MetaTalk

The Bar: Precursor to the Modern Sidebar? [more inside]
posted by zarq on Jul 20, 2011 - 56 comments

Update: Roger Ebert's blog post about Ben Stein's Expelled (6MB HTML), talked about here, had so many comments the software wouldn't allow any more.
posted by kmz on Sep 4, 2009 - 76 comments

I'm looking for a post I read here — at least I think I did — concerning the natural evolution of online communities. The conclusion talked about population growth leading to divisive groups that clash with each other leading to the decline of the community... or something along those lines. [more inside]
posted by empyrean on Feb 12, 2008 - 20 comments

The subject of rewriting the guidelines is something that comes up from time to time. As MetaFilter evolves as a community, it is good to rewrite the guidelines to reflect evolving standards. I have been thinking about how to write new guidelines on and off for the last week and here's my proposal. [more inside]
posted by Kattullus on Jul 26, 2007 - 107 comments

We obviously can't have respectful discussions about evolution. Every time the topic comes up, the same insulting "discussion" occurs. Seeing as how no new information is ever presented in these topics, shouldn't they all be considered double posts and deleted? When they are nothing more than another opportunity to display your disgust with someone who disagrees with you, what value do they add to the site?
posted by dios on Apr 18, 2006 - 197 comments

Bevets is abusing his membership. Undeniable evidence included inside.
posted by furtive on Apr 9, 2005 - 100 comments

"the point of MetaFilter is to find the best and most interesting of the web" - with the growing popularity of such services as del.icio.us (and the super-useful aggregated popular view), and the rise in popularity of the 'link blog' (waxy, anil and kottke for example) is there anyway MeFi can hope to keep up or is the gradual evolution into current-events lead discussion inevitable?
posted by gi_wrighty on Sep 22, 2004 - 48 comments

I'm sorry if this is a stupid, self-indulgent post (so no problems if it's deleted forthwith) but it's based on over two years of reading MetaFilter almost completely. It certainly seems interesting to me - but I may be wrong. See? I've noticed several users becoming ever more adept at expressing themselves: from more drawn-out to pithier; from abstruser to clearer; from all-over-the-place to more-to-the-point. Does anyone else find, by merely participating here and being exposed to MeFi's notoriously severe critique, that they're writing better than when they first joined? Specially foreigners (or non-Americans) like me? To what an extent is MeFi interaction good practice for writers?
posted by MiguelCardoso on Oct 29, 2003 - 57 comments

I should know this, being one of MeFi's last surviving "early adopters" (user #206), but I don't...
MetaFilter's NO multiple-threads, chronological order, NO sigs or avatars, permalinked format for comment pages has become the standard default style for blog comments, used by most blog software out there. (And that format has been, with all its abuses, one of the major reasons why MeFi has been my favorite Web Hangout for most of its 4 years).
So, Matt, why is it so? Did you duplicate some even earlier weblog pioneer I don't remember? Did you just follow a K.I.S.S. methodology? Or was it all/partly about the limitations in the Cold Fusion database or your then-newbie abilities with it? Tell me, for the record, how much credit (or blame) do you think you deserve for "The Way We Do Comments"?
posted by wendell on Sep 19, 2003 - 15 comments

Is Metafilter in danger of becoming irrelevant?

We're in desperate need of some new opinions around here.

Can it happen? Is it a technical limitation? What do you think?
posted by mark13 on Apr 28, 2003 - 60 comments

Despite MetaFilter's honourable roots and tradition, I get the feeling that a significant and increasing amount of members has no interest whatsoever in web design, computers, blogs, programming or, in fact, anything remotely technical or even geeky. A few seem to be unimpressed by the Internet itself. Are we witnessing the secularization of MetaFilter? Is our future broadly cultural and political rather than Web-specific?
posted by MiguelCardoso on Feb 10, 2003 - 56 comments

From what I understand, Mefi began as a forum to discuss Web design, whereas it has become a forum to discuss news, ideas, whatever, with a Web site almost incidental to the discussion. Opinions as to when this happened; a specific day or week (these kind of questions interest me)? Also, as much as some people bemoan this evolution, wasn't it inevitable?
posted by ParisParamus on Dec 4, 2001 - 24 comments