June 2014 Archives (all archives)
June 30
in the interest of fewer metatalk posts about fanfare scheduling
Summer Camp/Movie Series Club Calendar - let's arrange it here. [more inside]
#JulyByWomen project
I'm issuing the July Women's Challenge - can we get 90 extra FPPs by women in one month? [more inside]
June 29
Happy birthday Mefi Music!
Back in 2006, the cover was lifted on the version of Metafilter Music we all know and love! I wanted to wish it happy birthday, and post a torrent for the songs from 2013! [more inside]
June 28
Reposting A Deleted Post
Hi, when a post is deleted for bad or inappropriate framing, is there a span of time that the mods and/or our community feels another member should wait before building a better post?
June 27
Starting a steam engine link?
My searching has failed me. Can anyone point me to a comment that had a link to an essay about one man starting a steam locomotive by himself?
Jessamyn's Blog Post on The Downsizing
MeFi Horror, #3 Carnival of Souls/#4 Pontypool
Pick #3, for Wednesday, July 2nd: Carnival of Souls.
And, to give folks a head start, because of the coming US holiday, we'll announce announce that Pick #4 for Wednesday, July 9th is MeFi favorite Pontypool.
Pick #5 will be a non-English film. Post suggestions in this thread. [more inside]
June 26
Laughing Is Magic
If you need a bit of levity today, please go read geek anachronism's story about how she washed a five-foot tall My Little Pony plushie.
That is all.
June 25
World Cup matches as FanFare?
When looking at this deleted post that hit my RSS feed, it made me wonder why the new FanFare feature (love it, btw) wouldn't be perfectly appropriate for discussion of World Cup matches, even while in progress? [more inside]
15th Anniversary
So, it was brought to my attention by eamondaly that the 15th anniversary of Metafilter is coming up in a few weeks. Here's some suggestions as how to celebrate: [more inside]
June 24
It's a bird...
YOUR EAGLE IS CALLED MEFI - A story of how I gave away a twitter handle to a football club in France because their badass eagle is now called Mèfi.
Cold tea, please
Hello everyone, I am looking for a specific comment on AskMe about brewing cold tea. [more inside]
June 23
Call for input and interviewees for an essay on Metafilter
Hi, I'm in the process of writing a long essay on Metafilter for Hazlitt and I'd love to get some input from the community on it. In particular, if the site has intersected with your IRL life in a meaningful or interesting way, I'd love to talk to you. [more inside]
best enjoyed with a weenie roast and a cup of bug juice
MeFi FanFare Summer Camp! Consider this thread our arts & crafts cabin, let's macrame up a list: [more inside]
June 22
MeFi Fanfare Cult Film Club
Who's in? What do you want to watch?
June 20
Bonfire of Vanity?
I am wondering if it is possible to get some kind of statistical data on general site activity that might confirm or deny my general impression that when we have behemoth, fighty MeTas, they seem to suck the life out of the site. I am wondering, for example, if they correlate to fewer average comments, lower than normal FPPs or that sort of thing. And, if my impression is somehow generally confirmed, I am wondering if that might help influence policy on how these bonfires get handled. Because, to me, it seems like letting them go on and on is in vain and accomplishes nothing good. [more inside]
Arrested Development Fanfare Rewatch and a pony inquiry
I've drafted (very roughly) a Fanfare post to kick off a spoiler-friendly Arrested Development rewatch. I'm seeking people who have input on what such a rewatch would include. I also have some questions about what will happen to meta-Fanfare posts like this one in the future. [more inside]
Google’s Matt Cutts: MetaFilter Hit By Previously Undisclosed Algorithm
This article from June 12 has a lot of useful up-to-date info and context about how MetaFilter was penalized. There is also some discussion about a potential solution (although Matt Cutts is being typically cryptic) in coming "weeks or months."
Fanfare pony request: automatic tagging?
The way that shows on FanFare are automagically coralled under the the show/ url is great! Would it be feasible (or helpful) to automatically add the show name as a tag for any posts made for a show? [more inside]
Wraaaaaped in Plastic
I rewatch Twin Peaks once a year. I think it would be fun to do a rewatch thread for the show in Fanfare. I'm thinking Tuesdays and Thursdays at 8PM EST? Who else would be interested in doing this? [more inside]
June 19
Thank you. Thank you very much.
As of yesterday, June 18, 2014, I am, for the very first time in my 43 years, a homeowner. On behalf of all of the 4sters, I would like to offer some words of thanks. [more inside]
MeFi Horror Film Club, #2: Noroi/The Curse
The Horror Club's first selection, The Cabin in the Woods has gone over well, after only 24 hours becoming the most-commented upon movie thread in FanFare's short history. So, to keep this party rolling, here's next week's selection:
Noroi (The Curse) Bonus: this week's pick is available in its entirety on YouTube. [more inside]
June 18
Metafilter Hate Machine
This is the metatalk thread for the MeFi Diplomacy game "Metafilter1"(on playdiplomacy.com) spawned by the recent Grantland boardgames thread.
To enable maximum kibitzing, I would like to encourage all PUBLIC game related communications to take place in this thread. PRIVATE communications, of course, can still take place through in-game channels. Robocop is bleeding has offered himself up as unofficial reporter/biographer/historian for the game, so we'll see where he takes that.
I will try to post periodic links to up-to-date maps in this thread, but you can also watch the game by signing up at playdiplomacy.
Sportsfilter - Whats the S.P.?
Any news on the other subsite ideas? I ask as the world cup is on right now, and you could try out sportsfilter for the world cup only maybe? [more inside]
Prepare to have thine mind blown : Mefi bookmarking
Just click on the timestamp link of the post you last read. Then bookmark the page. The timestamp link is an anchor to that particular post on the page, so when you visit again you'll go back to that post.
posted by gilrain at 3:20 PM on August 1, 2013 [more inside]
June 17
A very Metafilter wedding
I'd like to offer delighted congratulations and the warmest of Mefi wishes to long-time members Miko and Lipstick Thespian, who were married on Sunday, June 8th at a lovely farm in New Hampshire. Mazel tov and wishing you many years of happiness!
June 16
MeFi helped me through the darkness.
Five years ago today I lost my wife suddenly and unexpectedly.
MeFites came out of the woodwork with words of support, hugs, shipments of books, postcards, notes, and even pie!
I got advice from others who had been through similar tragedies; new friends and penpals; all together, it was an awesome show of love and caring. I made it through the darkness, and since then have also been able to help others who have had the same thing happen to them.
I just want to say thanks, again, to everyone. If this seems disjointed, it's because I can't find the right words to express how I feel.
I got advice from others who had been through similar tragedies; new friends and penpals; all together, it was an awesome show of love and caring. I made it through the darkness, and since then have also been able to help others who have had the same thing happen to them.
I just want to say thanks, again, to everyone. If this seems disjointed, it's because I can't find the right words to express how I feel.
Fanfare Pony Request
Can we add books included/show only/first watch/rewatch to the URIs for FanFare? [more inside]
I can't believe it's been five years.
June 15
Mefi extensions all died
Chrome suddenly has disallowed extensions if they don't come from the chrome web store, and you cannot re-enable them, and this includes all my metafilter ones (deleted posts, scroll tag). None of them appear to be in the chrome store. This appears to be a deliberate decision by Google -- is someone (I don't know who wrote them immediately, but I definitely lack the knowledge to do so) going to put them in the Chrome store? Or is there a workaround? Do I go back to Firefox?
June 13
Comments pagination pony
May we please revisit the issue of comments pagination for the mobile site? [more inside]
Happy Moderators' Day!
We celebrate Moderators' Day 2014 with a slightly heavy heart, as this marks the first celebration of the holiday (which dates back to 2007) when we have fewer moderators than we did last year. Still, MetaFilter's recent "grassroots fundraising drive" demonstrates that the community and the website are in excellent health going forward, in no small part due to the efforts of our Best Of The Web moderating team, past, present and future (I for one, welcome our robot moderator overlords). [more inside]
June 12
"The left" as a monolithic entity
Recently, i've noticed a trend in several FPPs. Both the Dan Savage speech and Trader Joes threads were hit with repeated attempts to derail them into some meta-referendum on how this related to "the left" or "liberalism" as a movement. Note; i am not calling out any one person here, this is not a one person problem. [more inside]
A reminder to be kind to each other
Metafilter has been rife with strong emotions lately. Our beloved community has been shaken up by the departure of mods, changes in rules and expectations, and posts that have rocked feelings and upset members.
There is nothing like this community anywhere else on the internet. All of our members are fantastic and work to make this place unique and inviting. It's perfectly okay to have strong opinions. One of the best things about Metafilter is the ability to express those opinions and be respected.
It has been hard to watch the growing unhappiness in this community as of late. I invite you to remember that everyone needs a hug from time to time.
June 11
Revisiting misogyny on Metafilter
The comments of this Metafilter post about misogynist songs at Trader Joes demonstrates that our work to keep Metafilter free from sexism is far from over. [more inside]
And so the MeFi Horror Film Club begins
As discussed earlier, we're gonna watch some scary movies and then talk about 'em on FanFare. Our inaugural movie and more details below the fold. [more inside]
June 10
comment deletion in AbePlaysGuitar's sexual predator post
Did anyone else leave a negative reponse to the pedo post in AskMe only to have it deleted? [more inside]
June 9
Leveraging the community to help develop Mefi functionality?
Now that the site is partly crowdfunded, would it make sense to also draw on the software development skills in the community to help develop new functionality? What would it take to have that be possible? [more inside]
June 8
Curated Movie Series/Clubs
Apropos of the horror movie club post below, I would like to suggest a system of having movie clubs/curated movie series, which would appear in a sidebar for upcoming watches. Details below. [more inside]
Looking for a series of comments on the right to live free from pain.
This is very unspecific, but I remember there being a thread somewhere on the site with a discussion about whether people had the right to live free of pain (or maybe it was to live free of offence), and someone said in a succinct and impressive way that no, nobody had the right to live free of pain/offence, but that it was a noble cause to work towards. I've searched my favourite history for the comment/s, but have found nothing. Can you help? [more inside]
June 7
It takes a village...of MeFites
I thought the community might enjoy a brief tale that illustrates my Metafilter dependency [more inside]
MeFi Horror Film Club
As a spinoff of this discussion about new labels in FanFare, I floated the idea of pseudo-formal FanFare movie clubs, in which threads could be posted for older movies and folks would convene to discuss them, book club-style. Several folks seemed interested, with the idea of a horror movie club on the table.
Who's on board for a MeFi Horror Movie Club? I figure we can get together and choose a movie here and reconvene next Monday in a FanFare thread to discuss the film. Ideas?
Tagging and construction posts
Hey, just a reminder that when tagging posts that if you put a space between words that counts as two tags, not one. [more inside]
June 6
New labels at FanFare for special case threads
Today we're adding four new labels for TV show threads at FanFare, to denote special spoiler conditions. Two are for recent experiments in "Rewatch" and "First Watch" threads, the other two are specifically for Game of Thrones threads, which we'll be splitting the last two episodes of this season into "Show Only" and "Books included". [more inside]
June 5
Breaking news - Not any more?
This post on the shooting of three Mounties was deleted with the reason that we should wait until the situation has been resolved before posting.
I don't have a problem with that per se but it seems like a serious departure from previous policy on huge breaking news stories (and this story is massive in Canada) for a post that was, IMO, well constructed with authoritative sources and even video of the event.
Has there been a shift in policy to curtail discussion of breaking news until all the details are in? More generally should we be moving away from giving stories like these time on the front page until they move off the 24 hour news cycle? [more inside]
GraphFi Injector
I am too lazy to select a bookmark every time I want to use yourcelf's excellent GraphFi bookmarklet, but apparently not too lazy to write a wee Safari extension to add a little ➡️ button to each post page that runs it.
June 4
93: Midlife Crisis Machine
The newest episode of the podcast features the same crew of jessamyn (first post-MeFi show!), me, and cortex recapping the funding efforts, and then all the best bits from the MeFi universe that runs a total of 1hr 40min long. [more inside]
June 3
Companies mentioned in AskMe post to AskMe?
What's the rule for comments like this, wherein a company mentioned in an AskMe purportedly registers an account and responds?
Deck ads on The Blue
In the ongoing effort to decrease our reliance on Google's Adsense and stabilize ad income, we'll be soon showing ads for The Deck (same as we currently do on the front pages of all the sites) on MetaFilter discussion thread pages, for both logged in, and logged out users on desktops (mobile will continue to show Adsense ads). It will look something like this screenshot. [more inside]
June 2
"How Google is Killing the Best Site on the Internet"
MeFi Fundraising Update
I wanted to thank you all for your generosity in helping MeFi’s future stability and also give some big updates on where we are with the impromptu fundraising efforts over the last couple weeks. [more inside]
What constitutes a spoiler in FanFare?
As a general guideline for FanFare: what are the best ways for people who are both show watchers and book readers to enjoy a thread, make comments, and have engaging conversation while: 1) not ruining things for the show-only folks, or 2) having people assume that every comment made is a spoiler? [more inside]
June 1
Because You're Worth It, Metafilter.
How about a "Donate/Subscribe" link in the main menu of the site? As it stands now, if a user happens to hide the "Help Fund Metafilter" link at the top of the page, it disappears, never to be seen again. I don't think it's unseemly to make the option to support the site monetarily a little more visible and persistent.
Tagging Users In Comments and Posts
I know that things are rough right now, and Metafilter is understaffed and all that (everybody donate $10 right now!), but I was hoping that maybe there could be a way to tag other users easily a la Facebook and Twitter, etc, so that if we add an @ in a comment or post, we could just add the username and the name would link to that person's profile. [more inside]