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08 October 2005
Matt is quitting his day job. Will this mean a better performing, feature-filled MetaFilter network or just more over-moderating? I report. You decide.
Maybe once he gets really rich, he can hire us to read and comment all day long. Metafilter wouldn't exist without us! I'd be willing to accept a very modest salary.
I have to agree with Wolfdaddy. I do really like AskMe though. Can't really be arsed to put together MeFi posts anymore though - the general populace likes farkish posts and political posts way too much these days. It just doesn't seem worth the effort. I'm probably going to start weblogging again, just to have a place to say "look at this cool thing I found", because I don't feel comfortable doing it on MeFi anymore.
AskMe is the bee's knees and the cat's pajamas, though.
Good for Matt. That said, I agree with wolfdaddy. It's interesting that Metafilter's mediocrity increases hand in hand with it's apparent commercial success. I wonder if I can sell my membership on ebay...
All due respect, but I've been reading Mefi for years now-- for a year before I got around to registering, and that was four years ago-- and I honestly haven't seen the huge changes that other people seem to have found in the site. There are posters I miss, but I can't say that I've witnessed the sea changes other people insist on. Perhaps I'm just less invested in the place, or something, because I find it neither more or less comfortable than it was in 2000. There was always snark, there was always, as I recall, complaints about newsfilter, there were always left/right flameouts, people leaving in huffs, etcetera. I didn't really mean to go on at such length, but I've heard this more than the usual number of times recently, along with the complaints of not feeling "safe" at Mefi... perhaps I just have lower expectations, or something?
Again, all due respect, iconomy and wolfdaddy, and it would be a shame if either one of you stopped going there.
jokeefe, my decline in interest in MeFi coincides with my rise in my Levis over this place. It just suits me better, for whatever reasons, which remain my own--I don't plan on leaving MeFi in a huff or self-destructing or anything like that. That's all, no big deal.
*visualizes quonsar and mathowie as Lennon and McCartney*
*and self as Ringo*
I still consider MeFi part of my personal daily read, but I'm treating it more like Fark (where I never became a member)... I'd rather participate here and at theMonkeyHaus.
dodgy, I wish you and taz could quit your day jobs, and would not disapprove you selling some ads, but who in their right mind would pay to reach THIS audience?
jokeefe, there have always been minor changes over time. The latest change is pretty dramatic since the $5 regs. The BotW posts have declined precipitously, and while trolling newsfilter has gone up and down (recently down), pointless newsfilter (cow v. dog?) has gone way up -- which is in keeping with the one-liner farklike atmosphere. If I see one more "...and yadayada for the win ..." I'm gonna scream.
There were always snarky one-liners, of course, but not hundreds of them.
Seems to me he's now dependent on the constant influx of new users, and/ or ever-increasing ad-income. Either way, this spells a worsened signal:noise ratio.
Also, I don't see MetaFilter changing much, except that the server may get restarted more promptly during business hours wherever Mr Haughey lives/works. Given the kind of stats that the site pulls, I don't think a commercialised 'filter needs to worry too much about the members, any more than Google needs to care about every web site in the universe - they are only there to provide fodder for links so people will come and ignore the ads. I reckon less than 1% of visitors to the site are members and we all know how that proprortion of customers get treated by any business.
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