MetaTalk

A recent Ask about JD Salinger sticks out to me as very un MeFi somehow. The question itself together with the OP's follow-up responses felt kinda Facebook: "Bold claim: come at me!"
posted by Text TK on Apr 11 at 1:53 PM - 91 comments

Hello and welcome to this month’s site update! Thanks for your patience, we are and were waiting on some information, details are inside. Last month’s update can be found here.
posted by Brandon Blatcher on Mar 28 at 7:58 AM - 94 comments

How can we create a safer and more respectful space for Jewish MeFites?
posted by Jacqueline on Mar 26 at 9:26 PM - 149 comments

Last week's April fool's post got me thinking...
posted by loup on Apr 8 at 11:28 AM - 14 comments

An obscure question about why a comment from 2016 with lots of favorites suddenly got a lot more favorites in 2018.
posted by Joan Rivers of Babylon on Apr 9 at 3:10 PM - 48 comments

introducing myself properly in the role, providing some context, setting some expectations.
posted by Kybard on Apr 11 at 10:59 AM - 44 comments

As everyone knows, the hallmark of any big-time website these days is the seamless integration of VC slop cutting-edge AI solutions into every facet of their operation. After witnessing the undeniable success of this approach across the web, we knew it was high time for MetaFilter to join the bandwagon or risk becoming even more charmingly anachronistic than we already are. So, after a quarter century of maintaining our community's distinctly human-powered approach, we're excited to announce that MetaFilter is finally embracing The Future: starting today, every page on MeFi will support Socky the Sockpuppet, your personal AI assistant ready to enhance your browsing experience with randomly generated commentary and deep-cut references that may or may not be relevant to whatever you're doing.

[Click here to activate Socky!] / or / [Click here to cast Socky into the digital abyss]
posted by Rhaomi on Apr 1 at 12:01 AM - 124 comments

I had an upsetting thing happen to me yesterday as a trans man, and was trying to find some solace in reading Metafilter, and instead ran into the train wreck of the metatalk on antisemitism. The whole experience got me thinking a lot about the quote "divided we fall, united we stand" in the face of the current fascist rise in this country (sorry to be so US focused), and made me wonder whether this might be an opportunity for understanding and reconciliation rather than leaving that thread be as is and letting it become an old wound that just festers.
posted by lab.beetle on Apr 4 at 7:06 AM - 30 comments

I'm new to Zwift and was thinking about how to find people to follow. It occurred to me that there are MeFites on Zwift!
posted by hilaryjade on Apr 9 at 7:21 AM - 6 comments

this is a meta to discuss the practice of mods deleting comments that don't break guidelines, but receive pushback after the fact, solely due to the original commenter coming back and saying "please delete my comment."
posted by sagc on Mar 11 at 4:18 PM - 112 comments

If a user is a member of staff, and is not a moderator, should they have mod powers? Are there situations where it would be appropriate for them to use mod powers? If not, should they have mod powers at all? If they must have mod powers, what policies are/should be in place to prevent misuse? If they do misuse mod powers, how should this community deal with it? (Going to describe the inciting incident here as gently as I can below the fold)
posted by polytope subirb enby-of-piano-dice on Apr 1 at 11:01 AM - 51 comments

Update on the beta version of the new site. See notes inside.

QUICK UPDATE (April 5, 1:05pm ET): As of right now, the staging site still throws a password error when you try to sign up, so it's not possible to test logged-in behaviors. We're aware, but kirk is out of town and unavailable to fix. Feel free to check other parts of the staging site in the meantime.
posted by Kybard on Apr 4 at 9:17 AM - 23 comments

I was excited to upload my new profile picture after I found this lovely photo of some strawberries on Unsplash. Now my excitement has turned to ash in my mouth as the beauty of the photo is lost in the uploading, reduced to a blurry thumbnail. Surely the cost of hosting profile images at a better quality can't be that high?
posted by fruitdroid on Apr 3 at 10:04 AM - 19 comments

User Cranberry has passed away after a long life. She was driven, I think, more by intellectual curiosity than any other factor and when I encouraged her to sign up for Metafilter, she was able to overcome her dislike of "potty mouth" language to sign up and become a regular user and answerer of AskMe. She was very proud to be a "$5 noob," and she greatly enjoyed reading the posts of her favorite users, especially gnfti and taz. She has gone on to join other family members in the afterlife and her obit is here.
posted by Lynsey on Mar 27 at 10:00 AM - 79 comments

Hey, with the recent MeTa about the Card Club, I was reminded that there are a number of member run activities and events, but there is no list of them. So I'm going to put together a FAQ entry about the member related MeFi clubs and activities with the following information for each club: Name of club/activity Contact Person Premise of club/activity How often/when the club/activity occurs For those who do run these activities, thank you! Please chime in if you have any special instructions or corrections and I'll include them in the FAQ entry/listing. For anyone who wants to help with compiling this information, let me know, we can do it in Google docs.
posted by Brandon Blatcher on Mar 20 at 9:19 AM - 14 comments

Back in the aughts, MetaFilter and sites like it were often improved by community-designed "userscripts" that added useful features to the default experience. Unfortunately, as more and more sites moved to mobile-first design, this power-user approach to customization declined in popularity (and accessibility). But that's no reason for such clever code to go to waste! We've reached out to some developers of classic, much-loved MeFi scripts who have generously agreed to let frimble incorporate their functionality directly into the site so it runs easily on any device -- initially as a direct port, then as a model for the new codebase if it proves popular and workable. First up: Plutor's humble MeFiQuote script, which adds a [quote] button to the byline of every comment on the site. Click to jump to the reply field while quoting the comment in full, with the username linking back to the original -- or on most platforms, highlight some text first to quote that excerpt directly! It's especially handy for mobile, where you'd normally have to type out a lot of tedious HTML and multiple copy-pastes to do the same thing. And if you used to use userscripts (or still do!), check out this list of classic MeFi scripts and share which ones you think would be worth adapting.
posted by Rhaomi on Mar 26 at 12:01 PM - 43 comments

Spring is here, and I’ve been thinking about starting a seed swap!
posted by SunPower on Mar 25 at 5:56 PM - 5 comments

Since my post on the Kilauea volcano erupting, it calmed down, but it's starting back up today. Camera 1 | Camera 2
posted by NoMich on Apr 2 at 6:04 AM - 4 comments

Brandon Blatcher said, in February, that

Since December 24, 2024, the queue has been operating under the premise of just push anything through that isn't hugely fighty.

However, there are at least two MeTa posts just in the last month which have vanished into thin air. I'm not sure what the earlier one was, because the person who wanted to post it has apparently wiped their account, but it is referenced in my comment here. The second is a MeTa which Violet Blue apparently made. Now, it's possible that both of these MeTas were in fact "hugely fighty", but there is no evidence of that. Most of the people who post on the Grey (certainly including me) already have less than zero trust in the moderators' judgment by this point, and failing to live up to assurances that you made not even six weeks ago only serves to further erode the possibility of ever trusting it again. What can be done about this, both in the case of the specific posts which were disallowed and in general?
posted by adrienneleigh on Mar 25 at 7:32 PM - 72 comments

Card club, let's chat about the cards we're receiving!
posted by rabia.elizabeth on Mar 19 at 4:23 AM - 10 comments