MetaTalk

Inspired by the answers to Is the World Ending, it seemed like a good idea to share these answers with as many people as possible! It's a lot harder to have a Calmer Vibes Chill Thread today. That seems so quaint. Yikes. This is a place to post all of the reasons you know about that mean The World is Not Going To End Soon. ❤️ (examples within)
posted by Glinn on Feb 20 at 3:52 PM - 14 comments

In the recent thread regarding use of LLMs on AskMe, et al, Lanark reported on the current state of Metafilter's robots.txt file and its limitations:
posted by ursus_comiter on Feb 21 at 2:41 PM - 13 comments

Including one especially depressing one with the heartbreaking comment, "Where is the USPolitics tag? I didn't need to see this." The current balance between "MetaFilter is not a news site" and "We need to vent because we're shitting our pants in terror" does not seem sustainable. I propose enforcing a no-doubles rule on TFG matters. If he signs an executive order tomorrow outlawing public laughter, let anyone putting up a post about it be told to put it here.
posted by Lemkin on Feb 20 at 3:14 PM - 53 comments

I'm sure this has been discussed before, but the recent Federal Government Workers Thread made me think it might be works revisiting. I would think that anyone actually working in government, who might have a very good perspective to contribute, would be rightfully wary of posting something in a thread where they might be identified. Sure, people have user names that maybe hide their identity, but not always. For the sake of informed dialog it could be good for people to have a way to contribute to a thread anonymously. I realize this is likely a complicated thing to solve for.
posted by brookeb on Feb 4 at 9:30 AM - 14 comments

The Moderation Oversight Committee is hoping to get properly up and running soon, and a big part of that is going to be a submission process so we can receive and discuss users' issues with moderation practices in an orderly fashion. As of now, we have a draft version of a Google Form that we're pretty happy with as the mechanism for receiving requests, but we'd like your help refining and finalizing that form before we give it the big public roll-out.
posted by Kybard on Feb 20 at 7:15 PM - 6 comments

Reading the Popular Comments is the best way to find the hidden gems of knowledge and deep dives from awesome people on this site.
posted by Dashy on Feb 16 at 9:07 AM - 19 comments

I am finding the sheer number of US politics threads (many touching on overlapping issues) overwhelming. I do find the threads and discussions useful and interesting, but also distressing. So having lots of them to track feels worse to me than if US politics topics were consolidated in one place. I wonder whether others feel similarly. I seem to recall that for some time we had more of a one-at-a-time system. I would support returning to a similar model if there is sufficient consensus.
posted by prefpara on Feb 5 at 11:42 AM - 26 comments

Have a critter, do you? (And, just between ourselves, a paragon of the species?) As a community-building exercise, let us showcase them here.
posted by Lemkin on Feb 8 at 9:23 PM - 54 comments

With all the talk about deletions - justified, unjustified, excessive, etc. - it might be useful to see some kind of data or reporting on deletions. Are the amount of deletions up over the past few years (certainly seem so)? What kinds of comments are being deleted and what are the reasons for deletion? It might be useful to get some broader sense from the community about whether or not the increased deletions are improving people's experiences as an asker, reader, commenter.
posted by brookeb on Feb 14 at 3:23 PM - 11 comments

A place to share that your gift from the swap arrived.
posted by 15L06 on Nov 16 at 8:59 PM - 193 comments

I had a comment deleted by travelingthyme with a note "One deleted. Please practice care with comments and refrain from swearing etc." All I said was "What is this shit? Can we say what we fucking mean?" Was it a bit intemperate? I guess. But the second part of the mod note is ridiculous. "Refrain from swearing etc." Is there a rule against swearing now? Are the mods our parents? Do people on this website want a no swearing policy?
posted by rhymedirective on Feb 5 at 4:12 PM - 360 comments

This thread is meant for discussion and information for Mefites thinking of leaving the USA because of the political situation. Mexico is my leading contender. But the discussion is open for anywhere.
posted by NotLost on Feb 3 at 12:29 PM - 58 comments

Hello and welcome to the first Site Update of 2025!

You can find the last update here.

posted by Brandon Blatcher on Jan 22 at 3:49 PM - 122 comments

For those of us who participate on most of the subsites (MeFi (the front page), MetaTalk, Ask, Music, Projects, Jobs, IRL, and FanFare) -- if you've made posts to all of them except one, what is that one? And if some alternate universe version of you did make a post to that one remaining subsite, what would it be about? This is meant as an invitation to curiosity and amusement.
posted by brainwane on Jan 28 at 9:18 AM - 21 comments

Share something good or nice in here. Now is not the time to be stingy. Got new accomplishments, new kitten, new kid milestone, or new favorite food? New tschotske that makes you smile? I understand some folks might consider this a useless or foolish endeavor considering the world outside. I don't. And you don't have to come in (but you might like it here).
posted by Glinn on Jan 20 at 9:01 AM - 76 comments

There's a new mod trend of abruptly closing MeTa threads when they don't like how it's going. Let's discuss as a community how we feel about that, because it's an un-asked for change that was made without consulting anyone.
posted by donnagirl on Feb 3 at 11:12 AM - 23 comments

This may have been asked before - but is there a rationale for opening links in the same tab as the post, as opposed to opening the links in a new tab? I prefer the latter, but can live with the former, I'm just curious about the reasoning. My somewhat-educated guess would be that the 'same tab' behavior is compatible with browsers that don't support tabs, but that is just a guess.
posted by TimHare on Feb 3 at 12:29 PM - 8 comments

Huh? Not having the seen the comment, I won't second guess the mod's decision to delete. But their enforcement of the guidelines isn't supposed to depend on whether the OP supports the decision or not. Or am I missing something?
posted by Lemkin on Feb 1 at 8:10 PM - 77 comments

I am pretty sure many of you in the US, and elsewhere, feel like they should be doing something or contributing something. Even if it's a small thing. It feels important to start somewhere, and help other people do the same. Right? Please post small things you have found that are helpful for yourself or your community. For instance, someone on Bluesky offered this page where you can download red cards in many languages, from the Immigrant Legal Resource Center. And john hadron collider posted a Bluesky thread on how to think about public data archiving.
posted by Glinn on Feb 1 at 6:20 PM - 8 comments