save mefi btw @ start of the fundraiser it was like a matter of weeks

November 5, 2022 7:49 PM

"I already had a recurring payment to metafilter, so when I saw the casual banner note about fundraising, I initially ignored it. As others have suggested, making the situation more obvious/dire might attract more attention. I've since sent a one-time payment and upped my monthly payment. I'm not saying this to brag, but to stress that it nearly didn't happen due to me initially not realizing the severity of the problem." Anyway I figured that's fixable, so now you know!

FUNDRAISING
* Metafilter Wants You - The Fundraising Post! (most favorited of the comments are these comments right here)
* Metafilter Wants You - Fundraiser Week 1 update!
* What is MetaFilter worth to you?

THE NUMBERS
* MetaFilter Financial Update, November 2022 (most favorited comments)

FUNDRAISING MONTH
* MeFi Posts for "Sale" - Get a post from jessamyn, Rhaomi, Eyebrows Mcgee. Starting at $25. #sponsoredpost2022
* Advertising a text based website in 2023
* AskMe Black Friday Fundraiser

RELATED
* After the Fire – Metafilter Should Consider Replacing Itself
* Mefi Mastodon server?

UNRELATED but i like pie
* Metatalktail Hour: Life of Pie - What's the last pie you made or ate? Tell me pie things, because I love pie.

PREVIOUSLY
* blue
* green

posted by aniola (74 comments total)

donate button

how to send a check through the mail for freeee not even a stamp if you have a US bank/credit union

PS I ♥ that metafilter is working hard to keep it accessible for everyone at every income level.
posted by aniola at 7:56 PM on November 5, 2022 [17 favorites]

Thanks for the post, aniola. The quote above the fold described me as well and I've adjusted accordingly.
posted by Ickster at 8:10 PM on November 5, 2022 [7 favorites]

Thanks for this!
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 8:11 PM on November 5, 2022 [2 favorites]

Unrelated, but as I was looking in my email for any payments to MF, I found an old email I sent to someone about a thread where someone wanted to know what a crunchwrap was. I'm still laughing over the answer.
posted by Ickster at 8:13 PM on November 5, 2022 [9 favorites]

Thanks for reminding us to check our recurring payments! I just bumped mine up.
posted by montag2k at 8:24 PM on November 5, 2022 [9 favorites]

Added a recurring donation. Thanks for the reminder!
posted by Arbac at 8:33 PM on November 5, 2022 [8 favorites]

Thank you for letting us know. I've started a subscription.
posted by honest knave at 9:44 PM on November 5, 2022 [9 favorites]

Yep, I too failed to realize the situation. Action taken! Thanks aniola!
posted by kaibutsu at 10:37 PM on November 5, 2022 [11 favorites]

Donated! Thanks for the reminder I’m not as active here as I once was but I read daily. I’d miss this terribly if it went away
posted by device55 at 1:10 AM on November 6, 2022 [8 favorites]

I also did not realize the situation, and have upped my subscription. Thank you for the reminder.
posted by solarion at 2:09 AM on November 6, 2022 [10 favorites]

I don’t know what I expected to see but the numbers shocked me. I've been a passive MeFi reader for at least 15 years, maybe closer to 20... Have finally signed up for an account and a monthly donation.

For what it's worth, as a casual browser/lurker, I had absolutely no idea of the financial situation. There's nothing wrong with employing Jimmy Wales-style "we won't go broke if one in 10 visitors donates $3..."* banners in this situation.

*I have no idea how many people visit this website.
posted by camphor at 3:06 AM on November 6, 2022 [29 favorites]

It was so easy to bump up my recurring stripe contribution on the "how to donate" page - you don't have to remember any login info or even leave the site. Onwards and upwards!
posted by kinsey at 3:17 AM on November 6, 2022 [8 favorites]

Seconding camphor, even if only temporarily, a top of page banner ad (in mefi minimalist style) might be useful. I'm also a casual user and I have seen posts in the past about the financial situation but didn't realize the scale and now signed up to contribute monthly.
posted by unid41 at 4:16 AM on November 6, 2022 [9 favorites]

Just signed up for a monthly donation for the first time. Probably should have a while ago, but glad for this post to give me the kick in the butt I needed. With all other social media basically being a capitalist dumpster fire lately, having a community-funded and moderated site like this is invaluable.
posted by mrjohnmuller at 4:17 AM on November 6, 2022 [18 favorites]

well i have lurked on this site for (checks watch)... two decades now? guess it's probably time to a) create an account and b) set up a monthly donation
posted by dogfilter at 4:55 AM on November 6, 2022 [25 favorites]

Another mostly-lurking subscriber here who's been prompted by this post and the previous commenters above who've bumped up their subscription to do likewise
posted by sarble at 5:06 AM on November 6, 2022 [10 favorites]

Thanks to this post, I increased my monthly contribution!
posted by heteronym at 5:32 AM on November 6, 2022 [9 favorites]

We (under_petticoat_rule and I) upped our monthly donation, but we made an additional one-time donation due to this post.

This is a really silly thing, but I wanted to ask in case someone could help us sort it out!

We donate from our joint finances - but the donation only gets credited to me. Is there any way for under_petticoat_rule to also get the "I Fund Metafilter" badge? We could split our donations between us so that we were both donating, but then the fees would be applied to each donation and it would decrease what Metafilter is receiving. That's why we decided to do it as a joint donation.
posted by rednikki at 5:37 AM on November 6, 2022 [7 favorites]

But wait, there's more! MetaFilter swag is available at:

TopatoCo
TeePublic
NeatoShop (can confirm their curvy t-shirts are very soft and high quality!)

And here's a roundup of new swag available, courtesy of Steering Committee member bendy.

I joined in 2014 after lurking for a dozen-ish years, and just bumped up my monthly contribution and made a one-time donation. I haven't posted much recently, mostly due to tired brain, but this site is such an important part of my life that I have no idea what I would do with myself if it went away. (Probably would have to clean my house or something dumb like that. Please help save me from that awful fate!)

Thank you for this post, aniola!
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 5:50 AM on November 6, 2022 [12 favorites]

Signed up for the monthly donation based on a conversation I saw in the grey a few weeks ago. It’s hard to quantify how much impact this site has on my daily life but I think it’s pretty huge and I’m probably underestimating.
posted by victoriab at 5:59 AM on November 6, 2022 [8 favorites]

This post lead directly to me setting up a subscription. Thank you for this site, I've been lurking/a member for more than 15 years now.
posted by jordantwodelta at 6:15 AM on November 6, 2022 [9 favorites]

Thanks for this post on the blue, though I'm a long-time active member I don't go over to MetaTalk much. Like most, I've seen the banners but didn't realize how urgent the financial situation is. I've just increased my monthly contribution, and am happy to do so--I spend more time and attention here than I do on several streaming apps I pay for each month, so I really might as well put my spending dollars toward things that are important to me.

To all: I think this site is one of the most-worth-paying-for places on the internet, so please set up a monthly donation if you can!
posted by LooseFilter at 6:28 AM on November 6, 2022 [16 favorites]

I've left most social media sites. Twitter last month, and FB just yesterday. MF is the kind of place I can participate in without feeling like I'm bathing in poison. That's worth paying for.

PayPal's mobile site doesn't let you edit monthly payments. When I get to a desktop I'll bump my monthly. It's more than worth it.
posted by 1adam12 at 6:42 AM on November 6, 2022 [14 favorites]

Likewise also didn't realize the direness of the situation (because I don't read the grey as much as I should). Added to my monthly donation.
posted by daisystomper at 6:47 AM on November 6, 2022 [8 favorites]

I had made my yearly one time donation but upon reflection on this post I have started a monthly donation. I would really miss this site if it went down!
posted by waving at 7:03 AM on November 6, 2022 [7 favorites]

I had a recurring donation set up, but I just increased it. I spend more time here than I do on Hulu, and I can honestly say my life is much more enriched by my time on MeFi than it is by my time spent on Hulu, so the very least I could do was match my monthly subscription rate.

It wasn't until I really thought about it that I realized I was sort of automatically placing a higher value on my Hulu subscription because... I dunno, I've been successfully programmed to think that way?
posted by xedrik at 7:04 AM on November 6, 2022 [11 favorites]

BTW, it turns out that there is no way to change the amount of a recurring donation on PayPal. It's an issue that users have been complaining about for several years with no resolution. The solution is to cancel the old subscription and add a new one for the higher amount. Done!
posted by 1adam12 at 7:36 AM on November 6, 2022 [16 favorites]

Thank you very much for this post, aniola. I had been meaning to increase my contribution but could not find a way to do that through PayPal’s interface. Given the testimonial above that Stripe makes this easy, I elected to stop my PayPal contribution and replace it with a larger one through Stripe.
posted by eirias at 7:44 AM on November 6, 2022 [8 favorites]

This same post should be on AskMe - I think a lot of people go straight there and no where else on the site.
posted by tiny frying pan at 7:45 AM on November 6, 2022 [10 favorites]

Will add another payment to the one I just did.
posted by aleph at 8:14 AM on November 6, 2022 [5 favorites]

as requested, it's on ask now
posted by aniola at 8:30 AM on November 6, 2022 [5 favorites]

This same post should be on AskMe - I think a lot of people go straight there and no where else on the site.

I just did that!
posted by NotLost at 8:30 AM on November 6, 2022 [6 favorites]

Nthing the value of this post as another monthly contributor who even intended to review the financials and didn't.
posted by cacophony at 8:39 AM on November 6, 2022 [6 favorites]

Thank you! I too never read the grey and didn't realize things were so bad. I'll go check my paypal payments today!
posted by quiet wanderer at 8:49 AM on November 6, 2022 [4 favorites]

We donate from our joint finances - but the donation only gets credited to me. Is there any way for under_petticoat_rule to also get the "I Fund Metafilter" badge?

Three options that I can think of of:

1. Switch your monthly donation just for one month to under_petticoat_rule's name (and they'll always have the option for the star)
2. Pay by billpay and put both your usernames in the memo field
3. Ask a mod, they're paid to help with this sort of thing
posted by aniola at 8:54 AM on November 6, 2022 [5 favorites]

Thanks aniola for making this and the post on the green! It's great how it's reaching people we'd not managed to cut through to before - I'm really hopeful that with this push we'll get over the line and give Metafilter a bit of breathing room so we can collectively work making this site sustainable.

We've got a couple of things going on, which I'd like to flag as they're really fun activities (and help raise funds for Metafilter).

First, sponsored posts by jessamyn, Eyebrows McGee and Rhaomi are your chance to get amazing posts on the front page in return for a small donation.

Second, a little team of volunteers is crowdsourcing suggestions for gifts from AskMetafilter that they'll use to compile a holiday gift guide, with affiliate links so Mefites can shop and add to Metafilter's coffers without actually having to pay any extra. So if bumping up your subscription is not an option in these admittedly tough times, do take a look as it's a cost-free way of contributing.

And finally, the Metafilter Auction will be live soon! We've got amazing items at all price points from an embroidery of that poem about eating the plums in the fridge to commissioned poetry to beautiful art and photography, all contributed by Mefites. Keep an eye out for that!

(tavegyl from the Steering Committee)
posted by tavegyl at 9:07 AM on November 6, 2022 [12 favorites]

I believe in your "edit profile" preferences, you can click or unclick a box which says "Display Funding Message"" or whatever - fairly sure that isn't actually verified against a list of donors. Similarly, if you do fund and don't want the message, you can uncheck it.

(in response to aniola, above)
posted by Rumple at 9:08 AM on November 6, 2022 [5 favorites]

Argh, this was news to me! I just donated, and going forward will look into recurring donations. I really want to see this space continue to be available.
posted by The Vice Admiral of the Narrow Seas at 9:17 AM on November 6, 2022 [5 favorites]

I just donated. I didn't know the situation either.
posted by Calzephyr at 9:20 AM on November 6, 2022 [6 favorites]

This may be an impractical solution due to mefi being a cross jurisdictional platform, but what about a regular 50/50 lottery?

Here in Nova Scotia, the local fire departments do it every week through some third party site called rafflebox, and it raises pretty significant amounts.
posted by mrjohnmuller at 10:05 AM on November 6, 2022 [4 favorites]

Re-instated my monthly donation, and bought a new t-shirt.
posted by suelac at 10:18 AM on November 6, 2022 [5 favorites]

Thanks for making this post. I've made a one off payment and will look to increase my regular contribution also.
I do appreciate all the work the committee have been doing to analyse the finances and look at a way forward.

There's nothing wrong with employing Jimmy Wales-style "we won't go broke if one in 10 visitors donates $3..."* banners in this situation.

I agree with the notion that the funding situation of the site needs to be more urgently waved in people's faces. I do appreciate that all of us have different financial situations - but some kind of idea of "this is what we might expect people to give per month/year" might be useful. I appreciate that the committee is also looking at funding sources other than just subscription so as to give more resilience.
posted by rongorongo at 11:04 AM on November 6, 2022 [8 favorites]

Count me in as another who hasn't been reading the gray very frequently and totally missed the green badge at the top. Thanks for this post. (And, it gave me impetus to cancel the PayPal subscription and start up a stripe one instead. I don't much like PayPal. And the fact that you can't change the amount of a recurring contribution on PayPal is weird.)

(Maybe make the green stripe at the top red? with more anxious wording?)
posted by leahwrenn at 11:39 AM on November 6, 2022 [9 favorites]

Paypal recurrent upping is done by choosing a new amount on the MeFi funding page, that gets it registered/updated with Paypal itself - easypeasy.
posted by progosk at 11:55 AM on November 6, 2022 [6 favorites]

If you look at the numbers, for the $7,000 'survive' goal each 'currently active' member would have to give at least $1.50 month (because I think there were 5,000 active members at last count). But that's not including the paypal / stripe fees so actually $2 a month is probably more accurate...

(I'm not on the steering committee, I'm not an accountant.)

I think the number of people who check this site without logging in is much much higher though, and I do think the web as a whole will become a worse place if metafilter goes down. Kind of a google reader situation where a (relatively) small number of people are using the service but those people end up having a bigger impact than the numbers suggest.

In the long run $2 a month from every active user for a completely free service is a very ambitous goal, and metafilter either has to cut costs or bring more (paying) people in or both probably.
posted by subdee at 11:56 AM on November 6, 2022 [2 favorites]

Direct all Twitter diaspora you know to Metafilter, so that they can see what good moderation looks like. Maybe they will like it.
posted by asok at 2:11 PM on November 6, 2022 [5 favorites]

I've tripled my donation amount and am happy to do it.

I do hope the steering committee is considering how to bring in new lifeblood. To me, the google ad-pocalypse was not a disaster primarily because it reduced funding; it was a disaster because the stream of readers that used to find MeFi via search and eventually joined the site is gone. Numbers have been dwindling.

It's natural for individual subscribers' interaction with MeFi to ebb and flow over time, but without a source of new users, the entire site is doomed. It's just a matter of time, and it feels like that time may be very soon indeed given the low number of regular users, comments, and donations that are stretched thin almost to breaking.
posted by zug at 2:43 PM on November 6, 2022 [4 favorites]

Thanks for making this post. I appreciate Metafilter not wanting to be obtrusive about fundraising but I probably would not have seen any of the info about how severe the funding situation is if you hadn’t made it. And I’m here pretty often! I’m just on my phone so the banners are small and I only read MeTa when I’m really in the mood for it.
posted by atoxyl at 2:55 PM on November 6, 2022 [4 favorites]

I am, to be honest, pretty pessimistic, because I don’t see a lot of people offering convincing solutions to the real problem, which is of course the declining userbase. But I think the new leadership crew and structure deserves a shot at making it work, and the idea of treating the Twitter turmoil as a recruiting opportunity is one of the stronger ideas I’ve seen in a while.
posted by atoxyl at 3:01 PM on November 6, 2022 [7 favorites]

This same post should be on AskMe - I think a lot of people go straight there and no where else on the site.

I was contemplating posting a sensational Dorothy Dixer question like "Is Metafilter going to close down?", but thought it might not be in the spirit of the website.
posted by camphor at 3:25 PM on November 6, 2022

I suppose the tryuly cynical approach would be to buy ads on Twitter. :)

"Has your favorite social network been taken over by a giant twit? Try swinging by one of the internet's oldest and best run text-based establishments..."
posted by kaibutsu at 3:37 PM on November 6, 2022 [12 favorites]

I was wondering about a little three-line ad in, say, the LRB, LARB, NYRB… it’s like a letters column all the time.

That could use some tuning up, but find the text based where they’re likely to be, you know?
posted by clew at 4:03 PM on November 6, 2022 [8 favorites]

Thanks for this post, aniola. I hadn't realized how dire the situation was. Just signed up for a monthly donation.
posted by mydonkeybenjamin at 4:32 PM on November 6, 2022 [5 favorites]

Donation made. Thanks for this post!
posted by ThatCanadianGirl at 4:41 PM on November 6, 2022 [5 favorites]

Nthing the gratitude for making this an FPP. I totally would have missed that things had gone critical if not for this, as I rarely visit MetaTalk nowadays.

I've doubled my monthly contribution and will send positive vibes as well.
posted by lord_wolf at 5:07 PM on November 6, 2022 [5 favorites]

How much should I donate? I don't have any idea about what is reasonable. Would appreciate any guidance.
posted by halehale at 6:47 PM on November 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

Chiming in to say I’ve started a subscription. If I can pay for Apple Music, Netflix, Amazon prime, etc etc etc I can certainly chip in to pay for MetaFilter. Enormously valuable site and community to me.
posted by ZakDaddy at 7:20 PM on November 6, 2022 [4 favorites]

halehale, whatever you can afford. If you’re secretly Jeff Bezos, $10 million a month would be good; if you’re not, possibly something less than that. :)

More seriously, I just did the math and decided how much it was worth to me on an annualized basis, vs the other services and sites I pay for.
posted by ZakDaddy at 7:23 PM on November 6, 2022 [3 favorites]

I've doubled my monthly donation, which paypal says I started in 2014, and switched to Stripe, as I imagine it has lower fees. I've been a lurker for a few years prior to joining in 2005. The amount of joy, infotainment, insight, news, and new ideas that MeFi exposes me to is immeasurably valuable. Thanks to the moderators for keeping all the negative ideas, and crazy world views out of my mental space. Thanks to all the posters an commenters for your wit and whimsy.
posted by ecco at 7:42 PM on November 6, 2022 [6 favorites]

I wonder what it would cost to get a very brief MeFi preroll ad onto Ologies. Or other similar podcasts, but I think Ologies is independent of iHeart or a larger production company.
posted by snuffleupagus at 8:31 PM on November 6, 2022 [1 favorite]

How much should I donate? I don't have any idea about what is reasonable. Would appreciate any guidance.

I have not scrutinized the budget or the metafilter population numbers and I have no idea if this would mean sustainability or not. This is my assessment of what I think people with an average metafilter income think is reasonable:

ONE-TIME DONATION
I'm guessing $50 would be appropriate. It is the middle rate to buy a post in the "posts for sale" fundraiser.

If you want to donate $1-5/month by card, consider making an annual donation instead. It is common for payment processors to take a minimum $0.35 cut. Someone donated a single dollar to an org I help organize which is awesome, and we saw $0.60 of that dollar. Whereas we probably see like $9 out of a $10 donation. If you mail a check to metafilter, metafilter will probably receive 100% of that money.

RECURRING
As a percent of your income, in the US it's considered standard to set aside 0-30% for donating to the things you think are important. Presumably you think other things are important, too. So you might have to compare/contrast metafilter against those other things you think are important. I think that percentage should probably vary based on how much income you have. At the extreme ends, you have people who don't donate to anything, and people who work hard to keep their personal spending as low as possible so that they can donate as much money as possible.

As a service, people have been comparing metafilter to their online TV subscriptions. A quick search indicates that's probably like $5-20/month. Some people have been talking about raising their subscription. I suspect $50/month would be on the high end of average for what they're seeing. As far as I can tell, nobody has taken Rhaomi up on the offer for a megapost for sale $100 in new recurring donations.

As a donation, you can go visit your a huge nonprofit's website and see what they suggest. Or check your junk mail if you get junk mail from nonprofits. The default monthly donation amount on the Environmental Defense Fund page is $15/month. GiveDirectly says " Lift one person above poverty by donating $35/mo".

Short answer: My guess is that for most people starting their recurring donations to metafilter from scratch, this answer will be $10-30/month.
posted by aniola at 9:16 PM on November 6, 2022 [3 favorites]

The Metafilter auction is live! Take a look, place a bid, and please publicise to your circles, on Metafilter and outside. There are some amazing items and services available contributed by Mefites to help this site. Metatalk post here.
posted by tavegyl at 10:40 PM on November 6, 2022 [3 favorites]

Thanks for this post.

Every website I visit and every single video, post, and article I view online is full of 'support us! join our patreon! check out our soundcloud!' messaging. I'm sure I'm not the only one who filters (ha) it all out.

I admire that Metafilter has always been about going high when others go low, but respectfully, when the site is in this much immediate danger, it needs to be communicating that in an appropriately urgent way. Tiny text along the top of the page just fades into the background (especially when it's usually announcing a gift swap or whatever). Pop ups, mass MeMails, if the site is a month away from bankruptcy shouldn't this be SHOUTED from the rooftops?
posted by Glier's Goetta at 1:27 AM on November 7, 2022 [10 favorites]

I was looking at the auction and thinking I would pay for photographs of MetaFilter's cats. Then I realised MeFites already supply these so I donated in retrospective payment.
posted by paduasoy at 1:54 AM on November 7, 2022 [4 favorites]

Echoing the shock at finding out how close to the edge the site is/was - as a heavy lurker and semi-regular commenter I wasn't aware.

Subscription re-upped.
posted by Molesome at 8:19 AM on November 7, 2022 [4 favorites]

ok doubled from $10/mo to $20/mo
posted by youthenrage at 12:41 PM on November 7, 2022 [4 favorites]

Added another one-time contribution earlier today. Leaving my monthly subscription in place, of course.
posted by kingless at 2:17 PM on November 7, 2022 [3 favorites]

Thanks aniola - I was in the same position prior to seeing this, a regular contributor who didn't realise how dire the situation was. Have cancelled my monthly PayPal donation and doubled it for a new monthly Stripe donation.

Money makes MeFi go around, MeFi go around, MeFi go around!
posted by andraste at 3:18 PM on November 7, 2022 [3 favorites]

Another one joining in to say I've set up a recurring donation because of this post.
posted by peppermind at 3:38 PM on November 7, 2022 [3 favorites]

Mods should probably edit the post to add the link to the auction at the top, no? Or put a banner at the top of the site etc linking there? If the auction is ending Nov 13th that's not a lot of time to advertise...
posted by subdee at 4:41 PM on November 7, 2022

the radio station runs annual fund drives and the proclamation of new donors always seems to stimulate activity.

for what it's worth, if you're reading this and you have not committed, then take my example and don't put it off another moment. 2nd one-time donation, I do the math and work it like a subscription and a one-time payment I do every 2-3 years, which is cheating. but also not nothing. whatever you give, it's not nothing, and this place is worth a lot.
posted by elkevelvet at 7:24 AM on November 8, 2022 [2 favorites]

Thank you so much for this post. I discovered when I went to bump up my donation that my payment had failed a while back without me noticing, so I'm very glad I checked! I've doubled my previous donation level, as well as sending a lump sum for the ones I missed. I'm so grateful this site exists; the only other subscription I have that comes even close in terms of value for my money is music streaming.

I hope we're able to weather this crisis and find a sustainable path forward.
posted by duien at 5:16 PM on November 8, 2022 [5 favorites]

I discovered when I went to bump up my donation that my payment had failed a while back without me noticing, so I'm very glad I checked!
Is it possible, technically, to tell the difference between a subscriber payment which has been cancelled - from one which has stopped working? If so then some kind of mechanism for emailing the person involved to let them know - might be worthwhile I know that all of us have credit cards which expire, bank accounts which move, addresses which change and so on - and it is easy to overlook the need to update the details unless prompted.
posted by rongorongo at 2:59 AM on November 9, 2022 [2 favorites]

Stripe sent me a couple emails about it, which I found when I went looking, but I missed them at the time. It definitely didn’t happen silently, just got lost in the shuffle.
posted by duien at 12:44 PM on November 10, 2022 [1 favorite]