Happy birthday Generation Y MeFites! [more inside]
posted by Tommy Gnosis on Nov 18, 2007 - 115 comments

With the increasing number of stupid call outs on MetaTalk of late, the general lowering of the standards of debate in MeFi and seemingly more and more attacks on #1 and #292 for their admin decisions, I respectfully and tentatively suggest that now may be the time to close off new user sign-ups for a while.
posted by Effigy2000 on Mar 23, 2006 - 130 comments

I, for one, welcome our 30ker n00b overlords. Especially this one.
posted by Saucy Intruder on Nov 19, 2005 - 121 comments

Can we close the door now? I'm genuinely happy to have some new blood, but here's the problem. Pretty much everyone who's been reading the site with their noses against the glass has been let in. Hereafter, we're going to get a bunch of folks who happen to be wandering by, and know nothing of how things are done around here. (I don't know if that's the case with notmtwain, I'm only using his/her post as an example because it glares so.) We can always open it up again later, but can we have a moratorium on new users? Just for now? Please?
posted by jpoulos on Dec 1, 2004 - 129 comments

A few words to our new users, from someone hardly qualified to give them. [more inside]
posted by y6y6y6 on Nov 18, 2004 - 116 comments

Did anyone else noticed the membership count changing in the blue? It seemed like it dropped from the 17000's down to 16896.
posted by phyrewerx on Aug 6, 2004 - 28 comments

Can't well all just get along? To an extent I can accept the 14k+ crowd misbehaving for awhile — at least till they pick-up on 'Metaquette' — but others should know better than to feed the trolls or fan flamebait.
posted by nathan_teske on Sep 9, 2002 - 74 comments

Since sign-ups were turned back on the thread count has been growing rapidly. With September 11th coming up, we'll almost certainly see thread 20,000 within the week. The last base-ten rollover passed with little fanfare. Should we ignore the significance of #20k? Use it for elitist ego stroking? Perhaps pancakes are in order...
posted by nathan_teske on Sep 5, 2002 - 10 comments

20 neophytes a day - and I'm one of yesterday's crop. Fresh-faced, clean-skinned...

As a Content Editor at Everything2, I'm intimately acquainted with the stickiness inherent in introducing new people to an online community (especially a content-oriented community, as opposed to activity-, hobby-, or interest-oriented ones). There seems to be a dearth of documentation. I guess this site is pretty self-explanatory, which is refreshing - I've been an E2 user for two and a half years and I still occasionally scratch my big, fat head. Also, after such a long, long time with no new users (I know it was a long time because I spent a long time checking the new user page), you guys must be experiencing something of a shock, too.

Any ideas as to what could be done to ease the transition for newbies and allay the angst, if any, of the old guard?

Feel free to kill this if I'm out of line, long-winded or otherwise. I'm a new at this.
posted by bingbangbong on Aug 2, 2002 - 86 comments

Is metafilter membership currently open or closed? There seems to be some confusion. Could Matt please clear this up by issuing some sort of official statement? Please?

From what I understand, ostensibly it's closed, but I looked and found the most recent user profile I could, which shows this user is new as of July 24, 2002. Uh, that's pretty recent in my book.

Yes, this is Matt's fiefdom and he can do as he damn well pleases, but frankly some of us think that this "it's closed / no wait, it's really open but only on my terms (which are secret)" kind of thing is uncool, to say the least. Maybe that's not how it is, but it's how it may appear to some people.

Care to clue us all in on what the official word is, Matt?
posted by beth on Jul 25, 2002 - 102 comments

After/Upon the deluge. I feel somewhat self-conscious writing this since I only discovered Mefi in March. Nonetheless, I wonder if Matt has considered how to re-open Metafilter to new members. At this point, the pent-up demand is likely quite large, which could cause a kind of chaos. So I would suggest the when the gate re-opens, it be done in phases: maybe a certain number of posters per-day or per-week for a certain number of weeks; it's how we would do things back in Paramus. Just a thought.
posted by ParisParamus on Jul 10, 2001 - 26 comments