MetaFilter

Metafilter Wants You - The Fundraising Post!

I'm going to contribute, actually. Because I don't want to see the site go away. But I am really upset at the circumstances it currently finds itself in.

I don't want to drag any prior management here. Whether 12 people turns out t be too much or not, it has become evident that running the site now should be more than a one person operation. cortex was severely pushed for time and energy, and I hope his retirement from ownership is allowing him to… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by JHarris at 9:47 PM on October 24, 2022

BTW, on how difficult it is to fund and maintain a site like MeFi, I would offer the old example of Plastic.com. ("The Metafilter it's okay to hate," that's a Wayback link from 2010 BTW.)

Plastic was a sister site to early web breakout hit Suck.com [Wayback link, Suck is currently down, perhaps forever]. It was a full discussion board, a prominent early example of a forum-style place on the Web, and was run by Carl Steadman, who was one of the co-founders of… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by JHarris at 11:52 AM on October 25, 2022

(I'm old enough to remember when all this web stuff was the new hotness. The internet was so much more hopeful back then!)
posted to MetaTalk by JHarris at 11:57 AM on October 25, 2022

I raised the question of doing our own ads, and even got a member who volunteered to make a toy version as a feasibility experiment, but I haven't heard back from them yet.
posted to MetaTalk by JHarris at 1:58 PM on October 25, 2022

To hippybear, about ads, I don't think ads will save the site by themselves, that time of the internet may well have passed. But, ads could still help to reach Revive or Thrive levels, and further the idea I pitched was for something aimed at members who wanted to tell the world of their things without self-linking, that would also be open to others, and maybe syndicated to other sites who wanted in as well. But, from-members, to-members, for the most part. That way the site… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by JHarris at 11:13 PM on October 25, 2022

And for the love of all that is mighty, please let me pay $5 to send a pixelated birthday hat icon to another site member. Or other random stupid icons. I would pay about $20-$30 for a year's right to be able to add a tiny potato next to my username. I paid for LJ/Dreamwidth because they had icons and I needed to be able to have many stupid icons.

Steering Committee JHarris here. I've been doing pixel art for awhile now, and would love to make icons like this.
posted to MetaTalk by JHarris at 3:37 PM on October 26, 2022

I have wondered what the difficulty level would be to reimplement Metafilter's software in Python with some suitable framework. I'm sure that would make poor frimble's hair catch on fire though.
posted to MetaTalk by JHarris at 12:22 AM on October 27, 2022

Steering Committee Check-In: October 2022

To follow up on adrianhon's comment about ads, from above, although really most of this was written before I spotted it:

I have been doing some musing. Note, this is ONLY MUSING, like the threading thing a month ago: I'm more floating it to see what objections and advantages people put up more than seriously suggesting it right now, both to see about the idea's viability and to help advance the discussion around this flavor of… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by JHarris at 12:49 AM on October 6, 2022

That's a very good thought, h00py! I feel like the excesses of social media and corporate influence are causing people to slowly coming back around to considering older means of working with the internet. Not just blogs but Usenet, IRC, and other things like that.

The forward-thinking open source space has been colonized, it seems, by crypto-loonies. These days it feels like your main choices are the Facebook & Google monoliths (when Google can be arsed to keep a… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by JHarris at 11:07 AM on October 7, 2022

The first members of the Metafilter Steering Committee

(six months later, everything is on fire)

"Aaah, I shouldn't have made comment threads out of elemental hydrogen!"
posted to MetaTalk by JHarris at 3:12 PM on August 29, 2022

Emojis on Metafilter?

I personally never use emojis. I think they're juvenile, a crutch for those who are afraid they can't express their thoughts adequately in writing.

This is why I never used emoticons, or even old internet acronyms like LOL. Now I'm 49, and I'm seeing that I was pretty stupid to avoid those things for so long. No one cares, and they're fun. I still probably won't use them because I'm not used to it, but there's not a real reason to avoid them.
posted to MetaTalk by JHarris at 11:48 PM on August 23, 2022

Re: biffa, I've wrestled with unicode characters before, and discovered, at least back in 2011, that web browsers would do weird things when confronted with characters not in the current font. Some would, at times, pick a different font and steal characters from them to display. Chrome, at that time, was reluctant to do that.

When I encounter a missing character on a website, what I do is open a command prompt window, start up the Python immediate mode interpreter (a… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by JHarris at 12:28 PM on August 26, 2022

When I installed Catrinity, a font that tries to supply a lot of characters, one of the missing glyphs in aspersioncast's comment appeared, the equal sign. Now on my screen only the Beans emoji is now showing up.
posted to MetaTalk by JHarris at 12:31 PM on August 26, 2022

Is not showing up, argh.
posted to MetaTalk by JHarris at 12:36 PM on August 26, 2022

MetaFilter Steering Committee Voting

Well I suppose I should introduce myself. I'm JHarris, I've been around since 2005. I nominated myself because a friend suggested it, but gosh there's a lot of qualified people on the ballot. I make posts from time to time and run MST Club, but it's been a long since since I had any community management experience, back in an old old virtual world called WorldsAway as volunteer staff.

There are so many great people volunteering that if I'm not picked I have no qualms at… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by JHarris at 5:42 PM on August 15, 2022

That having been said, my own understanding is that Metafilter began to see a demonstrable shift downward when Google altered its algorithm and that affected site traffic downward.

Also the collapse of the web ad market didn't do the site any favors. But yeah, with Google, I've been thinking more and more lately that too much power has been ceded to Google Search. It doesn't even provide all that great results any more, many technical searches will be… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by JHarris at 11:44 PM on August 15, 2022

Since some of the discussion here has gone towards things the site could do to improve, am I in the minority in appreciating so much the Note: Everyone needs a hug. reminder on the MetaTalk reply box? I love its brief but effective appeal to humanity. Maybe more of that?

I voted! Where's my screaming radioactive rainbow monstrosity sticker?

Here ya go!
posted to MetaTalk by JHarris at 12:11 PM on August 16, 2022

One thing I think might help is some breaking up of the front page and comment pages? Nothing gigantic, but maye include a bit of visual interest? I'm not necessarily arguing for the return of the img tag, but I find the plain wall of text look is a little imposing sometimes? Maybe allow a post to contain a thumbnail image, or maybe some stock iconography for within comments?
posted to MetaTalk by JHarris at 7:47 PM on August 16, 2022

I think if we shift the site culture, we have to focus on rewarding when people acknowledge other people's humanity.

This is good. However, it should also be realized that there are disingenuous actors all over the place, and in fact in the old days MeFi had their fair number of them. Recently I revisited the whole "plannedchaos" business, where Scott Adams tried to promote himself on the site with a sock puppet. This kind of thing happens a… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by JHarris at 9:28 PM on August 16, 2022

If I might offer some points in favor of threading? I feel like these are obvious, but since no one is arguing in their favor it feels like threading's advantages may still be overlooked.
- One, it is the standard everywhere else on the internet. People have come to expect board-style discussions to have threading. I can't think of a single other discussion site now that doesn't have it. Not having threading may well dissuade new members because of it.
- Two, it keeps… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by JHarris at 6:06 PM on August 21, 2022

Maybe what we should do is do a poll of site change ideas like threads and front page images and such features and get general opinions on them? I will note that it's harder to just disable comment threads as a per-user thing.

I'm not attached to the idea, but I've noted how they work over at the MST Discourse forum (not a MST Club thing; this is something the show's been doing), which is kind of a mixture of traditional threads and MeFi's approach. People can reply to a… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by JHarris at 12:54 PM on August 22, 2022

Also, in the spirit of spitballing ideas, maybe it would be good to go to a new codebase, something that others have made and maintain, rather than sticking with the bespoke ColdFusion solution? That would be a huge change and a lot of work, especially if we wanted to keep the site's archives (which contain a vast amount of web history that I would be loathe to lose), but once changed over, it could be easier to maintain? Frimble or tech folk want to chime in on this?
posted to MetaTalk by JHarris at 1:00 PM on August 22, 2022

(I'm sure this has been suggested and discussed behind the scenes, or maybe even here on Talk, before, but it might be useful to go over it again and see if things have changed and get current opinions. No toes are intended to be stepped on here. Not that ever I want to step on any toes, that hurts.)
posted to MetaTalk by JHarris at 1:11 PM on August 22, 2022

I see. To dg specifically, how would you feel about the Discourse-style comment replies then? They show up as part of the long scroll, but also have links for quickly referring between a comment and replies to it?
posted to MetaTalk by JHarris at 3:33 PM on August 22, 2022

2) This was the hardest election I've been asked to vote in. By far. The closest thing we have to an (R) by somebody'e name is whether they want threaded comments ;-)

I feel like I should emphasize that I'm not sure that I want threaded comments, but I think we need to consider options that might lower the barrier of entry to new users.
posted to MetaTalk by JHarris at 6:10 PM on August 22, 2022

Ah, yet another person much more qualified to be on the committee than I am. I sometimes wonder if I had been born and raised in L.A. instead of Brunswick, GA, if I would have had a Real Career instead of whatever it is I've had.
posted to MetaTalk by JHarris at 7:35 PM on August 22, 2022

I think I might be able to offer something, but there's a lot of other great names on the list, much better than compared to me I'd think. If you go by posting quality alone Rhaomi would be perfect.
posted to MetaTalk by JHarris at 10:31 PM on August 22, 2022

I am feeling that I once again must emphasize that I was not demanding that threading happen, or know if it's a good idea,or even if it's possible to implement it here, because there could be any number of technical barriers, plus we only have limited development resources. I am really anxious that now people seem to think of me as that threading person.

But I am willing to take a reputation hit over this, for I do strongly feel that we need to keep discussing new ideas,… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by JHarris at 10:10 PM on August 24, 2022

MetaFilter Usage Statistics

If Metafilter went to subscription only then I likely would not be able to participate. I can understand that the site needs revenue but I have extremely low income and have to watch every outlay.
posted to MetaTalk by JHarris at 3:24 PM on August 20, 2022

Thanks for the reassurance jessamyn. I'm sorry for chiming in with that, but whenever I hear about something I like deciding to go subscription a twinge of fear goes through me. I expected to be financially solvent years and years ago, but it never happened.
posted to MetaTalk by JHarris at 12:51 AM on August 23, 2022

Another video game roundup thread!

Angband, Shiren for Switch, Clubhouse Games (in order to play Spider Solitaire), Animal Crossing New Horizons (still after two years), Vs. Castlevania (the arcade version), Pepper II, Pac-Man CE (NES demake), NYT Crosswords.
posted to MetaTalk by JHarris at 10:42 AM on August 10, 2022

If you ever need NetHack advice let me know.
posted to MetaTalk by JHarris at 8:41 PM on August 11, 2022

Yes! Simon Tatham's Puzzle Collection is great, and in fact long ago I made a FPP on it.
posted to MetaTalk by JHarris at 9:49 PM on August 12, 2022

So, about NetHack advice--
- It is infamously a game that requires almost what amounts to a graduate degree in its lore to succeed at. If you don't look things up in the wiki you'll probably be at it for a long while.
- The thing that's most useful to a new player is prayer. Alt-P. If you're low on HP (less than 1/7th max), are weak from hunger, or are suffering from any of a number of ailments, prayer will usually get you out of it. The only limitations on this in the… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by JHarris at 5:11 PM on August 14, 2022

Yeah, I got the sentence flipped--you shouldn't eat corpses that are _older_ than 50 turns. Sigh.
posted to MetaTalk by JHarris at 12:01 PM on August 15, 2022

Also--you shouldn't eat domesticated pet corpses, it can bestow the Aggravate Monster intrinsic.
posted to MetaTalk by JHarris at 12:02 PM on August 15, 2022

The Steven Universe RPGs made by Grumpyface are much better than the standard licensed game. Their stories are considered canonical, and the characters have the voice acting and personality of the characters from the show, but the battle system is really good besides. And even though Steven Universe Future ended like two-and-a-half years ago now, the third of these, Unleash the Light, just received a major update with a new playable character and a new randomized challenge mode.… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by JHarris at 12:34 AM on August 17, 2022

Video game roundup thread!

Wow, this thread is long.
I have a fancy game blog now (I think it's pretty good!) so I often play things for it. The thing I'm playing now is classic-age roguelike Omega, and I'm having rather a lot of fun with it. A nice thing about classic roguelikes is that each reinvents the wheel with so many game systems, so they're all really different, but also the same.

I still check in with my Animal Crossing island every single day. Me and friends do the NYT… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by JHarris at 12:17 PM on June 8, 2022

If your only prior experience was playing on the console with CRT, it's possible your difficulty is coming from the slight lag that flat screens introduce to the action. It makes all games slightly, and some games like Punch-Out!! much, harder.
posted to MetaTalk by JHarris at 2:57 AM on June 14, 2022

Game mode is better but it is not perfect, very many TVs and monitors introduce lag intrinsically.
posted to MetaTalk by JHarris at 4:00 PM on June 14, 2022

But is it a bona-fide Supraland?
posted to MetaTalk by JHarris at 4:55 PM on June 16, 2022

Transition Team Post #1

Best of luck to the team and everyone!
posted to MetaTalk by JHarris at 2:10 PM on April 27, 2022

Appreciation and Resurrection

I was the one who made the post (which is actually a repost from some years ago), but I consider the work involved in making it minor compared to all the fun you and Dave gave me and my roommates back in college.

I so greatly miss that era of the internet, when Brunching was updating and there was this awesome "Homestar Runner" site with cool comedy on a frequent basis, and the worst thing about the internet was that people were making porn about crazy random… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by JHarris at 2:51 AM on April 2, 2022

Also missed: the Order of the Individual Cereal Unit. There were so many great ideas from Brunching. More favorites: the ad for Placebo, the Open Letter to Metallica, and of course, Porn Star or My Little Pony?
posted to MetaTalk by JHarris at 2:54 AM on April 2, 2022

I'm especially glad to see the archives of Monster Manual Comix, aka Speak With Monsters, back online, as I've searched for those more than once.
posted to MetaTalk by JHarris at 1:56 PM on April 2, 2022

First steps in some MetaFilter changes

We love you cortex. I'm glad you're able to find space to be healthier. Best of luck to you, and to us all.
posted to MetaTalk by JHarris at 9:35 PM on March 29, 2022

💖 Announcing February "Doubles Jubilee" Theme Month! 💖

I've been looking through my old posts, and wow I posted a lot of bleah in the early days.
posted to MetaTalk by JHarris at 11:27 AM on February 2, 2022

8th Annual MST Club Christmas Marathon Social Distancing II

We're moving to the last major portion of the show, the Star Wars Holiday Special portion and accompanying pieces. Less than three hours left!
posted to MetaTalk by JHarris at 6:18 PM on December 25, 2021

Thanks for coming everyone. I thought hard about format changes this time to try to keep it interesting for people. As a result we did fewer specials this time than before, showed more MST3K (even when they weren't holiday-themed), and tried to show weirder things overnight. Of course we're only human, it's impossible to show ever person something they'd really want to see at every moment, but there's always space to grow.

We usually do something for New Year's Eve too,… [more]
posted to MetaTalk by JHarris at 12:00 PM on December 26, 2021

As usual, we're doing something for New Year's Eve as well, if you want to drop by.
posted to MetaTalk by JHarris at 2:25 PM on December 31, 2021