Today is MetaFilter’s 24th anniversary. To put things in perspective, this invaluable source of knowledge, conversations and learning was founded the same year the Euro launched, boy bands were on the rise, the first Matrix movie was released, and "Believe" by Cher was hitting the top of the Billboard Year-End chart. We'd like to celebrate this milestone by raising a virtual toast to the countless discussions, friendships, and shared knowledge that have blossomed here.
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 9:03 AM on July 14, 2023 (108 comments)

I've come to the conclusion that I need to step away from running MetaFilter. I'm still figuring what the totality of that will look like, but the initial steps include handing over day to day business administration processes to loup, mod duties to the existing mod staff, and working to set up a steering structure that incorporates community members. My goal is this transition shouldn’t disrupt day-to-day member experiences on the site. Come on in and I'll go into some preliminary detail.
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 12:00 PM on March 29, 2022 (194 comments)

Elizabeth May: "Please tell me about an extremely niche section of twitter that you never knew existed until you made them angry. One time I made Feed Swans Bread Twitter angry after i suggested food alternatives. FOR MONTHS I got angry tweets, until I finally deleted it. YOUR TURN." And the replies began. For example: "I argued that (human) placenta wasn't a vegan dish. Ooooooh the placenta-eating vegans were soooooo mad! It was cuckoo bananas." And...
posted to MetaFilter by Wordshore at 10:52 PM on March 7, 2020 (135 comments)

A poppy, uptempo song about how modern technology abets the struggle with an overwhelming desire not to miss out on being constantly aware of how awful everything is.
posted to MeFi Music by cortex at 4:06 PM on March 26, 2019 (10 comments)

There's a detailed walkthrough of the process with photos. The shape is a Menger sponge.
posted to MetaFilter by Foci for Analysis at 9:20 AM on February 14, 2019 (24 comments)

Recently, I announced that MetaFilter was in serious financial trouble, and asked you to help with additional community funding of the site.

Y'all have really, really come through. Recurring contributions supporting the site are up by almost $10,000 a month and growing, erasing our current shortfall and helping move MetaFilter toward a more sustainable, independent revenue model. Community funding alone now covers very nearly half our operating budget. That's amazing.

Come on in and I'll give you the details on what's happened and what we're up to next.
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 12:00 PM on June 28, 2018 (157 comments)

So it turns out the most influential work of all of modern art (previously), "Fountain" (R. Mutt, 1917), the lowly urinal that changed how we think, isn't by Marcel Duchamp after all. The evidence is quite overwhelming: it's the work of Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven (previously) - making her the least recognised artist of her time.
posted to MetaFilter by progosk at 8:48 AM on July 3, 2018 (23 comments)

I've been painting a lot lately, exploring in particular mathematical themes and especially variations on the Menger sponge. I'm proud of the progress I've made, and have built a simple site to show off my finished work: Art by Josh Millard.

I've also been writing about art process stuff on my blog, e.g. a step-by-step document of the execution of yesterday's new painting, Five Concentric Wireframe Cubes.
posted to MetaFilter Projects by cortex at 11:14 AM on June 7, 2017 (10 comments)

I've been doing a lot of oil painting lately and a fair bit of reading about painting and painters, but haven't so far come up with much stuff that takes a really close, documentary look at artists' step-by-step working processes. Book and blog recommendations?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by cortex at 6:14 PM on May 27, 2017 (9 comments)

I was just told I got tenure, and it is in no small part thanks to all of you at MetaFilter. I joined the site in grad school, where MeFi both kept me sane and educated me on a lot of topics and perspectives that I otherwise would never have learned about. But the debt I owe you all is more direct than that: my best-cited paper actually came directly from reading a post by griphus in 2012; RAs I hired from MeFi Jobs helped me research two other critical papers; and Ask has come through for me about research and teaching many times. So thank you all, I have been a member of this great community for 13(!!) years, and, despite the ups and downs of the site over that time, I realize how lucky I am to be part of it.
posted to MetaTalk by blahblahblah at 5:28 PM on May 1, 2017 (82 comments)

Advertising service The Deck, whose ads we've long featured in several spots on MetaFilter, will be shutting down in April. As a result, we'll be removing that ad box, and exploring other ad solutions to make up the revenue. (Don't worry, MetaFilter's okay.) Here's some details.
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 1:08 PM on March 29, 2017 (53 comments)

I wish I'd written this song a week ago, but I'd never even heard the phrase until this afternoon.
posted to MeFi Music by cortex at 4:18 PM on November 4, 2008 (26 comments)

I mentioned yesterday in the post about pb moving on that we are, in turn, hiring a new tech person. We're looking both within and outside the MetaFilter membership, so please put the job listing out there! But this is also a big transition for the site, so I want to talk a bit about my, and your, expectations as we go through this process.
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 2:35 PM on April 27, 2016 (59 comments)

After nine years of fixing bugs and granting pony requests, pb is taking his leave as MetaFilter's technical wizard. Come inside and wish him well!
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 9:28 AM on April 26, 2016 (289 comments)

Last week we discussed saving drafts of posts in case of browser crashes. Today we're testing this out on MetaFilter.
posted to MetaTalk by pb at 3:57 PM on September 25, 2015 (39 comments)

Today's the launch date for The Annihilation Score, boot six in the Laundry Files. It's my big fat superhero novel. (The US launch date is Tuesday 7th, but it's available today in the UK, NZ, Australia, and the EU, from Orbit.)
posted to MetaFilter Projects by cstross at 5:06 AM on July 2, 2015 (13 comments)

Here is a collection of graphics about the evolution of user engagement (posting, commenting) on the Blue (data from the infodump, 15 June 2015).
posted to MetaTalk by elgilito at 12:31 PM on June 29, 2015 (466 comments)

It’s been a busy year on Metafilter, with some big changes over the last twelve months.  Some of the hardest changes were the result of the financial difficulties that came to a head last May with significant staffing cuts.  And the best thing to happen for the site was the tremendous outpouring of generosity from Metafilter’s members in response to that financial crisis, through voluntary funding of Metafilter.  

I want to thank all of you again for your support, and give you an update on where site finances are now, how funding has helped, and how we’re trying to make it easier to support the site in a way that works well for you—including a new alternative to PayPal.
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 9:40 AM on June 8, 2015 (220 comments)

After 16 years of doing a bit of everything under the sun here, I’m stepping away from the day to day of running MetaFilter and moving into the background. Never fear, I’m leaving it in the best of hands and things are looking good for the future.
posted to MetaTalk by mathowie at 1:03 PM on March 4, 2015 (948 comments)

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.
posted to MetaTalk by skwt at 2:52 PM on June 23, 2014 (116 comments)

Guys, I love MetaFilter.
posted to MetaTalk by skwt at 11:10 PM on January 22, 2009 (151 comments)

Today we're unveiling a new theme option for MetaFilter. Yes, it's a new design option for MetaFilter for the first time in over a decade, which we are dubbing the "Modern" theme. The new theme is strictly opt-in; no one is being forced to use it and the Classic and Plain-text themes remain as options, so your view of the site won't change unless you want it to. To try out the new theme, select it in your preferences. There is much to explain and show off in this new design and I'll do my best to describe all the thinking that went into the process below.
posted to MetaTalk by mathowie at 2:23 PM on September 24, 2014 (1252 comments)

After a couple months of fundraising and general money belt-tightening and Google up and downing, I wanted to give an update.
posted to MetaTalk by mathowie at 5:23 PM on August 5, 2014 (111 comments)

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).
posted to MetaTalk by Rock Steady at 4:01 AM on June 13, 2014 (68 comments)

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?
posted to MetaTalk by philipy at 6:21 AM on June 9, 2014 (87 comments)

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.
posted to MetaTalk by killdevil at 2:07 PM on June 1, 2014 (70 comments)

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.
posted to MetaTalk by mathowie at 3:01 PM on June 2, 2014 (321 comments)

To help reduce the strain of managing the site with fewer mods, we're going to switch on the Metatalk post queue full time starting today. More details on that within. Also: have you updated your email address in your preferences recently?
posted to MetaTalk by cortex at 11:10 AM on May 30, 2014 (234 comments)

Metafilter is laying off 3 of its staff, including long time moderator and frequent moral compass Jessamyn who is moving on to Internet Archive’s Open Library. November 2012, Metafilter experienced a sharp drop in traffic. Slate asks "Why has Google forsaken Metafilter?" But the problem is endemic of a larger issue. Google is breaking the internet.
posted to MetaFilter by [insert clever name here] at 1:59 PM on May 22, 2014 (717 comments)

Wanted to let people know that while I'll continue to be hanging around here like I've always been, I'll be taking a (small) job at the Internet Archive being the support person and the user/tech liaison for Open Library.
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 7:41 AM on May 20, 2014 (254 comments)

Today I need to share some unfortunate news: because of serious financial downturn, MetaFilter will be losing three of its moderators to layoffs at the end of this month. What that means for the site and the site’s future are described below.
posted to MetaTalk by mathowie at 9:04 AM on May 19, 2014 (1670 comments)

On the heels of the previous MeFiTV thread as well as internal discussions about how we could someday do a site around entertainment in general, we're ready to open up a small beta test of what discussions around episodic TV might look like at FanFare.
posted to MetaTalk by mathowie at 10:26 AM on April 16, 2014 (1292 comments)

Opening Day of The Guggenheim Museum, 3:34 of color film shot on October 21, 1959 in NYC. “Buildings & Crowd” captures the their excitement as lines formed down Fifth Avenue. The end of the film highlights the inaugural exhibition within the rotunda. With works by Jean Arp, Constantin Brancusi, Marc Chagall, Stuart David, Max Ernst, Paul Klee, and Vasily Kandinsky.
posted to MetaFilter by R. Mutt at 8:38 AM on October 21, 2013 (2 comments)

Is there a term or phrase for posts where most of the comments are creatively continuing the theme of the thread? I first thought about this after my Pico Horror post, and I also thought of the recent Book Titles with One Letter Missing post. The former is a case of the comments being little stories, while the latter is wordplay, like Spoonerisms and Tom Swifties. And of course there are joke threads, which are somewhere between the wordplay and story telling. What would you call these?
posted to MetaTalk by filthy light thief at 2:52 PM on August 8, 2013 (163 comments)

Congratulations, Jessamyn! There wasn't any prize, but I'm sure it's the honor of being part of a Flavorwire list that makes all that great work worthwhile.
posted to MetaTalk by Toekneesan at 11:58 AM on March 27, 2013 (67 comments)

As a compromise over the recent release of titles, we've added the ability to set your title font faces and sizes just like the body and byline fonts/size options on the preferences page.
posted to MetaTalk by mathowie at 10:00 AM on January 9, 2013 (702 comments)

It's New Mod Monday! (actually they'll filter in over the next two weeks, but anyway ...semantics!)
posted to MetaTalk by mathowie at 11:55 AM on October 1, 2012 (203 comments)

We just added the ability to edit comments for five minutes across all MetaFilter sites.
posted to MetaTalk by pb at 2:03 PM on October 1, 2012 (985 comments)

We here at MetaFilter are ever expanding and in order to provide 'round-the-clock coverage we need the services of an additional moderator on a part-time, floating basis. Ideal candidates would have years of experience using and participating on MetaFilter along with managing some aspect of a website before (moderator on other sites, community manager in forum, etc), and good grasp of basic HTML in order to fix site display issues that arise. Candidates with a flexible schedule would be ideal but we would provide at least a week's notice on schedule to make sure all work days could be hit (and more likely candidates would get several weeks notice). Candidates must also be able to work well and remain calm under pressure and respond quickly to "emerging" situations that arise on the site. By definition, you will be working independently after some guidance/training from other employees and good decision making will be an asset. Pay will be commensurate with experience, paid hourly as a freelance contractor. The position will likely average about 10-15hrs/week but could go up to cover vacations for other employees. Hours will skew towards evenings and weekends in the US timezones. International applicants are welcomed. Apply via email with an explanation of your experience, link to your user profile page, and hours/days you are available to work each week.
posted to MetaFilter Jobs by mathowie at 12:02 PM on September 18, 2012

Tell me about the history of identity. Today it's pretty easy (though not foolproof) to find out if someone was who they said they were, or to verify a communication is from who it's claimed. But what about 200-2000 years ago?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by Ookseer at 2:28 PM on September 8, 2012 (27 comments)

MetaTalk posts will be queued this weekend starting this evening and ending late Monday.
posted to MetaTalk by pb at 9:01 AM on August 31, 2012 (132 comments)

Hi MeFites! This is the discussion thread for the 2012 MetaFilter Pronunciation Survey, available for 5 days to all logged-in site users. Even if you already took the 2010 survey, it'd be valuable to have you do it again. Additionally, this time around all survey participants will have the option to have a word frequency table of their MetaFilter posting history generated and emailed to them. If you would like to take the 2012 survey, I would ask that you please do so BEFORE you read or participate in the discussion here (as well as before you view the previous MetaTalk thread about the 2010 survey). This is to help ensure that your responses to these survey questions are entirely your own decisions and are not influenced by the opinions of those participating in this thread. If you have already taken the 2012 survey or are not interested in taking the survey but would like to discuss it, please go ahead and do so here.
posted to MetaTalk by iamkimiam at 9:01 AM on August 22, 2012 (303 comments)

Life-Altering Experiences is free for the weekend in honor of MetaFilter's 13-year anniversary. The book is based on one of MetaFilter's most fascinating threads.
posted to MetaFilter Projects by philosophistry at 7:26 AM on July 13, 2012 (4 comments)

I'd like to create a website for a company I've started with some friends. I've never done this before. Can you tell me the best way to do this?
posted to Ask MetaFilter by twirlypen at 10:03 PM on July 21, 2012 (11 comments)

An odd giveaway. A New York Area MeFite writes to us "I have two tickets to see the AMC Batman triple feature on July 19 in New York City. Unfortunately, due to personal circumstances I can't go anymore, so I thought I'd give them to you guys if you want to give them away."
posted to MetaTalk by jessamyn at 7:44 AM on July 8, 2012 (59 comments)

Self-links are always forbidden. Always. Without exception. My question is: why?
posted to MetaTalk by Betelgeuse at 2:26 PM on June 17, 2012 (46 comments)

Summer is not just the time for a MetaTalk queue. It also brings June 13.
posted to MetaTalk by bardophile at 1:34 AM on June 12, 2012 (95 comments)

Summer approaches in the Northern Hemisphere, and that means it's time for camping, barbecues, and the MetaTalk queue.
posted to MetaTalk by pb at 4:14 PM on June 11, 2012 (70 comments)

I wanted to follow up on the Russian human trafficking story that unfolded here in 2010.
posted to MetaTalk by stupidsexyFlanders at 9:33 AM on June 5, 2012 (234 comments)

"when i went into cyberspace i went into it thinking that it was a place like any other place and that it would be a human interaction like any other human interaction. i was wrong when i thought that. it was a terrible mistake." Pandora's Vox: On Community in Cyberspace
posted to MetaFilter by codacorolla at 11:40 AM on May 29, 2012 (25 comments)