MetaTalk

So, the world is kind of crazy and bad right now. I'd like to move the needle on that by mailing Surprise Art (MeFi TM) to other MeFites. Would you like to receive surprise art? Do you have a friend who you think would be happy to receive surprise art? Do you want to make surprise art and mail it to another MeFite (or their friend)? Please respond or fill out this google form. [more inside]
posted by arnicae to MetaFilter-Related at 8:59 PM PST - 54 comments

Hey Singaporean Mefites, is anybody working on an FPP for the elections? If not, maybe I'll try to whip something up, but I've been kind of busy lately so it would be something simple. It would be great to have a nice lengthy post full of useful links and background information though! (mods I kind of recall it is okay to ask questions like this on MeTa, but if it isn't do let me know what's a better way!)
posted by destrius to MetaFilter-Related at 9:26 AM PST - 4 comments

Occasionally there are site-wide messages that pop up in the header of the site (e.g. currently there's one about a BIPOC advisory board). These messages can be really tiny on mobile, and currently the hide button isn't clickable on my mobile device. Two requests below the fold. [more inside]
posted by too bad you're not me to Feature Requests at 11:19 AM PST - 83 comments

The first version of the digital-only music swap 2020 is up for comments / testing. [more inside]
posted by signal to MetaFilter Gatherings at 4:00 PM PST - 66 comments

If you are not signed in to the Facebook empire, Instagram will not show you any content. You can get a little (photo posts, abbreviated profile) if you are signed in to facebook but not Instagram, but if you have opted out of the whole ecosystem you get a login screen on instagram no matter what. This is my experience. Easily reproduced by using a private browsing window. I argue that walled off content not available on the open web should not be FPP material.
posted by seanmpuckett to Etiquette/Policy at 9:18 AM PST - 77 comments

I had the idea, inspired by the username of none other than one of our new mods, who seems to have their hands full spearheading new anti-racism initiatives on the site, for a seed/plant swap. What say you all? [more inside]
posted by RolandOfEld to MetaFilter-Related at 2:00 PM PST - 33 comments

I have noticed that certain egregious racial slurs are being deleted by mods with a note. I am requesting a feature to simply prevent users from posting these slurs in the first place. [more inside]
posted by xtine to Feature Requests at 1:40 PM PST - 267 comments

Seems they haven’t been updated in a year or so. Searched the archives but couldn’t find any announcement.
posted by stillmoving to MetaFilter-Related at 1:04 PM PST - 32 comments

It's close to the end of the week. Let's play a fun game. What was the last thing you searched for on Wikipedia? Your most recent Wiki. Feel free to share links to relevant Wiki below. As always, be kind to yourself and to others. Cheers.
posted by Fizz to MetaFilter-Related at 12:58 PM PST - 105 comments

Hi all, I want to thank you for your patience. After some conversation with staff, I’m going to take the lead on initiating some things that I am hopeful will change the way we handle things on the site.

*I am encouraging this thread to remain a space for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color only.*

I’d like to hear from Black, Indigenous, and People of Color about their feelings on creating a community advisory board consisting of 5-10 rotating voluntary members. Our first meeting could consist of drafting community agreements to follow for meetings, creating an agenda with topics to cover, and ending the meeting with a summary of agreed-upon action items. I’m 100% open to suggestions and specificities around the structure of these meetings.

I’m imagining the advisory board as an intentional space and tool for addressing the ongoing concerns of the site. It'll be a space for solutions and changes to be implemented with a transparent and community-focused structure. You all deserve the space to have conversations with each other and with mod staff that produces tangible and sustainable results.
[more inside]
posted by travelingthyme to MetaFilter-Related at 10:33 AM PST - 72 comments

Metafilter's own, and proponent of the professional white background, has joined the board of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the group announced today with Anil confirming on his site. [more inside]
posted by terrapin to MetaFilter-Related at 1:50 PM PST - 15 comments

The answer is always going to be "no." No, you can't visit your daughter for her birthday safely just because the number of cases in her town is declining. No, you shouldn't take a road trip so long as you're only going to stop "a few places" where you might be in close quarters with other people. No, it's not safe to have friends over if you have an immunocompromised roommate, even if the windows are open. No. No. The answer is "no." [more inside]
posted by tzikeh to Etiquette/Policy at 9:29 PM PST - 132 comments

I'm serious. I know we've talked before about changing the design of flag button. Let's talk about it again — not because it's ugly or inconvenient on phones, but because it's hostile in a way that's relevant to site conversations about social justice. In threads about bigotry, we hear that people don't flag, they don't feel comfortable flagging, and they often don't even know you can flag. Well, here's one reason: the design of the button doesn't say "We hope you'll use this to contact a kind, professional moderator." Even to highly technical people with decades of social media experience, it says "This is confusing and mysterious, you're dumb for not understanding it already, and if you touch it you'll get in trouble." [more inside]
posted by nebulawindphone to Feature Requests at 11:08 AM PST - 138 comments

Would anyone like to be my friend on Fitbit or MyFitnessPal? Links are in my profile. I tried the Social Explorer, but I figured there are plenty of unlisted people out there. Thank you! I'm only going to leave the links up for a little while because they link to real pictures of me, so if you're reading this in the future, feel free to memail me instead.
posted by 8603 to MetaFilter-Related at 8:58 AM PST - 2 comments

Happy Weekend, MetaFilter! This week, because I am sick to death of literally everything I cook due to non-stop quarantine cooking, I want to know what you're cooking lately that's really good! [more inside]
posted by Eyebrows McGee to MetaFilter-Related at 5:17 PM PST - 97 comments

Is it just me, or are there certain MeFites who show up in your "favorited by others" pretty often? [more inside]
posted by kevinbelt to MetaFilter-Related at 8:11 AM PST - 69 comments

I love dragons. They're one of my favorite creatures. There are many different types of dragons. Some mythical, some still living today. From literature, film & television, animation, & video-games, table-top games. There are many different breeds: chromatic or metalic? lightweight or heavyweight? Would you ride on their backs? Maybe you'd learn some magic. There have been some amazing posts on the blue and green related to dragons that are worth checking out. The conversation is open to any and all dragon-related subjects. Let's discuss dragons. RROOAARRR!!!!
posted by Fizz to MetaFilter-Related at 6:59 AM PST - 68 comments

The Mefi COVID FAQ requests that posters "Please link to pertinent information from high quality sources, and don't give top-of-the-head "it seems to me" sort of answers." I am regularly seeing Askmefi responses that do not adhere to this guidance and I worry that Askmefi is contributing to misinformation. I'm hoping we can have a conversation about what can be done. [more inside]
posted by Karaage to Etiquette/Policy at 9:49 AM PST - 36 comments

I am unable to access MF with firefox. I can get on with Chrome but when I try my old link on Firefox I get "Site is not Available," I can't even logout. Any suggestions?
posted by charlesminus to MetaFilter-Related at 1:57 PM PST - 21 comments

Good Saturday evening, MetaFilter! This week, since we haven't done a picture one in a while, show us a picture of something new and different about your home during the pandemic! Do you have a makeshift home office? Do you have a mask storage station? Have you created a homeschooling hub for kids doing e-learning? Do you have food storage that could put a bunker to shame? [more inside]
posted by Eyebrows McGee to MetaFilter-Related at 5:33 PM PST - 59 comments

What are you looking forward to doing after the pandemic, or even after restrictions are lifted in you area? [more inside]
posted by NotLost to MetaFilter-Related at 8:48 PM PST - 169 comments

Perhaps my favorite thing about Ask Metafilter is when someone asks a question that could best be answered by a very particular, obscure kind of expert, and then that exact expert shows up and answers, expertly. Can you post great examples of that here? The more perfectly precise the match between the needed expert and the one who shows up, and the more improbable it is that the right expert would have come along and answered, the better. [more inside]
posted by daisyace to MetaFilter-Related at 3:53 PM PST - 58 comments

A recent AskMeFi thread on What is quintessentially Missourian? is remarkable and exhibits, I believe, what is best about Metafilter: locals coming together to share their knowledge, stories, histories, of a place. [more inside]
posted by Ahmad Khani to MetaFilter-Related at 7:49 PM PST - 8 comments

Activity has pretty much stopped on IRL for obvious reasons, but weirdly, the Tokyo Mefite community has never met nearly as much! We're heading into our 9th straight week of meetups (on Zoom) which is a full on record for us, but leads me to this humble pony request: if the poster of the IRL meetup chooses "online" as the type of meetup, no notification memails get sent, and the meetup doesn't show in the sidebar on MetaTalk. Can we change that? [more inside]
posted by Ghidorah to Feature Requests at 8:11 PM PST - 11 comments

We're eating breakfast for dinner. Egg in a basket, or as I grew up calling it "egg-bread". How about you? What are you eating tonight? Feel free to share recipes. Be kind & stay safe.
posted by Fizz to MetaFilter-Related at 4:42 PM PST - 71 comments

I would really like it if all post links that led to sites with a paywall were so marked with an icon or parenthetical like ($) or something. I don't care so much about comment links but if the link parser was automated then that could be a trivial addition thing. If the catalogue of pay sites was database driven it could be updated in real time. In any case, until there's an automated system, I would really appreciate manual/etiquette related efforts to make it clear which links do and do not go to the open web. Thanks for your consideration.
posted by seanmpuckett to Etiquette/Policy at 10:01 AM PST - 51 comments

As eluded to by the most recent podcast, it has indeed been a rough week. In cities all over the US and the world, the hits just keep coming, and not just from COVID-19. I know personally that it is taking a toll on me and I didn't see another thread that wasn't location-specific, so I am opening this up to anyone and everyone that needs someplace to vent and share their joys and struggles as the world convulses under the weight of fascism and pestilence and the ongoing fight to eliminate both. Be kind to each other. We are all hurting.
posted by grumpybear69 to MetaFilter-Related at 10:47 AM PST - 87 comments

Lets's share links and spread the word on anti-racism community resources and anti-racism fundraising. I've seen some fantastic threads on Twitter that cover some of this, but it would be useful if Mefites could aggregate links for their local bail bond/mutual aid funds, as well as links to protest/anti-racism toolkits from around the world. Here's a great list of mutual aid funds (Threader link of an original Twitter thread, for easier reading). This post should serve as a catch-all thread for a broad range of resources that will enable and embolden Mefites to get involved in the continuous work that is anti-racism activism, whether they're protesting in-person, donating from home, or want to help in other ways if they're unable to protest in-person or donate. [more inside]
posted by nightrecordings to MetaFilter-Related at 10:22 AM PST - 24 comments

Podcast time, and jessamyn and are I back talking about a bunch of stuff we liked from MetaFilter as usual, and talking a bit about the hard stuff surrounding George Floyd and Minneapolis, and also absolutely plotzing about having two new mods join the team! Welcome again, travelingthyme and loup. This episode is long even for us, about an hour and forty total. [more inside]
posted by cortex to MeFi Podcast at 5:30 PM PST - 8 comments

Peanut butter: crunchy or smooth? There can only be one. Choose.
posted by Fizz to MetaFilter-Related at 12:16 PM PST - 165 comments

Please give a hearty hello to our newly-hired members of the MetaFilter moderation team: travelingthyme and loup! I'll let them introduce themselves a bit below, but I wanted to let folks know that they'll both be working part-time as of now so you can expect to see their names around the site. [more inside]
posted by cortex to MetaFilter-Related at 10:54 AM PST - 227 comments

Hi everybody. Yesterday* I posted this question, asking about sending my son to preschool. And today... [more inside]
posted by bondcliff to MetaFilter-Related at 8:07 AM PST - 50 comments