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MetaTalk
MetaTalk (also referred to as MeTa or the Grey) is a place to talk about what we talk about on MetaFilter. On a typical day you might see threads about:
- changing some of the help or guideline information on the website
- the appropriateness of a particular MeFi post or comment
- writing a MeFi FAQ
- bugs in the system
- various administrative issues that need the attention of moderators
- moderation itself and moderation policies or practices
- deletion decisions for comments, comment chains, or posts
- the culture of the site
- MetaTalktails
- Hyucking Hyuck and Fucking Fuck
- I can haz moar ponies?
Occasionally you might see in the middle of a MeFi thread a comment that says simply 'MetaTalk'. This means that the poster of the comment has some issue with what's being said on the thread and wants to discuss it in further detail in MetaTalk, without disrupting the flow of the MeFi thread.
MetaTalk is not for idle chat and gossip; the mods have made this clear several times. Every few months there are suggestions that MetaFilter should have some kind of dedicated discussion forums, in order to provide a 'release valve' for all the pent-up chat that infects MetaFilter and MetaTalk threads, but the mods don't want to create forums. This is entirely reasonable since doing this would require a lot of work, bandwidth and webspace. Despite this, many MetaTalk threads have a lot of gossip and chatting.
There are some unofficial MetaFilter related discussion forums, such as MetaChat - see Related Websites.
MetaTalk was used for organising real life Meet Ups until 2010, when MeFi IRL was created.
At US Thanksgiving in 2011, the MetaTalk post queue was first introduced as a way of managing MetaTalk threads that might demand a lot of mod participation at times when the mods as a group might not be easily available. When the MetaTalk queue is "on", mod approval is required prior to any post actually appearing in MetaTalk. Beginning in May 2014, the MetaTalk post queue was instituted full time.
Some MetaTalk threads worth reading
Some discussions on MetaTalk address passing issues and may not be worth returning to later. But, some are worth reading to understand why the community is the way it is and how it has changed over time.
- In June and July 2019, a set of threads were created to address longstanding concerns about moderation and systemic racism in our community, and to create a relatively free discussion area for site members who identify as people of color.
