May 2021 Archives (all archives)

May 29

Metatalktail Hour: Everybody needs a 🍲

You've traded in your magic (overthinking) beans, or you've managed to free a grateful food genie, or your foodie godmother has wielded her magic wand, or you've stumbled upon a hungry dragon's unguarded treasure ... anyway, the tl/dr is that now you have a fabulous enchanted plate that once a day will fill up with whatever dish you summon forth. So what will you be eating from your magical plate today? Oh, but just one more thing... [more inside]
posted by taz to MetaFilter-Related at 6:15 AM PST - 39 comments

May 28

Music on Fanfare?

I was wondering what people think of the idea of adding "Music" as a category for posting on Fanfare? [more inside]
posted by rongorongo to Feature Requests at 10:09 PM PST - 12 comments

May 24

Rosemary's Baby's Day Out

Five years ago today, an innocuous thread was posted about nerd culture mashup t-shirts. Before long, weird mashup creation took hold, and with this comment by Existential Dread, a format solidified. The ensuing madness would last more than a month, totaling more than 2,000 comments and at least as many insane mashup titles in a brilliant/stupid/hilarious thread that will still make you laugh today. Which are your favorites?
posted by DirtyOldTown to MetaFilter-Related at 2:04 PM PST - 2398 comments

[MeFi Site Update] May 24th

Hello Metafilter! Please find my 4th update on the state of the site below. [more inside]
posted by loup to MetaFilter-Related at 12:42 PM PST - 6 comments

May 22

Metatalktail Hour: What would your Midas Touch? ✨

Mutant Lobsters from Riverhead asks: "You have 17 pounds of gold (at minimum worth $50,000 in today's buying power), a time machine, and the infrastructure to fund one arts project at any point in history. What do you fund?" 'Arts' covering any human technology / performance / creation, in this case. [more inside]
posted by taz to MetaFilter-Related at 11:02 AM PST - 53 comments

May 17

On the situation in Gaza, and MeFi discussions

The situation in Gaza is awful, and as a moderation team collectively we are horrified by the violence and destruction and loss of life the Israeli government has been causing in Palestine. As a Jew, personally, I am too; for the mod team and for many people in the MetaFilter community this isn't just a terrible situation but one with very direct and personal resonances. Jewish identity and history is complex; overt and oppressive violence isn't, and what the state of Israel is doing right now to the people in Palestine is wrong.

The desire to talk about and react to the situation on MeFi is completely understandable. But it's also a topic that has, in particular during times of open conflict, been incredibly difficult to manage as an open discussion without it escalating to a point of being more harmful than helpful, and that's something we can't knowingly support playing out in the community here.

It's hard to say when and how a broad discussion of this can go well; we are going to have to exercise a lot of care in assessing whether the framing of a post and available moderator resources will make for a workable thread. In the mean time it feels necessary to me to make this MetaTalk post acknowledging both that site dilemma and the actual situation at large since MeFi, as a place built around posts, can end up feeling conspicuously silent when there's not a thread happening organically.

I'd like to try and fill the gap left by the lack of an open thread by using the space inside this post to round up informational resources; the mod team will aim to add to this post periodically if folks will forward good links to us via the contact form. [more inside]
posted by cortex to MetaFilter-Related at 1:27 PM PST - 0 comments [closed]

May 16

Metatalktail Hour: All those moments lost in time, like tears in rain

Our Metatalktail topic this week come courtesy Kristi, who asks "Time travel has become easy and commonplace. Everyone's already done the big time travel things. What mundane, low-priority time travel trips would you take?" [more inside]
posted by taz to MetaFilter-Related at 3:31 AM PST - 77 comments

May 15

Modern Pen Pal Project

Since the beginning of 2020, I've been doing a project where I write a handwritten letter a week to friends, acquaintances, and family members on a topic of their choosing. I am looking for some new folks who would enjoy snail mail. [more inside]
posted by chiefthe to MetaFilter-Related at 2:24 PM PST - 19 comments

Adding archive.org links to old posts

Is it possible and desirable to add Internet Archive links to old posts? [more inside]
posted by autopilot to Feature Requests at 2:56 AM PST - 9 comments

May 13

It's not easy being short

One of these links is not like the others.
One of these links doesn't belong.
Can you tell which link is not like the other
by the time I finish this song? [more inside]
posted by Rhaomi to Bugs at 5:18 PM PST - 19 comments

Turn On Some Music

Turn the lights down low and switch the sparkly ones on, get out your best headphones or your Big Speakers, and get ready because the MetaFilterMusic Podcast is BACK BABY [more inside]
posted by greenish to MetaFilter-Related at 4:27 AM PST - 5 comments

May 10

[MeFi Site Update] May 10th

Hello Metafilter! Here’s another update on the state of the site. [more inside]
posted by loup to MetaFilter-Related at 1:27 PM PST - 23 comments

May 9

Making more room for nuanced discussion

I love Metafilter, especially the threads where we can come together as a community and share information, learn together, and come up with new ideas. But there’s been a really frustrating trend in some recent threads. [more inside]
posted by leslietron to Etiquette/Policy at 11:13 AM PST - 42 comments

Can we get a button to hide a comment?

Occasionally in a thread someone posts something offensive, derailing, or monstrously long. It would be helpful if there was button next to the comment which one could click to hide said comment and said hiding would be remembered in Recent Activity and across devices. In place of the comment would be a single line of text that says "hidden comment", with the hide/unhide button next to it. This would, in theory, make it easier to skip derails, obnoxious, and/or long comments. The ridiculously long comments are particularly problematic in Recent Activity, where they repeatedly appear for a while. What say you?
posted by Brandon Blatcher to Feature Requests at 9:33 AM PST - 11 comments

May 7

Metatalktail Hour: Favorite Visual Art

Happy weekend, MetaFilter! This week, I'd love it if you'd share with me a link or two to some of your favorite visual art. Famous, obscure, amateur -- just something you love to look at, and why you love it. [more inside]
posted by Eyebrows McGee to MetaFilter-Related at 6:56 PM PST - 55 comments

May 1

Gender & metafilter names

I just started a new profile, blueberry monster, mostly because this name gets misgendered too often. I'm wondering who else would like the chance to point out what your gender is (because it gets mistaken from your username). I'd also like to hear from anyone else who changed to a new account for gender reasons.
posted by Margalo Epps to MetaFilter-Related at 2:18 PM PST - 72 comments