Kadin2048's profile (website)
Info
Joined:
May 1, 2006
About
What's the deal with your nickname? How did you get it? If your nickname is self-explanatory, then tell everyone when you first started using the internet, and what was the first thing that made you say "wow, this isn't just a place for freaks after all?" Was it a website? Was it an email from a long-lost friend? Go on, spill it.
2022 Metafilter Steering Committee Election Blurb™
Hey, all.
My name's on the ballot this year, and I'd be happy to help by serving on the Steering Committee (or Cabal, or whatever) if folks would like me to do so.
MeFi has been a big part of my life since I joined back in 2006 (oof), and I'm definitely a better person for it. I've had the pleasure of meeting a lot of East Coast MeFites at Meetups in DC and NYC, and I'd really love to see those get going again when circumstances allow.
I'm somewhat less concerned with the size of the community than the vibrancy and activity of the community. I don't think it makes sense to optimize for growth uber alles. However, I also wouldn't want to optimize for Facebook-style "engagement", either. Generally speaking, I'd rather have a smaller number of very engaged users than a larger number of casual, drive-by posters who don't necessarily bother or aren't interested in learning about the community's norms and culture.
We do, though, need to ensure we are attracting and especially retaining people who are interested in becoming engaged, contributing members of the community.
I'd be interested in seeing some analysis of users who join and then leave or drift away, and see if we can get an understanding of why that happens. It's one thing if they decide the site just isn't for them—fair enough. But if there are potentially "missing stairs" that us longtimers aren't seeing, because we've gotten used to them over time, that's something worth fixing. Or if there are reasonable tweaks we can make to the site that would make it more appealing, without changing what makes it what it is... that's probably worth thinking about.
One of the major challenges that I see is keeping a site that's built around long-form text posts alive, when most of the Internet has moved to low-effort (but low-friction) engagement models. E.g. web forums have largely atrophied in favor of Twitter; OKCupid was eclipsed by Tinder and other "swipe" apps; pick your favorite early-00s web property and there's probably an Upside Down version of it in 2022 that requires less user effort. How do you make long-form text appealing in today's media ecosystem? I don't have any easy answers, but I think it's something we need to be thinking hard about as a community. (Off the top of my head, though: would native mobile apps that have features like drafts, offline/cached mode, or maybe even collaborative post-building be appealing? What about an email gateway—mailing lists are apparently coming back into vogue, and email still encourages reasonably thoughtful composition. Just a couple of napkin-sketch ideas.) We don't want to go chasing some hackneyed idea of the "2022 Internet User", but we also need to separate what makes the community and discussion great from the technology nuts-and-bolts.
I'd probably advocate treading lightly around the moderation system and model, because I think that's a core part of what makes Metafilter... Metafilter. More transparency doesn't seem like a bad thing, and back in the day I used to enjoy trolling the Deleted Thread blog to see what had ended up in Metafilter's circular file. Usually it made me more confident in the moderators, not less. OTOH, making deleted posts/comments too easy to access defeats the purpose of deleting them, and in some cases I can imagine you really want them gone from public view (harassment, doxxing, etc.).
Other communities in the past have tried the "radical democratic" model towards community moderation (see: Kuro5hin) and it hasn't gone well (see: Kuro5hin). At some point we need to choose moderators who we think share the values of the community and trust them to do their job without micromanaging or second-guessing every decision they make. If every deleted comment spawns a 50-post thread on why did you delete my comment?? it'll grind the entire site to a halt.
We need to be, and remain, a fundamentally high-trust community. Everything else is probably secondary to that.
Anyway, I guess that's my stump speech. I won't bore you with my bio for too long; it's just not that interesting. Elsewhere online I describe myself as a "lapsed physicist, professional emailer". I've made my living over the years trying to straddle the fence between users and developers, management and engineering, the C-suite and the factory floor. Some days I feel like I'm good at it; other days I feel like I'm just muddling along. C'est la vie.
Happy to answer questions via MeMail or Mastodon, whatever works.
----
After finally getting a chance to sit down and read some of the other candidates' (excellent) posts and Profile pages, a couple of follow-up thoughts on topics I didn't think to mention earlier, but—reading the posts from the perspective of a voter—people might find relevant:
Funding model: I don't feel like I have a good enough understanding of Metafilter's finances to really know how much of a challenge funding is likely to be, going forward and hopefully indefinitely. (If pressed, I'd suspect that moderation will be the driving cost of the site in the long run, since the absolute cost of the technology to run a site like Metafilter has likely gone down over the years... but employing someone to moderate it hasn't, and won't.) I'd be open to soliciting and considering ideas from the community about ways to raise revenue, and perhaps do more experimental / trial runs of different things. But in the short to medium term, I think donations are going to be the dominant source of operational funds, and while I'm aware of legitimate concerns around donations, it seems less compromising than other sources of the same magnitude, e.g. advertising. I am a skeptic about the long-term viability of web advertising as something we should depend on.
Technical stuff: Again, I don't know enough about how MeFi works behind the curtain to have any specific ideas, so this is largely philosophical: I don't believe in replacing "old" just because it's old. Second-system syndrome is real. Design by committee usually goes poorly. But technological progress is also real and shouldn't be ignored; maintenance and maintainability are very legitimate concerns. Having a "bus factor" of 1 isn't good and we should aim for architectures that a large number of people are capable of understanding and helping us with, if needed. The SC might want to strongly consider having some sort of standing Technical Committee or other subgroup, where interested people can dig into these things and perhaps work towards consensus recommendations on what our short/medium/long term priorities should be, or what major risk factors are out there.
Features Generally: In most situations I tend to be against the removal of features or options from software without a very good reason; the current trend towards minimalist software, where anything that isn't being used by overwhelming numbers of users gets ripped out, should have one of those Considered Harmful RFCs. If you alienate a small percentage of your users over and over, it adds up. UI stability is underrated. That said, different uses and users can benefit from different interfaces; what works on desktop vs. mobile is an obvious example. Providing new ways for people to use or access Metafilter (in ways that facilitate meaningful participation) is a good thing in general.
Priorities: I concur with the other folks who have said that the primary job of the first SC will likely be dominated by setting up the processes and infrastructure for overcoming Metafilter's challenges, not solving them or even determining what solution should be implemented. Having some type of subcommittee or advisory-group structure, so we can take advantage of the skills and knowledge of the underlying community, seems like a no-brainer. Coming up with a succession plan for the SC itself should be part of this, but shouldn't dominate it. The SC should ideally be operating at the 'strategic' level, once things get going in a steady state.
----
General disclaimer: Since The Internet is Forever™, and also just out of general politeness, I generally try to leave out or alter the names and identifying details of various people (and to that end, places and things) that I may mention in comments.
2022 Metafilter Steering Committee Election Blurb™
Hey, all.
My name's on the ballot this year, and I'd be happy to help by serving on the Steering Committee (or Cabal, or whatever) if folks would like me to do so.
MeFi has been a big part of my life since I joined back in 2006 (oof), and I'm definitely a better person for it. I've had the pleasure of meeting a lot of East Coast MeFites at Meetups in DC and NYC, and I'd really love to see those get going again when circumstances allow.
I'm somewhat less concerned with the size of the community than the vibrancy and activity of the community. I don't think it makes sense to optimize for growth uber alles. However, I also wouldn't want to optimize for Facebook-style "engagement", either. Generally speaking, I'd rather have a smaller number of very engaged users than a larger number of casual, drive-by posters who don't necessarily bother or aren't interested in learning about the community's norms and culture.
We do, though, need to ensure we are attracting and especially retaining people who are interested in becoming engaged, contributing members of the community.
I'd be interested in seeing some analysis of users who join and then leave or drift away, and see if we can get an understanding of why that happens. It's one thing if they decide the site just isn't for them—fair enough. But if there are potentially "missing stairs" that us longtimers aren't seeing, because we've gotten used to them over time, that's something worth fixing. Or if there are reasonable tweaks we can make to the site that would make it more appealing, without changing what makes it what it is... that's probably worth thinking about.
One of the major challenges that I see is keeping a site that's built around long-form text posts alive, when most of the Internet has moved to low-effort (but low-friction) engagement models. E.g. web forums have largely atrophied in favor of Twitter; OKCupid was eclipsed by Tinder and other "swipe" apps; pick your favorite early-00s web property and there's probably an Upside Down version of it in 2022 that requires less user effort. How do you make long-form text appealing in today's media ecosystem? I don't have any easy answers, but I think it's something we need to be thinking hard about as a community. (Off the top of my head, though: would native mobile apps that have features like drafts, offline/cached mode, or maybe even collaborative post-building be appealing? What about an email gateway—mailing lists are apparently coming back into vogue, and email still encourages reasonably thoughtful composition. Just a couple of napkin-sketch ideas.) We don't want to go chasing some hackneyed idea of the "2022 Internet User", but we also need to separate what makes the community and discussion great from the technology nuts-and-bolts.
I'd probably advocate treading lightly around the moderation system and model, because I think that's a core part of what makes Metafilter... Metafilter. More transparency doesn't seem like a bad thing, and back in the day I used to enjoy trolling the Deleted Thread blog to see what had ended up in Metafilter's circular file. Usually it made me more confident in the moderators, not less. OTOH, making deleted posts/comments too easy to access defeats the purpose of deleting them, and in some cases I can imagine you really want them gone from public view (harassment, doxxing, etc.).
Other communities in the past have tried the "radical democratic" model towards community moderation (see: Kuro5hin) and it hasn't gone well (see: Kuro5hin). At some point we need to choose moderators who we think share the values of the community and trust them to do their job without micromanaging or second-guessing every decision they make. If every deleted comment spawns a 50-post thread on why did you delete my comment?? it'll grind the entire site to a halt.
We need to be, and remain, a fundamentally high-trust community. Everything else is probably secondary to that.
Anyway, I guess that's my stump speech. I won't bore you with my bio for too long; it's just not that interesting. Elsewhere online I describe myself as a "lapsed physicist, professional emailer". I've made my living over the years trying to straddle the fence between users and developers, management and engineering, the C-suite and the factory floor. Some days I feel like I'm good at it; other days I feel like I'm just muddling along. C'est la vie.
Happy to answer questions via MeMail or Mastodon, whatever works.
----
After finally getting a chance to sit down and read some of the other candidates' (excellent) posts and Profile pages, a couple of follow-up thoughts on topics I didn't think to mention earlier, but—reading the posts from the perspective of a voter—people might find relevant:
Funding model: I don't feel like I have a good enough understanding of Metafilter's finances to really know how much of a challenge funding is likely to be, going forward and hopefully indefinitely. (If pressed, I'd suspect that moderation will be the driving cost of the site in the long run, since the absolute cost of the technology to run a site like Metafilter has likely gone down over the years... but employing someone to moderate it hasn't, and won't.) I'd be open to soliciting and considering ideas from the community about ways to raise revenue, and perhaps do more experimental / trial runs of different things. But in the short to medium term, I think donations are going to be the dominant source of operational funds, and while I'm aware of legitimate concerns around donations, it seems less compromising than other sources of the same magnitude, e.g. advertising. I am a skeptic about the long-term viability of web advertising as something we should depend on.
Technical stuff: Again, I don't know enough about how MeFi works behind the curtain to have any specific ideas, so this is largely philosophical: I don't believe in replacing "old" just because it's old. Second-system syndrome is real. Design by committee usually goes poorly. But technological progress is also real and shouldn't be ignored; maintenance and maintainability are very legitimate concerns. Having a "bus factor" of 1 isn't good and we should aim for architectures that a large number of people are capable of understanding and helping us with, if needed. The SC might want to strongly consider having some sort of standing Technical Committee or other subgroup, where interested people can dig into these things and perhaps work towards consensus recommendations on what our short/medium/long term priorities should be, or what major risk factors are out there.
Features Generally: In most situations I tend to be against the removal of features or options from software without a very good reason; the current trend towards minimalist software, where anything that isn't being used by overwhelming numbers of users gets ripped out, should have one of those Considered Harmful RFCs. If you alienate a small percentage of your users over and over, it adds up. UI stability is underrated. That said, different uses and users can benefit from different interfaces; what works on desktop vs. mobile is an obvious example. Providing new ways for people to use or access Metafilter (in ways that facilitate meaningful participation) is a good thing in general.
Priorities: I concur with the other folks who have said that the primary job of the first SC will likely be dominated by setting up the processes and infrastructure for overcoming Metafilter's challenges, not solving them or even determining what solution should be implemented. Having some type of subcommittee or advisory-group structure, so we can take advantage of the skills and knowledge of the underlying community, seems like a no-brainer. Coming up with a succession plan for the SC itself should be part of this, but shouldn't dominate it. The SC should ideally be operating at the 'strategic' level, once things get going in a steady state.
----
General disclaimer: Since The Internet is Forever™, and also just out of general politeness, I generally try to leave out or alter the names and identifying details of various people (and to that end, places and things) that I may mention in comments.