posted by keswick at 9:10 PM on February 19, 2005

Anyone get the feeling that the overall appeal of Metafilter threads has sharply degenerated in the past few months?

No.
posted by juiceCake at 9:43 PM on February 19, 2005

give a single example to back up your point

Thinks to self ...... should I?....no... too cruel......*runs for cover*


I hate trying to quantify and tabulate the interractions of a community.

Quantification is difficult and very inexact but it's also the basis of democracy.


maybe I spent more than $5 and I get a lot of bang for my buck

Don't care about the money. Don't even care about posting that much but it's nice to have a little interaction. I just want a good reliable read. I would pay a lot more for that.
posted by DirtyCreature at 10:03 PM on February 19, 2005

A heart-felt recommendation is that all who may have dissenting, but practical opinions that may, granted, not play well with the particular MeFi party line, NEVER express them during a MeFi meetup.
posted by purephase at 10:14 PM on February 19, 2005

Quantification is difficult and very inexact but it's also the basis of democracy.

And we all know how that is working out...

I just don't think you can argue that putting posts up to a rating would make the front page "better". As I said above, what I like, and what others like may not always jive, dig?

As long as the posts are constructed properly, and are within "good post" qualifications, what is the problem?

But then, I think the Blue has been awesome of late. It has been meeting my expectations (new things to find, always learning about new things, great comments), so I may be biased.
posted by Quartermass at 10:21 PM on February 19, 2005

what I like, and what others like may not always jive, dig?

What's the problem? Just set your threshold to 0 and you have exactly what Metafilter is now. You're losing nothing.
posted by DirtyCreature at 10:26 PM on February 19, 2005

*runs for cover*

Yeah, run. It saves you from having to be coherent.
posted by mediareport at 10:33 PM on February 19, 2005

Just set your threshold to 0 and you have exactly what Metafilter is now. You're losing nothing.

Ok.
posted by Quartermass at 10:37 PM on February 19, 2005

Scurius: This place has really gone downhill since the election [and its related posts] ended.

If I disagreed any more strongly, I would sprain something. The end of the election and Matt's prohibition of massive NewsFilter was probably the best thing for the site since its establishment.

I've found the blue to be interesting again, unlike the Dark Years. People always talk about how things used to be better back in the Old Days. Personally, I thought the same thing about Mefi when it turned into a political blog, but now it seems we are experiencing a return to the glory days.

EB: everyone already knows about Fafblog...Brad DeLong...The Crooked Timber...Atrios

I'm also not part of "everyone", as not only do I not know of Fafblog, but I have no idea who/what Brad DeLong, Crooked Timber, or Atrios are either. But that's neither here nor there.
posted by bugbread at 12:01 AM on February 20, 2005

Another vote for some kind of user moderating system.

The golden days are gone, there are a lot more people here now than there used to be, and its only going to get worse. Matt cannot and should not have to keep up with all the moderation here, and whatshername's moderation priveleges have met with (at best) mixed reviews.

Self policing since ... (if only it were true!)

One site i think inspired by metafilter that DID implement a moderation system we might want to look at is Viewropa.
posted by sophist at 12:12 AM on February 20, 2005

...set your threshold to 0...

I don't want to have to set thresholds/settings/preferences/point systems/scales/etc just to read MeFi. The best ratings system is completely transparent...it's in my head (cue zither music), man.

I really don't see what the big hubbub about "bad" posts is. To me, the bad posts are forgettable at worst, and amusing at best. The bad posts make the good posts better (or as they might say, "If everything is good, is anything good?").

In winter, I always wonder why on Earth I have chosen to live in New England...and I realize that one of the reasons is that the ass-chapping cold and snow makes the spring seem that much more amazing.
posted by tpl1212 at 6:30 AM on February 20, 2005

it isn't a great find these days considering that everyone already knows about it.

For "everyone" read "I."
posted by languagehat at 6:31 AM on February 20, 2005

"I is someone else", then!
posted by matteo at 6:57 AM on February 20, 2005

No, for everyone read "US left-leaning politics internet nerds". Which accurately describes a large portion of the mefi population. But "everyone" doesn't have to mean "everyone". It's obvious that I meant "enough people so that it doesn't belong on mefi". "Everyone" hasn't seen homestarrunner, but that doesn't mean a FPP to it is appropriate. "Everyone" hasn't seen the "Exorcist done with Bunnies" and "Cat Scan". Hell, "everyone" hasn't seen fark. Has fark ever been posted to the blue? If not, go ahead and post it. See how that goes over.

"Crooked Timber" itself has been the subject of more than one FPP. More than that, at least a dozen posts in the last year have come after a CT blogger blogged about it (so we know that a good portion of MeFi reads CT regularly). Brad DeLong and Atrios and Kevin Drum are, taken together, as high-profile as Glenn Reynolds. (And, hell, "everyone" hasn't heard of Instapundit, should he be the subject of a FPP?) Fafblog has widely disseminated throughout the US liberal blogosphere. That's close enough to "everyone" to be not worthy of an FPP at this date. A year ago, yes. Now, no.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 7:57 AM on February 20, 2005

Or for something quantitative, how about this:

Results 1 - 100 of about 169,000

...for fafblog (with an attempt to filter syndication feeds, etc. from the results)
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 8:19 AM on February 20, 2005