MetaFilter around the Globe.

March 23, 2006 4:22 AM

MetaFilter around the Globe. I used to live in the USA on the east coast. Then on the west coast. Now I live in London. All this time I've been a MeFi user. Has anyone else noticed how different MeFi is at different times of the global day? For example, AskMeFi when it is the AM in London is pretty European and has loads of interesting questions. Once the global day hits the USA, loads of silly tech questions appear. Late in the USA night, we get some scandalous ones. OR is this all just my perception?
posted by k8t to MetaFilter-Related at 4:22 AM (20 comments total)

It would be interesting to see a 24 hour posting cycle... I assume most MeFites are North American.
posted by k8t at 4:31 AM on March 23, 2006

Living London as well, I feel so late walking into a lot of the threads on the blue, usually the following morning.
posted by slimepuppy at 4:39 AM on March 23, 2006

It's about 70% US, 30% 'other', isn't it?

Dunno about AskMe, but I definitely see differences in the character of MetaFilter along the lines you describe depending on the time of day, and not just in terms of posting frequency once America has woken up. Pretty much comes down to there being a period of each day when interesting links are posted, rather than a mix of interesting links and wild shouting about news/politics/religion.
posted by jack_mo at 4:39 AM on March 23, 2006

When I get up, which is about 7 am EST the site is reallly really quiet, very few posts, very few new AskMe questions and then it ramps up over the next few hours. By the time the West Coast is getting to work and the East Coast is going to lunch, it's pretty hopping. Between 11 pm and 2 am EST on weekends [and sometimes weeknights] is when a lot of the weird stuff seems to go on, which maps to, what, morningtime for you all in the UK? I can't imagine what the place would look like to someone in Singapore or New Zealand.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 5:14 AM on March 23, 2006

I definitely see something similar, as I try to time my silly tech questions to hit the right audience. Miss your window and the question will slip off the front of Ask Me before your Knight Errant ever rides up.
posted by yerfatma at 5:38 AM on March 23, 2006

Between 11 pm and 2 am EST on weekends [and sometimes weeknights] is when a lot of the weird stuff seems to go on, which maps to, what, morningtime for you all in the UK? By "weird stuff" do you mean drug/alcohol induced stuff?
posted by R. Mutt at 5:57 AM on March 23, 2006

Sitting in London I know that there are most certainly time of the day I check the site and times I don't so much. As with K5 (back in the day) I tend to say away on weekends, as it seems that's when the n00bs come home and ask the really dull questions.
posted by tiamat at 6:01 AM on March 23, 2006

For example, AskMeFi when it is the AM in London is pretty European and has loads of interesting questions.

Did you mean for that to sound as pretentious as it reads?
posted by Mayor Curley at 6:06 AM on March 23, 2006

Late in the USA night, we get some scandalous ones.

I would expect that this is because this is when the admins are done with their jobs for the day and go to approve the anonymous questions that have been piling up throughout the day. Remember, "11 PM to 2 AM EST" is 8 PM to 11 PM PST.
posted by Johnny Assay at 6:10 AM on March 23, 2006

By "weird stuff" do you mean drug/alcohol induced stuff?

I don't know why it's weird (I'd guess drugs/alcohol, but few ever cop to it) just that if there is going to be some huge dust-up in a non-political non-hot-button thread, it often happens then.

And I read your statement the same way Mayor Curley did k8t.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:28 AM on March 23, 2006

There's definately a cycle (or rhythm) to MeFi. Like a living creature. The chest rises and falls with each breath, and slowly the beast awakens for the day. Spreading terror and angst as it stumbles across the countryside. As the night descends it becomes groggy, lost in a strange fog until at last it crashes down in a mishape heap. Soon the only sound to be heard is a light whistling of breath, in and out, in and out. The beast slumbers until the morrow.
posted by blue_beetle at 6:38 AM on March 23, 2006

I sometimes hate time zones. When I wake up, the threads are past their prime. Sometimes when I have had no life I have woken up at 4-5am just to be a part of the Jabber server or follow something happening. But yeah, apart from the pretentiousness there are definitely cycles here.
posted by keijo at 7:10 AM on March 23, 2006

I think we're more East Coast US too--i notice that lunchtime my time is busy, and then post-5 pm even busier than other times i check (i know i usually am more active then).
posted by amberglow at 8:01 AM on March 23, 2006

as someone who enjoys silly tech questions and other silly tech things, I would like to say that you can take your superiority and shove it where the sun don't shine.

other than that, though, interesting phenomenon and I'll have to keep an eye out for it.
posted by shmegegge at 8:42 AM on March 23, 2006

Sometimes I feel like I miss all the good stuff these days. Oh how I long to leave this city and return to wonderful Pittsburgh, when I will once again be a part of the dominant MetaFilter rhythm, feel the ebb and flow of its snarky tides, and ride the crests of its glistening waves along with my internet brethren!

(Not really)
posted by ludwig_van at 9:09 AM on March 23, 2006

Dear Ask Metafilter,
I just drove my smart car to Benelux to take part in a massive post-modern deconstruction of the "passive receiver state in twenty-first century monoglot culture", how do I get salmon mousse and german art-manque spooge stains out of my black organic wool Finnish anarcho-syndicalist collective woven turtleneck?
posted by Divine_Wino at 11:02 AM on March 23, 2006

Time Zones yo, they ebb and flow.
posted by Divine_Wino at 11:03 AM on March 23, 2006

Over the past few years I've perused MeFi in the UK, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Australia (W & E coasts) New Zealand, the Cook Islands and various US time zones.

It's always been full of whiney inverted-snob Yanks and probably always will be. Kiddding! In Asia and Oceania it always seemed a bit quieter but I was in the habit of d/ling the meatiest threads for reading later. In the UK a few years ago I was reading & posting during the day so it was a lot more Eurocentric whereas now I'm not allowed to surf at work outside of lunch hours, so I catch up in the evenings (like now) when USistan is awake and caffeined up so things are a lot more active.

I kinda liked it best a few years ago when it was Euros & US early-risers. It was also all fields round here and you could leave your door unlocked and could go to the cinema and get fish and chips *and* mushy peas afterwards and still get change from a farthing. Or something...
posted by i_cola at 11:28 AM on March 23, 2006

Funnily enough I've been contemplating posting something simila to MeTa for a few weeks now. I've definitely noticed trends and rhythms in the MeFi day. I'm in London and generally all the controversial US politics/religion posts come just before I go to bed. Then I get up and there's 150 posts and I've missed the chance to make any useful or interesting comments.... whereas around lunchtime GMT (when most of the US users are in bed), the front page of the blue can be rather slow with not much new appearing.
posted by greycap at 2:54 PM on March 23, 2006

Sorry, didn't mean to sound pretentious... it did sound a little Euro-centric. I suppose I'm in a bit of an American/Euro personal crisis right now. ;)

- posting from the east coast of the US today!
posted by k8t at 8:14 AM on March 24, 2006