📢📢📢 Week 2 Fundraiser Update: We need your help to REVIVE Metafilter November 9, 2022 11:01 AM   Subscribe

We asked Mefites for funds, we opened up site finances to show their dire state, and you stepped up. Today, we’re only $500 a month away from our Survive target!* The community is coming together to keep the lights on at our shared online home. But we need to go further to safeguard Metafilter’s future. It’s time to 🌱Revive Metafilter.🌱

crouton meter showing $6,546.67 in donations

The figures:
New recurring contributions since the start of the fundraiser: $6,546.67
New one-time contributions since the start of the fundraiser: $38,394.15

That means we’re only $500* away from our Survive target - just enough to keep the site on life support, but without funding to help it grow. One-time contributions have created a foundation that will give the site stability.

This is fantastic news - at the start of the fundraiser we knew we had to ask, but hadn’t dared hope the community would be all in for this level of support.

And it’s all thanks to you. You stepped up. With contributions. With auction items. With urgent appeals to your fellow members across the site. None of this would have been possible without you. There is only so much the Steering Committee can do, and Mefites filled the gaps in a big way.

Now we just need a final push. We know we can edge over that Survive target. In the last two weeks of the fundraiser, let’s get to Revive, so that we can start rebuilding the site to become a sustainable operation that doesn’t need to issue these urgent appeals for help ever again.

To Revive the site means that we don’t just continue as we have. We can start paying people for essential admin work that’s currently uncompensated. We can increase the development budget so frimble and the team of volunteers can implement ponies we all want - like more prominent site announcements than is currently possible. We can budget for consultants to provide legal, business or other expert advice. Heck, we can even pay for a Zoom account for staff.

It still won’t be an easy ride, but it will mean we are no longer treading water, we’re heading towards the shore. We’ll have breathing space to invest in things we all recognise to be priorities: increasing the user base, diversifying revenue streams, and creating a welcoming and supportive site culture.

You can help us get to this point.

Please continue giving. Please continue publicizing Metafilter’s need to raise funds. Please continue participating in the fundraising activities. And, above all, please keep posting and commenting on Metafilter. You’re the reason the site exists.

Help REVIVE Metafilter and check out the fundraising activities that are underway: We’re going to ask the mods to close some of our past posts to new comments to try to keep the discussion focused in the most recent thread, but here are the earlier fundraising posts from the SC: * This does not account for savings made after the start of the Fundraising Drive, such as the reduction in AWS costs. If you include those savings, we’re actually well-positioned to Survive now, but for comparability to the goals we set at the start, we are not including any savings made.
posted by wesleyac to MetaFilter-Related at 11:01 AM (107 comments total) 40 users marked this as a favorite

The Metafilter community has jumped into action with lots of ideas on how the site can grow and change. It’s amazing to see, because it shows how invested people are in Metafilter, but it’s also pretty confusing with a lot more meta-activity than we’re all used to. Here’s a short list of where to find what: posted by wesleyac at 11:01 AM on November 9, 2022 [22 favorites]


The Steering Committee has asked loup to postpone their Site Update post till after the Fundraiser Drive is over, so it doesn’t get lost in the mix.
posted by wesleyac at 11:02 AM on November 9, 2022 [10 favorites]


Good news! Huzzah to the nice people in the steering committee and big ups, as ever, to our admin/mod team.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:03 AM on November 9, 2022 [3 favorites]


Hey look at that! An image in a Metafilter post!
posted by kevinbelt at 11:11 AM on November 9, 2022 [8 favorites]


Thank you, this is great news.

I am not trying to crap on great news but want to clarify because it’s important - is this net of old contributions that were stopped? Some of us probably canceled old recurring donations and replaced with a larger one, and I am hoping those cancellations have already been subtracted from this value.
posted by eirias at 11:19 AM on November 9, 2022 [4 favorites]


Great payoff for all your hard work, let's hope this is just the tip of the iceberg and the momentum keeps growing (though "iceberg with momentum" is maybe not the metaphor I'm looking for...). With Meta/Facebook doing mass staff layoffs, Twitter becoming a self-imploding clown show, and Mastodon not being (and never meant to be) a one-size-fits-all Twitter replacement, this place gains even more importance as a real alternative for people looking for meaningful content and a thoughtful, respectful atmosphere. And fun too!
posted by hangashore at 11:25 AM on November 9, 2022 [5 favorites]


is this net of old contributions that were stopped?

There isn't an easy way to correlate those across stripe and paypal, so no, they have not been subtracted. That being said, there haven't been that many cancelled ones so the numbers would not change drastically.
posted by loup (staff) at 11:34 AM on November 9, 2022 [6 favorites]


Great news, and thanks so much to everyone who’s contributed and to the SC for their hard work in very challenging circumstances!
posted by adrianhon at 11:52 AM on November 9, 2022 [3 favorites]


I have doubled my monthly contribution.
posted by interogative mood at 11:52 AM on November 9, 2022 [7 favorites]


I said this over on Fanfare, but this effort caused me to go double check and realize that my recurring donation had stopped occurring (seems like a failure of description doesn't it?) and this kicked me in the pants to get the donation working again and make up for lost time.
posted by drewbage1847 at 12:03 PM on November 9, 2022 [4 favorites]


drewbage1847 — Thank you! We've been working on figuring out how to send people emails notifying them that their subscription has stopped, but there are some technical and legal hurdles before we'll get there. It's something that we're actively working on, though.

In the meantime, I encourage everyone who has a recurring donation to double-check that it's working!
posted by wesleyac at 12:08 PM on November 9, 2022 [9 favorites]


Are those...croutons?
posted by genpfault at 12:19 PM on November 9, 2022 [9 favorites]


Those are indeed croutons!
posted by kimberussell at 12:22 PM on November 9, 2022 [10 favorites]


This is great news. I'm so relieved. Hope the rest of the fundraising drive is equally or even more successful.
posted by roolya_boolya at 12:31 PM on November 9, 2022


Yay! Keep the donations coming, folks!

And thank you to whomever for making the little crouton graph easier to read!
posted by bondcliff at 12:36 PM on November 9, 2022 [3 favorites]


Let's see if I'm parsing this correctly.

Let's assume that enough Mefites set up or bump up recurring contributions, such that the $7000/month Survive goal is reached. And let's also assume that maybe that is the limit of people's appetite for giving for now, so no other NEW recurring or one-time contributions come in after that point.

In that scenario, Mefi will continue to keep the lights on for as long as the recurring contributions continue (no one cancels or reduces their donation).

The $38k collected in one-time contributions could theoretically be consumed:
  • $6k/month of "YOLO Let's Thrive!" level of spending while we have the money, it'll last for 6.3 months, at which point the cash reserves are depleted and we go back to Survival level again.
  • $3k/month of more conservative (but still higher than Survival level) spending, which would last for a year
  • Kept in reserve and only used when the recurring donations dip below Survival levels again.
I hope I'm getting it, and that the runway for Metafilter has been significantly extended for the foreseeable future. The $38k is very encouraging, it seems like a big pot of money, but at the same time it would be better for the SC/ownership to see a higher recurring revenue, as that would allow them to plan without dipping into the reserves.
posted by tinydancer at 12:36 PM on November 9, 2022 [7 favorites]


tinydancer — yep, that's all correct :)
posted by wesleyac at 1:09 PM on November 9, 2022 [3 favorites]


Another question, do the one-time donations include auction bids, or only donations already in hand?

Either way, this is fantastic news. Thanks to all!!
posted by mersen at 1:17 PM on November 9, 2022


The one-time donation figure does not include auction bids.
posted by wesleyac at 1:19 PM on November 9, 2022 [2 favorites]


FYI, the "MetaFilter Variety Show" link is broken. Looks like it's supposed to be this: https://tally.so/r/n0VQ4j
posted by escape from the potato planet at 1:25 PM on November 9, 2022


Huge thanks to the Steering Committee, site owner jessamyn, the mod team, and everyone who donated for getting us this far! This is a great start, let's keep up the momentum!
posted by biogeo at 1:28 PM on November 9, 2022 [1 favorite]


FYI, the "MetaFilter Variety Show" link is broken. Looks like it's supposed to be this: https://tally.so/r/n0VQ4j

Thanks, this is fixed.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 1:31 PM on November 9, 2022 [3 favorites]


Thanks for the update, the bigger banner, and the readable crouton meter!
posted by Mavri at 1:47 PM on November 9, 2022


Dang I love those croutons!
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 1:59 PM on November 9, 2022 [4 favorites]


The crouton meter looks a little better on the Blue, since the background is design to fade in, up from the site's background color. Maybe I should try something with transparent pixels next time.
posted by JHarris at 2:04 PM on November 9, 2022 [4 favorites]


This is SUCH GREAT NEWS!!!!!! Thank you to the amazing wonderful never-gonna-give-you-up Steering Committee and jessamyn for keeping us updated and moving us in the right direction. We really have such solid momentum at the moment and some positive tailwinds, which we will be able to benefit from thanks to you all.

The good news today just keeps on flowing.
posted by glaucon at 2:04 PM on November 9, 2022 [1 favorite]


PSA: If you're one of the people who has donated by check or venmo (thank you!) and would like an "I fund MetaFilter" message on your userpage, drop me a note and I can activate it for you. This is automatic for people who donate via Stripe/Paypal but needs to be manually done for people who donate in other ways.

If you did donate and do not see that message, check to see if you have the "display funding message" option checked.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 2:07 PM on November 9, 2022 [4 favorites]


whoa now THAT is a big banner
posted by daisystomper at 3:26 PM on November 9, 2022 [6 favorites]


$38k in one-time contributions is a lot of money! Great job, SC! I feel like we can all breathe a little easier knowing that the site has longer than 2 weeks left.
posted by Sparky Buttons at 4:36 PM on November 9, 2022 [4 favorites]


To clarify -- nobody officially said there was 2 weeks, but that's what was bandied around a lot and had me on edge.

Anyway- fantastic news! This community is the best.
posted by Sparky Buttons at 4:37 PM on November 9, 2022 [2 favorites]


With that amount of new reserves alone we have plenty to carry the balance of missing Survive pledges, and i'm sure those have already been made and we're on our way into Thrive. So, that feels good.
posted by hippybear at 4:47 PM on November 9, 2022 [2 favorites]


Just re-started my monthly contribution. Glad to still be here <3

The banner is great! I suggest adding the fundraising links big at the top of this post as well. As it stands if you click in it takes a fair amount of reading/clicking to find where to give.
posted by wemayfreeze at 5:06 PM on November 9, 2022 [3 favorites]


We have this update posted on AskMe and MeTa as well and on AskMe, aniola pointed out that the little ticker in the footer was at 6,770 readers helping MetaFilter but right now we're at 7,570!
posted by kimberussell at 5:22 PM on November 9, 2022 [7 favorites]


I apologize for being less tech savvy than most Mefites. I want to double my monthly donation to Metafilter through PayPal, but the only way to do this was to cancel the current donation. I have done that.

But now, I think I need a new link from Metafilter to set up a new monthly donation? Please hope me.
posted by wittgenstein at 5:42 PM on November 9, 2022 [3 favorites]


wittgenstein, it's over on this page! (I found it myself a couple days back.)
posted by mersen at 5:47 PM on November 9, 2022 [1 favorite]


Thanks much, mersen!
posted by wittgenstein at 6:05 PM on November 9, 2022


I did donate (by mail), and I'm going to pass on the "I Fund Metafilter" -- although I'm generally in favor of normalizing pro-social behavior, and think it's important that people do show and tell others that they are in fact doing helpful things!.

Part of my reasoning is hard to explain, but part of it is so that people who don't donate and so won't have such a banner will not feel so othered. Nobody will know if you really donated and just didn't get the banner put up! But it's clear that a lot of people do donate!
posted by amtho at 8:58 PM on November 9, 2022 [4 favorites]


Tripled my existing monthly. Metafilter, i love you.

Stay classy.

XOXO
posted by armoir from antproof case at 10:41 PM on November 9, 2022 [3 favorites]


Actually…. Whatever the hell is needed to survive. The interwebs would suck without you.
posted by armoir from antproof case at 10:44 PM on November 9, 2022 [2 favorites]


This is an encouraging update, thank you!
posted by ellieBOA at 11:36 PM on November 9, 2022 [1 favorite]


I just doubled my monthly sub. The only way I could find to do that on the PayPal website was to delete my previous $5 sub and start a new $10 one.
posted by essexjan at 5:08 AM on November 10, 2022 [5 favorites]


YAY SURVIVAL. FUCK YES.

The link for Dirty Old Town's movie recommendation/donation thing up above doesn't seem to be working.
posted by rmd1023 at 5:52 AM on November 10, 2022


fixed the DOT link!
posted by taz (staff) at 8:02 AM on November 10, 2022 [1 favorite]


As someone who got an account before the $5 sign-up fee, I had never given a cent to MetaFilter.

But I can't imagine the internet without it, so, I'm in now...
posted by Windopaene at 9:13 AM on November 10, 2022 [6 favorites]


Thanks for fixing that link, taz!

To remind folks: if you'd like to help fund MeFi, but don't have money to spare, make a movie post on FF and tag it ##fund-ff and I'll donate $5 for you. Or, donate and make a post and I'll add $5 to your donation. I'm doing this for 20 slots, 11 of which are gone, but nine of which still remain.

Money for MeFi and all you have to do is post!
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:49 AM on November 10, 2022 [8 favorites]


Just posted one I saw recently, DirtyOldTown! I am totally broke right now but I hope to fund MeFi as soon as I am able. It took a few tries to find one you haven't posted already. 🥳
posted by tiny frying pan at 11:09 AM on November 10, 2022 [1 favorite]


Also on offer: donate $20 and I'll fill the entire sidebar with six movie posts around the theme of your choice.

The first one, for roolya_boolya went up today. It's under #arcticlifeday
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:19 AM on November 10, 2022 [2 favorites]


Sorry, that link should be #arcticlifeday

(Six slots left now.)
posted by DirtyOldTown at 11:35 AM on November 10, 2022 [1 favorite]


Deleted our old recurring contribution and went with a larger one (also switched to Stripe because PayPal is :(, so thanks for that option).
posted by gentlyepigrams at 1:17 PM on November 10, 2022 [4 favorites]


I submit this piece of brilliance as a fundraising idea. Tumblr is going to make rather a lot of money from that, I think.
posted by restless_nomad (retired) at 1:33 PM on November 10, 2022 [15 favorites]


Seconded! Anyway, it's not like people don't like username bling...
posted by sciatrix at 1:37 PM on November 10, 2022


Please hope me.

I love it when these ancient bits of site culture come up. This will wendell!
posted by JHarris at 1:55 PM on November 10, 2022 [3 favorites]


If we're going to fundraise around usernames, I'm pretty sure some of us would pay to change ours.

Not to hide who we are; that would still be visible in our profiles.
posted by still_wears_a_hat at 2:02 PM on November 10, 2022 [2 favorites]


Apparently Elon Musk now thinks the solution is that we all need to be more hardcore.
posted by interogative mood at 2:11 PM on November 10, 2022


tbh, I've actually seen quite a bit of hardcore on Twitter. Things pop up in the most unexpected places. 😳
posted by taz (staff) at 3:01 PM on November 10, 2022 [3 favorites]


I'm not sure what you all mean by "hardcore", but I'll just suggest you not ever search for furry porn on twitter. Ever.
posted by hippybear at 3:03 PM on November 10, 2022 [3 favorites]


I just made I think my first ever FanFare post so that I could share with you all the glory that is Skatetown, U.S.A. and also hopefully get in on Dirty Old Town’s funding match! Off to go up my recurring subscription!
posted by DiscourseMarker at 4:13 PM on November 10, 2022 [4 favorites]


That was the last one on the $5 for a FF movie post deal! I'm tapped! All 20 slots taken.

However!

It's still possible to get:
-weirdly specific film recommendations for $5
-6 movie posts on the theme of your choice for $20!
posted by DirtyOldTown at 4:18 PM on November 10, 2022 [7 favorites]


Thank you, DirtyOldTown!
posted by mollweide at 4:20 PM on November 10, 2022


I wanted to make a one time payment but couldn't decide on an amount. So I took the numeric place values of each letter in M E T A F I L T E R and donated their sum in dollars. And it worked out to a prime number, which is even better, since my monthly donation is not prime (though both its factors are prime). Thanks for all you do, Metafilter, including allowing me the opportunity for some low grade numerical nerdery.
posted by armoir from antproof case at 6:23 PM on November 10, 2022 [10 favorites]


I've thought about changing my username, and would definitely pay for that ability. I've got a new one ready, but didn't want to make a new account...
posted by hydra77 at 6:36 PM on November 10, 2022 [3 favorites]


I just wanted to stop by and say hi and that I'm happy to donate a little more money.

I definitely haven't been using the site as much lately, but Metafilter has been a great source of joy, information, and fantastic stories over the past most of 2 decades.
posted by Phredward at 6:38 PM on November 10, 2022 [4 favorites]


We could always make a pay-to-ask Recipe subsite and roll in the cash forever.
posted by janell at 6:40 PM on November 10, 2022 [8 favorites]


janell, if I could, I'd devote more time to that subsite than I would my actual job.
posted by mollweide at 7:28 PM on November 10, 2022 [3 favorites]


@mods
nb: it seems like the new popup box for this, interferes with search functionality on mobile (ios, safari)?
posted by beesbees at 9:14 PM on November 10, 2022


pay-to-ask Recipe subsite

Unicode character "money with wings"
posted by majick at 6:36 AM on November 11, 2022


The second sponsored themed day on FF is live. elkevelvet made a donation and asked that I post six Dutch films to FF. You can see the results here. The previous one, sponsored by roolya_boolya for Arctic Life films is under this tag.

I hope the kind donors are enjoying the results.

There's another one on deck for katie, who has asked for six films that pass the Bechdel test. I'm at work on that now and we'll see what I can come up with.

If you'd like to sponsor a themed posts day with me for FF, donate $20 to MeFi's fundraising drive and MeMail me about what you have in mind.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 7:16 AM on November 11, 2022 [5 favorites]


it seems like the new popup box for this, interferes with search functionality on mobile (ios, safari)?

Can you send a note about this to the contact form? I'm not sure how they've coded this but that will be a way to get this report in front of frimble.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:30 AM on November 11, 2022


Yeah, the contact form is a good place for things like that. And ideally include your browser and operating system version, screen resolution, and whether you're using the Modern (default) or Classic theme. You can get your browser, operating system, and screen resolution information from this website — that information helps replicate and fix the problem quickly :)
posted by wesleyac at 10:24 AM on November 11, 2022


The Tumblr double checkmark thing is hilarious. There's no max on it either, you can just keep adding more... I think the current record is 24 check marks....
posted by subdee at 12:30 PM on November 11, 2022 [6 favorites]


This may seem like a basic question, but how does one link to a product on Amazon and have money go towards Metafilter (and have said product show up on the Recent Amazon Links from Labs)?
posted by SillyShepherd at 9:42 AM on November 12, 2022


now would be a hilarious time to start selling checkmarks

especially if people could buy them in different colors

"Other sites only offer blue checkmarks, but here on Metafilter you can buy a checkmark in any color of the rainbow!"

or for something more Metafiltery, beans instead of check marks

and if someone buys one in every color they get a plate of rainbow beans
posted by Jacqueline at 9:57 AM on November 12, 2022 [13 favorites]


Jacqueline: beans instead of check marks

I love that! They should offer absolutely no extra features... just a useless little bit of whimsy. And wouldn't it be fun if we could also gift them to others?
posted by Too-Ticky at 11:34 AM on November 12, 2022 [8 favorites]


This may seem like a basic question, but how does one link to a product on Amazon and have money go towards Metafilter

You just post a link to something on Amazon. The URL is automatically hijacked to include the affiliate tag.
posted by Sunflowers Beneath the Snow at 8:35 PM on November 12, 2022 [1 favorite]


If I remember it correctly, it was initially done to stop people from posting links with their own affiliate bug attached, thereby profiting from their posts.
posted by JHarris at 9:11 PM on November 12, 2022 [1 favorite]


and if someone buys one in every color they get a plate of rainbow beans

Seriously, I feel like this could be a great fundraiser idea. I would absolutely pay to have a little rainbow plate of beans or just a bean next to my username.

I feel like we could do something similar with profile pages. Like, pay to get your own pet crouton on your profile page? Send a pet crouton to a friend? Pay to build your own profile page crouton garden? Pay for beans that will eventually sprout into a crouton garden? I don't know. The possibilities are endless.
posted by litera scripta manet at 12:45 PM on November 13, 2022 [6 favorites]


(Fun fact, frimble built the crouton gardens to be anti-capitalist and a gift economy.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 3:26 PM on November 13, 2022 [10 favorites]


Still no word on Gold Stars.
posted by bonehead at 8:02 AM on November 14, 2022


Monthly contribution upped and migrated from PayPal to Stripe.
MetaFilter must live!
posted by Hairy Lobster at 4:24 PM on November 14, 2022 [1 favorite]


Is the crouton-meter pictured above live? If not, is there a live version I can look at?
posted by SillyShepherd at 4:41 PM on November 14, 2022 [1 favorite]


I locked on what turned out to be several Amazon links that don’t show up on the Labs page. My concern is if I post an Amazon link and the extra goes to an animal shelter that I have my Smile directed to, rather than to Metafilter.
posted by SillyShepherd at 4:50 PM on November 14, 2022


If you look at actual Metafilter ref links, you can see how they are formatted after the ? and copy paste that little bit of text after the ? in YOUR to make your own ref link. This may mean you're deleting a lot of crap, but it's all tracking stuff that the link doesn't actually need to work.
posted by hippybear at 4:51 PM on November 14, 2022 [1 favorite]


Is the crouton-meter pictured above live? If not, is there a live version I can look at?

SC member post: Gathering the payment information from various sources is a manual process, and kind of painful, so we're only pulling it all together for each fundraising update. There should be another update soonish.
posted by jacquilynne at 4:54 PM on November 14, 2022 [3 favorites]


So, the state of Amazon referral links is that our old Amazon affiliate account was banned, but the code to turn Amazon links into referral links still uses that affiliate ID. We have a new account with a new ID, and will be updating the code to use that shortly.

Once that's done, any Amazon link you post will automatically be turned into a Metafilter affiliate link. You won't have to do anything special, and in fact, if you tried to include your own affiliate code, it would be replaced by the Metafilter one.

I hope that clears things up, let me know if you have any additional questions :)
posted by wesleyac at 5:03 PM on November 14, 2022 [5 favorites]


Okay, cool. I set up a recurring payment and just doubled it a few minutes ago. It’s not much, but I hope it helps. I would be lost without this site.
posted by SillyShepherd at 5:03 PM on November 14, 2022 [1 favorite]


Sorry for the questions, but once the new affiliate code is set up, will I see a profound change in the content of the Recent Amazon Links page?
posted by SillyShepherd at 5:12 PM on November 14, 2022


That page will continue to look exactly the same, it'll just give Metafilter money when you click on something from it and then buy something from Amazon. The content should be all the Amazon links that are posted to Metafilter, and that won't change (looking at your comment earlier, it sounds like you're seeing Amazon links that aren't getting noticed by that page? If so, that's a bug, and we'll fix it — could you MeMail me any links you notice like that?)
posted by wesleyac at 5:26 PM on November 14, 2022 [2 favorites]


Please make the Amazon links page super prominent in some way when the change is made during this holiday season! This is awesome!
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:34 PM on November 14, 2022 [1 favorite]


I suggest don't treat the Amazon trick like a way to donate to the site, or it'll get banned again.
posted by Sunflowers Beneath the Snow at 12:36 AM on November 15, 2022


Then what's the point?
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:04 AM on November 15, 2022


Then what's the point?

The point is that Amazon is fickle and we just need to keep using it in the totally normal approved ways and not the unapproved not-okay ways. Using affiliate links is okay. Saying "Hey donate to the site by clicking this link repeatedly" is not okay.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 8:10 AM on November 15, 2022 [4 favorites]


I guess you'll let us know if people are using it too much? I didn't think clicking a link did anything - I thought it was buying based. Didn't think people buying a product from that page would rise to the level of them getting mad but don't know much about it.
posted by tiny frying pan at 9:09 AM on November 15, 2022


So, the way it works is if you click on one of the affiliate links, then buy something within 24 hours in the same browser that you clicked the link on, we get some money. This does not mean that you should click on a affiliate link every time you want to buy anything from Amazon, because that looks like affiliate link fraud and is likely to get us banned. Just treat Amazon links like normal links and everything will be fine.

It's possible that there will be something more you can do at some point in the future — we (the Steering Committee) are talking with some volunteers who are helping with affiliate link stuff and have other ideas that may come to fruition. But for the moment, just treat Amazon links on Metafilter the same way you would treat any other link.
posted by wesleyac at 9:25 AM on November 15, 2022 [4 favorites]


Thank you, wesleyac!
posted by tiny frying pan at 10:13 AM on November 15, 2022


I want to know if there is a way to use smile.amazon.com *and* still use affiliate referrals. I love MetaFilter, but I use Smile links so that my local animal rescue place gets much-needed funding.
posted by terrapin at 10:27 AM on November 15, 2022 [1 favorite]


Could Metfilter become a Smile recipient?
posted by NotLost at 2:52 PM on November 15, 2022


From some quick searching, it looks like affiliate codes work with Smile. If you use a extension to redirect smile links, it should automatically work. If not, just leave the rest of the URL alone when you change it to smile.amazon.com and it should work.

Smile recipients must be non-profits (since Smile exists as a tax write-off scheme for Amazon), so Metafilter being a Smile recipient is not possible with the current legal setup.
posted by wesleyac at 3:13 PM on November 15, 2022 [1 favorite]


💸 is already an existing emoji.
posted by wanderingmind at 4:41 PM on November 15, 2022


I confirmed today that I’m getting a little raise at work, so I just cancelled my monthly PayPal contribution and replaced it with a larger one. This place and you people have been important to me!
posted by Songdog at 6:33 PM on November 15, 2022 [6 favorites]


It might be nice to have a shopping.metafilter.com site that would contain the linked books and products taken from comments and posts.
posted by interogative mood at 7:07 PM on November 15, 2022 [2 favorites]


If you go to the More column towards the top of any page and scroll down to Mefi Labs there is a link for:

Recent Amazon Links in Comments
What are MeFites linking to at Amazon right now?
posted by ActingTheGoat at 7:31 PM on November 15, 2022 [2 favorites]


It might be nice to have a shopping.metafilter.com site that would contain the linked books and products taken from comments and posts.

Great idea! Even better if it links to sites in addition to Amazon. (Ideally, if we could get money from elsewhere, too.)
posted by NotLost at 6:32 AM on November 16, 2022


From some quick searching, it looks like affiliate codes work with Smile.

In that case, could the Metafilter code that changes Amazon links to affiliate links be adjusted to use smile.amazon.com?

I ass-u-me that this will help whatever nonprofit the user (me, etc) has already set up to receive the donations and not a case were Metafilter could decide to have a portion donated to a cause of its choice in addition to whatever cut the site already gets?
posted by terrapin at 6:55 AM on November 16, 2022


Smile is garbage and we should not be using our precious development time on that kind of pony.
posted by warriorqueen at 7:12 AM on November 16, 2022 [2 favorites]


Not trying to be confrontational, but shouldn't that logic mean that we should strip all Amazon links? Serious question.

My family tries to avoid Amazon as much as possible. We ask each other to look elsewhere to see if we can find the product, not just cheaper. We will pay (a bit) more if we can buy it elsewhere. We live in a rural area and often can't find things locally, but we try to find it somewhere other than Amazon if possible. When it isn't possible -- or admittedly we *really* need something quickly -- we use smile and give the money to our local animal rescue.

I get it. Amazon sucks, but if MetaFilter is already formatting Amazon links and taking advantage of the affiliate program why would we also not want those links to benefit other charities as well?
posted by terrapin at 8:18 AM on November 16, 2022


What I think warriorqueen is saying is that the development effort of making that change (which is nontrivial) is not worth the (probably quite small) benefit to the world — that development time would be better spent on other things that will directly benefit Metafilter users. I personally (speaking just for myself and not the SC as a whole) am inclined to agree with that.
posted by wesleyac at 9:19 AM on November 16, 2022 [1 favorite]


Mod note: Fundraising discussion continues in the Week 3 Fundraising Update
posted by loup (staff) at 1:09 PM on November 16, 2022 [1 favorite]


« Older Urgent Site Fundraising Appeal: Who is Responsible...   |   Fan-Farin'-Tastic Newer »

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