MetaTalk

well, i think it's unrealistic to expect that there is such a thing as an ultimate format or anything of the sort. not to be inflammatory, but times change. fashions change. designs change. i guess that when you get down to it, people eventually get bored with whatever's been overplayed, and move on. which is sort of how top 40s music works, if you think about it.

and, just like in the music industry, the sites that last will be those interesting and innovative sites like k10k that are constantly evolving and constantly adding new and interesting content. the sites that won't are the ones which are difficult to distinguish from the next weblog.

all imo
posted by moz to General Weblog-Related at 3:49 PM PST - 14 comments

A "Post with Comment" feature, which enables you to post a link *and* the first comment in a thread at the same time.

posted by rcade to Feature Requests at 2:13 PM PST - 13 comments

A "Post with Comment" feature, which enables you to post a link *and* the first comment in a thread at the same time.
posted by rcade to Bugs at 2:13 PM PST - 2 comments

On the usage of the word troll...
posted by cCranium to MetaFilter-Related at 12:41 PM PST - 11 comments

Dear longtime visitors to MetaFilter: Don't do this.
posted by rcade to Etiquette/Policy at 8:58 AM PST - 24 comments

I am wary of posting things from the new york times. I guess since many of the things in the times are discussion-worthy, it has to have some personal significance or other spin to be worth a link. also, it needs to be from the last week, even if it hasn't been posted before. that's my impression right now. any comments?

also what about posting this ted rall cartoon? it isn't the type of thing that would garner dozens of comments, i don't think. so i guess i can think about it logically and decide whether it's worth posting. at the same time, i would like to spark talk about ted rall's stuff. my personal website isn't really set up for that sort of thing and doesn't get enough visitors to get an actual discussion going. so what do i do?
posted by benjamin to Etiquette/Policy at 2:26 PM PST - 4 comments

Well has MeFi had an #IRC meeting before then, eh? The only thing I insist on is that you 1337153 your name and ASL and post some poetry you wrote when you were 15. Can anyone suggest a network and time? Thanks.
posted by holloway to MetaFilter-Related at 11:19 PM PST - 5 comments

Matt, I've been using the search function lately to try to dig up older threads, but now that MetaFilter's been getting bigger with more threads posted each day, it's making searching for the relevant posting quite hard to do. I was thinking maybe you could have a drop-down menu where you could choose to search "only postings" or "only comments" or "both postings and comments".. and if it's not too much work, maybe provide a way to search between certain dates to narrow the search criteria down. Keep up the good work!
posted by PWA_BadBoy to Feature Requests at 2:46 PM PST - 0 comments

The posting debate has been thrown open. I've posted my response as a comment here, and would love to here other's comments about how frequently people should be posting and what constitutes quality.
posted by feelinglistless to Etiquette/Policy at 11:30 AM PST - 22 comments

Since there is a Seattle meeting brewing, I'd like to get a Chicago Metafilter get-together in the works. One possibility is a poetry reading being given by jason on 5/11, but then again we wouldn't get much of a chance to talk. (There was some talk of one last year that didn't get going, so I'll dig up that e-mail and send it around with a pointer to this thread.)
posted by dhartung to MetaFilter-Related at 11:27 AM PST - 23 comments

it would be neat if we could bookmark metafilter and metatalk threads to see when they change. for example, if you enter a comment, you can bookmark the thread for when further comments have been made in response. at the moment, i'm using spyonit.com, but it'd definitely be neat if there was an incorporated feature at metafilter for everyone to use. email notification would be another option.
posted by kv to Feature Requests at 2:51 AM PST - 2 comments

Seattleites:

Ok, there will (hopefully) be a meeting of MeFi-ers on Saturday May 12th at 3pm at the Speakeasy cafe. If you think you will be appearing, please drop a comment into this thread so that we can encourage each other to show up.

If you are a non-Seattleite (i.e. a Liverpudlian) and would like to discuss other regional gatherings, perhaps post to this earlier thread.
posted by gluechunk to MetaFilter-Related at 5:53 PM PST - 41 comments

I know this has been mentioned previously (but there's no search function in MetaTalk, and I'm too lazy to look the thread(s) up by hand)... Anyway, I've set my preference for links to "Open in a new window". Problem is, the new window command is only applied to the subject link on the front page... not links found elsewhere in the post, or in comments to the posts. I'd really like all links to open in a new window regardless. Is this by design? I'm I whining?
posted by silusGROK to Bugs at 3:35 PM PST - 12 comments

MeFi Projects: It could just be another message board under Metatalk - but I think there's a lot of creative people who meet at Mefi and it would be inappropriate to post projects to the main page. So maybe a subpage for that?
posted by owillis to Feature Requests at 1:13 PM PST - 20 comments

i was thinking of a team type weblog ... not really a metafilter type thing ... and not quite just a discussion board. but more like a place for whoever happens to stop by to post their thoughts ... (more>)

posted by a11an to General Weblog-Related at 3:49 PM PST - 12 comments

overheard in the plastic.com conference room:

"Ok kids, it's redesign time! I say we reduce the slashdottedness by... oh, say 12%, and increase the weblog/metafilter look by 28%."
posted by mathowie to General Weblog-Related at 12:46 PM PST - 9 comments

Tiffany Shlain, the most self-promotional person I know, announced the 2001 Webby nominees for best community site: Chickclick.com, Craigslist.org, Fray.com, Beliefnet.com, and Kuro5hin.org. Where the crap is MeFi?
posted by jkottke to MetaFilter-Related at 11:20 AM PST - 101 comments

I'd like to request a feature in which meta-information about links (e.g. source, medium, etc.) can be placed in a text field during a post. I've tried various schemes for highlighting this metainformation (different colors, italics, etc.) but 1) I frequently get flamed for it, and 2) It's taken down as it is deemed inappropriate. In my estimate, displaying metainformation in a different color is useful, because it allows the reader to filter out links he or she might not be able to/want to access. (e.g., lately, RealPlayer).

In addition, I've really been flamed about dated links. I know that metafilter is about things new and cool, but new is a relative term in different contexts. Can anyone suggest a paradigm in which I don't anger mefi'ers with such posts? Or is this more of a feature-driven concept? Or should I just tell these guys to piss off? ;)

Thanks!
posted by SilentSalamander to Feature Requests at 9:56 AM PST - 12 comments

If I use the 'My Comments' option on the front page, it has started showing my comments posted this time last year, I guess there's no year included in the search.
posted by Markb to Bugs at 2:50 AM PST - 0 comments

Blogging for cash? Anyone think that there's any sort of business model that could be applied towards weblogging? I've been thinking about something along the lines of text advertising, a-la Google's AdWords.
posted by owillis to General Weblog-Related at 11:34 PM PST - 9 comments

Where to get the best and rare fonts for free.
posted by hybridstyle to General Weblog-Related at 10:32 PM PST - 4 comments

It's the Case of the Missing Buttons! I could just be going blind or crazy or something, but the scholarship link buttons seem to have disappeared from both the link on my website and the scholarship page itself.
posted by jess to Bugs at 11:19 AM PST - 6 comments

Whoa! What's up with MetaTalk all of the sudden? Now we're getting multiple posts per day in several categories?! I count 12 (now 13) today alone. Is MetaTalk getting too crowded? The quality of the posts and discussion here is really going downhill. Remember when every post was on-topic, relevant, and well thought out? It just seems like posts are tossed up without thinking and comments get even less consideration. It's really wearing me out.
posted by daveadams to MetaFilter-Related at 11:04 PM PST - 9 comments

posted by sam123 to Bugs at 8:28 PM PST - 26 comments

While I'm at it, I'd love to see a users page that would include the list from the members link on the 'powered by' bar, the 'search by user name' think Matt put together recently, and also a seach by username. What other ideas can y'all add.
posted by Sean Meade to Feature Requests at 7:01 PM PST - 7 comments

Discuss: What has been the greatest MetaFilter thread?
posted by Sean Meade to MetaFilter-Related at 6:40 PM PST - 5 comments

How about a bookmark for the lovely 'powered by' bar? It'd make it even easier to point people to how cool it is.
posted by Sean Meade to Feature Requests at 6:38 PM PST - 5 comments

I really enjoy metafilter and there seem to be alot of intelligent people here. I need some help, I'm going in for a public relations job interview on Tuesday and know nothing about public relations. I fabricated a resume and writing samples to get the interview. My question is do any of you work in Public Relations, and can you give me some tips on the questions/answers I should expect at the interview, its on Tuesday. This is not a joke, really, thanks for the help.
posted by FreeSpeech to MetaFilter-Related at 6:00 PM PST - 14 comments

Any updates on the status of metafiltro.com? I understand that you aren't really involved in it Matt, but since subte.com, whose people apparently are, doesn't seem to work, I didn't know where else to turn.
posted by Lirp to MetaFilter-Related at 5:48 PM PST - 6 comments

Ugh.
posted by Potsy to Etiquette/Policy at 10:09 AM PST - 25 comments

I just wanted to let everyone know that I absolutely love MeFi. I really enjoy reading the discussions and seeing the different viewpoints from different members. And I want to say "Thank You" to Matt and all the MeFi members who make this such an interesting place to come EVERY day. (Hell, sometimes, 10 or 20 times a day).
posted by CRS to MetaFilter-Related at 6:36 AM PST - 1 comment

I'd like to set-up my own web server (like in the previous thread) in the UK - does anyone know of any reasonably-priced services? Also, what equipment will I need? Can I use ColdFusion for a reasonable price or is it mega-expensive? (more inside)
posted by williamtry to General Weblog-Related at 3:10 AM PST - 9 comments

Threatening Overkill perhaps, but I've been digging around the archives of MeFi, and I gotta admit it's staggering. Like maybe it's time for some way to filter MetaFilter? (more to follow)
posted by ZachsMind to Feature Requests at 1:50 AM PST - 6 comments

I'm really new here, and I was hoping I could get some input as to what Metafilter's all about. What I thought it was all about was a community blog where we posted the most unusual links, the ones that every other semi-popular blog site was posting at the same time. The best example of this is "all you base are belong to us". Everyone had that link.

But now I think it's more intelligent of a community than that, or at least it's supposed to be. So the question I have is two part:
1. What's the point of metafilter?
2. If it's not to point to all your base are belong to us, then where can we post (and find) such links?
posted by MarkO to MetaFilter-Related at 12:35 AM PST - 10 comments

I run a blog and of course every time I post a link it's already been in MetaFiler at least 15 minutes early. :)

It would be great if I could "import" the topics into my site on a sidebar, like you can do with Slashdot. I'm not sure how it works, but it would be nice to have. Any ideas?
posted by MarkO to Feature Requests at 12:13 AM PST - 7 comments

Curious, Matt, if you or anyone has studied the distribution of membership: East-West; International; Age, Gender, and all that...
posted by ParisParamus to MetaFilter-Related at 10:21 PM PST - 3 comments

So, anyone want to venture a guess as to when the number of registered users will surpass the number of threads?
posted by alana to MetaFilter-Related at 4:38 PM PST - 6 comments

That new "powered-by" bar is c00l! but it overlaps with the sideblog (on pages that are shorter than the sideblog).
posted by rodii to MetaFilter-Related at 10:06 AM PST - 12 comments

Hey- I've been scouring the site and I've had no luck. Is there a link button thing for MeFi? And is there any special linking policy for those of us who want all our visitors to come here too? :)
posted by swank6 to MetaFilter-Related at 6:10 PM PST - 4 comments

Keep the servers running smoothly today
 or
create a fleet of system admins for Metafilter tomorrow?
posted by fooljay to MetaFilter-Related at 1:33 PM PST - 17 comments

Is this self-linking?
posted by daver to Etiquette/Policy at 11:37 AM PST - 3 comments

Would anyone like to weigh in on the use of images in MeFi posts? In the past, some have expressed a desire to keep things lean & mean, text only. When images are used, should they reside in the poster's own files, or is it ok to grab an image from someone else's site? I don't mean to single aaron out here, and I'm sure that webmaster is happy to get the publicity from the thread. I see how someone could get pretty pissed, though, under certain circumstances.

posted by gimli to Etiquette/Policy at 10:40 AM PST - 16 comments

So I Want To Set Up A Server. Since I trust the MeFiFolk, I'm asking this here: can anyone point me to a guide that tells me, a complete server hardware neophyte, what I need to get my own box on the net? Much obliged....
posted by hijinx to General Weblog-Related at 7:37 AM PST - 28 comments

We seem to be experiencing some slow sledding here. Any ideas?
posted by Avogadro to Uptime at 10:16 AM PST - 25 comments

Apologies to all annoyed and even offended by certain posts of mine which, apparently, have been too ripe for certain people to take into the realm of bad taste. The filter on that kind of thing has been turned up.
posted by ParisParamus to Etiquette/Policy at 5:45 AM PST - 11 comments

Opera5 shows the "MetaFilter college scholarship" as an off yellow link but it's not clickable. After a quick glance at the HTML it seems Opera doesn't like the negative value, "margin-top:-20px". It looks like there's an unclosed DIV tag around that area too, well, maybe.
posted by holloway to Bugs at 12:13 AM PST - 7 comments

Matt, you rock. Thanks for everything. I'm sure that someone will be quite happy to receive the scholarship, and furthermore, for their education to be subsidized by Metafilter. What a cool idea.
posted by fooljay to MetaFilter-Related at 10:24 PM PST - 43 comments

Can you recommend a content management system? I'm thinking of starting a small, somewhat commercial site in a similar sense to mefi with a focus on football talk
posted by owillis to General Weblog-Related at 8:00 PM PST - 4 comments

Tomorrow's New York Times today:

By DAVID F. GALLAGHER
c.2001 New York Times News Service

The Trellix Corp., which lets clients like About.com provide site-building tools and Web server space to their users, will announce Monday that it has licensed Pyra's Blogger technology for an undisclosed sum.
...
The free Blogger service brought Pyra plenty of attention and great press, but plans to introduce a paid version never materialized, and late last year Pyra, based in San Francisco, laid off all but one full-time employee, Evan Williams, a company co-founder. The meltdown was documented in painful detail on the personal Web logs of Pyra's staff, and Blogger fans feared the service would soon vanish.

"I've been struggling to figure out the business part,’" Williams said, adding that the agreement with Trellix would keep Blogger alive. He plans to help Trellix package Blogger functions with its other site-building tools, bringing the Web log concept to a wider audience.
...
Dan Bricklin, the founder and chief technical officer of Trellix and a PC industry veteran, said he was "a devout believer in the power of blogging for self-expression," and that he "didn’t want Blogger to go under."



posted by luke to General Weblog-Related at 4:40 PM PST - 5 comments

It seems that at least four MeFi-ers currently in Seattle have been on the same streetcorner at different times in the past 36 hours. Any interest in meeting up all at the same time? My preference is somewhere in the beginning of May, somewhere downtown.
posted by gluechunk to MetaFilter-Related at 9:11 PM PST - 46 comments

Is posting a comment like this bad form? I've done it before, and, in hindsight, I think it was a mistake. What about the rest of you? Should individuals make comments that attempt to end the community's discussion in the thread?
posted by accountingboy to Etiquette/Policy at 10:07 AM PST - 13 comments

I'm assuming this is just a result of high load, but the main page now says "Connection Failure members" instead of the number of actual members. Is it time to switch to "billions and billions served"?
posted by jessamyn to Bugs at 5:02 PM PST - 1 comment

Just an FYI, the 5k site on this server is being slashdotted right now, so it may go down periodically today.
posted by mathowie to Uptime at 8:30 AM PST - 0 comments

It was mentioned on another thread that the waiting period to post is now one week (up from 24 hours). This is a very good idea.

As further "crowd control safety" measures, perhaps some mechanism could be developed whereby membership had to be confirmed after one week (in some window of time)? This way, the most casually curious would not be able to post, and would not go into the membership figure total.

In addition, how about some period (6 months?) after which membership would expire?

These features might keep a certain minimal level of seriousness to members and their posts; also, it would be fun to see the "tote board" go down as well as up!
posted by ParisParamus to Feature Requests at 9:18 PM PST - 10 comments

just wondering.... any way we could get a way to edit our own posts? ... i know there is a preview , but hey, mistakes happen
posted by a11an to Bugs at 6:23 PM PST - 5 comments

posting:

it seems that i cant post a link. on metafilter ... i've read the 'about' section and it says that id be able to post after a few days ... and i did ... but now it says that i cant again :( ... is there a limit that im not aware of on # of posts that you can do?
posted by a11an to Bugs at 3:17 PM PST - 3 comments

The Brill's Content thing deserves its own thread: Looks like we've gotten about 500 new members in the past 24 hours, judging by the member numbers at the top of the page.
posted by anildash to MetaFilter-Related at 2:47 PM PST - 15 comments

Could someone explain the practice/convention of putting words in *asterisks*?
posted by ParisParamus to Etiquette/Policy at 12:44 PM PST - 23 comments

I just noticed another insanely long no-link post was pulled this morning. It might be useful to have a Island of Bad Posts archive where stuff that gets pulled is anonymized and listed along with a 25 word description of why it was pulled. This page could be linked to the register page for new users so they can learn through negative example as well as learning by positive example just by reading the site. Plus I'm sure a lot of us are just curious about what's getting pulled....
posted by jessamyn to Feature Requests at 12:31 PM PST - 6 comments

Is the 5k affecting MeFi this morning? I keep getting timeouts and server too busy messages.
posted by iceberg273 to Uptime at 8:09 AM PST - 14 comments

The Basement Internet Show, although dead for what seems like years now, is worth mentioning for the archived shows alone. Go now go.
posted by holloway to MetaFilter-Related at 4:39 AM PST - 1 comment

curious, where has matthowie gotten himself off to? :) it seems that he posts somewhat less frequently now a days.

hehe :P
posted by a11an to Bugs at 5:53 PM PST - 3 comments

Mr. Kottke and Ms. Hourihan, if you have something to say, just say it.
posted by netbros to Etiquette/Policy at 1:55 PM PST - 26 comments

Just a thought: I'd eventually like to be able to get to user profiles via username somehow.
posted by cCranium to Feature Requests at 11:55 AM PST - 9 comments

MetaFilter from the future. Says up at the top there (and on this post) that it's 1:41 PM PST. Not for another hour, I think. It is, however, 1:41 PM PDT.
posted by jimw to Bugs at 1:41 PM PST - 9 comments

So, it seems like Metafilter's getting pretty crazy lately? This might be the reason: the userbase has been growing at a near-exponential rate. (I wrote a little script to plot the number of users over time to a graph. Hope you like it.)
posted by waxpancake to MetaFilter-Related at 3:23 AM PST - 20 comments

Mac IE 5. Both the "Preview" and "Post" buttons on the link submittal are resolving post_preview.mefi today, resulting in an inabilty to actually post the link once I've verified that everything's hunky-dory.
posted by m.polo to Bugs at 10:09 AM PST - 2 comments

Here's a little suggestion... On threads older than 6 months, list the year beside the month and day on every comment. Why? Because I think it'd be useful on the rare posts where comments span a year or more like this or this.
posted by waxpancake to Feature Requests at 12:25 AM PST - 3 comments

Curious why posts go chronologically down the page and not up (most recent at top). At least as an option, this would seem a good idea.
posted by ParisParamus to Feature Requests at 10:25 PM PST - 4 comments

I am using IE 5.0 for Mac. The text formatting commands do not appear at the bottom of the main text box. Any ideas?
posted by ParisParamus to Bugs at 9:57 PM PST - 4 comments

Where did the post for "Is this the next All Your Base...?" go? Why did it leave? Sorry to sound paranoid, but with all the turmoil lately, I'm really curious about the disappearance of this seemingly innocuous post...

>> Zettai (formerly Wiremommy)
posted by Zettai to Bugs at 6:17 PM PST - 11 comments

"No Likey"? I hate that phrase and think it perpetuates a racial stereotype. I've seen it a couple times in comments and it blasted me on the front page today. I'm not saying anyone that uses it is racist, nor am I asking that anyone be condemned for using it. I just wanted to make my feelings known. You may disagree.
posted by girlhacker to Etiquette/Policy at 11:03 AM PST - 37 comments

The downward spiral of it all...

discussion inside.
posted by rich to MetaFilter-Related at 10:26 AM PST - 19 comments

Just so you all know, I'm getting pretty sick of MetaFilter. Changes are coming very soon.

Big. assed. changes.

Call me mr. crankypants, but the level of discourse here is approaching an eighth grade level. Seriously. A lot of old timers say "it used to be so much better when..." and I hate to say it, but it's true. A long time ago*, people used to be a lot more respectful to others, people didn't attack each other, people of opposing viewpoints could bring their perspective to a topic and not just point out knee jerk political viewpoints and philosophies. Everyday I see the place getting more and more "mainstream" with all the closed minds and inflexible opinions that come with that.

Be prepared for the upcoming experiment at MetaFilter.

(I know I should just take a vacation from the site, but really, this place doesn't run on its own. I'm spending more time everyday here cleaning up self-posts, watching people attack each other, and banning IPs and accounts. So instead I'm making some huge changes.)

* - and don't go back into the archives and show me a year old thread that got ugly. I know the place used to be better overall, and you're not going to convince me of otherwise, okay?
posted by mathowie to MetaFilter-Related at 4:13 PM PST - 85 comments

While arguably all good posts, radio_mookie has posted 6 links in the last three days, while only having 4 comments, and all of the links seem to be cut and paste from his weblog... Does this fall under using the front page as your own blog with Metafilter being your commenting system?
posted by Neb to Etiquette/Policy at 9:31 AM PST - 39 comments

Link descriptions.
posted by hijinx to Etiquette/Policy at 7:37 AM PST - 15 comments

Anybody else getting a 'LowestBid' window showing up when the spell checker window finishes? Is this a feature I'm not aware of, or is somebody hijacking my window?
posted by daver to Bugs at 11:33 AM PST - 1 comment

The Great Crime of Self-Linking: some posts are better than others, and the same goes for the self-links--the bermi village link was interesting enough for Me to forgive. This is a policy/feature-request i guess...I think an area here in metatalk where users can post links to projects they are working on--or friends are working on--without the guilt and stigma of self-linking would be a good idea.
posted by th3ph17 to Etiquette/Policy at 9:40 AM PST - 7 comments

I wanna see "Most Viewed User ID" stats.
posted by Neale to Feature Requests at 4:16 AM PST - 3 comments

Is it just me, or is weblogs.com down?
posted by Neale to General Weblog-Related at 4:11 AM PST - 2 comments

Someone else wants to see "About MetaTalk" in the void above (right below "MetaFilter Home"). However, I'd like to see a "Donate" link there. Every so often when at Me* I'll say to myself, "Hey, I should donate $1" or I may think, "Hey, how much has Matt managed to get from us?!" and I'll click on Donate. However, when one of those thoughts just hit me a minute ago, I was on MeTa and thus there was no Donate link. Minor request/feature, I know, but it has the potential to raise MILLIONS OF DOLLARS!
posted by gluechunk to Feature Requests at 5:50 PM PST - 5 comments

March 2001 stats. The second most popular search term is especially interesting. heh.
posted by mathowie to MetaFilter-Related at 12:12 PM PST - 18 comments

Cha-ching! We've hit the 5000 mark.
posted by samsara to MetaFilter-Related at 8:45 AM PST - 9 comments

Bad day for double posts. I mean, I know the threads each has slightly different takes but were so many really needed?
posted by lagado to MetaFilter-Related at 7:15 AM PST - 4 comments

New stats for last month have been added, and the top 20 charts reveal that Neale has slyly been using an old thread as his own personal blog to compete with the remarkable activity from the 123CheapHosting thread. Cute.
posted by waxpancake to MetaFilter-Related at 6:05 PM PST - 6 comments

Zow! Suddenly there are IP addresses!
posted by iceberg273 to MetaFilter-Related at 8:35 PM PST - 5 comments