Full MetaFilter FAQ > IRL: MeFi Events Questions

IRL: MeFi Events FAQ

You can always contact the moderators if you have a question.

How do I sign up for a MetaFilter account?

Who is in charge here? Are there admins and moderators like other sites?

What is IRL?

What are meetups? Can I be alerted if there's one in my area?

How soon can I post again after making a post?

Why are you asking for my geographic coordinates?

What are MeFi Mail reminders?

 

How do I sign up for a MetaFilter account?

Go to the New User page to read about accounts and follow the link to sign up and pay for the account. The current sign-up fee is US$5; it's a one-time fee and is the only cost associated with using the site. Once the PayPal payment is completed, your account will be active and you will be allowed to make comments on various MetaFilter threads. Please note that there is a waiting period to create a post to the front page of MetaFilter, however you can create an Ask MetaFilter post immediately.

We enforce a strict rule against posting your own work or work you've contributed to or are posting about in a promotional capacity, except on MetaFilter Projects or MetaFilter Music. Posting a link to a site you're connected to, or posting for promotional purposes (except on Projects or Music), will result in a ban with no refund.

If the signup fee is a financial or logistical hardship, you can drop the moderation team a line via the contact form to ask about a complimentary signup.
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Who is in charge here? Are there admins and moderators like other sites?

Metafilter is run by a small staff of paid moderators ("mods"). The moderators are: taz, goodnewsfortheinsane, travelingthyme, Brandon Blatcher, and loup; web developers frimble and kirkaracha.

The best way to reach a moderator is to use the contact form, which emails all of the mods. The site is generally staffed around the clock, with regularly spaced gaps in coverage. The contact form will reach whoever is on duty.

All the moderators are also regular site members, so you may see them around participating just like anyone else. When a moderator leaves an official moderation comment, the comment will appear in the thread but enclosed by a box, or [in small type, in square brackets], and a "staff" badge will appear in the byline next to their name. (This text is searchable, so you can find moderation comments by using your browser's "find" function to find the word "staff" on the page.) You can confirm someone is a moderator by looking at their profile page, too -- they'll have a "staff" badge under their profile picture.

Some history:
1999: MetaFilter was created by Matt Haughey (mathowie); he was the sole admin of the site for the first several years.
2005: Jessamyn West (jessamyn) was hired; she was especially instrumental in establishing the culture of the new subsite, AskMetafilter.
2006, May: Paul Bausch (pb), our technical wizard, joined to keep the back end running smoothly and do bugfixes and feature builds.
2007, March: Josh Millard (cortex) started helping out around the place.
2008, May: vacapinta became the unofficial "Midnight Mod", checking in a few times during the North American night.
2011, April: Jeremy Preacher (restless_nomad) came on, originally to keep an eye on things over the weekend, although gradually shifting to weekday hours too.
2011, October: taz joined the team as the first regular non-US mod, bringing civilization to the formerly-lawless hours of North American night.
2012, October: goodnewsfortheinsane and LobsterMitten joined the team as part-timers, with a few regular shifts and some flexible coverage for other mods' hours.
2014, May: Layoffs. Due to a budget crunch, jessamyn retired, and gnfti and LM were laid off. Over the next months, site members contributed enough money to keep the site operating and even bring back the laid-off mods at sharply reduced hours.
2015, March: Mathowie retired, still the owner but handing nearly all site operations over to cortex and the remaining mods. Cortex took over most operational stuff, and LobsterMitten took over mathowie's on-site mod hours.
2016, January: Eyebrows McGee joined the staff as a part-timer and often weekend mod.
2016, May: pb retired.
2016, May: frimble joined the staff as resident tech person.
2017, July: mathowie transferred ownership of MetaFilter to cortex.
2020, Jan: restless_nomad retired
2020, June: new mods travelingthyme and loup joined the team.
2020, July: restless_nomad returned to help with administrative tasks for a limited time, jessamyn returned to a more active role
2021: restless_nomad stepped away again as planned; jessamyn reduced her role and schedule gaps were introduced
2022: cortex stepped down as owner, jessamyn took over as owner, loup took over operations, Lobster Mitten retired, Eyebrows McGee transitioned to a sub/fill-in mod
2023: Brandon Blatcher joined in February, Eyebrows McGee retired in April
2024: Kirkaracha joined the web development team
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What is IRL?

IRL is the subsite for organizing meetups and get-togethers with other site members In Real Life (IRL). There is a feature in IRL meetup threads that allows users to link to photos of their meetup. When this option is used, a little icon of a photograph shows up next to the meetup location in the MeTa sidebar.

To see what meetups are coming up, look at the Proposed, Future, or Upcoming tabs, or use the search box to find events by location. Upcoming meetups are listed in the sidebar of MetaTalk as well. You can see past meetups in a similar way. (Historically meetups were organized in Metatalk's meetups category, if you want to look back at some historical meetup threads.)

To propose a meetup, begin with the New Event form linked in the header of IRL. Your meetup will initially appear in the Proposed tab. When a meetup is proposed, people can work out the details in the comments section. When details are finalized, you can switch your meetup over to Confirmed and it will show up as a Future or Upcoming event. IRL threads track "yes" and "maybe" responses from users planning to attend.

If a meetup needs to be cancelled, or just isn't coming together, you can note that with a comment in the thread and contact a mod to close the thread.

To be notified about upcoming meetups in your city, go to your profile page. If you have entered a location for yourself, under "Contact Preferences" you will be able to check a box for IRL notifications.

There are two types of IRL alerts you can choose to receive via MefiMail. The first type of alert tells people in a geographic area that there's a new post they might be interested in. Those alerts go out once per day at midnight Pacific time. They alert everyone with a location, distance, and the option to get these set in their profile. The second type of alert tells people who have indicated that they're attending the meetup that something (like the location or time) has changed. Those go out around 15 minutes after the change happens, and they go out to everyone who has indicated either 'Yes' or 'Maybe' that they're attending.
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What are meetups? Can I be alerted if there's one in my area?

Meetups are when people who know each other from MetaFilter (or just have an interest in MetaFilter in common!) get together in real life. These In Real Life (IRL) meetings are usually pretty informal, and happen all over the world. The IRL.metafilter.com is a subsite specifically for planning and organizing meetups and other events. Upcoming meetups are listed in the sidebar of MetaTalk as well. See here for more details.

Users can opt to be notified of meetups happening in their area in their user profile preferences. To do this, select "Receive IRL alerts?" under Contact Preferences. This feature will only work if you have entered geographic coordinates for yourself. You can set your geographic coordinates with this lookup.
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How soon can I post again after making a post?

After you have posted a thread (a post in MetaFilter, a question in AskMetafilter, etc), you have to wait this long before posting a second thread in that same area of the site. There is no similar limit for comments.

MetaFilter - 12 hours
AskMetafilter - no limit
FanFare - no limit
Projects - one month
Music - 24 hours
Jobs - 24 hours between posting job Openings; you can only post one Availability total
Podcast - only admins post the podcast
IRL - no time limit, but you can have no more than 10 active IRL threads at a time
MetaTalk - one week

Note that these waiting periods are per-person, not per-account, so if you have two accounts you still can only post at these intervals. Using two accounts to get around the posting limits is against the rules and may result in your post being deleted and your second account closed.
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Why are you asking for my geographic coordinates?

It is entirely optional to give your geographic coordinates in your profile. If you give a longitude and latitude, you will be able to use certain features that are geolocation-based. These features include: seeing which other members live near you (you can specify a distance for "near"); getting a message if there is an In Real Life (IRL) meetup scheduled near you; seeing how far away from you each job posting is in Jobs. You can choose whether other members will also be able to see your location by selecting 'Available to Members' or 'Private' in the Geographic Coordinates section of your site preferences.
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What are MeFi Mail reminders?

MeFi Mail reminders are system messages sent from MetaFilter to your MeFi Mail inbox. The most common messages are reminders to update Ask MetaFilter threads 30 days after posting. You'll also receive messages about new posts you make to any MetaFilter site. Those message include the post URL which can help you find the post again in the future. If you opt-out of MeFi Mail reminders you won't receive these messages.

You can also receive MeFi Mail notifications about meetups happening near you. To set this up, go to your Preferences page. If you have entered a location for yourself, under "Contact Preferences" you will be able to check a box for In Real Life IRL notifications.
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Still have questions? You can also read the Full MetaFilter FAQ or Contact Us.