MetaFilter
Encyclopedia
MetaFilter, known as MeFi to its members, is a community weblog whose purpose is to share links
and discuss content that users have discovered on the web.
in 1999. Haughey wrote the software for the site himself, using Macromedia ColdFusion and Microsoft SQL Server
.
From its early beginnings as a small community
of webloggers who traded links, the weblog now enjoys international popularity. Members are permitted to make one post
to the front page
per day, which must feature at least one link. Members may then comment on these posts.
Although membership was initially free and unrestricted, growing membership forced frequent extended closures of new-member signup. On November 18, 2004, Haughey reopened signups, but with a 5 USD life-time membership fee. According to TIME magazine, this fee keeps the site "remarkably free of trolls, griefers and other anonymous jerks", resulting in a "public-spirited flavor of a small town or good university". Although the number of registrations has topped 100,000, a design flaw in the counting process means that it counts users who abandoned the signup process mid way; the actual number of posters is smaller, clocking in at around 38,700 as of October 2008.
MetaFilter has developed a fairly stable community with a variety of in-joke
s. Members regularly gather for meetups in cities around the world, and there are numerous websites with strong connections to MetaFilter members and subgroups, including MetaChat and MonkeyFilter, the latter getting its start during the period when MetaFilter memberships were closed. Readers can mark other users’ comments as a favorite, and commenters derive pride from how many times they have been "favorited."
MetaFilter was included in TIME magazine's 50 Best Websites 2009 feature.
At SXSW 2011, Haughey gave a talk in which he noted that MetaFilter had about 125,000 user accounts, of which 12,000 are active.
s are strongly discouraged at MetaFilter, though such things do sometimes make it through. Posts must contain a link, and the site linked must be of high quality.
and funny online movies also appear. Net and blog
culture discussions also percolate through MetaFilter, reflecting its early connections with Blogger, but this is becoming less common as membership expands.
(2005)—which generated over 80 Front Page Posts in about a week. The first example of this was arguably the Nisqually earthquake
of 2001.
hoax, in which a woman made up a fake online persona of a teenage daughter who was dying of cancer, fooling many bloggers and garnering sympathy and gifts. In October 2004, MetaFilter members uncovered the identities of the writers of the hoax Web site Nick Nolte's Diary. An astroturfing
campaign by Holden Karnofsky, the co-founder of the online charity Givewell
, was detected in January 2008 through a sockpuppet
posting to Ask MetaFilter, leading to Karnofsky's resignation. In 2009, a user was responsible for detecting photoshopping by photographer Edgar Martins
in a New York Times Magazine gallery, which was subsequently withdrawn.
, referred to as "self-policing
" in a site tagline
. Posts that do not meet the community's standards for quality are often "called out" to MetaTalk, an administrative area of the site, and interested members discuss how the post could have been improved, or, in some cases, ruthlessly mock the offender. (The community occasionally concludes, after discussion, that the call-out was unwarranted.) Moderators may step in and temporarily suspend an offending user's account, but this is rare; permanent bans are rarer still, and are generally reserved for spammers and other egregious abuses of the site. MetaTalk also sees particularly excellent posts called out for praise, and moderators regularly feature superlative contributions on the main page's sidebar.
For the site's first few years, this practice of self-policing ensured a high level of quality and allowed Haughey to use a light touch in moderating the site; however, as the community has grown, Haughey has expanded the site's staff and taken a more active role. In 2004, Jessamyn West
began assisting him with moderation duties; in 2007, user Josh Millard ("cortex") was appointed as an additional moderator. In 2008, London
user Ricardo Vacapinta assumed off-hours moderator duties, and in April 2011 Jeremy Preacher (restless_nomad) came on to keep an eye on things over the weekend. A flagging feature allows members to call moderator attention to substandard, offensive, or outstanding posts, allowing users continued input towards shaping the site while quickly alerting site staff to potential trouble spots.
Haughey has long resisted adding killfiles and Slashdot
-style scoring systems to MetaFilter, as he feels the former would fragment the community and the latter would result in users trying to "game" the system.
In 2003, Ask MetaFilter was launched. This forum allows members to post questions to the community, without the link requirement. AskMe quickly grew to a strong side community with slightly different etiquette requirements and many daily threads covering a very broad spectrum of topics.
At the end of 2005, Metafilter Projects was launched. This area of the site is for members to announce Web projects they have been working on—the one place on the site where so-called "self-linking" is permitted. Members can vote on projects, and often post interesting projects to the main site following the same guidelines as any other post.
In 2006, MetaFilter Music launched. This site allows users to upload their own musical creations, which others can listen to via a Flash player, along with playlist and favorites features.
Later, August 24 2006, MetaFilter Jobs was added. This section was created for members to post job openings.
Hyperlink
In computing, a hyperlink is a reference to data that the reader can directly follow, or that is followed automatically. A hyperlink points to a whole document or to a specific element within a document. Hypertext is text with hyperlinks...
and discuss content that users have discovered on the web.
Community
MetaFilter was founded by Matthew HaugheyMatthew Haughey
Matthew Haughey is an American programmer, web designer, and blogger best known as the founder of the community weblog MetaFilter, where he is known as mathowie.- Life and career :...
in 1999. Haughey wrote the software for the site himself, using Macromedia ColdFusion and Microsoft SQL Server
Microsoft SQL Server
Microsoft SQL Server is a relational database server, developed by Microsoft: It is a software product whose primary function is to store and retrieve data as requested by other software applications, be it those on the same computer or those running on another computer across a network...
.
From its early beginnings as a small community
Community
The term community has two distinct meanings:*a group of interacting people, possibly living in close proximity, and often refers to a group that shares some common values, and is attributed with social cohesion within a shared geographical location, generally in social units larger than a household...
of webloggers who traded links, the weblog now enjoys international popularity. Members are permitted to make one post
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
to the front page
Homepage
A home page or homepage has various related meanings to do with web sites:* It most often refers to the initial or main web page of a web site, sometimes called the front page ....
per day, which must feature at least one link. Members may then comment on these posts.
Although membership was initially free and unrestricted, growing membership forced frequent extended closures of new-member signup. On November 18, 2004, Haughey reopened signups, but with a 5 USD life-time membership fee. According to TIME magazine, this fee keeps the site "remarkably free of trolls, griefers and other anonymous jerks", resulting in a "public-spirited flavor of a small town or good university". Although the number of registrations has topped 100,000, a design flaw in the counting process means that it counts users who abandoned the signup process mid way; the actual number of posters is smaller, clocking in at around 38,700 as of October 2008.
MetaFilter has developed a fairly stable community with a variety of in-joke
In-joke
An in-joke, also known as an inside joke or in joke, is a joke whose humour is clear only to people who are in a particular social group, occupation, or other community of common understanding...
s. Members regularly gather for meetups in cities around the world, and there are numerous websites with strong connections to MetaFilter members and subgroups, including MetaChat and MonkeyFilter, the latter getting its start during the period when MetaFilter memberships were closed. Readers can mark other users’ comments as a favorite, and commenters derive pride from how many times they have been "favorited."
MetaFilter was included in TIME magazine's 50 Best Websites 2009 feature.
At SXSW 2011, Haughey gave a talk in which he noted that MetaFilter had about 125,000 user accounts, of which 12,000 are active.
Content
MetaFilter's name derives from the idea that weblogs "filter" the "best of the web", and MetaFilter posts (guidelines) would be the best of the best. Posters are presumed responsible for selecting only the most interesting or novel websites to link, and users' reputations are largely determined by overall posting quality. Half-baked posts, self-promotion, open-ended questions, and other fare common on other community sites and internet forumInternet forum
An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are at least temporarily archived...
s are strongly discouraged at MetaFilter, though such things do sometimes make it through. Posts must contain a link, and the site linked must be of high quality.
Best of the Web
What gets posted is diverse. Online art, award-winning web design, photography galleries, and the like fit into a cool site of the day theme that is highly prized but often generates scant discussion. Flash gamesOnline game
An online game is a game played over some form of computer network. This almost always means the Internet or equivalent technology, but games have always used whatever technology was current: modems before the Internet, and hard wired terminals before modems...
and funny online movies also appear. Net and blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
culture discussions also percolate through MetaFilter, reflecting its early connections with Blogger, but this is becoming less common as membership expands.
NewsFilter
Open posting permits less rigorous items as well. The derisive term for this on MetaFilter is NewsFilter (or similar -Filter names for specific news topics, e.g. IraqFilter). Links to op-eds with no other point or framing are strongly discouraged and frequently deleted, as it is thought that they generate controversy without informing. Nevertheless, it is accepted that some discussion of current events and politics in particular is inevitable, and a certain level is tolerated. If more than one post is made about a news topic, the extras are often deleted and discussion is redirected to the "canonical" post about the topic, usually the first one made. Important news items or political arguments can turn into very long discussions, such as 9/11 (2001), the London Bombings (2005), or Hurricane KatrinaHurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a powerful Atlantic hurricane. It is the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall...
(2005)—which generated over 80 Front Page Posts in about a week. The first example of this was arguably the Nisqually earthquake
Nisqually earthquake
The Nisqually earthquake was an intraslab earthquake, occurring at 10:54 a.m. PST . on February 28, 2001, and was one of the largest recorded earthquakes in Washington state history. The quake measured 6.8 on the MMS and lasted approximately 45 seconds. The epicenter of the earthquake was Anderson...
of 2001.
Investigations
Because MetaFilter bans "selflinks" or posts by a person with a significant conflict of interest, posts tend to be scrutinized closely. Members of the site also have, several times, worked closely together to root out deception and scams. In May 2001, MetaFilter played a key role in uncovering the Kaycee NicoleKaycee Nicole
Kaycee Nicole was a fictitious persona played by Debbie Swenson in a well-known case of Münchausen by Internet. Between 1999 and when the hoax was discovered in 2001, Swenson, playing the role of Kaycee, represented herself on numerous websites as a teenager suffering from terminal leukemia...
hoax, in which a woman made up a fake online persona of a teenage daughter who was dying of cancer, fooling many bloggers and garnering sympathy and gifts. In October 2004, MetaFilter members uncovered the identities of the writers of the hoax Web site Nick Nolte's Diary. An astroturfing
Astroturfing
Astroturfing is a form of advocacy in support of a political, organizational, or corporate agenda, designed to give the appearance of a "grassroots" movement. The goal of such campaigns is to disguise the efforts of a political and/or commercial entity as an independent public reaction to some...
campaign by Holden Karnofsky, the co-founder of the online charity Givewell
Givewell
GiveWell is an American non-profit charity evaluator created in 2006 by two former finance industry workers, Holden Karnofsky and Elie Hassenfeld. GiveWell's goal is to use an evidence based approach by examining results empirically and avoiding anecdotes and appeals to stories. They investigate...
, was detected in January 2008 through a sockpuppet
Sockpuppet (Internet)
A sockpuppet is an online identity used for purposes of deception. The term—a reference to the manipulation of a simple hand puppet made from a sock—originally referred to a false identity assumed by a member of an internet community who spoke to, or about himself while pretending to be another...
posting to Ask MetaFilter, leading to Karnofsky's resignation. In 2009, a user was responsible for detecting photoshopping by photographer Edgar Martins
Edgar Martins
Edgar Martins is a Portuguese photographer and author who lives and works in the United Kingdom.-Early life and education:...
in a New York Times Magazine gallery, which was subsequently withdrawn.
Moderation
One of MetaFilter's founding tenets and an important factor in the "feel" of the site is the idea that the bulk of moderation is done through social norms and peer pressurePeer pressure
Peer pressure refers to the influence exerted by a peer group in encouraging a person to change his or her attitudes, values, or behavior in order to conform to group norms. Social groups affected include membership groups, when the individual is "formally" a member , or a social clique...
, referred to as "self-policing
Self-policing
Self-policing, a form of self-regulation, is the process whereby an organization is asked, or volunteers, to monitor its own adherence to legal, ethical, or safety standards, rather than have an outside, independent agency such as a governmental entity monitor and enforce those standards.-To the...
" in a site tagline
Tagline
A tagline is a variant of a branding slogan typically used in marketing materials and advertising. The idea behind the concept is to create a memorable phrase that will sum up the tone and premise of a brand or product , or to reinforce the audience's memory of a product...
. Posts that do not meet the community's standards for quality are often "called out" to MetaTalk, an administrative area of the site, and interested members discuss how the post could have been improved, or, in some cases, ruthlessly mock the offender. (The community occasionally concludes, after discussion, that the call-out was unwarranted.) Moderators may step in and temporarily suspend an offending user's account, but this is rare; permanent bans are rarer still, and are generally reserved for spammers and other egregious abuses of the site. MetaTalk also sees particularly excellent posts called out for praise, and moderators regularly feature superlative contributions on the main page's sidebar.
For the site's first few years, this practice of self-policing ensured a high level of quality and allowed Haughey to use a light touch in moderating the site; however, as the community has grown, Haughey has expanded the site's staff and taken a more active role. In 2004, Jessamyn West
Jessamyn West (librarian)
Jessamyn Charity West is an American librarian and blogger, best known as the creator of librarian.net and for her unconventional views of her profession...
began assisting him with moderation duties; in 2007, user Josh Millard ("cortex") was appointed as an additional moderator. In 2008, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
user Ricardo Vacapinta assumed off-hours moderator duties, and in April 2011 Jeremy Preacher (restless_nomad) came on to keep an eye on things over the weekend. A flagging feature allows members to call moderator attention to substandard, offensive, or outstanding posts, allowing users continued input towards shaping the site while quickly alerting site staff to potential trouble spots.
Haughey has long resisted adding killfiles and Slashdot
Slashdot
Slashdot is a technology-related news website owned by Geeknet, Inc. The site, which bills itself as "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters", features user-submitted and ‑evaluated current affairs news stories about science- and technology-related topics. Each story has a comments section...
-style scoring systems to MetaFilter, as he feels the former would fragment the community and the latter would result in users trying to "game" the system.
Subsites at MetaFilter
As discussed above under Moderation, an administrative area known as MetaTalk, or MeTa for short, allows for meta-discussion of the community, including bug reports, feature requests, and "self-policing."In 2003, Ask MetaFilter was launched. This forum allows members to post questions to the community, without the link requirement. AskMe quickly grew to a strong side community with slightly different etiquette requirements and many daily threads covering a very broad spectrum of topics.
At the end of 2005, Metafilter Projects was launched. This area of the site is for members to announce Web projects they have been working on—the one place on the site where so-called "self-linking" is permitted. Members can vote on projects, and often post interesting projects to the main site following the same guidelines as any other post.
In 2006, MetaFilter Music launched. This site allows users to upload their own musical creations, which others can listen to via a Flash player, along with playlist and favorites features.
Later, August 24 2006, MetaFilter Jobs was added. This section was created for members to post job openings.