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[RSS PSA] Reminder to update your MetaFilter RSS feeds
Last month, an apparent error in Feedburner caused several of MeFi's legacy RSS feeds to not update for up to a week (at least in my popular feed reader, Feedly). The problem has been fixed -- for now. But it's an important reminder that the Feedburner platform is increasingly unreliable -- if it were ever shut down by Google, the thousands of readers who rely on those feeds to keep up with the site may lose contact without even realizing it. The good news is that the site has a new set of self-hosted feeds that should remain active no matter what Google does. So, if you read the site using an RSS reader, please take a moment to update your reader to the new feeds -- and check the related posts on MetaFilter and Ask MetaFilter for a list of posts you might have missed during the outage.
MetaFilter: The Quickening
Proposition: We should consider lowering the waiting time for new posts on the blue from one day to 12 hours.
Last call for SC nominations
PSA: This week is the last call for user nominations to the second Steering Committee, which will be setting policy and overseeing the budget for the year ahead. Do you want to help chart a course for this community (or know someone who would make a great pick)? Send in your nominations today! Or check inside for more details and questions answered.
March is Steering Committee election season
After an initial six-month period marked by a successful fundraiser, volunteer projects, and the start of a long process of establishing important tools and processes for the operation of the site, the MetaFilter Steering Committee (SC) is launching a second round of elections to replace departing members and help us continue our efforts to improve MeFi. Can you build on the progress made addressing the site's urgent needs, partner with diverse stakeholders from the membership, admin, and others, and coordinate with a committed group of volunteers to set MetaFilter's direction? Do you have relevant expertise, a desire to give back to this community, and the time and capacity to put its ideas into action? If so, we want you! Self-nominations will be open from March 1st through midnight Pacific Time on the 15th, with a voting period to follow. Check inside for details!
🎉Fundraising Wrap-Up: You've put MetaFilter on the road to Revival!
A few months ago we came to you with information we had just learned about the dire financial state of MetaFilter. The site was losing money every month and the cash reserves keeping it afloat had run dry. The situation was grim. But MeFites, you stepped up in a big, big way: recurring contributions have gone up by $9,863.10 and we have received $78,857.91 in one-time contributions (both figures are net). This means that according to our targets MetaFilter has more than enough budget to Survive, and is within striking distance of Revive!
There are more details inside about the specifics of the fundraiser and how the funds will be used, so please keep reading…
I... HAVE... THE POWER 🎨🖌️
Back in April, I made an in-depth post to the blue about OpenAI's DALL-E 2, an unbelievable new AI system that can generate hi-res artistic or photorealistic images of anything you can describe in just a few seconds. Now, after more than two months of waiting (and a comedy of errors), I've gained rare access to this amazing technology... and I'm passing the savings along to you! Post a text prompt you'd like DALL-E to generate in this thread, and I'll share the results! (Examples, conditions, and tips inside.)
Happy birthday to cortex
Let's all wish a very happy and hopefully stress-free b-day to outgoing veteran mod, inveterate punster, and all-around mensch, MeFi's own cortex "Josh" Millard.
Archive.org, Linkrot, and You
PSA: The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine is a fantastic resource for finding preserved copies of broken links from long-lost websites. But did you know you can now have it archive pages on demand -- including copies of all the pages that page links to?
A Long Bet Pays Off
Cool news from Archive.org:
11 years ago, on the site longbets.org, a friendly wager was made between two mavens of the web: Jeremy Keith and Matthew Haughey. The bet, to be revisited a decade and a year later, would be whether the URL of their wager at Long Bets would survive to a point in the semi-distant future. That is, this day, February 22nd, 2022, (2/22/2222).
As of this writing, the URL absolutely has survived.
It's not easy being short
One of these links is not like the others.
One of these links doesn't belong.
Can you tell which link is not like the other
by the time I finish this song?
One of these links doesn't belong.
Can you tell which link is not like the other
by the time I finish this song?
"Talk... less."
In addition to the ~biweekly megathreads, the 2016 DNC saw four daily threads with 12,536 total comments, plus a 1,598-comment VP thread for literal potato Tim Kaine. This cycle there are no megathreads, and a grand total of *checks notes* zero posts or comments on either the DNC or VP nominee Kamala Harris, a charismatic woman of color with a complex record who may potentially lead the nation for a dozen years if everything breaks her way. I know the megathreads were a burden, but this seems sub-optimal, especially given the desire on the site and in society generally to spotlight women leaders, black voters, and the push for criminal justice reform.
Impossible. Perhaps the archives are incomplete.
I'd always thought MeFi site searches were pretty much comprehensive, but last night I came across several search terms that were clearly missing content. Has anyone else noticed this behavior in the past, or could this be a new bug?
How long is too long?
While catching up with the latest politics megathread, I was surprised to see this mod note from LobsterMitten: [Note about post drafts - putting here so people will see it, but happy to talk it over more in email, will email some of the recent posters. Please keep the posts on the shorter side, maybe 1000 words or that neighborhood. Thanks.]
As a longtime crafter of megaposts, I don't think I've ever seen official mod guidance to cut them (relatively) short in this way. Posts have been edited for leaving too much above the fold, but I can think of only a handful of incidents where the post body itself got official pushback for being Too Long -- and those largely involved novella-sized posts with length-induced display errors (really) or blanket copy-pasting a website's contents.
Is LobsterMitten's advice targeted at the political megathreads only -- perhaps for performance reasons -- or should it be construed more broadly? I happen to think a well-organized megapost is the best of MeFi and a feature few vid- and listicle-driven sites can match, and in the case of the politics threads specifically they're a fine example of community collaboration that provide a valuable curated record of this chaotic era. But what do you think?
Strike that, reverse it?
Deleted posts can be flagged but not favorited. Shouldn't it be the other way around?
Looking back on ten years of FPPs
I've joined many web communities in my life, but none for as long or as wholeheartedly as MetaFilter. I've learned a lot, grown as a person, and taken direction from the thousands of smart, funny, and caring people who write here. And I've been inspired to write, too, putting more time and effort into researching worthwhile posts than I have at any other creative hobby. Sadly, what with work and the news chaos and competing interests it feels like there's less and less time to focus lately, and seeing linkrot erode what I do post is a drag. So when showbiz_liz's lovely celebration of ten years on the blue made me realize my own 10th Mefiversary was approaching, I was moved to do something about it. Nothing on the web lasts forever, but armed with old notes files, the Wayback Machine, and a drive to rediscover my own personal Best of the Web, I plowed through all 149 posts (and a few comments) to recover lost links, check on what had happened since, and organize it all into a single FPP omnibus for your reading pleasure.
2016 Election Prediction Contest results
Back in January, on the eve of the Iowa caucuses, I set up an election prediction contest for you fine folks, and got 74 ballots in response. Nearly ten months (and ten million comments) later, the results are in: congratulations to Cash4Lead, for his remarkably far-sighted prediction of the winners of Iowa, New Hampshire, Super Tuesday, the nominations, the House majority, and even Clinton's VP pick! A $50 donation to the charity of your choice is yours. Oodles more analysis of the collective wisdom inside
MetaFilter 2016 Election Prediction Demolition Derby
It's been an unbelievably unpredictable primary season this year, and the Iowa caucuses are less than 30 hours away. So why not get ahead of the curve with a TRUMP-SIZED election prediction contest? I'm thinking Iowa (Dem/GOP), New Hampshire (Dem/GOP), Super Tuesday (Dem/GOP), final nominee (Dem/GOP), and general election winner, with ties broken by House/Senate control, Veepstakes speculation, and as much analysis/rationalization/weeping as you feel appropriate. Prize: One (1) $50 ($fifty) donation to the charity of your choice (split equally if necessary), and eternal bragging rights over the ruins of the punditocracy. Deadline is 8:00 PM Eastern time Monday, when the caucuses start. (Feel free to enter after Iowa or New Hampshire vote, but be advised that your prediction for those states will not count!) See inside for entry form.
Like browsing MeFi in a shrouded theater
A lot of people have complained about FanFare's professional white background. Well, DRUNK WITH POWER after somehow kludging together a successful CSS theme for /r/MetaFilter with zero experience, I decided to try my hand at giving our new subsite a makeover, too -- the layout is fine, but that glaring white is painful to read in a darkened teevee room. Inspired by the original soothing dark blue color scheme from film/TV review aggregator Metacritic (which discarded it for an unpopular redesign years ago), I put together a complete FanFare theme (screenshot*) that adjusts not just the background and text, but stuff like visited links, link hovering, the pop-up video button and lightbox, posting page notes, live preview area, and the sidebar and Deck ad box. You can install it in Firefox (with Greasemonkey or Stylish), Chrome (with Stylish or Blank Canvas Script Handler), and jailbroken iOS (with Userscript Loader, using this URL) -- it's tested and working properly on all three.
Mathowie should do an AMA
MetaFilter is a long-running site with plenty of long-time members, but it's always stayed fresh through a slow and steady influx of new users to add new perspectives and replace those who've left. With the recent slump in Google traffic, we should consider ways to more actively promote the site elsewhere, in order to maintain this healthy growth and make sure the site and its values do not become complete unknowns to newer generations of web users. In that spirit, I've acquired the subreddit /r/MetaFilter and given it a fabulous CSS makeover with loads of informative links on MeFi history and culture.
Warmth. Depth. Fatness.
An intuitive interface. Built-in keyboard access. Three world-class modulators.
Introducing MetaFilter — — — Push the Envelope™
Introducing MetaFilter — — — Push the Envelope™
Contents Under (not enough) Pressure
GNFTI, you complete MONSTER. How could you. I trusted you.
Google Seceder
PSA: Google Reader shuts down in two weeks. Several alternatives capable of importing your subscription lists and starred items (exportable via Google Takeout) have popped up since the closure announcement, and that's OK. But there's one highly valuable aspect of Reader nobody can replicate and that will soon be lost forever: Reader's vast archive of cached feed data. Here's how to save it all.
We Need a Hero
@mathowie: "I think RSS is so important that I'd take a job (leaving MeFi) at any startup aiming to make an improved Google Reader (w/ social features). [...] I'm serious, and feel free to email me. MetaFilter can continue with the employees running things."
I think that this maybe merits some serious discussion here, pronto.
I think that this maybe merits some serious discussion here, pronto.
Singling out the best single links
What are the best single-link posts in MeFi history?
The Blogfather
On the eve of MetaFilter's twelfth birthday, the Willamette Week sits down with Matt Haughey to talk about his roots at the dawn of the blogging age, the value of lifestyle work vs. captaining industry, and the future of community blogs in an online landscape increasingly dominated by Twitter, Facebook, and mobile browsing.
Sorting Search Results by Number of Favorites 2: Electric Boogaloo
Pony Request Redux: Adding an option to sort search results by favorites.
What a tangled web we weave
The forum at the end of the universe
"Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Starship Titanic website sat a specious message board with posts by the senior crew of the fictional ship. This is not its story." The Economist blog "Babbage" explores (in decidedly Adamsian style) the fascinating story of the Starlight Lines forum and its "accidental" community, as told by Mefi's own Yoz Grahame in this truly epic comment from last December.
QuizMe
It's time for yet another Metafilter quiz!
Queries from the hive mind
I was experimenting with Google's search suggestions feature when I noticed that it gave some interesting results for "metafilter + [letter]". Since it returns the most popular search terms starting with that phrase, what you get for each letter is an A-Z listing of the most sought-after topics related to Metafilter. So without further ado, I give you... Metafilter A to Z.
Sorting search results by number of favorites?
Pony request: We can already sort the posts and comments in search results by date or by relevance. Would it be possible (or even desirable) to sort by the number of favorites each item has?
That preview that you do not-so-well
Bug report: The preview function is disabling some features.
Thanks a lot, Tower of Babel
I'm working on a post in which I'd like to use a certain article that provides useful and interesting background information, information I can't find anywhere else. Unfortunately this article is a PDF file... and in Spanish.
Bug report (?) + Follow-up
Is archiving a thread supposed to put the kibosh on Recent Comments? Also, a follow-up.
Crowdsourcing the Future
Oh noes!
A crucial piece of Mefi social commentary has disappeared. Will it ever be seen again?
No, my post is not about the Imageshack frog
What's the best way to link to a large image on Mefi?
Numeristerical!
Are there any Mefi user accounts that have a coincidental (or intentional) relationship with their user number?
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