March 15, 2004

• Does mofi even have 'retrieve lost password' code in place? And LEMME IN MEFI I WANNA COMMENT. Why can't they allow comment only memberships......
• Does mofi even have 'retrieve lost password' code in place? MoFi has Tracy. Count your blessings.
• That was probably a bit abrupt
• We are hairy, apparently. I must add that the since the birth of Mofi, I haven't optimisitically clicked on the Mefi new user page even once.
• is Monkeyfilter just a simian knockoff, or heir apparent False dichotomy, I claim. "Just a simian knockoff" -- sure, we're a derivative work, and we have a cute central meme, but "just" seems unnecessarily dismissive. And "heir apparent" sets up this zero-sum expectation that MeFi must somehow subside into dotage before MoFi can fully flower. THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!! I'd say that we are what we are. Those are cool stats. I'd love to see more analyis of what could be behind them. Looks like MeFi posts usually subside in June and December, corresponding with school vacations. There is a clearly visible decline over the last year. Would be fun to correlate this graph and your "life cycle" hypothesis with their new user count and influx. Monkey love mirrors. Where's our own stats-monkey? Hey, dng! Don't you have some long-overdue procrastination on this front?
• dng is trying to cut down on his monkiness at the moment.
• Oops, sorry, dng. *hides monkey-bong behind sofa, whistles nonchalantly*
• Hey, give'em a break. It's Spring. Maybe they're outside weeding the *herb* garden. MonkeyFilter: We are what we are. Is that like Zen or what?
• Metafilters users have grown older and found jobs. Some users seem to be working for product reasearch companies. Just go to "Ask Metafilter" to see what I mean. While most questions seem to be legit, others seem like shills for corporate research. As far as the life cycle of blogs, they do seem to follow the path of birth, youth, maturity and death. I think closed systems like Metafilter allow this process to happen at a faster pace.
• I'm curious as to what caused the sharp spike in enrollments from March 2001 to May 2001.
• You know, maybe if they opened back up their new membership area they'd get more posts. I often would like to post answers to ask.metafilter or comments on metafilter, but always that memberships page is locked up tighter than the proverbial drum. "Membership is again closed While MetaFilter goes through another bout of growing pains, it's time to regroup and reprogram to better handle the crowds. During that time all new user signups are closed."
• Is MeFi dying? Probably not. Suffering from a lack of new blood, new opinions, fresh input? Sure. But presumably Matt wants it that way, since new user signups have been closed for what, a year or more? I know that despite not being able to sign up as a new user there, I've been a steady and faithful reader for several years. It's a good bellwether of how a group of experienced online users see certain social issues. I fina that valuable. As for whether or not MoFi is the heir apparent, I can only speak for myself. Today I clicked on my MoFi bookmark before my MeFi. :-)
• It's definetly suffering from a lack of new users. Infighting, patronizing hepsters. Plus unless the post is a story from an obscure website written by three armed monks with a penchant for bee husbandry, everything is old news, newsfilter or whatever. I just wish I was as smart as the average old guard mefite.
• I'm curious as to what caused the sharp spike in enrollments from March 2001 to May 2001. Matt Haughey was featured on the cover of "Brill's Content" in an article about weblogging. I have dozens of copies.
• I just wish I was as smart as the average old guard mefite. As an average old guard mefite, I'd just like to say...I am insulted. Ah, who am I kidding? We're horses-asses.
• mefi kind of reminds me of the academy awards party i used to go to. about 15 years ago it was great, a bunch of pals, get drunk, yell at the TV. then it was pals and spouses. then it turned into pals and spouses and their infants. then gradually pals and spouses and toddlers. you ever try to watch the academy awards in a roomful of 50 assorted pals, spouses and toddlers? it just turned into "ain't so much fun anymore."
• Mefi is full of dickheads.
• I'm seeing a general slow decline overall in the older sites and Usenet. It's my guess that there's a lot more outlets for people to talk then there were a couple of years ago and many of them reinforce a certain point of view and/or crack down harder on "trolls". People gravitate to those places and the more open ones lose membership. I also think that a lot of energy has gone out of the old, old arguments - piracy, Iraq, etc. We've all heard what people are going to say about it and worse, we've all learned that there isn't going to be much meeting of the minds on such things. People talk past each other or at each other and there's not much communication going on. Add to that a membership list that isn't growing because the web owner has decided to cut it off and it's inevitable that there's going to be a decline. The old hands are played out and there's no one to replace them.
• Mefi is full of dickheads. Ouch.
• i'm hereby placing a vote in favor of curtailing (or at least thinking twice afore posting) all "hey look what's going on over at mefi!" posts, unless all hell breaks out over there or they finally open membership or matt ascends to Mt. olympus. It's starting to sound a little bitchy. Mefi is the only site we regularly kick around in the lavender (I don't remember anybody going after plastic or boing boing or even FARK lately) and considering that we probably all came here VIA mefi, it's a tad sour grape-y.
• Well, I wouldn't go quite that far, forks. I don't think it's not so much a matter of sour grapes, as it is that events at mefi still matter to most of us - as you say, all of us probably came here via mefi. It makes sense that - especially for those of us who didn't make it through the doors before matt closed them - we occasionally bring up issues here that were discussed in there. Naturally, bitching and general sour-grapes behaviour would be unbecoming, but I feel that those who posted mefi-related FPPs do so not to just gripe, but genuinely have issues they wish to discuss or brought into the open. OTOH, perhaps we can limit to one mefi-related FPP per day/week/month? An agreed-upon dosage which would cut down on general ill-will and exasperation? /two cents
• seconds that vote, and gives a "here, here"to the bitchy feeling. ironical, considering most of the mefi disparaging posts are re: teh mefi bitchy.
• Mefi is full of dickheads. Sad, true, etc.
• "events at mefi still matter to most of us - as you say, all of us probably came here via mefi. " good point al. Still you gotta admit it starts to get unseemly. With big momma t puttin' together a mofi, hopefully this'll be a moot point shortly. I think anything goes in a mofi, si?
• I think anything goes in a mofi, si? Maybe even a MoTa.
• I'm not sure how I got here. I think I was left in a basket on tracicle's doorstep.... Sour monkey grapes. MeFi is the mothership. They deserve some respect. And I think that we, as introspective look-at-the-pretty-monkey-in-the-mirror-OOT-OOT-OOT types, would do better to focus on the beam in our own eye, rather than the mote in our mothership neighbor's. To blend, brutally, two dissonant metaphors.
• forksclovetofu: I would agree, si! Honestly, one mefi FPP a day is too much even for me. And you are right, sometimes it gets unseemly. you calling me al wouldn't be a subtle hint for me to stop calling you forks, would it? If so, I'll promise to call you by your full nick in the future :) cheers.
• To blend, brutally, two dissonant metaphors. Sounds like seven years' bad luck.
• Not to mention severe damage to the eye orbit.
• I think for MetaFilter to limit, and then close off new memberships ultimately saved the site from getting too big. Think about reading a discussion thread on Slashdot or K5 or Fark. Too many users, just random names you never remember, exept for the odd obsessive troll or two. When I read a MeFi discussion I can still have a good idea of the personalities and previous histories of ~75% of the posts / comments there, which contributes greatly to the enjoyment of participating in the site. I think what's giving MeFi its problems now is a few people who take this a little too far, have long-standing axes to grind, and who can't resist the temptation of a news-ish post because they want to broadcast their message to a much wider audience than they could on their own blogs. MonkeyFilter is in it's honeymoon phase right now, and I'm definitely enjoying the average MoFi post more than the MeFi FPPs lately, but I attribute some of that to new users blowing their load at the beginning. I'm sure things will even out, for both sites.
• MoFi is the new MeFi. Except we're lower down on the evolutionary scale. One day we will rule the world...
• Argh, another Mefi's-Eating-A-Cheese-Sandwich post. Don't get too excited, forks, MoTa won't be anything goes. It'll be bugs and double-posts only, I hope. Maybe Curious, George, maybe not. And CellarFloor, it's coming. But thanks for the reminder.
• goetter:Where's our own stats-monkey? Hey, dng! Don't you have some long-overdue procrastination on this front? Wolof: dng is trying to cut down on his monkiness at the moment. Yeah, sorry. I would like to do something like those metafilter stats (being a rather dull child, those graphs really excite me). I'm planning on doing it this summer. If anyone wants to beat me to the punch, feel free... forksclovetofu: i'm hereby placing a vote in favor of curtailing (or at least thinking twice afore posting) all "hey look what's going on over at mefi!" posts. ... It's starting to sound a little bitchy. Mefi is the only site we regularly kick around in the lavender and considering that we probably all came here VIA mefi, it's a tad sour grape-y. I agree with forks. It seems espeially rude considering a large amount of our contributers (some of the most interesting, often, too) are Metafilter members. (hey, there's even quite a few in here, I see) tracicle: MoTa won't be anything goes. It'll be bugs and double-posts only, I hope. Maybe Curious, George, maybe not. Over at Sportsfilter, the locker room (Sportsfilters version of Metatalk) doesn't allow complaints about posts, or behaviour, and in general this works very well. No massive grudge matches, no character assassination - it works quite well. (Although, there might well be massive grudges - I'm not the most active member over there, in that I have no interest in American sports, so I end up only commenting in the football and rugby posts. And all of forks "Sport? Athletes?" threads.)
• Also, I like this comment from t r a c y, a couple of weeks ago. you know, you guys are a lot more metafilter-y than you realize. i say this because i sense a few time honoured mefi traditions afoot. purposely misunderstanding a person's comments, purposely ignoring that which balances someone's comments, purposely reading a tone into comments that's not there. you should never have dubbed yourselves a clone from the start, i think it's put some of you in a position of feeling defensive, as tho' this place could never be as good as. why else would a fpp like this ever exist in the first place...? She speaks the truth, in my opinion.
• No massive grudge matches, no character assassination What!?!? That's what I love about MeTa! That stuff the other day about johnmc frontin' like he lives on the lower east side, current stuff about quonsar getting banned, it's all great drama! I know the side bar says something about less flinging but don't tell me us monkeys don't get a place to fling poo! (or make excessive use of exclamation points!)
• This MetaFilter - is it something you'd have to be on MonkeyFilter to obsessively deconstruct? :-)
• OMFG FLASH THERE'S THIS MEFI THREAD WHERE MIGS USED THAT EXACT SAME SMILEY FACE LOL!!!1!
• feh. to be perfectly honest since i started my mofi membership my clicks-per-day rate on my metafilter bookmark kinda went down to close to nothin'. i really don't mind the snarkiness, the obsessive complaining, etc... it's just that i was never allowed to participate. i think we need more mefi clones, it gives the original site a break (re: server load) while still allowing us all to find the site we are looking for, and build the online community we want. heck, maybe someone really should start a site called "george-bush-is-an-ass-filter" or "stupid-democrats-suck-filter" or "shut-the-hell-up-filter; i'm sure all would get members who would happily participate. and as i understand it, a big part of the reason mefi closed it's doors was server load. the site couldn't handle the numbers it was getting. once the doors shut, matt kinda realized that if they were ever cracked open again, he'd be bum-rushed by all us wanna-be mefi members, thereby flooding his server again. well, the more mefi-esque sites out there, the less of a rush to jump on mefi if and when it opens. finally, a closed door-community isolates itself from the outside. there are no new voices. the ones who have made it abundantly clear which side of the fence they are on (on any given issue) are going to have problems posting - immediately flamed, or outright ignored. who wants to be jumped on like that? with nobody new to ask (innocently enough) "hey, step back a bit and explain yourself" there's no chance to get past the anger. your old enemy isn't going to ask you to explain, he/she will just say "shut up, you ass". sure, we might degrade to that point, eventually. but, given the run mefi has had, i'd say we have a good 4 years to figure out if we can change things before we get to that point. really, this is what we make it. i did indeed sign up here expecting to find a mefi-substitute, but i don't think that's what i've found at all. i don't mind hearing about what's going on in the blue, not even if it's posted daily. it is after all the inspiration for a lot of similar sites. but let's not forget that we aren't blue here. the lavendar seems like a pale shadow of the darker blue at first, but after a few minutes you realize that it's quite nice on it's own, and i'm happy to be adding to it.
• MoFi is the new MeFi. Except we're lower down on the evolutionary scale. not lower Skrik, just on a different branch.
• A weblog where apes evolved from men?
• Where are you, Dr. Zaius?
• Yeah, where is he? Haven't seen him for ages.
• Free Quonsar It's time for MetaFilter members to stand up and demand change from Matt Haughey's weblog cartel. Monday, March 15, 2004 will be a day of coordinated civil disobedience: websites will "go orange" for 24 hours in protest of Matt Haughey's attempts to censor quonsar's work. Why orange? Because it's quonsar's favourite terror alert color. This is another thing that has been going on over at Metafi. Has anyone else heard about this?
• perhaps he's lost.
• quonsar is still posting at blort, BTW
• This is another thing that has been going on over at Metafi. Has anyone else heard about this? Yep...
• Ah good...carry on, then.
• He's back there right now, actually...
• Argh, another Mefi's-Eating-A-Cheese-Sandwich post. I agree. I get the sense (and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) that we are striving for independence from the cruel MeFi overlords and want to become our own entity here in the lavender. The ongoing posts of "looky looky what they are doing on the Blue!" is rather counteractive. Skirk's post notwithstanding. As for my surfing habits, I always click on MoFi first, then check out MeTa just to get to AskMe. If I have time I'll scan the Blue, but that is happening less and less these (bitchy, argumentative, whiny) days.
• Is it me, or is it beginning to sound like *The Worst Of* MeFi around here or what? Hey you whiners, I got this thingy in my hand that controls a little pointer. All I have to do is choose to click or not click. How can you miss one of plep's great posts? The education or enviornment stuff? Some of the best lately have been the samurai link and the Easter Island stuff. That one led to a great on-line mag called Edge that I'd not heard of before. If you don't like the thread comments, don't go there, but you can't deny there are still some fantastic links to be had. The green's pretty good--some informative stuff and funny comments on occasion. STAY AWAY FROM THE EVIL CRAP-BROWN PAGE! Mostly bitching and complaining, who needs it?
• Oh, Snooooz--I hate having to go brown before the green--don't you? Hey you MeFi/MoFi people with such good taste to be here on occasion--can you let Matt know we need a direct link to the green from the blue? Bananas to ya.
• I would just like to say that Mefi is now the old Mofi until further notice. Carry on.
• BlueHorse -- your introspective post about choosing not to click on stories has completed my MeFi Poster Archetype Bingo card. Mefi's-Eating-A-Cheese-Sandwich is the best new monkey-meme. See, here's the deal with a lot of the Cheese Sammich posts -- people are here because mefi is locked down. We will not curb this tide because people check mefi and say "ooh! ooh! that makes me so! ooh! If only I could post!" and they remember they can come to monkeyfilter and actually post about it, so they start off with "I JUST SAW THIS ON METAFILTER AND HERE'S MY OPINION.", then, feeling a twinge of abashedness or shame : "WHAT DO YOU THINK?" to make it more, you know, communal. To these people, MoFi is -- and may always be -- MeFi's ugly friend. You can't date the pretty girl, but you can be kinda close to her, and when you're kissing the ugly one, you can open your eyes and gaze longingly at MeFi and make pretend. Hell, there's days where some issue post on MeFi actually raises my interest, and I want to talk about it here. This isn't limited to MeFi, either. It could be waxy, or boing-boing, or anything else. Some newsfilter or liberalfilter posts I want to turn into essays. MoFi is a tool to flesh out those ideas. Other times, it's just a place to compare stupid flash games or kick back. But I don't think we're Metafilter by any stretch of the means, in any particular good or bad sense. If I were totally insane, I'd suggest meta.monkeyfilter, which would just be a mirror of meta opened up to monkies. ... But I'm not ... So I won't.
• Boo, there's no reason not to post about something you've seen on Mefi. I personally would rather not talk about the politics/latest rant/silly new injoke on there, but I do enjoy having the chance to add our opinions to some interesting post from there. But sure, if someone's linked to something cool/interesting/discussion-worthy on Mefi and you think we'd have something to say (or if you have something to say), by all means post.
• I mean, Jesus, people, who wants this?
• But three posts before that you had this, which was an interesting poilte discussion about a fairly charged subject.
• tracicle : But should mofi be a simple adjunct to mefi in these regards? Could we maybe ask that people title such posts so I see something informative in my rss reader? Even just, say "MEFI:" or whatever. um, btw, I'm not trying to dictact mofi policy by any means. I just, you know, have these opinions.
• boo_radley - to continue your analogy - if we've learned anything from TV, we have learned that all the ugly chick needs to do is take off the glasses and let her hair down, then she's the hot chick. since joining mofi i've definitely seen past the glasses. (and to be honest, referring to the last link you dropped, it's often refreshing to hear people talk about things happening outside the US for a change. americans are pretty self-centered and all. 'course it did probably end up with people blaming bush in some way, i didn't read that far down the thread...)
• Just to clarify (in case it's needed) I only take issue with the "here's the latest rant on MeFi and gee aren't we better than them" posts, not the posts that are extensions of MeFi posts.
• clf : so we're in a disney movie, then? And the thread ended up much much worse than just blaming bush. You should ignore me, and look to dng as a source of hope.
• I debated whether to post on this thread or not... I am relatively new to MonkeyFilter and have only lurked at MetaFilter (not long there either). I enjoy both sites, but must admit that I tend to go here first. "MonkeyFilter is a MetaFilter clone, only with more bananas and less flinging." MoFi as a clone is as good a place as any to discuss MeFi, but isn't this just flinging?
• Boo, I would hope that, like the Mefites do, we'd be so kind as to put a [via Mefi] in the post to show it's from there. People, I think, do tend to do that when it's directly from Mefi, or link to the Mefi thread in the comments if it didn't come from there but is also being discussed on Metafilter. This sounds complicated. I hope it's not.
• Like I said.. dickheads.
• tracicle : I found a better RSS reader that displays the whole text of the post rather than just the title ("Link from pyrrthon1"), so it was all me, not the 'filter.
• Nosehair wanna be starting something.