One Million Customers Served!

August 1, 2005 5:33 PM

One Million Customers Served!

It's taken six years, but the one millionth comment has just rolled through the site! Raise your glasses everyone, and drink to MetaFilter!
posted by benzo8 to MetaFilter-Related at 5:33 PM (51 comments total)

I've been refreshing the last few minutes waiting for it -- I guess it suits that it's rather meta.
posted by ewagoner at 5:36 PM on August 1, 2005

Yeah - there was a JRun just before I nabbed it - I guessed it was the weight of a thousand other people watching the counter inexorably tick upwards!
posted by benzo8 at 5:39 PM on August 1, 2005

Flagged as noise...that's showing ya! ;)
posted by filmgoerjuan at 5:44 PM on August 1, 2005

A tribute to the never-ending verbal effluence of a generation and a half of underemployed and over-educated web nerds. huzzah!
posted by crunchland at 5:45 PM on August 1, 2005

But how did you know it was coming up?
posted by jb at 5:46 PM on August 1, 2005

Excellent work, benzo8!

* raises glass can, drinks *
posted by yhbc at 6:06 PM on August 1, 2005

That was quite an accomplishment, benzo. With the volume of comments posted here at any given second, your timing was spot-on.
posted by SeizeTheDay at 6:13 PM on August 1, 2005

A chorus of twenty-five thousand voices chittering a million self-important refrains into the vast nothingness that surrounds them and permeates them.

Here's to you all!

No exit.
posted by Ryvar at 6:14 PM on August 1, 2005

Here's to Shouting!
posted by Mephistopheles at 6:18 PM on August 1, 2005

I love this website, "MetaFilter". It's great. Thank you all.
posted by Mephistopheles at 6:18 PM on August 1, 2005

hi puppet!

congrats, benzo (and all of us bigmouths who helped get you to 1 million)
posted by amberglow at 6:50 PM on August 1, 2005

posted by If I Had An Anus at 7:00 PM on August 1, 2005

(self-link)
posted by nobody at 7:16 PM on August 1, 2005

Touché
posted by caddis at 7:58 PM on August 1, 2005

brandz
posted by Mephistopheles at 8:03 PM on August 1, 2005

BFD.

(I am approaching my 2000 comment. Now that will be something. I may devour a hostage.)
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 8:33 PM on August 1, 2005

*** ONE MILLIONTH COMMENT ***

Wow. I actually clicked through to see what it was. I'd imagined it might be some completely normal, passing comment. Perhaps some long, expert and notable explanation of something that only happened to arrive at a milestone number and would serve as a fine example of what MeFi is all about. Or perhaps something hilariously bad that would get lots of attention unexpectedly.

But no, it's someone with his finger on the refresh button waiting for his chance to re-enact the fine old MY POST IS FIRST wank.

Bravo.
posted by scarabic at 8:34 PM on August 1, 2005

Bah, I was already drunk for some other cool celebratory shit.
posted by Balisong at 8:39 PM on August 1, 2005

belch.
posted by buzzman at 8:47 PM on August 1, 2005

Actually, I'm curious. How did you know you would be one milllionth? How did you know it wouldn't happen in another thread? Inquiring minds...
posted by fungible at 9:00 PM on August 1, 2005

that's nothing ... the 100,000,000th post to usenet is one HELL of an accomplishment, folks
posted by pyramid termite at 9:02 PM on August 1, 2005

Frist post!!!111!!!LOL
posted by mr_crash_davis at 9:18 PM on August 1, 2005

23rd comment!!!!!11
posted by soyjoy at 9:20 PM on August 1, 2005

ARGH I JUST LOST THE GAME
posted by loquacious at 9:46 PM on August 1, 2005

fungible writes "Actually, I'm curious. How did you know you would be one milllionth? How did you know it wouldn't happen in another thread? Inquiring minds..."

My comment could have been anywhere - it just so happened I was in the Cambridge Photography thread when the 999,999th post came up (which was tkchrist's post in the World Socialist Web Site thread.) The trick was seeing that one come up...

Anyhow, I think the million posts is a great achievement (or the beginnings of the end for civilisation, whichever way you want to look at it) and everyone should be rightly proud of their contribution(s) to it, though none-moreso than #1, for whom this milestone might just go some way towards explaining quite why the little experiment he started in 1999 creaks quite so much under the strain these days!

(And, of course, AskMe and MetaTalk both have their own comment index, so that "millionth comment" stuff is only for the blue - across the whole 'Filter network, we've been much, much more verbose...)
posted by benzo8 at 9:52 PM on August 1, 2005

Flagged comment as noise. Join in everyone!
posted by scarabic at 10:37 PM on August 1, 2005

These cult threads are a disgrace. They're the single most despicable thing about MetaFilter. I was smoking a bowl with Kwantsar, Mephistopheles, Rothko and theatrical matriarch the other day, and they all agreed.
posted by Harry Morgan at 11:51 PM on August 1, 2005

It's all downhill from here.
posted by sellout at 12:13 AM on August 2, 2005

My balls hurt.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 12:30 AM on August 2, 2005

Here's#999999, and here's #100001.
posted by taz at 12:37 AM on August 2, 2005

Too many comments have been deleted to get overly excited. Paging jessamyn. I kid, I kid.

But, um, hooray for us.
posted by geekyguy at 12:55 AM on August 2, 2005

.
posted by triv at 3:55 AM on August 2, 2005

I think I posted the 500,000th comment, although I can't prove it just now as the MeTa search function just keeps timing out. Interestingly, I had no idea I had done so until months later when I first entered MeTa, and did a search to find out if I'd ever been bitched about.
posted by orange swan at 5:16 AM on August 2, 2005

Good work everyone, keep it up. 2mill should be around sometime next week.
posted by OmieWise at 5:17 AM on August 2, 2005

Only a million comments in six years?

1: 13 June 1999? (dubious)
100000: 26 June 2001
200000: 5 Jan 2002 (just before midnight)
300000: 4 July 2002
400000: 8 December 2002
500000: 6 June 2003
600000: 12 December 2003
700000: 11 July 2004 (meta)
800000: 17 December 2004
900000: 7 April 2005
1000000: 1 August 2005
posted by Plutor at 5:27 AM on August 2, 2005

Analysis: From June of 2001 to the end of 2004, MeFi commenting was at a fairly regular pace of approximately 200,000 per year, totally independant of the number of users. After the five-dollar gates opened up, comment velocity has increased about 50%. I vote for November 22 for comment #1,100,000.

The most telling trend is the number of threads between posts. I could tell as I was researching that it was shrinking (and thus, that the average number of comments per thread was growing), but until I had the numbers, I wasn't sure how much. Between comment 100k and 200k, there were 11.6 comments per thread. It was around 25 for most of 2003 and 2004. After registrations opened back up, it grew substantially. Between comment 900k and 1M, there were 34.8 comments per thread.
posted by Plutor at 5:43 AM on August 2, 2005

round numbers are for squares.
posted by the cuban at 5:55 AM on August 2, 2005

We're at around 236,000 in MetaTalk. That's a lot of griping.
posted by me3dia at 6:28 AM on August 2, 2005

Yeah but given that there's 3600 seconds in an hour, you've gotta figure that MeFi's been down for at least 236,000 seconds.

So it all balances out, or something.
posted by Ryvar at 7:29 AM on August 2, 2005

*pukes discreetly in the bushes*
posted by felix betachat at 7:31 AM on August 2, 2005

*pukes down the front of shirt, staggers, falls face-down in the gutter*
posted by 40 Watt at 8:09 AM on August 2, 2005

A million? That's like a lot.

I look forward to my personal millionth post. Woot!

_________
ARGH I JUST LOST THE GAME

As a side note, this "The Game" crap has to be the lamest, contrived and most un-funny meme I have encountered. I don't understand how otherwise intelligent people can take such glee from such inanity.

Thanks for letting me share.
posted by dios at 8:16 AM on August 2, 2005

As a side note, this "The Game" crap has to be the lamest, contrived and most un-funny meme I have encountered. I don't understand how otherwise intelligent people can take such glee from such inanity.

For once, I agree with dios.
posted by me3dia at 8:22 AM on August 2, 2005

Glad you qualified that, me3dia. Otherwise, your reputation would be shot.
posted by dios at 8:25 AM on August 2, 2005

For once, I agree with dios.
posted by felix betachat at 8:47 AM on August 2, 2005

I disagree with dios on both counts, for once. Or twice.
posted by Floydd at 10:03 AM on August 2, 2005

As a side note, this "The Game" crap has to be the lamest, contrived and most un-funny meme I have encountered. I don't understand how otherwise intelligent people can take such glee from such inanity.

*fap* *fap* *fap*
posted by Rothko at 11:10 AM on August 2, 2005

So you're linking to your own comment, which doesn't say anything other than... oh never mind... what scarabic said.
posted by nthdegx at 11:28 AM on August 2, 2005

Paging jessamyn

You can stop your flagging now, I saw it. Thanks.
posted by jessamyn at 11:40 AM on August 2, 2005

My interest is flagging....
posted by Floydd at 11:50 AM on August 2, 2005

You're surprised that people who participate on the grey are entertained by inanity? Not too bright, that one is.
posted by grouse at 11:54 AM on August 2, 2005