Timeline

This is a list of major events or milestones in the history of MetaFilter, along with the corresponding announcements.

1999
14jul1999	First MetaFilter post
2000
03mar2000	MetaTalk launched
01apr2000	Neale coopts 1142
14sep2000	First Kaycee Nicole post
17nov2000	Fred looks for a used car
2001
22jan2001	The origin of 'pony requests'
15may2001	The first use of '.' in an obituary thread
19may2001	Is it possible that Kaycee did not exist? See also And so it ends, and The plot sickens, as well as a retrospective look back at Kaycee Nicole, Metafilter's first investigation
07jun2001	RakDaddy first suggests Ask Metafilter
06aug2001	Matt and MeFi go on vacation
20aug2001	Vacation is over
24aug2001	Thread "9622" (see also Longboat).
10sep2001	ignu introduces MeFi to oolong the rabbit, unofficial Metafilter mascot for many years hence.
11sep2001	9/11 unfolds live on MetaFilter
12oct2001	Posting limited to one per day
20nov2001	"we have cameras"
23nov2001	administrator!!! please hope me!
2002
22feb2002	Suicidegirls ads on MeFi spark a heated discussion.
19mar2002	The first MetaFilter mix tape swap (i.e. MefiSwap) is organized in a thread on the blue.
15apr2002	"I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords."
09may2002	Pepsi Blue (see also Pepsi Blue).
26jul2002	Signups reopen, limited to 20 per day
29jul2002	Threads over 1 month (30 days old?) are closed
01aug2002	WHAT. THE. FUCK. MATT?
05sep2002	"the toy broom... it vibrates?"
06nov2002	Matt contemplates closing or selling the site.
08nov2002	Signups closed. Last user #17318. Metatalk reference to closure.
09nov2002	Adrian Hon announces the MetaFilter wiki.
12nov2002	Metafilter threads get titles. Fixed link for mathowie's explanation.
20nov2002	The "giant horse cock" thread
2003
19mar2003	The Iraq war begins.
25mar2003	Google text ads appear on the site.
13apr2003	Metafilter Music (mark 1) launches. Mathowie has to manually add songs.
09jun2003	Banished suggests AskMe again.
20jun2003	son_of_minya offers to cut off his own hand if quonsar isn't lying.
05jul2003	The Metafilter server moves from apartment to apartment
08dec2003	Hackworth gets tired of waiting for Ask Metafilter -- and creates their own, spurring mathowie to launch it for real. (First Question)
12dec2003	Matt first discusses Askme posting-limit ideas
2004
01apr2004	User signups reopen, 20 per day
02apr2004	...and closed again "I need to get the server back in shape so every new user isn't as much of a burden as they are."
13jun2004	Suppose you killed somebody...
15jun2004	Contacts are launched
12oct2004	First anonymous Ask question
18nov2004	Five dollar signups begin
14dec2004	Askme 7-day posting limit first implemented, then also for MetaTalk
2005
12jan2005	Metatalk thread closure added
18jan2005	Tagging added
24jan2005	jessamyn becomes second mod (MeTa)
10feb2005	Best Answers added to AskMe
14feb2005	Jim Jones Talks to himself. See also here and here.
16feb2005	HURF DURF BUTTER EATER
17feb2005	AskMe gets titles & tags & more fixes, temporarily breaks anonymous questions
18feb2005	The brief HaugheyCam misadventure.
20feb2005	Flagging added
17apr2005	Anonymous posting returns
27aug2005	Hurricane Katrina hits. Coldchef starts by jokingly taunting the hurricane, and ends up liveblogging the disaster. See Katrina for links to more than 90 related threads.
22sep2005	Mefi Music (mark 1) shuts down
08oct2005	AskMe questions stay open for a year, instead of closing after a month
08nov2005	Projects launched (First Post)
12nov2005	Mushroom Thread. See Mushrooms.
15nov2005	Matt wields the BanHammer against dhoyt; and highsignal, hall of robots and jenleigh.
2006
09feb2006	Titles appear on the page, rather than in the HTML header - Mefi & AskMe.
20apr2006	Official FAQ goes online. The FAQ hosted here is deprecated.
10may2006	Favorites added
30jun2006	MetaFilter Music launched (First Track)
24aug2006	MetaFilter Jobs launched (First Job)
22oct2006	IMG tag disabled. See Image Links.
18dec2006	Askme posting limit changed to 14 days
2007
03jan2007	(NOT RACIST) debuts
01feb2007	New URL scheme implemented (number/title rather than mefi/number)
13feb2007	Metatalk gets titles
16feb2007	The first MetaFilter podcast is posted to MetaTalk.
28feb2007	cortex becomes third mod (MeTa), & deletion reasons get signed by the mod
02apr2007	HI I'M ON METAFILTER AND I COULD OVERTHINK A PLATE OF BEANS.
06apr2007	Askme limit returned to 7 days
05mar2007	anildash suggests a professional white background
06jul2007	A preview of TravelFilter is announced during podcast 11
30aug2007	Ability to assign favorites is limited to 100 a day.
03sep2007	Metafilter Wiki moves to MediaWiki and a new location (http://mssv.net/wiki). Most of the content from the old wiki (formerly at http://mssv.net/wiki.cgi) was transferred to this wiki, but some content was lost.
06sep2007	The [more inside] feature, originally only available on Ask MetaFilter, is rolled out to rest of the site.
14sep2007	Subtle but major HTML vulnerability discovered and subsequently repaired
19oct2007	MeFi Mail private messaging system implemented
23oct2007	Close Your Account functionality implemented (aka The Big Red Button). Matt discusses it a month later.
02nov2007	Contact activity sidebar launched
08nov2007	Meetup threads stay open for six months (earliest reference I could find)
16nov2007	Extensive discussions about sexism (see also Boyzone)
26nov2007	Possibly, Secret Santa the initial MeTa post that turned into Secret Quonsar
12dec2007	note: Everyone needs a hug.
31dec2007	The Givewell affair
2008
10mar2008	Startling revelation that a banned member has been around for years under a different name. For five years, this was the longest MetaTalk thread in Metafilter history.
02apr2008	My Ask launched. The feature allows a site member to choose preferred tags and categories in order to display a filtered Ask MetaFilter page. The customized page also displays recommended AskMe questions based on the member's preferences.
18may2008	Vacapinta becomes fourth mod, the first not based in the United States.
27may2008	Projects switches to public comments, something that had been requested a couple times at least.
30jun2008	Boing Boing's "Unpublishing" of Violet Blue
02jul2008	Three new sections launched for MeFi Music: Talk, Charts, Challenges
29aug2008	Sarah Palin as McCain's Running-mate thread created, which held the title of longest thread in Metafilter history for more than four years.
16Oct2008	Deleted threads made visible to the poster. This was rolled back at a later date (probably early 2009) for performance reasons.
27oct2008	Posting sends out an automatic form letter with links to those posts, "an easy way for people to find their own posts in case of deletion, appearance of lagging posting due to caching, or other mishaps."
17dec2008	Three minute editing to comments announced with a "beta-test".
2009
24jan2009	A spammer/cracker exploits a SQL injection in some old pages. MeFi is down for about 4 hours, unstable for most of the weekend, and MetaTalk isn't back until Monday. TravelFilter taken offline.
10apr2009	First episode of the Metafilter Music Podcast
05may2009	Tenth anniversary meetup subsite launched
12jun2009	mefi.us utility domain goes live
16jun2009	He ain't Ralph. St. Alia is "enspousened". Origin of the Mass Enspousening in-joke.
07jul2009	Edgar Martins photoshopping outed; followup post
10jul2009	Metafilter store launches, with new t-shirts.
14jul2009	Tenth anniversary MetaFilter post
13aug2009	Infodump relaunches, with more data
20aug2009	cortex announces month-long meetup junket (schedule)
11oct2009	"Interest areas" profile feature launched and unlaunched again after criticism.
01nov2009	Favorites behavior is modified for a one month test; followup discussions
12nov2009	mathowie's pituitary tumor revelation and a promising update
20nov2009	User #100,000 raffle raises over $12K for charity.
18dec2009	Updated "recent activity" feature launched
2010
08jan2010	Data loss destroys a day's worth of askme answers, some of which are manually recovered.
19may2010	The Russian Incident
24jun2010	IRL launched
02sep2010	Job Availability feature unveiled for MetaFilter Jobs.
30sep2010	mathowie announces changes to ads displayed on front pages (beginning 01oct2010). The transition involves displaying ads from The Deck Network instead of Federated Media, and allowing members to hide the ads.
12dec2010	AskMe celebrates its 7th birthday and 10,000th Anonymous question
2011
05jan2011	Cortex bans Tao Lin.
07jan2011	New Twitter/Facebook sharing options added.
03feb2011	Automatic "x new comments" inline alert rolled out to MetaFilter threads (more details about how it works).
11feb2011	MeFi Music (song) posts differentiated from MeFi Music Talk posts on profile pages and activity pages (parent MeTa).
10apr2011	restless_nomad becomes fifth mod.
14apr2011	Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, anonymously joined the site to defend and praise himself. A mess ensued.
14jul2011	Special site launched to commemorate Metafilter's 12th anniversary: Cat-Scan.com, containing user-submitted favorite memories and an explanation of how they found MeFi. Site url was highlighted in the very first MetaFilter post. MeFi announcement. MeTa announcement.
24aug2011	My MeFi introduced for testing and launched later in the day. The feature is similar to My Ask (introduced 02apr2008) and allows a site member to choose favorite tags in order to display a filtered page of MetaFilter; the member can also exclude tags in their My MeFi preferences.
07sep2011	Ask MetaFilter Travel Locations rolled out to the Travel & Transportation category as a pilot feature.
30sep2011	taz added to moderator team.
04oct2011	"(staff)" badges added to bylines of comments from official admins/moderators (only in MetaTalk).
20oct2011	Linked comment indicator (in the form of a triangle) unveiled for direct navigation to comments. (Original pony request thread and another thread with more details about the feature).
03nov2011	200,000th Ask MetaFilter post.
22nov2011	Announcement of initial MetaTalk posting queue, it's only on for Wednesday through Friday because of Thanksgiving.
2012
17jan2012	MetaFilter puts up a black interstitial about SOPA/PIPA for 24 hours.
24apr2012	Matt Haughey announces the new Best Of MetaFilter blog.
22may2012	holdkris99's death was a hoax.
18sep2012	MetaFilter is publicly seeking to hire at least one part-time moderator.
01oct2012	LobsterMitten and goodnewsfortheinsane are selected as new part-time moderators.
01oct2012	The ability to edit comments for five minutes is added to all MetaFilter sites.
05nov2012	For use on special occasions, a chat server is deployed and announced the next day.
06nov2012	2012 Presidential Election thread created, the longest thread on the front page in Metafilter history.
2013
07jan2013	MetaFilter adds titles. This is more controversial than expected. Two days later, as a compromise, title customization options are added.
22feb2013	MetaFilter adds alerts for updates to IRL posts. This is not controversial ;-)
14may2013	The limit on the number of favorites that can be assigned per day is raised to 240 a day.
15may2013	The "alphabet thread" is created on MetaTalk, which ultimately ends up as the longest thread in Metafilter history.
21may2013	The MeFi Chat server, originally intended to be used for special occasions, is now an official, full-time, feature.
04jun2013	The ability to add final updates to long-closed Ask MetaFilter questions is added.
02jul2013	Experimental site-wide SSL support is enabled.
07jul2013	MetaFilter Wiki moves to its own dedicated domain at mefiwiki.com. All of the content from the old wiki (formerly at mssv.net/wiki) was transferred.
2014
20jan2014	JannaK asks for help decoding her deceased grandmother's coded message, gets international attention.
16apr2014	A beta test for the experimental episodic TV subsite FanFare is announced.
19may2014	Mathowie announces layoffs. Jessamyn, LobsterMitten, and goodnewsfortheinsane will no longer be moderators.
30may2014	cortex announces the MetaTalk queue is going to be always active, due to the mod layoffs.
10sep2014	MetaFilter participates in the Battle for Net Neutrality by displaying a modal banner on September 10, 2014.
24sep2014	MetaFilter adopts a new theme.
20nov2014	Hoder is released from Iranian prison.
2015
05mar2015	Mathowie announces his intention to take a step back from running MetaFilter.
06mar2015	MetaFilter says goodbye to Matt during his final moderation shift.
23dec2015	Eyebrows McGee is announced as a new new part-time moderator.
2016
26apr2016	pb retires.
27may2016	frimble takes over as MetaFilter's new tech person.
04aug2016	Wordshore asks a question about 18 pounds of Red Leicester cheese, spawns a metatalk thread, draws the attention of at least one journalist, and posts the resolution.
2017
08jun2017	Trying out two Ask MetaFilter questions per week!, from the earlier limit of having to wait seven days between questions.
31jul2017	mathowie transfers ownership of MetaFilter to cortex
2018
13jun2018	State of the Site: Metafilter financial update and future directions
05jul2018	Flagging update: new free-form text option, tweaking flag lists.
2022
08mar2022	Restrictions on the number of Ask Metafilter questions is removed, from the earlier limit of two per week per account.
29mar2022	MetaFilter's owner, cortex, announces his intention to step away from running MetaFilter.
25may2022	It is announced that Jessamyn is MetaFilter's new owner.