It's a small MetaFilter world December 20, 2011 9:47 AM   Subscribe

The contacts section allows us to indicate who we've actually met. Would the infodump be able to tell us who among us has met the most MeFites? I know it's dependent on people selecting the "met" box when listing a contact, but I'm curious about the number.
posted by ambrosia to MetaFilter-Related at 9:47 AM (99 comments total)

My bet would be Jessamyn. Because she's awesome.
posted by ColdChef at 9:48 AM on December 20, 2011 [3 favorites]


Cortex, I bet.
posted by zarq at 9:52 AM on December 20, 2011


Jessamyn's "met" contact list is ....formidable
posted by The Whelk at 9:54 AM on December 20, 2011


I would bet on Jessamyn too, though I make a pretty good showing thanks in no small part to the great meetupathon a couple years back.

The infodump has contact data in it, but only as a record that a given user has another user listed, not any info about what XFN selections they've got, so you could easily figure out who has the most contacts but you wouldn't be able to get the "met" info out of it.
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:55 AM on December 20, 2011


So much for my answer of "ColdChef."

Also, now I want to make sockpuppet accounts with names like "The Devil At The Crossroads" "Their Maker" and friend/'met' everyone.
posted by griphus at 9:57 AM on December 20, 2011 [6 favorites]


The Devil In The Pale Moonlight has listed you as a "danced with" contact.
posted by The Whelk at 9:59 AM on December 20, 2011 [11 favorites]


Nevermind met, who has slept with the most Mefites?
posted by LarryC at 10:00 AM on December 20, 2011 [9 favorites]


Well and I work here which means I can write off meetups as a business expense and I'm also pretty diligent as marking people as people I've met. I'm curious about who besides me and maybe cortex/mathowie have met the most folks. Without even using the infodump I have 530 MeFites as "met" and I know there's at least one or two people I've met and neglected to write down.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 10:02 AM on December 20, 2011


That would be George Bush -- he tried to fuck us all at one point.
posted by not_on_display at 10:03 AM on December 20, 2011


Individually or all at once?
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 10:04 AM on December 20, 2011


Of course, you could put together a most-met list manually by using the infodump contact stuff to just count up most-contacts and look manually at the folks in the top of that count to see if anybody has sufficiently high outlier metness density that they sneak higher up the list than raw contact count would suggest.

Throw a userid into a link of the format http://www.metafilter.com/usercontacts/XXX/contacts/met/list (with Jessamyn as an example in this case) and you'll get their met count and list.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:04 AM on December 20, 2011 [1 favorite]


My guess was George Clooney.
posted by shakespeherian at 10:08 AM on December 20, 2011


Outlier Metness Density is the name of my glitch music Bacon Brothers cover band.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 10:12 AM on December 20, 2011 [2 favorites]


Looking at the list of MeFites I've met in real life makes me really happy. But I get even happier when I see the list of MeFites who are dear friends who I interact with every single day (and have for ten years) who I've never met in person, but who are as dear to me as family. One day, I hope to meet you all in person and put my arms around you.

I don't say this often enough: I love you all.
posted by ColdChef at 10:13 AM on December 20, 2011 [24 favorites]


HEY DOES CONTACTS ALLOW US TO INDICATE WHICH USERS HAVE MADE US CRY BECAUSE I THINK WE'VE GOT A WINNER HERE
posted by griphus at 10:31 AM on December 20, 2011 [9 favorites]


Yeah, there should totally be a "touched by" option.
posted by villanelles at dawn at 10:34 AM on December 20, 2011


Touched By A Mefite: A Lifetime Original Movie.
posted by The Whelk at 10:37 AM on December 20, 2011 [6 favorites]


So that's what the contacts feature does. Doh! Seriously, until I read this, I didn't realize that it did anything other than populate the sidebar, so I never bothered to use it. Still, I doubt I've met more than 5 or so MeFites in real life.
posted by COD at 10:37 AM on December 20, 2011


I try to be pretty diligent about noting when I've met a MeFite, but I'm sure some have slipped through the cracks. In fact, I just now realized that someone I've met a whole bunch of times wasn't noted as such in my contacts list.
posted by Kattullus at 10:46 AM on December 20, 2011


Some users eschew the contacts feature and so refuse to note that they have met me or are in awe of me.
posted by shakespeherian at 10:49 AM on December 20, 2011


Oh, criminy, and I just realized another one I had forgotten. Now I'm getting quite paranoid I've left a whole bunch of folks off my list.
posted by Kattullus at 10:50 AM on December 20, 2011


I come in at 64. But I know that's not quite accurate. I feel like I met 64 people at last summer's Chicago meetup alone! It's probably more to do with me being not quite sure what I am doing with my contacts. I resolve to be better at recording meetings of people. If nothing else it is a good way to visualize real world interactions and MeFi 'neighborhoods,' both geographical and social.
posted by Miko at 11:33 AM on December 20, 2011


does watching you while you sleep count as "meeting" you? if so, i think i probably win
posted by 3... 2... 1... mark at 11:34 AM on December 20, 2011 [1 favorite]


Jessamyn: Add me to your "met" contacts. I met you once in a non-mefi context and did not want to break my cover so never said anything other than "good talk" or something like that to you. Does that count?
posted by JohnnyGunn at 11:49 AM on December 20, 2011


I was touched by The Whelk once years ago and I'm still in therapy.
posted by Aizkolari at 11:50 AM on December 20, 2011


I feel like I met 64 people at last summer's Chicago meetup alone!

I recommend a March Madness-style bracket to figure out which one you liked best.

Hint: Me.
posted by SpiffyRob at 11:52 AM on December 20, 2011 [2 favorites]


Without even using the infodump I have 530 MeFites as "met" and I know there's at least one or two people I've met and neglected to write down.

From what I see in my couple of weeks old copy of the Infodump, that means you must hold the site record for most number of contacts marked as "met". Nobody else even has 530 contacts at all. cortex has the next highest total number of contacts at 454.

Now the other way to look at it is who lists you as a contact they have met. Only 326 people have listed you as a contact they've met. There are six other users who have at least 326 incoming contacts, so we can't mathematically rule out everyone else when looking at it from this direction.

But that's only six people's profiles to look through manually, so I did that and confirmed that nobody else is even close to 326 incoming "met" contacts.

So there!
posted by FishBike at 12:05 PM on December 20, 2011 [1 favorite]


What's Jessamyn's Bacon Number?
posted by vidur at 12:23 PM on December 20, 2011


Six Degrees Of Metafilter.
posted by The Whelk at 12:29 PM on December 20, 2011


And now the top 10 users by most users they've flagged as "met" in their contacts list. This was a semi-manual process, so it's possible I've missed someone. But it wasn't actually too horrible to compile this.
530: jessamyn
330: ThePinkSuperhero
323: cortex
249: brujita
236: Eideteker
176: kattullus
158: DaShiv
142: iamkimiam
138: gingerbeer
135: not_on_display
The process was to generate a list of users in descending order of number of contacts, generate a link to the "met" profile page for each user, and throw all those links in an HTML file. Then load up that file in a browser and click on each link one at a time to see how many users they've "met". Keep a running top-10 list and stop when I got to the point on the list where the total number of contacts has gotten too small to theortically qualify (134 contacts in this case).
posted by FishBike at 12:32 PM on December 20, 2011 [5 favorites]


Six Degrees Of Metafilter.

Back in the LiveJournal days, there used to be a web app that let you determine how many degrees of separation you were from another LJ user. I wonder if someone could hack something like that up for MeFi?
posted by griphus at 12:32 PM on December 20, 2011


What's Jessamyn's Bacon Number?

Hey, you know, we did a thing like that a couple of years ago, and I think I still have all the code for it. So we can figure out how many degrees apart any two users are in the MeFi contact network, if people are interested in knowing e.g. their mathowie number.
posted by FishBike at 12:33 PM on December 20, 2011


I've only met two of the people on FishBike's top ten list.

I need to get out more.
posted by ambrosia at 12:34 PM on December 20, 2011


Look out, jessamyn! Only 200 to go!
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 12:39 PM on December 20, 2011 [1 favorite]


Hey, you know, we did a thing like that a couple of years ago, and I think I still have all the code for it. So we can figure out how many degrees apart any two users are in the MeFi contact network, if people are interested in knowing e.g. their mathowie number.

Give me some time to mark random people as "met" before you run the code!
Just kidding. I am sure the number is "undefined" for me.
posted by vidur at 12:40 PM on December 20, 2011 [1 favorite]


What is this "in real life" of which y'all speak?
posted by argonauta at 12:54 PM on December 20, 2011


If you haven't met me, well, what the hell are you waiting for?

(Sadly, I haven't slept with any MeFites. At least; the MeFites I've slept with are only MeFites because of me.)
posted by Eideteker at 12:55 PM on December 20, 2011


I've only met two of the people on FishBike's top ten list.

It probably helps to be in the USA. Even so, I've met TPS, Jessamyn & Kattullus from that list. The latter two were here in Sydney, but I also met Kattullus in NYC.

Also ColdChef can put his arms around me something something cold dead hands.
posted by UbuRoivas at 1:01 PM on December 20, 2011 [2 favorites]


Perhaps there should be another tag for "seen naked."
posted by JanetLand at 1:02 PM on December 20, 2011


I've been pretty slack in adding "met" people. I used to keep it up to date but there are at least a few Aussie mefites missing, and I think probably up to a dozen or more from NYC who I didn't add at the time & now I forget who was even there. fuq & Optimus Chyme are the only two who spring to mind right now. Apologies for that.
posted by UbuRoivas at 1:06 PM on December 20, 2011


(Sadly, I haven't slept with any MeFites. At least; the MeFites I've slept with are only MeFites because of me.)

Basically, Metafilter is an STD
posted by The Whelk at 1:10 PM on December 20, 2011 [5 favorites]


Yeah, there should totally be a "touched by" option.

Show me on the doll where the MeFite touched you.
posted by Curious Artificer at 1:10 PM on December 20, 2011 [2 favorites]


Just kidding. I am sure the number is "undefined" for me.

Well, one limitation of this is the infodump doesn't contain the contact type information, so it's based on just who lists who as a contact, and not who says they have met who. Even so, if we look only at mutual contacts (A is a contact of B, and B is a contact of A), you're right, your mathowie number is undefined.

But if we relax the rules a little and only look at who contacts you (and who contacts them, and so on) then you get a mathowie number of 4. An example path through the contact network would be:

mathowie-->languagehat-->Sara C.-->Fiasco da Gama-->vidur
posted by FishBike at 1:11 PM on December 20, 2011


Neat, I've met all the other people in the top ten.
posted by cortex (staff) at 1:11 PM on December 20, 2011


I've met all but two. I'm not saying y'all are easy, but...
posted by Miko at 1:13 PM on December 20, 2011 [2 favorites]


But if we relax the rules a little and only look at who contacts you (and who contacts them, and so on) then you get a mathowie number of 4. An example path through the contact network would be:

mathowie-->languagehat-->Sara C.-->Fiasco da Gama-->vidur


I'm a big supporter of relaxed rules. Thanks!
posted by vidur at 1:17 PM on December 20, 2011


Perhaps there should be another tag for "seen naked."

This list would be longer for me than "been kissed by." =(

Shoot, I could have a list of "MeFites I've helped move." (hi, Miko!) ;)
posted by Eideteker at 1:20 PM on December 20, 2011 [2 favorites]


MeFites I've helped move? Everyone who's ever read one of my comments, that's who.
posted by scruss at 1:28 PM on December 20, 2011


I've met all the other people in the top ten.

Me too!
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 1:32 PM on December 20, 2011


I sometimes wonder if any of the people I know in real life are Mefites. I imagine going to a meetup someday and, I don't know, seeing my neighbour, or my kid's teacher, or someone like that. Has anything like that ever happened?
posted by ThatCanadianGirl at 1:35 PM on December 20, 2011


I know someone in NYC it happened to- came to a meetup and their co-worker was there. Neither knew the other was a Mefite.
posted by ThePinkSuperhero at 1:37 PM on December 20, 2011


this is why we need special rings.
posted by The Whelk at 1:38 PM on December 20, 2011 [2 favorites]


God, I'd hate that. I'd have to change my user name to "ThatOtherCanadianGirl"
posted by ThatCanadianGirl at 1:40 PM on December 20, 2011 [1 favorite]


All the MeFites I've met in real life have been suspiciously nice people. I'm starting to think the whole thing is a cult.
posted by BitterOldPunk at 1:46 PM on December 20, 2011

I sometimes wonder if any of the people I know in real life are Mefites.
I met piedrasyluz IRL a week before he posted the AskMe that led to our reunification. He wanted to perform a friend's wedding, and found me by googling; we met at my office, where we got his paperwork notarized and such. A week or so later, exogenous (a neighbor who I met at a Meetup) gave him my name as someone who might be able to help on the float. We had coexisted on MeFi for 8 years prior to that.
posted by MrMoonPie at 2:12 PM on December 20, 2011 [1 favorite]


I've been friends with girlstyle since shortly after I moved to Seattle and I began playing on an opposing pub trivia team. About a year ago we had a meetup at said pub trivia night but she isn't a MetaTalk person so didn't realise it was on and played with her regular team. I only found out she's on mefi a couple months ago, can't remember how it came up.
posted by jacalata at 2:27 PM on December 20, 2011


"I sometimes wonder if any of the people I know in real life are Mefites. I imagine going to a meetup someday and, I don't know, seeing my neighbour, or my kid's teacher, or someone like that. Has anything like that ever happened?"

I'm sure that happens regularly. Did you see that recent comment I posted about my very surprising MeFi coincidence?

Granted, that was six months before I joined (when membership briefly opened up April 1-2, 2004), but I had been regularly reading MeFi and MeTa for well over a year already and was hanging out on #mefi and such. I saw my acquaintance's name as the username on a post and thought, well, I doubt that's actually Blake, but I'll check the profile anyway. And it was him! And then I saw the comment he wrote in the thread and I was all, oh, wow, how come no one told me that he and A. were expecting a baby? Then, sure enough, the person who should have told me long before then did tell me, coincidentally just a few days later, and I said, yeah, I totally already knew that because I read it on MetaFilter three days ago.

So, I dunno. That was back when MeFi was much smaller than it is now. I'm sure that lots of mefites know other mefites but don't realize they're mefites. I don't know what "lots" really is, but it's more than "just a few".
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 2:28 PM on December 20, 2011


I sometimes wonder if any of the people I know in real life are Mefites.

That sort of happened with me once. I went to a meetup and saw someone and was like: "Hey, you're the guy that works at that store!"
posted by marxchivist at 2:33 PM on December 20, 2011 [1 favorite]


I answered a craigslist ad for housing a couple months ago and it turned out to be a mefite I've liked reading for years. His gmail address matched his mefi handle, and I had a bit of a 'holy shit' moment when I realized it. (Ended up living in a big vegan co-op closer to my favorite pub, though.)
posted by kaibutsu at 2:51 PM on December 20, 2011


>the MeFites I've slept with are only MeFites because of me

Dear AskMe, I know you're not my doctor, but I've acquired this strange rash...
posted by pompomtom at 3:00 PM on December 20, 2011 [1 favorite]


pompomtom: Dear AskMe, I know you're not my doctor, but I've acquired this strange rash...

That's not the first time I've been called that.
posted by gman at 3:02 PM on December 20, 2011


mathowie-->languagehat-->Sara C.-->Fiasco da Gama-->vidur

There's a direct IRL "met" link from mathowie-->Fiasco, which would give you a mathowie rating of 2 degrees, but it seems neither mathowie or Fiasco maintain their met lists.
posted by UbuRoivas at 3:21 PM on December 20, 2011


3... 2... 1... mark: "does watching you while you sleep count as "meeting" you? if so, i think i probably win"

Santa, is that you?
posted by arcticseal at 3:44 PM on December 20, 2011


Kevin Bacon.
posted by Hey, Zeus! at 3:56 PM on December 20, 2011


I have met 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7 on that list. Helps to live in NYC.
posted by gaspode at 4:54 PM on December 20, 2011


Ive met quite a few, but I don't travel much and I havent been to a meetup in a while.
posted by jonmc at 5:01 PM on December 20, 2011


and I've met 7 out of 10 on the list.
posted by jonmc at 5:01 PM on December 20, 2011


Shoot, apparently I should go to a meetup one of these days.
posted by pemberkins at 5:14 PM on December 20, 2011


Met you? I'm standing right behind you.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 5:44 PM on December 20, 2011


Get your hand off my ass.
posted by jonmc at 5:49 PM on December 20, 2011


But it's so tight. You could mill wheat with that ass.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 6:40 PM on December 20, 2011


I sometimes wonder if any of the people I know in real life are Mefites.

I know a humble nudibranch pretty well -- her sister & I worked together every day for several years. I took her a T-shirt the other day, and she gave me a little good-natured crap for being on MetaFilter all the time. The rest of you, I've only met at meetups, though I feel like I know a lot of you really well, probably due to all the years here, the twitter feeds, the flickr photos, and the MeMails.

I only count 29 as "met," in my profile, but it's got to be higher than that -- I'm bad with names. If I've met you and didn't note it, it's because I missed a name, perhaps. Remind me!
posted by Devils Rancher at 6:48 PM on December 20, 2011


Eeew.
posted by jonmc at 6:49 PM on December 20, 2011


Guh, I forgot to add cortex. Like I say, my memory is... something or other.
posted by Devils Rancher at 6:51 PM on December 20, 2011


They say memory is the second thing that goes as you get older. I forget what the first thing is.
posted by FishBike at 7:14 PM on December 20, 2011


There is no cabal.

(I'm sure I've met well over 200+ folks here -- heck, just the Portland 8th + NOLA 10th parties alone had more faces than that. Contact page update fail. *hangs head in shame*)
posted by DaShiv at 7:19 PM on December 20, 2011


Let's go to the video!
posted by ColdChef at 7:33 PM on December 20, 2011


You could mill wheat with that ass.

Which is the polar opposite of "gluten-free".
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:02 PM on December 20, 2011 [4 favorites]


Keep a running top-10 list and stop when I got to the point on the list where the total number of contacts has gotten too small to theortically qualify (134 contacts in this case).

Of course I would have 133 "met" contacts. (No, really.)
posted by grouse at 9:03 PM on December 20, 2011


I sent a "your username is GREAT!" message to a mefite when I first joined the site. Maybe....a year?....later he introduced himself at a party, we had oodles of real life friends in common and was in fact at a party in my house. Mefites are everywhere.
posted by troika at 10:07 PM on December 20, 2011


I am startled to find myself in that top 10 list. I know I've been to a bunch of big meetups, and I'm pretty good at marking people as met, but still, it seems odd to me.

I was very proud of having met ALL the mods, but then you had to go add some more mods, darn you Metafilter.
posted by gingerbeer at 10:12 PM on December 20, 2011


(mefites are everywhere, the legend of curly's gold: I asked a friend the same thing I posed to ask and she sent me a link to my own question. How many of you just haven't revealed yourselves to me yet?)
posted by troika at 10:13 PM on December 20, 2011


Although I have enspoused a great number of you, alas, none of our connubial relationships have been consummated. (Is that supposed to be be "have" or "has"?)
posted by a humble nudibranch at 10:23 PM on December 20, 2011


I would like a "hope to meet in real life" category in the contacts options.
posted by bardophile at 10:24 PM on December 20, 2011 [1 favorite]


It turns out there were a bunch of people on my contacts list that I hadn't marked as "met" even though I've met them. Including cortex, who I have met on multiple occasions. So I'm now up to 148. Take that, iamkimiam!
posted by gingerbeer at 10:25 PM on December 20, 2011 [1 favorite]


There should be a "played the worst game of Carmen Sandiego with" near meets.
Hi Eideteker, sorry.
posted by dabitch at 12:40 AM on December 21, 2011


I've only met one mefite in person, and that was before I found metafilter and he was kinda my boss so I don't want to memail him and remind him of HOW MUCH TRAUMA HE CAUSED WHEN I WAS FIRED cause that wouldn't be in the spirit of this thread...

You can all touch me but only if my fella gets to watch.
posted by Kerasia at 1:43 AM on December 21, 2011


I have never met anyone from online. Online is a parallel universe. I just send bits through this portal and see what comes back.
posted by pracowity at 2:00 AM on December 21, 2011


God, I'd hate that. I'd have to change my user name to "ThatOtherCanadianGirl"

It's incredibly, charmingly Canadian of you to presume that you'd have to demote yourself in that circumstance.
posted by Diablevert at 3:15 AM on December 21, 2011 [1 favorite]


No, no, I mean that I'd want to go back to being anonymous because that person would now know who ThatCanadianGirl was, so if I was going to tell personal stories, I'd need a new name. (And they'd never guess that ThatOtherCanadianGirl was me, too!)
posted by ThatCanadianGirl at 6:01 AM on December 21, 2011


There should be a "played the worst game of Carmen Sandiego with" near meets.
Hi Eideteker, sorry.


Man, you like saw me and everything. Should've run outside to flag me down!
posted by Eideteker at 7:11 AM on December 21, 2011 [1 favorite]


The rest of you, I've only met at meetups

I TOOK YOU OUT TO LUNCH!

tax writeoff!
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 7:15 AM on December 21, 2011 [3 favorites]


Oh, and all y'all bemoaning the poor upkeep of your contact lists? That's pretty much my secret. I add people right there at the meetup. "No, I'm not being rude. I'm adding you as a contact. Be honored!"

That, and I have a tendency to hop on my motorcycle and visit random distant meetups. I bet I'm pretty high on the list of total miles driven for meetups, since I scarcely ever fly. There was that one summer where I hit something like six different meetups (as in, not in the same city over and over) in four months, in five states and two time zones (though work flew me out to Phoenix for one of those). [Boston, Providence, Portland (ME, the best one), NYC, Vermont, and Phoenix, IIRC.]
posted by Eideteker at 7:18 AM on December 21, 2011


"I TOOK YOU OUT TO LUNCH!"

I miss our birthday breakfasts! The notes on this pic still give me the giggles.

Note to self: Insist on Jessamyn's birthday off at all future jobs before signing any offers. If anyone asks, tell them it's a religious holiday.
posted by Eideteker at 7:21 AM on December 21, 2011 [2 favorites]


tax writeoff!

Glad I serve some purpose in your life.
posted by Devils Rancher at 7:31 AM on December 21, 2011


Of course I would have 133 "met" contacts. (No, really.)
posted by grouse at 5:03 AM on December 21 [+] [!]


Hey grouse, are you positive your contacts list is entirely up to date?
posted by HandfulOfDust at 7:33 AM on December 21, 2011


Hey grouse, are you positive your contacts list is entirely up to date?

No, it looks like I was missing at least a couple of people. But for all I know, so are other people on the list.
posted by grouse at 9:43 AM on December 21, 2011


Most of my "met" people are from SxSW...I think I know more Texan mefites than Washington ones.

Altho I did have an odd "oh hey that's you moment" with a guy who used to be a barista at my favorite coffeeshop, when he posted in the thread about fancy ice cubes. AND I was the first person in my group of friends to know that he was moving to Argentina, when he posted in an AskMe about long-term camping near our town. I know a couple of local libraries are lurkers, at least, although I don't know if they're members.

And this got me to go update my contacts: I met mathowie & pb years ago at (the first?) WebVisions, and was ludicrously fangirl about it.
posted by epersonae at 11:12 AM on December 21, 2011


I've met everyone on the top 10 list except gingerbeer and iamkimiam.
posted by brujita at 2:21 PM on December 22, 2011


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