Refi: Metafilter in Review

June 2, 2006 7:06 AM

Refi: Metafilter in Review [via mefi projects]
posted by wheelieman (44 comments total)

Cortex, you just keep getting better and better.
posted by wheelieman at 7:06 AM on June 2, 2006

Josh Millard of Portland, Oregon perhaps you do not know this, but there is an entire world outside of your computer. All you have to do is turn it off and wait. Eventually boredom will drive you from your house and out into the bright, bright world. Please try this, you won't regret it.
posted by 517 at 7:13 AM on June 2, 2006

Bloggers. Is there anything they don't know?
posted by Mayor Curley at 7:14 AM on June 2, 2006

I hope to have my ReFi restrospective site ready to go within the week.

I was going to call it "ReReFi", but I was afraid that people would just end up posting pictures of reres with snotty comments.

I do not want to knock the rere.
posted by sonofsamiam at 7:18 AM on June 2, 2006

Meta-MetaFilter.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 7:29 AM on June 2, 2006

Or MetaFilter Filter. I don't know which.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 7:30 AM on June 2, 2006

Did you know: Metafilter, in it's first 100 posts, had not yet really begun yet?
It's true, it took awhile for things to get started.
yup.
posted by hellbient at 7:31 AM on June 2, 2006

I think that it is neat looking at how crappy Mefi was back in the day. Just a sad little geek posting about crap and getting no comments. Just like everybody does on blogger for a month before they quit. The difference between Matt and us mere mortals is that he kept at it. He is like one of those guys. You know those guys that have a dream or whatever. Then you see a montage of them trying to make the dream happen and failing. People tell them to give up, but they don't. Then one day they succeed and stuff. You know the kind of guys I am talking about? Edison or something. They should make a Lifetime movie of the week about Matt. He had a dream. Then he sucked. Then his dream came true. Yay!
posted by ND¢ at 7:35 AM on June 2, 2006 [1 favorite]

*waits for inspirational power chords*
posted by bingo at 7:42 AM on June 2, 2006

He should give each post a rating supported by snooty, schizobsessed snark, like Pitchfork.

Just kidding. Well done, cortex. Again.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 7:51 AM on June 2, 2006

Also, I have this persistent fear that when he reaches the point in his story where he's caught up with the present, Mefi will collapse onto itself and cortex will actually be telling the story of its demise *as it happens*, like A Hundred Years of Solitude.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 7:57 AM on June 2, 2006 [2 favorites]

I enjoy reading the review of the early days. Also:

ZIPPITY BOP!
posted by languagehat at 7:59 AM on June 2, 2006

I was expecting this to be smug and/or fawningly sentimental, but it's actually an enjoyable read. Well done.
posted by mkultra at 7:59 AM on June 2, 2006

Oh, thanks for spoiling A Hundred Years of Solitude. Gawsh.
posted by Rumple at 8:01 AM on June 2, 2006

Seeing as how it would be impossible for cortex to read *every* thread ever (as he indicates on the site, he plans on sampling every nth thread or so), this thread would probably a be good place to suggest particularly noteworthy threads of yore, or threads that were especially interesting in the light of Mefi's history and development.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 8:03 AM on June 2, 2006

A blog about a metablog about...oh never mind. It's a cool venture because unlike SOME of those other meta/aggregator/hipster sites that we shall not speak of by name and about which my feelings are generally well known anyway, Metafilter really does have moods and tempers that change day by day. Many other sites are just a soulless crawl of headlines.
posted by slatternus at 8:27 AM on June 2, 2006

Very cool.
posted by anotherpanacea at 8:37 AM on June 2, 2006

I absolutely adore this. Well overdue. I'm also happy to see that you haven't adopted mathowie's approach of dropping the inception.
posted by tellurian at 8:48 AM on June 2, 2006

It's stultifyingly dull so far, but I'm looking forward to the 'directed graphs of conversational branching'.
posted by jack_mo at 8:49 AM on June 2, 2006

I'm looking forward to his review of 52032.
posted by blue_beetle at 8:50 AM on June 2, 2006 [1 favorite]

There was no Golden Age where MetaFilter only linked to the "best of the web."
posted by kirkaracha at 9:26 AM on June 2, 2006

"it would be impossible for cortex to read *every* thread ever"

What? Not impossible. Just....time consuming.
posted by graventy at 9:34 AM on June 2, 2006

"That takes you back, innit?"

Am I not enough of an Anglophile or is that usage incorrect?
posted by yerfatma at 9:51 AM on June 2, 2006

Yeah, I belive the proper term is "donit"
posted by graventy at 10:03 AM on June 2, 2006

It's "dinnit", innit?
posted by Rumple at 10:10 AM on June 2, 2006

alls I can say is: I have no idea how these people got their cats wedged into their scanners, or why.
posted by jaded at 10:15 AM on June 2, 2006

Me likey much...I'm a complete sap for nostalgia, so this is right up my alley.
posted by davidmsc at 10:16 AM on June 2, 2006

Am I not enough of an Anglophile or is that usage incorrect?

Among certain categories of South Eastern chav, the word 'innit' has become the equivalent of the use of the word 'like' by American teenagers. ie, it can be used three or four times in the same sentence, in places that seem completely incongruous to those of us who learned our English at a different time and place, but within the context of that particular vernacular, it remains perfectly correct.

(By 'correct' here, I mean conforming to common popular use.)
posted by PeterMcDermott at 10:20 AM on June 2, 2006 [1 favorite]

You're not enough of an Anglophile. Innit is an independent element, like French n'est-ce pas, that is not required to agree with any verb in the sentence.
posted by languagehat at 10:30 AM on June 2, 2006

The history of MeFi is utterly incomplete without Metatalk. That's where the Cabal hung out!
posted by gsteff at 10:43 AM on June 2, 2006

meh
posted by fourcheesemac at 11:46 AM on June 2, 2006

In Australia, we would say "dunnit". were we to say something like that at all.

Also, this site (and the link) is cool. I have often gone back to the early days of MeFi just to see what it was like before I started lurking from 2000 onwards, and it seems clearly, I am not alone in my like of MeFi Classic. This just makes it easier for me to do this <>and provides a running commentary too.
posted by Effigy2000 at 1:58 PM on June 2, 2006

Definitely memorex.
posted by crunchland at 2:17 PM on June 2, 2006

Cool idea, but I think it would work better as a wiki. At very least, he should allow other contributors to help out. It could be like SETI @ home.

Or not.
posted by Afroblanco at 3:40 PM on June 2, 2006

With great humility I wish to posit a query. Is this post metafilter related?
posted by Chuckles at 3:40 PM on June 2, 2006

Good question, chuckles. I mean, is Metafilter really the best Metafilter can do?
posted by Effigy2000 at 4:36 PM on June 2, 2006

I just want to add my kudos. I expected something dry and absorbed by its meta-ness, but this was truly a treat. Well done. It's particularly amusing for someone like me with a high user number to see what the old days looked like.
posted by heresiarch at 4:45 PM on June 2, 2006

is there a wistful pop tune in any of this? & Refi seems like a pretty big undertaking--will the news still be sung?
posted by carsonb at 8:56 PM on June 2, 2006

Yeah, great, why don't you just turn that bag of holding inside out, cortex. Thanks a lot.

Crap, I can feel the delicate fabric space-time tearing beneath my seat right now.

Wait, no, that was the burrito. I mean, that was the dog. The dog did it.
posted by loquacious at 9:32 PM on June 2, 2006

There is no cabal.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 4:25 AM on June 3, 2006

Or burrito, either.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 4:26 AM on June 3, 2006

Or dog.
posted by loquacious at 5:28 AM on June 3, 2006

It's always more suspicious when sub-10k'ers make that claim.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 9:14 AM on June 3, 2006

Oh. Hey. Wow. Thanks wheelieman. I feel like I've missed my own party, here.

You want to be a contributor? Let me know!
posted by cortex at 5:13 PM on June 3, 2006