[MeFi Site Update] July 18th July 17, 2024 11:48 AM   Subscribe

Hi there!

Welcome to this month’s Site Update! You can find the last update here.

Profit & Loss

— You can find this month's P&L report here. The previous P&L reports are here. Note that May payroll was posted in the last days of May and June’s was posted until the first days of July so this time around the “Contractors/Consulting'' rubric will seem low. Also, 5K out of those belong to money sent to the Interim Board for paying a lawyer to set up the new Non-Profit entity.

Admin

— As we wait for the Non-Profit, we'd like to start moving towards the community-driven model we have been trying to make happen in tangible ways. So, we are allocating some budget each month (up to $600) to make room for member contributions, this way, we can finally accept help from the community without entering into volunteering territory.

— We are (I am) running behind schedule with The Trans Members Survey. I’m currently reaching out to the members who offered help with survey design and processing survey results. I will prioritize having a distilled draft in the next couple of weeks.

— August is our Fundraising month, and, while we were hoping to have the Non-profit in place before this so that we could work together with volunteers we will still move ahead with the Fundraising.

— We are currently working on fundraising initiatives we can implement, like making a podcast where I’m interviewed by Jessamyn and members can vote on which questions get to be asked via one time contributions, early access to the new site’s test environment for subscribers, and other ideas. Admittedly, fundraising is a bit out of my wheelhouse, so this is the perfect case to use the Member Contribution budget mentioned above., so if you have any experience with fundraising or have any cool ideas that can work, please MeFi Mail me and we’ll take it from there.

Moderation

— We made some changes to the microaggressions page to include a mention of Gender Affirming Care as a step towards the goal of making MeFi better for trans folks.

— We are and will keep playing around with the LinkMe/HelpMe/ChatMe experiments.

— The following articles have been added to the FAQs:
What is the policy on member to member communications via MeFi Mail?
What is the policy on member to moderator communications?

Tech
You can see the first screenshots of the Site Rebuilt here. Please hold on providing feedback as we will have a better system than MetaTalk in place to receive and track feedback once we start giving access to test the site.

— There have been further contact form fixes to make sure that messages don’t get lost or flagged as spam.

— There have been a few stability bug fixes.

— Sending of password recovery mail has been reduced from 4 different methods to one.

— We now have a Bookshop.org affiliate account thanks to the initiative from a member who reached out to us and frimble is working to add the affiliate link by default tho the product URLs when they are posted in the site.


BIPOC Advisory Board

Tyme is back on duty and catching up , so we’ll resume the BIPOC Board Meetings and catch up with the outstanding meeting notes as soon as possible. Please be patient as we get this back on track.

If you have any questions or feedback not related to this particular update, please Contact Us instead. If you want to discuss a particular subject not covered here with the community, you’re welcome to open a separate MetaTalk thread for it.
posted by loup (staff) to MetaFilter-Related at 11:48 AM (44 comments total) 7 users marked this as a favorite

Thanks so much for this update, loup!

SCREEN SHOTS! Yay!

— Sending of password recovery mail has been reduced from 4 different methods to one.

That's gotta be a good thing.

— As we wait for the Non-Profit, we'd like to start moving towards the community-driven model we have been trying to make happen in tangible ways. So, we are allocating some budget each month (up to $600) to make room for member contributions, this way, we can finally accept help from the community without entering into volunteering territory.

That sounds like a great step.


Thank you for sharing all these indicators of progress! I appreciate all you do to keep MetaFilter going and running as well as it does - you and everyone involved in do that. Thank you!
posted by kristi at 12:57 PM on July 17 [5 favorites]


not to make this more work, but could the P&L document be expanded to include 1) the year-to-date P&L for the current and previous year, and 2) a summary balance sheet even if it's just the cash on hand?
posted by mullacc at 1:58 PM on July 17


One of the ways I would really appreciate help is evaluating the accessibility of the redesign. I follow accessibility guidelines and do testing, but having people who are experienced with regularly using accessibility features test would be great.
posted by kirkaracha (staff) at 2:46 PM on July 17 [13 favorites]


Here's a Year-to-Date P&L. For the balance sheet the report itself, it is still pulling some data from the old MeFi Corp, but our current cash on hand is around 147K.
posted by loup (staff) at 2:47 PM on July 17 [1 favorite]


Also, the design in the screenshots is a little rough because I'm focused mainly on functionality and will be doing a thorough design cleanup later.
posted by kirkaracha (staff) at 2:48 PM on July 17 [3 favorites]


Please hold on providing feedback as we will have a better system than MetaTalk in place to receive and track feedback once we start giving access to test the site.

I'm sorry, I know this is not the place to note this but kirk, whatever you did to import the old MetaFilter posts has turned them all into Latin!
posted by a faded photo of their beloved at 2:55 PM on July 17 [12 favorites]


Yep, for increased security all future posts and comments necesse est esse latine, aŭ eble esperanto.
posted by kirkaracha (staff) at 2:57 PM on July 17 [43 favorites]


This also appears to be added to the Microaggressions page:

Avoid questioning the value of [...] reproductive rights.

Does this imply that MetaFilter is now officially pro-choice and that pro-life discussion is banned? Because I think that's a step in the wrong direction - despite myself being (radically) pro-choice, I don't think we need to turn MetaFilter into a liberal safe space in order to avoid abusive discussion.

The same question applies to this:

People have the right to [...] receive gender affirming care.

This appears to ban any opinion questioning government funding for gender affirming care.
posted by saeculorum at 8:09 PM on July 17 [4 favorites]


I'm okay with MetaFilter avoiding the paradox of tolerance by banning advocacy for removing human rights. We don't need to discuss whether human rights are necessary. They are. That's established. Let's move on to other discussions.
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:23 AM on July 18 [28 favorites]


We don't need to discuss whether human rights are necessary. They are.

Yeah, basically. The Guidelines, Content Policy and Microaggressions exist to protect people, not to ban opinions. There's a big difference between questioning and discussing government policies, and discussing the lived experience of an entire demographic like some sort of academic topic without opening space to allow them to speak for themselves instead.
posted by loup (staff) at 8:42 AM on July 18 [12 favorites]


This appears to ban any opinion questioning government funding for gender affirming care.

Good! That's not a valid opinion.
posted by Faint of Butt at 1:35 PM on July 18 [10 favorites]


One of the ways I would really appreciate help is evaluating the accessibility of the redesign. I follow accessibility guidelines and do testing, but having people who are experienced with regularly using accessibility features test would be great.

Having people with disabilities test the redesign would not just be great. It's essential.

Not making 100% sure people with a variety of disabilities are among a site's beta testers has caused so much ill will at so many sites in the past. The issue has made the front page multiple times.

Your request for that kind of assistance is fab, kirkaracha, but should probably not be buried in a MeTa thread. Suggestion: make it highly visible, and offer a specific process by which folks can participate. Say, put the request in a banner at the top of each subsite, maybe like:

"Do you use accessibility devices or features while visiting Metafilter? If you'd like to help beta test the upcoming site redesign for accessibility, please contact kirkaracha."

Something like that, anyway.
posted by mediareport at 7:53 PM on July 18 [15 favorites]


(Shorter version: "If you use accessibility devices or features while visiting Metafilter and would like to help beta test the upcoming site redesign, please contact kirkaracha.")
posted by mediareport at 8:04 PM on July 18 [2 favorites]


Um, accessibility is needed only by people who use specific devices or features.
posted by NotLost at 8:24 PM on July 18


Thank you, mediareport.
posted by kirkaracha (staff) at 8:41 PM on July 18


I meant to say "Accessibility is not needed only by people who use specific devices or features."

In other words, don't put such limits on who tests for accessibility.
posted by NotLost at 9:09 PM on July 18 [3 favorites]


Of course, yes; that's what the post in the 2nd link in my comment is basically about: accessibility is for everyone, and helps everyone. But if you're not specifically including people with disabilities in your beta testing, you will 100% for sure miss important issues you should address before going live with a redesign.
posted by mediareport at 3:07 AM on July 19 [1 favorite]


I keep saying this wrong. What I am trying to say is that not everyone who is disabled uses "accessibility devices or features while visiting Metafilter". For example, myself.
posted by NotLost at 5:28 AM on July 19 [2 favorites]


Thank you for the update.

Another vote for the sort of visibility that mediareport called for. Here, more than any other place I go on the internet, I hear users talking about using various accessibility devices and features. I think we should listen to them. And, to NotLost's point, a broad, representative range of disabled MeFites.

That said... I look forward to more updates on blocking users and muting words and phases. All other problems with the site, barring finances and the shift to nonprofit, are subordinate to that for me. I can't see a sudden culture shift here in the near future away from either doomerism or intense political rhetoric, and seeing certain users & arguments recurring like clockwork, sometimes seemingly regardless of the subject of the thread, is dampening my enthusiasm to check in on the blue. I do support the shift to a better, more technologically stable (and more accessible!) MetaFilter, but that will not matter to me if it remains impossible to avoid the constant doomerism, political rhetoric in threads regardless of subject, etc.
posted by cupcakeninja at 5:40 AM on July 19 [2 favorites]


What I am trying to say is that not everyone who is disabled uses "accessibility devices or features while visiting Metafilter". For example, myself.

Ah, I get it now. Maybe something like, "Mefites with disabilities who would like to help beta test the upcoming site redesign for accessibility issues, please contact kirkaracha." It's shorter, too. :) Feel free to suggest some new language yourself; I'm just riffing off the top of my head.
posted by mediareport at 6:12 AM on July 19 [1 favorite]


Kirkaracha: accessibility has been a major focus of my frontend dev practice so I’d love to participate in some useful way. DM me :)
posted by sixswitch at 9:38 AM on July 19 [2 favorites]


Also: if we don’t see volunteers from the user community, Fable is a cromulent and community-supporting platform to have compensated users of accessibility devices (many whom are disabled) do focused testing and provide useful and detailed reports. If there is a little money to play with.
posted by sixswitch at 9:54 AM on July 19 [4 favorites]


You can submit short user stories (make an account, make a post, etc) for evaluation, or ask for a more general audit.
posted by sixswitch at 9:55 AM on July 19


"Mefites with disabilities who would like to help beta test the upcoming site redesign for accessibility issues, please contact kirkaracha."

That's good; thanks.

I wonder whether a form would be good?
posted by NotLost at 11:24 AM on July 19


Having people with disabilities test the redesign would not just be great. It's essential.
Yes, accessibility and user experience are the main reasons why we decided to move forward with the rebuilt and we will keep that at the center of the development process once we start with feedback and testing.

I wonder whether a form would be good?
Yes, we'll have a separate thread up for that soon.
posted by loup (staff) at 1:02 PM on July 19


This appears to ban any opinion questioning government funding for gender affirming care.

Given that this isn't a position that can go anywhere but transphobia unless you oppose spending public funds on any kind of medical care, it's theoretically already banned. (You don't even have to care about trans people. In purely utilitarian terms funding medical transition is a net win for society.)
posted by hoyland at 6:40 PM on July 19 [3 favorites]


Just as a data point: If the codebase is open-sourced I'm very happy to help--accessibility is a major focus of my professional work--but i'm not willing to help unless there's an open repository and a contribution process.
posted by adrienneleigh at 6:54 PM on July 19 [4 favorites]


Hello, we recently passed the four-year anniversary of "The flag button's design is bad enough to be a social justice issue".

In December 2023, I inquired about the issue, and loup's response was: "frimble is not yet done changing the code across all subsites, the main goal of this release is to finally make visible changes, this will allow us to see if there are any bugs and to iterate from there."

Since then the "[flag]" has been changed to "[⚑]", which is a lateral move at best for accessibility and UX issues. Do frimble and kirkaracha now consider the issue resolved or will more changes be released?
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 8:43 AM on July 20 [3 favorites]


Thanks for the pointer to the earlier MetaTalk thread. We'll be making some enhancements to the favorite/flag interface in the rebuild.
posted by kirkaracha (staff) at 10:42 AM on July 20


For open source, which license would be most appropriate?
posted by kirkaracha (staff) at 10:57 AM on July 20


"Most appropriate license" depends on what rights and responsibilities the rights-holders want other people using or extending the code for their own use to have. If you can define those goals, you can use that to drive license selection.
posted by Alterscape at 11:22 AM on July 20


Count me in as another web developer with an accessibility focus who would be happy to contribute code review, actual code, and general kibitzing as needed. I'm mostly a back-end developer these days. It's been a while since I looked at Laravel but I do have experience with other PHP frameworks. Also my spouse uses speech control and keyboard to avoid excessive mousing, and she'd be willing to beta test as an end-user.
posted by expialidocious at 11:35 AM on July 20 [1 favorite]


I'm personally fine with any OSI-approved open-source license, but honestly, unless there's a big concern on the part of MeFi about corporate leeches sponging off the code, i'd personally just go with MIT or BSD 3-clause.
posted by adrienneleigh at 3:16 PM on July 20 [2 favorites]


I'm personally fine with any OSI-approved open-source license, but honestly, unless there's a big concern on the part of MeFi about corporate leeches sponging off the code, i'd personally just go with MIT or BSD 3-clause.

Same here. Since we aren't producing a library and I don't think there's much danger of being outcompeted by an Amazon MetaFilter-as-a-Service product, I don't see much to favor one OSI license over another. I tend to like the MIT one for being simple and broadly compatible, FWIW. BSD 3-clause seems fine too. Also it's always possible to adopt a different license down the road if the need arises.

A related thing that might be worth considering is some kind of contributor agreement, like a CLA or DCO. Potentially every contributor could assign copyrights to the MeFi non-profit or something. Personally I'm dubious that these would be useful for MeFi, and they don't necessarily need to be adopted on day 1 either, but maybe someone with more expertise could weigh in.
posted by whir at 8:39 AM on July 21 [2 favorites]


Yep, for increased security all future posts and comments necesse est esse latine, aŭ eble esperanto.

Uh, guys. I'm pretty sure this was a joke.
posted by whir at 11:38 AM on July 21 [1 favorite]


For code that runs on a web server, most of the points that usually differentiate open source licenses don't really apply, because the software is not being distributed.

The software only runs on the web server, and end users only see its output, not the software itself.

In that situation, most open source licenses don't really guarantee any openness at all. Even if the code started out under a "viral" open source license like the GPL, the operator of a web server would be free to make changes without sharing the new source code, because they're not distributing their modified version of the software.

There is only one OSI-approved license I'm aware of that tries to address this, which is the GNU Affero General Public License. This license was developed specifically for web services and similar applications, and requires that if you're running the software on a server, end users on the client side have to have access to the source code.

So if you want a license that ensures that the project will always remain open source, in the sense that end users of the website have access to the source code, the Affero GPL would be the obvious choice. This is the license used by Mastodon, for instance.

If that's not something you care about, then functionally I don't think it makes much difference what license is used.
posted by automatronic at 4:28 AM on July 22 [2 favorites]


I would love to be able to contribute to an OSS MeFi, so I'm definitely supportive of having it developed in an open-source licensed repo! While the reality is 99% of my use of source-code-I-can-access is to figure out what's missing in documentation or whether a bug is user (me) error or programmer error, I have contributed here and there to open source projects, and what mattered was having a simple process for submitting code and some expectation it might ever be reviewed and integrated.

I think having contributor license agreements or copyright assignments makes sense for projects to save headaches down the track if anything ever needs to change about the licensing. It's likely that most of the codebase will be the product of work paid for by MeFi and that accepting contributions in a way that leaves question marks about what can be done with the code is a long term hassle with not a lot of benefit.
posted by pulposus at 8:30 AM on July 22


Does the new site allow Markdown? Please let it allow Markdown.
posted by rabia.elizabeth at 11:07 PM on July 29


I'm posting this at 3:20pm.
posted by snuffleupagus at 2:58 PM on August 1


Something's wrong with the comment times. The top bar has it right.
posted by snuffleupagus at 2:58 PM on August 1


This time stamp foolishness is a recurring problem.
posted by seanmpuckett at 3:00 PM on August 1 [1 favorite]


Oh, huh, yeah, I just spotted a bad comment time on one of mine too. It's 5:16PM PST here.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 4:50 PM on August 1


Registering my support for an OSS/free MeFi codebase. And as someone else mentioned, it's either GNU AGPL if you want to make sure no one can do anything non-free with it, or if that's not important, then pretty much any other license will work, and there isn't much of a difference.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 5:32 PM on August 2 [2 favorites]


Hey, this is probably super low priority with the whole rebuild and whatnot, but I just thought I would look and see what MeFites were on Bluesky and add it to my "Also On:" section. Turns out it adds a ".bsky.social" to whatever you put in the username field, but that is no longer necessarily part of a Bluesky username anymore.
posted by Rock Steady at 8:52 AM on August 5 [2 favorites]


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