May 2002 Archives (all archives)

May 31

interview of a nice young man we know

interview of a nice young man we know: "In many ways, I'm on the web today trying to capture that feeling of amazement seven years ago."
posted by epersonae to MetaFilter-Related at 2:36 PM PST - 16 comments

Domain Hijacking and Metafilter

It turns out that MacSlash.com was no more "hijacked" than succaland.com was "stolen" (despite what it says in the MetaFilter sideblog). Like k10k.com and poetrysoc.com, they let their domain expire and it was snapped up. Leslie Harpold says that hoopla.com and smug.com hadn't expired, and Verisign has not contradicted her, but true domain hijackings don't seem all that common, do they?
posted by timeistight to General Weblog-Related at 1:26 PM PST - 21 comments

The jbushnell Challenge

Last year and the year before, in May, jbushnell started a MetaFilter thread asking what the coolest thing you could find on the web for X amount of dollars was, and offered to buy the thing he himself deemed "the coolest". jbushnell hasn't contributed to MetaFilter since last October, and May is just about over, so I doubt he plans to show up to post this challenge again. (more inside)
posted by iconomy to MetaFilter-Related at 8:52 AM PST - 16 comments

May 30

Mefi sending traffic my way

Huh? Here's this week's top ten referrals from my station's counter:

1. no referral
2. metafilter.com/mefi/2238
3. google.com/search
4. ask.com/main/followup.asp
5. askjeeves.com/main/followup.asp
6. metafilter.com/mefi/2238/
7. yahoo.com/bin/query
8. real.com/music/
9. altavista.com/sites/search/web
10. yahoo.com/bin/search

I've had people click on my show from my user page or comments, or even someone else's comment linking my show, but a no comment post from a year and four months before I found this place? And I can't see it having anything to do with any other show in the station, either, though some there do lurk here. What is up with that? Any clues?

posted by y2karl to MetaFilter-Related at 8:32 PM PST - 17 comments

NYC World Cup Meetup

I believe I'll be watching the France-Senegal World Cup match at 7:30 a.m. at Nevada Smith's on Third Avenue in NYC on Friday 31 May. Would anyone like to join me?
posted by Mo Nickels to MetaFilter Gatherings at 4:13 AM PST - 43 comments

May 29

a 'news-oriented weblog'

While Googling around, I found this project, done by someone at Berkeley, using a Metafilter thread to point out various types of 'audience'. It seems to have been done to fulfill one of the assignments in this course, whose professor calls Metafilter a 'news-oriented weblog' in the syllabus (scroll down near the end of the page). Are you a "Sharer of News"? An "Idea Generator"? A "Quoter"? Or could you be a "Contrarian", or perhaps a "Humorist/Summarist"?
posted by evanizer to MetaFilter-Related at 9:52 PM PST - 18 comments

immense catalogue of samples and songs sought

Missing link. There once was an amazingly comprehensive website called Encyclopedia Breakanica (or some variation thereof), but a search on good ole Google just redirects me to Brittanica. The beauty of the site was the immense (and searchable) catalogue of samples and the songs in which they were used. I think it was even mentioned on MF in the last year or so.

If it has moved, has anyone seen it? If it is gone, I will sorely miss it...
posted by grabbingsand to MetaFilter-Related at 8:54 PM PST - 4 comments

fake tags break css

Fake tags break CSS. I assume it has to do with automatic tag closure. If it must be done, using [faketag]brackets[/faketag] seems safe.
posted by Dean King to Bugs at 7:28 AM PST - 15 comments

Is anyone else having trouble posting comments today?

Is anyone else having trouble posting comments today, IE5/Mac, the preview works, and when I hit post, nothing happens?? Got rid of my cookies and relogged in, still does not work, any suggestions?
posted by bittennails to Bugs at 5:58 AM PST - 4 comments

How do I deal with a cease and desist letter to my blog?

After 5 years online publishing hundreds of pages of content, my personal site poprocks.com has received a cease and desist letter from Barcelona candy company Zeta Espacial. I write about pop culture, and I am identified with the domain, personally and professionally. I have never tried to sell the domain to anyone, nor have I ever had its value appraised. Do I have any hope?
posted by popvulture to General Weblog-Related at 2:00 AM PST - 47 comments

May 28

Don't Link to Low-Bandwidth Sites

A suggestion for 'what makes a good post': one in which the main link isn't to a highly bandwidth limited site, such as Tripod or a similar free host, unless you are able to mirror it to another, higher bandwidth site. Here's the most recent example, but there have been many. An hour after this was posted, it was already slashdotted, before the first comment had been made. This is just annoying and frustrating for those of us who weren't among the N lucky guys first at the gate.
posted by Slithy_Tove to Etiquette/Policy at 7:57 PM PST - 14 comments

Language callout

Or, more politely, shut the fuck right up.

Maybe you should tone down that language, it is uncalled for and i'm starting to think you might have a problem.
posted by Zool to Etiquette/Policy at 5:12 PM PST - 63 comments

Is anyone else unable to login to MeFi, or am I just on Matt's shit list?

Is anyone else unable to login to MeFi, or am I just on Matt's shit list?
posted by wsfinkel to Bugs at 2:39 PM PST - 9 comments

Spam the spammers!

In response to email-harvesters, how about implementing this as an invisiible link on each metafilter page. It generates an unlimited stream of bogus email addresses, thereby poluting the email list. Spam the spammers!
posted by signal to Feature Requests at 12:09 PM PST - 20 comments

imminent death of Metafilter

Posited : that the 'imminent death of Metafilter' that has been so long and often predicted is finally beginning to happen. Exhibit A : A tiny truncated little MeTa flatpage. Exhibit B : An average of about 12 comments each for the limp and lackadaisical posts in the blue in the last 24 hours... Is the Fat Lady singing? Is that a croco-tear in my eye?
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken to MetaFilter-Related at 7:23 AM PST - 83 comments

May 26

Deletion: ask and ye shall receive

Is it appropriate to ask that clavdiv's moronic, homophobic, 4-post dump on this thread be deleted?
posted by mediareport to Etiquette/Policy at 11:35 AM PST - 55 comments

May 24

Formatting gets messed up

On some threads, at the bottom usually, the formatting gets messed up, i guess it's some tag people put in, but i don't see it. after the switch happens i can no longer post in the thread, although i have seen other people continue a thread with bad formatting. just wondering what it is, and, if it's a bad tag, maybe people can start closing them.
posted by rhyax to Bugs at 10:04 AM PST - 5 comments

Why was my post to badassbuddy.com deleted?

I posted a link on MeFi today to www.badassbuddy.com. It is a website that features tons of buddy icons for AOL IM. Matt took it down and I can't figure out why. Any ideas?
posted by wsfinkel to Etiquette/Policy at 9:19 AM PST - 5 comments

I don't know about you, but I'm curious

I don't know about you, but I'm curious. The membercount has been hovering at 14000 for the last week (?) or so, and just this evening went to 14001. Strange that the profile for user 14001 says "member since: March 15, 2002." Is there an interesting story here, or do I just need another hobby?
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken to MetaFilter-Related at 5:47 AM PST - 35 comments

May 23

Please delete the link to the Daniel Pearl video

Out of respect for the dead, and in the interest of keeping this community a respectable forum, could Matt please delete the link to the Daniel Pearl video . . . And perhaps place a moratorium on this kind of posting in the future? MetaFilter isn't Stile or Rotten.com, and I'd prefer the site not sink to that level.
posted by dogmatic to Etiquette/Policy at 9:52 PM PST - 104 comments

What is RSS for, exactly?

So, I'm digging mefi's RSS feed, and it finally inspired me to find out what RSS is really about. The whole idea seems so strange to me, though -- can I really just grab the feed and put it on another website? My problem is that I've seen more examples of RSS feeds being offered than examples of RSS being used. I tried to check out Ben Brown's thing, but it looks broken. None of the other mentions of RSS here on MetaTalk helped answer my question.
posted by Eamon to Etiquette/Policy at 6:51 PM PST - 15 comments

Tired of the prison rape discussion

The next time someone posts with glee about a criminal being subjected to violent penile colonization, turning the discussion immediately into a referendum on the subject of prison rape (#1 #2), I hope that person has to spend quality pound-in-the-ass time in MetaTalk as rodii's bitch.
posted by rcade to Etiquette/Policy at 4:20 PM PST - 44 comments

I'm fishing for any interest in a Seattle/Western Wa. mega get-together

I'm fishing for any interest in a Seattle/Western Wa. mega get-together... I haven't seen anything about folks getting together recently and I figured I'd start the ball rolling.
posted by crankydoodle to MetaFilter Gatherings at 4:14 PM PST - 23 comments

Guidelines for MeFi vs Sportsfilter

With World Cup fanaticism one week away (for some of us ever present), what are guidelines for Metafilter posts (eg vs Sportsfilter posts) ? Thanks.
posted by Voyageman to Etiquette/Policy at 6:47 AM PST - 29 comments

May 22

I just added CFDev's ActiveSpeller to MetaFilter's comment pages

I just added CFDev's ActiveSpeller to MetaFilter's comment pages. I'll eventually add them to every textarea form on the site. Let me know if you run into any bugs.
posted by mathowie to Feature Requests at 3:53 PM PST - 22 comments

oops - metafilter lead link?

OK, now that's just silly. Why would someone make the lead link a link to MetaFilter when they had two perfectly good links in the body of the post?
posted by me3dia to MetaFilter-Related at 1:26 PM PST - 4 comments

What's Metafilter Timezone?

What's Metafilter Timezone? I live in Belgium (same time zone as Paris, Madrid or Amsterdam). I have observed that the Metafilter "midnight" is somewhere in what is my morning. Where is physiscally the server? In what time zone is Metafilter's midnight?

B.
posted by Baud to MetaFilter-Related at 5:13 AM PST - 27 comments

May 21

Can we see expired Textads?

Is there anyway to see a list of expired Textads? If not, can a feature be added to allow us to see a Textad history of what has been posted in the past?
posted by skwm to Feature Requests at 7:51 PM PST - 11 comments

Fark posts don't do well here

"How does somebody that ugly get to reproduce? I thought there were laws about inbreeding."
and
"Damn...she must have hit all the branches on the way down."

The subject of one article about sexual activity with pre-teens, as seen at Mefi and Fark. Is this what we've become?
posted by Perigee to Etiquette/Policy at 5:16 PM PST - 46 comments

Netscape 6.1 bug

Netscape 6.1 bug: using the browser's back button from inside a thread gives you a popup window asking if you want to download a file of type called "text/html, text/html from http://www.metafilter.com". You have to use the "home" button to get back to the front page, and then scroll down to get back to where you were.
posted by biscotti to Bugs at 8:27 AM PST - 10 comments

"What's up with blogspot?"

what's up with blogspot? many of my favorite blogspot-hosted weblogs are down (as is the homepage), but some blogs just won't go away. there's no mention of an outage or server crash on the blogger website or on evan's weblog. anybody know anything?
posted by mlang to General Weblog-Related at 8:20 AM PST - 20 comments

something wrong with the MetaFilter XML feed

There seems to be something wrong with the MetaFilter XML feed. I only get "posted by 'whoever »', time and date, and # of comments". Also the XML page says there is an error.
posted by ashbury to Bugs at 7:55 AM PST - 2 comments

mathowie on WNYC radio!

Listen to mathowie on the the radio. (WNYC streams live in Windows Media. The archive of On the Line will be in Real Audio.
posted by andrewraff to MetaFilter-Related at 6:32 AM PST - 20 comments

You eat with that mouth?

Cunt.
Fuckwit.

You eat with that mouth? You kiss your mother with that mouth? Garbage mouth!

posted by dash_slot- to Bugs at 6:21 AM PST - 55 comments

May 20

I can't see a preview of my comments in Metatalk, and the login screen isn't showing.

I can't see a preview of my comments in Metatalk using N4.79, and the login screen isn't showing. It worked just fine before the MeFi server outage (*pouts*). It does work correctly in MeFi, tho.
posted by Lynsey to Bugs at 6:19 PM PST - 4 comments

Trolling: secret agreement, or an excuse to beat a dead horse?

See now, here is my question, with all sincerity, does MeFi continue to allow such troll posting because MeFi (semi-secretly) agrees with the poster, or just because MeFi wants another excuse to beat a dead horse?
posted by BlueTrain to Etiquette/Policy at 2:48 PM PST - 72 comments

Bad article, bad link, bad post.

Woo-hoo! A new thread points to Google! Even better, the poster forgot the "http:/ /" part, and the site doesn't even reflect his point!

My question is this: was it appropriate for me to comment on the thread, ask a pertinent question, provide a couple relevant links, and then immediately come here and slag the thread?
posted by gohlkus to Etiquette/Policy at 6:20 AM PST - 11 comments

May 19

If MeFites could be more like Japanese...

Blog TV: "Even a direct confrontation must be done in the most indirect, nonoffensive manner ..."

posted by sheauga to General Weblog-Related at 7:49 PM PST - 8 comments

Formatting Buttons Missing

Hey - is it a bug, my browser, or a glitch: where's the formatting button, ie, BOLD-italic - for Mefi posts? (Win98SE, NS6.2)
posted by dash_slot- to Bugs at 4:51 PM PST - 9 comments

Outages explained (May 2002)

Yay-- MeFi's back! What happened?
posted by maudlin to MetaFilter-Related at 12:11 PM PST - 38 comments

May 17

Localized weblog services?

Pick a language, any language.

LiveJournal has added support for its users to translate the entire site into other languages. Translation teams have formed for over twenty languages, with more on the way.

Are there other localized weblog services out there that anyone is aware of?
posted by insomnia_lj to General Weblog-Related at 8:07 AM PST - 7 comments

May 16

How did the MeFi Swap work out for everyone else?

How did the MeFi Swap work out for everyone else? I will admit that I was amazingly tardy about sending out my mixes, but at the same time, I've only received 3 of the 5 I was expecting. Is there anyone who is still working on their mix? Anyone else wondering "where are those last two discs?"
posted by Dreama to MetaFilter-Related at 11:40 PM PST - 43 comments

The guy at Suburban Limbo had a great idea for a BlogReader

The guy at Suburban Limbo had a great idea for a BlogReader. In theory, you could enter the blogs you read daily (weekly, hourly, obsessively) and it would tell which ones had been updated. (More Inside)
posted by Ufez Jones to General Weblog-Related at 2:36 PM PST - 16 comments

triple post

Kudos on the Intentional triple post.
posted by rcade to Etiquette/Policy at 10:55 AM PST - 46 comments

Chatfilter posts are bad posts.

You're kidding, right?
posted by Su to Etiquette/Policy at 12:19 AM PST - 45 comments

May 15

Why do people engage in Google-bombing?

Why do people feel so thoroughly justified about engaging in Google bombing?

Why is your opinion about something so important as to justify monkeywrenching the best search engine (if not the best thing) on the net? Why is your self-righteous indignation more important that leaving well enough alone?

If it is so important to you, why don't you build something equivalent with the specific aim of "educating the people" and stop piggybacking off of Google?

I am interested in Matt's opinion on this, since he's one of the ones that set this whole thing off.
posted by Irontom to General Weblog-Related at 9:47 AM PST - 76 comments

Double-post callout double-post

When double-post callouts are ignored: a second post about game console price cuts (here's the first one), posting a link that that had been posted in the comments of the original thread. I pointed this out, but discussion continued anyway. Discussion is still going on in the first thread, and the general thrust of the discussion in each thread is absolutely identical (price cuts, comparisons of consoles, buying advice). What, was I too polite?
posted by mcwetboy to Etiquette/Policy at 8:35 AM PST - 44 comments

I hear your words but they don't link what you think they link

Posts that don't actually point to their topic? The item itself is kind of interesting, but the links don't provide anything in terms of supporting the issue.
Discuss.
posted by Su to Etiquette/Policy at 3:10 AM PST - 13 comments

May 14

Philly meetup May 2002

I've seen all the links for the New York MeFi shindig; now I'm wondering about Philly. A gauge of general interest in a Philadelphia-area MeFi gathering?
posted by precocious to MetaFilter Gatherings at 9:07 PM PST - 11 comments

Interesting comments by Nick Sweeney

Interesting comments by Nick Sweeney in Kottke.org about the differences between Plastic and Metafilter. (This is probably too obvious a link, But I thought there must be at least some people here who haven't seen this)
posted by justlooking to MetaFilter-Related at 3:19 PM PST - 54 comments

Posts without any links.

Sean Meade posts a FPP without any links, but summarizes an article he read. The reaction is less than enthusiastic. Sean Meade takes offense. Can I post a summary of a conversation I had the other day?
posted by signal to Etiquette/Policy at 12:43 PM PST - 13 comments

May 13

Evolt.org

Strange, I read the post about evolt.org first, and it got juxtaposed againts mathowie's comments next, and I am reminded how much I have enjoyed MF over the year I've known it, and still incredulous that Mr. Haughey would be willing to offer so much for so little for so long. So what does one do when a silly little site no one cares about becomes something everybody loves but you (when you are the one that lives with it)?
posted by piskycritter to MetaFilter-Related at 5:02 PM PST - 10 comments

I think I'll press the 'XML' button and see what happens

I think I'll press the 'XML' button and see what happens ... what does 'An invalid character was found in text content. Error processing resource 'http://xml.metafilter.com/rss.xml'. Line 14, Position 152' mean?
posted by feelinglistless to Bugs at 3:41 PM PST - 39 comments

Klez attack

Uh...who the *expletive* is jeff_cook(at)nai.com, and why the *expletive* is he spamming me, and presumably others, with a screenshot of the MeFi donation thanks page?
posted by Su to Etiquette/Policy at 3:29 PM PST - 17 comments

Who's Your Buddy?

It's The Old Problem: You Never Know Who Your MeFi Buddy Is - but MetaFilter's own Mr Skallas has devised a cunning quiz that just might help you find that difficult-to-locate alter ego you've secretly been searching and, indeed, yearning for. Or, if this is not the case, which fellow member has unconsciously been influencing your every word. The rat! [To avoid disappointment, note that this will not tell you, as iconomy's questionnaire did, which MeFi user's posting style you most like - rather it will quite precisely identify which Metafilter user you are most like. Enjoy!]
posted by MiguelCardoso to MetaFilter-Related at 7:47 AM PST - 53 comments

May 12

What should be done to separate rational differences of opinion from hateful propaganda?

According to Friedman of NYT, "thanks to the Internet and satellite TV, the world is being wired together technologically, but not socially, politically or culturally. We are now seeing and hearing one another faster and better, but with no corresponding improvement in our ability to learn from, or understand, one another. So integration, at this stage, is producing more anger than anything else. As the writer George Packer recently noted in The Times Magazine, 'In some ways, global satellite TV and Internet access have actually made the world a less understanding, less tolerant place.'" In some ways, I tend to agree. What can be done? What should be done to separate rational differences of opinion from hateful propaganda?

posted by semmi to General Weblog-Related at 1:19 PM PST - 17 comments

Where to find blogs to read?

Besides Google and Eatonweb, any suggestions for weblog directories sorted by category/popularity? How do people narrow down what weblogs to actually read (rather than scan) regularly. Any helpful discussion/suggestions for readers, instead of writers ? Many thanks.
posted by Voyageman to General Weblog-Related at 7:48 AM PST - 12 comments

May 11

Timestamps

Would it be very difficult to add a date/time stamp to the "jump to the comment in this thread" links in the "All Comments by (Username)" listing? It would be tremendously useful in tracking living threads.
posted by rushmc to Feature Requests at 6:26 PM PST - 1 comment

Broken RSS Feed

something seems to be amiss with the metafilter RSS feed. it's well-formed, but only shows the channel data, no items.
posted by ikarus to Bugs at 7:46 AM PST - 4 comments

May 10

Search isn't working for me....

Double-posting is haunting me. I always search for something I'm about to post. If there are no results on MeFi, then I go ahead and post it.

But, if someone posted the same subject, but with different wording, it doesn't show up. For example: I searched for same sex classrooms. I found out that there was alread a post on single sex classrooms. Is there any way for the search to connect to a database of synonomous phrases, and have the option to use that database?
posted by Kevin Sanders to Feature Requests at 2:16 PM PST - 20 comments

May 9

On Salon.com, two new articles

On Salon.com, two new articles by Scott Rosenberg and Steven Johnson weigh in on, you guessed it, weblogs -- Rosenberg's on blogging itself (and how the mainstream media have reacted to it); and Johnson's on his vision of weblogs as components of an "emerging superbrain". Johnson has some interesting ideas (though who knows if he's right), and Rosenberg probably gets it as well as anyone.
posted by mattpfeff to General Weblog-Related at 11:20 PM PST - 15 comments

Why has Metafilter IRC gone to zero attendance?

Why has Metafilter IRC gone to zero attendance?
posted by ParisParamus to MetaFilter-Related at 6:30 PM PST - 36 comments

9401 not behaving in reverse chron order

This is probably not worth much investigation, but I'm curious to know if it's happening to anyone else. When sorting by "my comments", the commented threads are in reverse chronological order, except that one thread (http://www.metafilter.com/mefi/9401) from July 2001 has for some reason sandwiched itself in between December 2001 threads and threads from 2002.
posted by ljromanoff to Bugs at 11:23 AM PST - 2 comments

deeply lucrative deal with Slate

"Mickey Kaus has inked an awe-inspiring and deeply lucrative deal with Slate." Is this the beginning of the end , the end of the beginning, simply irrelevant, or something else altogether?
posted by Voyageman to General Weblog-Related at 9:09 AM PST - 23 comments

The prescience of KevinSkomsvold

KevinSkomsvold wins...
posted by machaus to MetaFilter-Related at 6:29 AM PST - 38 comments

Back themed posts

Backmasking? Backlinking? Backsliding? Backstabbing? Back massage?
Surely this is no coincidence - am I missing some hilarious in-joke here or is there a new MeFi policy whereby all front page posts must be self-referential and carry some allusion to regression? Personally I'd rather have the old, plain no-back Metafilter back.
posted by skylar to Etiquette/Policy at 4:14 AM PST - 22 comments

May 8

Search page options

For the search page, how about at least one more option: in the past 3 months. Maybe it's just me, but I seem to always be using it to find threads that are approximately six weeks old. A minor coding change, a major performance change.
posted by dhartung to Feature Requests at 10:28 PM PST - 3 comments

MeFi & MeTa thread pages 404 when logged in

IfI try to read any thread on MetaFilter or MetaTalk and I'm logged in, I get 404, yo. If I'm not logged in, I can read the threads. I've tried logging out and logging back in, and I deleted my MetaCookies.
posted by kirkaracha to Bugs at 6:48 PM PST - 6 comments

A picture of weblogs

A picture of weblogs shows a cool gridded pattern of many weblogs and the incoming, outgoing, and shared links. Not all blogs listed (but you can add yours, or request that it be taken off). A cool representation of the blogging community. (via daypop top40)
posted by Ufez Jones to General Weblog-Related at 3:24 PM PST - 13 comments

Cannot Access Thread

[provisional post]As I can't comment on mr_crash_davis's thread, but the "post a new thread" feature is working, this is just to say that, when I try to access MetaFilter I get a "Do you want to download MetaFilter?" window.
posted by MiguelCardoso to Bugs at 12:51 PM PST - 5 comments

Can't access the front page.

Here's a weird one. I can't view the front page. (More inside)
posted by mr_crash_davis to Bugs at 12:29 PM PST - 24 comments

The Natural Life Cycle of Mailing Lists and MeFi

Do you think this applies to metafilter?

The Natural Life Cycle of Mailing Lists
Kat Nagel - KatNagel@eznet.net



Every list seems to go through the same cycle:
1. Initial enthusiasm (people introduce themselves, and gush a lot about how wonderful it is to find kindred souls).
2. Evangelism (people moan about how few folks are posting to the list, and brainstorm recruitment strategies).
3. Growth (more and more people join, more and more lengthy threads develop, occasional off-topic threads pop up).
4. Community (lots of threads, some more relevant than others; lots of information and advice is exchanged; experts help other experts as well as less experienced colleagues; friendships develop; people tease each other; newcomers are welcomed with generosity and patience; everyone -- newbie and expert alike -- feels comfortable asking questions, suggesting answers, and sharing opinions).
5. Discomfort with diversity (the number of messages increases dramatically; not every thread is fascinating to every reader; people start complaining about the signal-to-noise ratio; person 1 threatens to quit if *other* people don't limit discussion to person 1's pet topic; person 2 agrees with person 1; person 3 tells 1 & 2 to lighten up; more bandwidth is wasted complaining about off-topic threads than is used for the threads themselves; everyone gets annoyed).
6a. Smug complacency and stagnation (the purists flame everyone who asks an 'old' question or responds with humor to a serious post; ne
posted by mecran01 to Etiquette/Policy at 6:13 AM PST - 33 comments

May 7

Please add *.met4filter.org to the DNS tables

Some customers sites I work at block MetaFilter. Thankfully, Met4filter.org works as a backdoor to the front page, but *.met4filter.org doesn't seem to be in the DNS tables. Can we get that, please?
posted by costas to Bugs at 6:18 PM PST - 17 comments

Is Google bomb-proof now?

Is Google bomb-proof now? After seeing "verisign" posts all over the weblog world, I decided to check the progress on Google. The article calling for the bomb is #79 in a search for Verisign as of right now, and the link itself within the post doesn't show up in the first 100 results for me. Perhaps Google has gotten wise to everyone's shenanigans?
posted by mathowie to General Weblog-Related at 12:09 PM PST - 43 comments

commentary-cutting link view pony?

I don't know if this has been asked for before, or is even good for a "community" web site, but, does anyone think having an extra link from each front page post that cut's out all the commentary and just shows urls to sites that have been linked in the discussion - a way to look at sites without pre-judgements being put in your mind by the comments they are with?
posted by bregdan to Feature Requests at 8:34 AM PST - 12 comments

From this week's Harper's magazine email, there is a mention of metafilter

From this week's Harper's magazine email, there is a mention of metafilter (more inside).
posted by jonah to MetaFilter-Related at 8:21 AM PST - 4 comments

May 6

Us declares itself above the law.

Us declares itself above the law.

Other than one or two people here and there talking about the topic at hand, this thread was basically a shouting match and trolling session. Is this the level of debate that now passes for inteligent from the MetaFilter community?
posted by Zool to Etiquette/Policy at 7:54 PM PST - 20 comments

a bit of me dies every time a thread is deleted

I'm sure it's an unpopular opinion and I admit it probably has to do with my personal experience of neo-fascist censorship in Portugal, as well as my libertarian views on freedom of expression, but I feel a bit of me dies every time a thread is deleted on MetaFilter. Or perhaps it's just frustration for not being able to read them. Although Matt is as tolerant a person as I know and I've understood the reasons for every deleted thread I was aware of, I truthfully don't think malevolent or stupid posts can't be dealt with by the MetaFilter community such as it is. Why not just leave them be? In time they might just be ignored, as they deserved. But not dignified with deletion. For there is such a thing, IMO.
posted by MiguelCardoso to MetaFilter-Related at 6:56 PM PST - 146 comments

why didn't anyone comment on my post?

Just for future reference I was wondering why this post hasn't promoted comment? Is it just that it's a quiet day or something else?
posted by feelinglistless to MetaFilter-Related at 3:15 PM PST - 25 comments

so, um, if you don't like metafilter, don't participate.

so, um, if you don't like metafilter, don't participate.
posted by moz to Etiquette/Policy at 1:14 PM PST - 35 comments

Like a VH1 countdown, only better - of MeFi posts

So, I was posting a link last night, and through the process I realized, for all the conversations MeTa has about what makes a bad post, I've never seen a list of 50-100 posts that were money. I understand that Matt can't regulate good posts, but is it possible for someone, anyone, to put together a group of 50-100 great posts? Like a VH1 countdown, only better...because it's MeFi.
posted by BlueTrain to MetaFilter-Related at 10:37 AM PST - 20 comments

May 5

machine translation not good enough for weblog

Morgens from seven to nine is Joerg Kantel, 48, to speak for nobody. The breakfast igelt itself right after the EDP leader citizens of Berlin of the institute for Max-Planck for science history with half-breed dog Zebu at home in the work room. Then Kantel surft by the World Wide Web, fishes important and funny out and spreads its booty, with comments and left garniert, over the web page "shock wave rider". Kantel loves the net Anarchismus: "pressefreiheit for all", demands the ex publisher of an underground newspaper.
posted by pracowity to Bugs at 10:54 PM PST - 15 comments

May 4

New England Meetup 2002

Back in early April (perhaps not coincidentally, when the weather was warming up nicely), we discussed the possibility of having a first-ever New England MeFi gathering. There was some enthusiastic response, and crankyrobot, I believe, was even going to look into getting Red Sox tickets.

Within a week (again, perhaps not coincidentally, when the weather crapped out again), interest had sunk like a stone. Now that it's May, and the New Yorkers have had their little get-together, is there now any interest in reviving the topic? (The weather is nice again, and the Sox are still winning!)
posted by yhbc to MetaFilter Gatherings at 9:42 PM PST - 40 comments

May 3

What happened on on December 21, 2001 that so many people joined?

What happened on on December 21, 2001 that so many people joined on that day. (mas inside)
posted by guyincognito to MetaFilter-Related at 9:49 PM PST - 29 comments

Anil on weblogs and the web

Although Anil's post is mostly rah-rah for metafilter, he makes some great points about weblogs and the web in general. Maybe this is the people's medium afterall.
posted by mathowie to MetaFilter-Related at 12:15 PM PST - 27 comments

Everything you wanted to say or ask has been said or asked

all of the answers to all of your questions, whatever you want the answer to be, are already contained in previous threads on this subject says ParisParamus.

Without being snarky, I imagine there might be others who, like me, do not hang on MeFi's every word and who, like me, would also like an opportunity to discuss the subject and deepen our understandings through point and counterpoint. Is MeFi's tent not big enough for us to do that? Maybe the generous thing to do would have been for him to commence his I/P thread celibacy before hitting post.
posted by RichLyon to Etiquette/Policy at 11:20 AM PST - 23 comments

FPP hogging the front page

Hogging the front page. Yes, I can read around this, but it takes up pretty much my whole window. As members don't we have some responsibility to keep the front page looking like a log of the web, rather than a Chinese protest wall?
posted by liam to Bugs at 10:54 AM PST - 14 comments

Dreamhost Shut Down My Sites. Help?

Yesterday I was accused of spamming by my host. Today 10+ websites and my email service has been shut down.
(cockybastard.com, Globalgasm.com, etc.)
I am *hoping* I can resolve this asap. But what if they refuse to listen to me.
I'm struck by how helpless I am. Has this ever happened to anyone here? I am close to actually driving to the Dreamhost offices in person.

posted by halcyon to General Weblog-Related at 9:01 AM PST - 32 comments

news.com on the blogging phenom

"I was seduced by bloggers." CNet News.com copy chief Jennifer Balderama writes yet another press piece on the blogging phenom. The difference? She keeps a blog herself, and knows full well what else has been written on the subject, and what she's getting herself into. This strikes me as a better attempt than the usual auto-generated weblog press à la megnut. Thoughts?
posted by mcwetboy to General Weblog-Related at 7:17 AM PST - 1 comment

Spiderman Deletion

Why is it okay for MetaFilter to have numerous threads on LOTR, Star Wars, Harry Potter, etc including a thread dedicated to the news that there are new scenes added to LOTR: FOTR, but a Spider-man thread results in guidelines and waffles being mentioned? I understand that the initial post could have been slighty better framed, but apart from that it is following precedents that have already been set. If this thread is deleted, does it imply we no longer discuss movies that a bunch of people here can't wait to see? If so will threads for upcoming Harry Potter, Star Wars, LOTR movies be deleted too?
posted by riffola to Etiquette/Policy at 6:46 AM PST - 53 comments

May 2

Too many newsfilter FPPs don't make for a good front page

I’m really confused. This happens often so do try to help me out. The guidelines describe a good post as a web page that most people haven’t seen which contains interesting content and might warrant discussion. Does a story that ran in a few national newspapers and recieved play on several news networks fit that criteria? Remote Rats, The Clinton Show, Powell Peace Conference, the missing Florida girl and two Massaoui stories can't seem to be defined — according to the guidelines — as a good post. So why are there so many?
posted by raaka to Etiquette/Policy at 11:56 PM PST - 19 comments

is there a vaccine for your favorite X?

We seem to be in the midst of another "what's your favorite X" mini-epidemic: a link which varies from interesting to trivial, followed by an invitation to opine. This time it's sandwiches, beverages, newspapers, snacks, arcade games, amusing childhood beliefs. I won't bother to criticize--we've covered that ground many times here already. But I think it's interesting how when these things happen, it only takes one precipitating post to generate several others, seemingly on a "yeah! And hey, what about this?" principle. What's your favorite favorite-X question?
posted by rodii to MetaFilter-Related at 10:29 AM PST - 39 comments

MeFite unaware of blogworld A-list

Metafilterian demonstrates blatant ignorance of blogging A-list. He finds "someone named Meg Hourihan" to be "very condescending." I've taken my share of shots at the A-list in the past, but this post made me sad. Has the gulf between Metafilter and the weblogging community grown too wide? Are we better off with fewer inter-blog memes, or losing the center in the widening gyre?
posted by junkbox to MetaFilter-Related at 7:22 AM PST - 80 comments

Webmonkey blogging article.

Webmonkey (which I constantly forget still exists) has a new piece up today that seems like it might be of interest here: The Weblog Tool Roundup.
posted by rex to General Weblog-Related at 6:07 AM PST - 6 comments

Wetlog lives!

Tangentially related to my post today: Uh...WTF is this? I'm too delirious right now to go find an explanation, if posted anywhere.
posted by Su to MetaFilter-Related at 5:21 AM PST - 4 comments

May 1

How did this self-link get through?

Blatant self-link. How is it not obvious that this is not okay?!?
posted by gohlkus to Etiquette/Policy at 3:07 PM PST - 93 comments

A troll by any other name

I'd use the word troll in this case, but it has some connotations that are a bit loaded given the subject.
posted by briank to Etiquette/Policy at 10:05 AM PST - 33 comments