Podcast 13 Transcript

A transcript for Episode 13, Viewer Mail (2007-08-17).

Pronoiac passed the podcast to otter.ai.

Summary Keywords

question, people, filter, meetup, metal, site, minutes, trust, meta, user experience, google, new zealand, read, user base, posts, calling, book, user, members, redwood city

Callers

1. yhbc
2. ALongDecember
3. Miko
4. shoesfullofdust
5. Ambrosia Voyeur
6. carsonb
7. melissa may
8. woodblock100
9. rob511
10. Mayor Peace Love and Unity
11. "anonymous"
12. dobbs
13. parmanparman

Transcript

mathowie 0:07 Jessamyn Welcome to the metal filter podcast. Welcome to Episode 13 of the metal filter podcast. This is the interview show. It's a clip show it's clip show yesterday asked everyone to dial in number and drop a question as a message. And we'll be playing them back and answering them today.

Think it's this idea again? Oh, yeah, my favorite podcast, found Young America has, like listeners call in each week and introduce the show. And I guess I have a forum. But it's not really like a community. And I thought it would just work better on metaphors. Since everyone kind of knows everyone.

Jessamyn 0:56 If I could think anything know what everybody sounds like. Yeah,

mathowie 0:59 I mean, yeah, we all haven't been to all the meetups. So I thought, hey, there's a way we can. There's a way we can get everyone to call in leave messages. And it's a way we can, it's so hard to set up one interview with someone for an extended period of time. But so easy. Just say call us number, leave a message and we'll play it on the air and

Jessamyn 1:22 asynchronous. Meta chats got a minute chat user voices part, I think on the wiki

mathowie 1:30 or something. Oh, everyone just says hello or something. Yeah, I

Jessamyn 1:34 left a little message like, Hi, this voice sounds like it's cool.

mathowie 1:37 Oh, that's cool. Yeah, I thought this would be really cool in an active way to always have new stuff each week, I'm sure next week, maybe we'll have more maybe we can just dedicate five minutes of every podcast from now on to one or two good questions or something.

Jessamyn 1:51 That sounds good.

mathowie 1:52 This is really simple. Net Zero voice private phone thing. I just found in five minutes and Googling some little freebie thing. Yeah, completely free. You pick a phone number anywhere in the world. I just picked a local one. And it just saves a WAV file. And it's a message only service. So you're not calling it a real phone. It saves a WAV file I log in, I can download it. And I could throw that into GarageBand and play it. And so here we are. It's a free instance.

Jessamyn 2:22 So why is it free? Do you have to listen to little ads or their ads on the page?

mathowie 2:26 They Yeah, they're required to use like a webmail client that has like all kinds of crazy Flash ads going and stuff. It looks like it Hotmail from 1997 just gaming Flash ads and colors and like, well, they have no currently to. Yeah, I haven't seen it since meeting ideate. So yeah, he didn't log in and download them and you're done. And yeah. So I guess we'll just start playing these. Okay,

Unknown Speaker 2:54 hi. Metafilter it's Phil from Franklin Massachusetts, also known as y HBC or your humble and beloved Commissioner Matt jest and Cortex as someone who has seen the time sink that is metal filter and in my own life I'm was wondering how much time you guys really do spend on the site each day? And how your loved ones and those that are close to you deal with that. Can you talk about that? Thanks for all the work you do on the site we appreciate it I know I do. Take care bye social Nice.

mathowie 3:30 Yeah, he appreciate it. You're humble. What was it you're humble

Jessamyn 3:34 and beloved Commissioner benevolent

mathowie 3:38 no clue how much time at this point it's all consuming it's not a big defeatist given Donna know, it's just all it's every so yeah, I got to quit my job. I almost two years ago. So this is all I do. It's not that bad. It's I would say 1520 minutes at every hour. I'm reading I'm checking on the side reading something. playing Wii with PB. No, that's pretty rare. Yeah, so yeah, I'll have chunks of time when I'm working on code or something. But for the most part, it's like 20 minutes every hour, basically from my wake to when I sleep. So

Jessamyn 4:33 when you can see it on your iPhone now right? Yeah, does that affect the amount of time you spend online does it does does it mean you're on the site more?

mathowie 4:41 I am on my computer like in my home office less probably because I can just pop in on iPhone, check the admin panels and Gmail and stuff. So nothing's on fire. Yeah, I could be in the living room playing or watching TV or something and check on stuff really quick. So that might be my, you know, one minute per hour check. Right? Yeah, so I guess I use a big computer less because I have a little computer. But well,

Jessamyn 5:09 and people ask me about that too, a lot. I mean, it's probably the most frequently asked question besides like, can I see the admin panel? And you know, and I'm like, oh, you know, about 10 minutes out of every hour. And they're like, what? That's it. And I'm always like, Well, every waking hour of my life, you know, unless I'm on like, vacation, and specifically tagout, kind of

mathowie 5:30 what is 616? You know, it's 15 plus percent of your entire day is dedicated to something I don't know. It doesn't sound like much when it's like 10 minutes every hour, but when you stack it all up, and it can never be off your mind completely, it's kind of

Jessamyn 5:45 taken, nothing goes wrong. And if something goes wrong, then it's an hour out of every hour. And that could be in the middle of Thanksgiving, or but yeah, no, not, you know, not terribly much time and cortex would answer only he's at work. He has a day job.

mathowie 6:02 And he's still probably spent 10 minutes every hour. Yeah, I feel like he's

Jessamyn 6:07 online as much as I am. I mean, I'm sending email to him as often as I'm getting it from him. So yeah, he seems he seems honored as well.

mathowie 6:14 And I think friends and loved ones all seem to understand that sort of, I mean, friends, but aren't internet people just think I run, you know, I'll tell him a website, but then also tell him it has employees and stuff. So it's more like a company. So it's like an all consuming thing. And like a small businessman. Yeah, they they're like, Yeah, whatever, he's got fires to put out. My wife is just, you know, as eight years going on with this. So she totally understand that. One of my friends,

Jessamyn 6:47 my friends around here, a lot of them. I mean, there's a chunk of them that are metal filter people and the chunk of them that aren't meant to filter people. And so the people that don't know about it, at least they know other people who aren't me that are on it. So it's not like having like this total invisible friend kind of thing. And it shows up in the media enough that they're like, Oh, I read about you on whatever Adam Savage is top 10 List nonsense that he likes to check out. Which makes it a little bit more real than just like some random, you know, thing they've never heard of. But my my parents both are like, yeah, that weird fake job you have, like, Whatever, dude, you know.

mathowie 7:30 I'm always having to deal with like, my dentist and stuff. Like going What is it? What was it look like? What was it? Yeah, yeah, I'm used to people not understanding. So yeah, yeah, I think that's pretty good for ya. HPC. Good question.

Jessamyn 7:48 Why HPC? Okay, next.

Unknown Speaker 7:51 Hi, my name is long December. I asked this question in a meta talk thread, but I'll repeat it here. Has anyone considered a best of metal photo book? Maybe on dating? Since it seems like half the questions are about that anyway, I know the rights would be kind of messy asking every single member but I think it would sell pretty well and be unique. Thanks. I

mathowie 8:09 think we have helpful dating advice.

Jessamyn 8:13 I wonder about that. I mean, there was a meta talk thread really recently. And everybody was like AskMe filter, totally horrible relationship filter advice. But then somebody pulled out like sticky carpets, you know, good five legged stool thing. And people were like, Oh, very good. But I feel like, yeah, it's the diamond in the rough kind of stuff. And all they're like relationship filter people. People think AskMe are the filters, totally. But computers and all the computer. People think that filter is always about relationships. Like it's whatever your thing is.

mathowie 8:46 That's awesome. Yeah, I could totally see that. I knew your complaints about too much relationship stuff from Yeah, you're exactly right. That is hilarious. And

Jessamyn 8:56 now that you know, we're moving the travel over, it's going to be really interesting to see if that makes complaints about what to do in New York City posts go away or move or yeah,

mathowie 9:08 they will flourish.

Jessamyn 9:12 Yes, people will find the best delicatessen in Manhattan.

mathowie 9:15 Yeah, so I think metal filter a couple of metal talk threads are in early weblog book that was edited by Rebecca blood. I can't remember what they were discussing. It might have been like backwards.

Jessamyn 9:28 Nicole stuff. Me before that.

mathowie 9:32 I think it's from like 2000 ish.

Jessamyn 9:34 Maybe it was have it on my bookshelf in the other room. So

mathowie 9:36 it's somewhere on my bookshelf right now. I think it's upstairs. I can't I think it was when like every blogger in 2000 was on metal filter. So they use metal filters. The one place to talk something they're talking about blogging. I can't remember. So yeah, it's not easy. I remember the publisher had had to give 50 emails to the publisher and they contacted every single comment or Everyone owns their own posts, right? Yeah. And I made sure that so it wasn't like I was going to be a dick and make money off your posts from day one.

Jessamyn 10:10 Coca Cola?

mathowie 10:11 Yeah published books. Okay, why presents He loves us in both holes catchy slogan, it could be picked up by Madison Avenue. Yeah, so you own your copyright for reasons that. But newspapers and book publishers have to ask you first and they don't just ask me and I say yes. And break that whole trust thing.

Jessamyn 10:41 And you show up in some book talking about your horrible girlfriend or your wife who's like, what

mathowie 10:46 is the Google that username? They figure it out? You know, that's Chris Jenkins and blah, blah, blah. So yeah, I don't think a I don't think relationships stuff and make a great book be it's kind of hard to make a book. See, eventually, something will probably show up in print. I don't know what to think of the best, I guess. Podcasts serve the best of already. I don't know if printed would have the same.

Jessamyn 11:13 But I could just see like a best of like spawning some sort of like, meta talk ask print response. Like your idea of the best. is terrible,

mathowie 11:28 right? Yeah. Like why that was a terrible Compendium? That would be awesome. Oh, there needs to be shot. That was a good question from long December.

Unknown Speaker 11:38 Hi, Matt, Howie and Jessamyn. This is Miko from meta filter. And I'm calling with a question about meetups. I'm looking at the meta tag page and noticing that there are meetups within the next month in Santiago, Chile, in a couple places in the US in London and also in Sydney. I assume Australia that was not specific. And by my count, that's four continents. I'm wondering if there have been meetups on every continent yet? And if not, would that be a good goal for metal filters? 10th anniversary seventh continent meetup thanks very much thanks for the podcast and see around by

mathowie 12:15 so seventh continent meetup we've had we have plenty Europe plenty of Europe and North America some South America one ton

Jessamyn 12:24 of Asia there's a Tokyo I think it Tokyo meetup fairly recently. It's Tokyo

mathowie 12:28 in South Korea. So that's five I don't Can you Google for South Africa. My keyboards allowed gets in the recording. There might have been a South African meetup or meat bomb might have come through Egypt or something once. Right. I seem to recall that meat bomb traveling the world is pretty much responsible for most weird meetup. I haven't looked at Google Earth in a while. Are there any African dots on the map? Yeah, from the KML file. I haven't updated the KML file like in six months.

Jessamyn 13:01 Oh, you should update that. It looks like a lot of Europeans but it doesn't look like anybody was grepping for

Unknown Speaker 13:08 Africans

mathowie 13:09 HOLY SHIT pen devil really is in Cape Town.

Jessamyn 13:14 There you go. Let's have pen devil have a meetup you can fly me out. I would make the sacrifice and as much as I'm looking forward to more video games for the metal filter 10th anniversary but I think it's doable. Antarctica, we'd have to recruit.

mathowie 13:27 Yeah, there's we've got that tingling that Puffin eating person in the Falklands. I think that's one pie that's off the south tip of South America right isn't it? Yeah, I guess it wouldn't happen on Antarctica without significant amount of trying to coax goofy NASA researchers people

Jessamyn 13:51 down there well and that time of the year is horrible. Right? It would have to be some other time of the year. Oh, yeah,

mathowie 13:56 December's I mean yeah, July is their December it's horrible. The population all the research really happens in like three months in their summer when it's not completely unbearable so and people can fly in and fly out. Yeah, you can't even fly I mean people are just stuck in the dark during that winter so we so it's not likely who can get six for sure.

Jessamyn 14:18 But I think it's something to aim for. I think you gotta have goals.

mathowie 14:23 Gotta have goals in the urine almost two years Well, I

Jessamyn 14:26 was thinking it would be fun I mean meat bomb you know driving across the country with his fiancee it would be fun to like, like a meet up in every state. Yeah, like get get somebody in a little metal filter PT Cruiser or something to go around. On who would

mathowie 14:42 be the ambassador of metal filter though. Like

Jessamyn 14:46 I wouldn't do it. Josh would do it. Cortex would do it.

mathowie 14:48 Oh, I would have loved it. I mean, I've always had some fantasy of a cross country trip to meet members and I don't know film it or something. I mean, he's got you have Have something to bring back to

Jessamyn 15:01 me Tom's doing a little movie actually, like he did some little film, digital camera when he was here. So I think he's doing that with everyone else too. Although, you know, who knows? It'll be really cool if it all comes together.

mathowie 15:15 Yeah, that'd be awesome. I've talked to several people want to do a documentary about Metafilter. Filming the road trip would probably be an easy

Jessamyn 15:21 hook. And more interesting than a documentary of a bunch of people sitting

mathowie 15:25 around talking about text on the screen. Yeah.

Jessamyn 15:29 Like Metafilter helps me connect with

mathowie 15:32 other people told me to dump my boyfriend who doesn't love me. Fat.

Jessamyn 15:39 Male just said, I need a lawyer. And boy, did I

mathowie 15:44 not just a user. I'm the president. Next question. Okay.

Unknown Speaker 15:52 Hi, not sure it's full of dust here. Can you tell us what inspired you to start a website based on trust? And how the idea of trust continues to inform your vision of metal filter? Thank you.

Jessamyn 16:08 Everybody still polite?

mathowie 16:09 Yeah, it's like that's downright dignified. I think. So the trust, if you ever read the New User Page, just like this mile long thing I wrote one night in 2000, or 2001, after I was tired of being burned by like spammers, it was me it's way too long, right? Nobody reads it these days. But it's all infused with trust. And it's like, it was sort of a new concept back then to like, you sign up. And then you can change the homepage on the web, or you have a website with all these people on it. And they don't even know who you are, right? Yeah, they require this whole like, Oh, my God, the community is trusting you to come in and not screw that. And I'm the older I'm like, trusting everyone to be nice to each other. Those big thing and trust. It wasn't like a cord guiding principle. From the beginning. It was only after it became like this community and it started kind of get out of control. For me personally. Well, after it wasn't just your buddies, right? Yeah, yeah. When it got into the greater world, and then there's all this emphasis on me like making things better. And then it really was like, it's my responsibility to like, keep the server's up and make power. Yeah, so your trust came in, and I'm like, Dude, I'm killing. There was, you know, early meta talk threads are a lot of I do and do and do for you guys. And this is what you give me. I mean, that's essentially the whole first year I'm gonna talk in a nutshell. So I just wrote this whole thing about, like, you know, I'm trusting you people to like, just be nice to each other and not be decks, and everyone here is trusting you not to fuck up the whole place by dropping the stink bomb every day. Oh, it's just

Jessamyn 17:51 it's a be cool policy. I mean, you know, we have that at public libraries across America to like, look, it's a shared resource. Please be cool.

mathowie 18:00 Yeah. So it wasn't, it was something that was tacked on later on. I think I sort of realized, Oh, my God, this thing is all built on the trust of everyone to each other me to everybody else also, in some other like admin capacity. So as long hair does it, what your secret they'd be? Yeah, I don't know what it guides every decision going forward much. Because a lot of times when we're talking about new feature, like how would people mess with that? Which is like the opposite of trust.

Jessamyn 18:35 But there is like a presumed good faith kind of thing. I mean, it's sort of like Wikipedia, but like, you know, you assume unless you really have evidence to the contrary, that people are really trying to like, do the right thing and not just mess with stuff unless proven otherwise, in which case, then you have to be like, quit breaking it or whatever.

mathowie 18:52 Yeah. So I guess go this one.

Jessamyn 18:56 Oh, you know, I met Okay, I have some questions. Here's the first one. I sometimes find myself evangelizing that filter to my friends. But it's hard to put in layman's terms when membership is so fulfilling. The main point I used to promote the site is that the moderation is both instructive to and representative of the qualitative level of these are produced content. She's said moderation squad speak about meta filter if you meet someone who you want to bring on board. My second question is, two questions. Do the trickles of publicity the site enjoys now and then contribute in a noticeable way to traffic? If these tributaries of attention Sunday School Metafilter the mainstream status? What about the early days of the site? Will you feel most nostalgic about almost ashamed? And my last question is how do you know these questions are for members and this has been ambrosia voyeur calling.

Good question. Well, how do we know they're from members? Please see previous trust question.

mathowie 19:57 Jesus Christ three parter. It was first one, how do we describe metal filter?

Jessamyn 20:03 How do we describe it to people we want to bring on board? You know, I always say it's this double end set I work at, like, I mean, not in a bad way. But just like if you're not already met a filter, curious, I don't really feel the need to, like, bring people into it who aren't like, I mean, if I sometimes like divert reference questions, they're like, I don't know what blogging software, you need to solve that problem, you should ask better filter or look through AskMe to filter and figure out where your answer is.

mathowie 20:34 I don't know. I'm not really I can't remember the last time I like, urge someone to join Metafilter

Jessamyn 20:43 except for like, you know, famous people who have like, emailed like, Oh, I saw my question. Like, I saw somebody linked to me and I want to respond or something, like, bright or something. Yeah, most of the time. You know, when I give people accounts, it's just because they live in Peru, and they don't have Pay Pal.

mathowie 21:00 Yeah, yeah. Um, I don't know how I would describe it. Gosh, I go, I think of like one friend from college. That was really funny that I urged to join and like, had to handhold them through the whole thing probably left to comments ever, like five years ago?

Jessamyn 21:18 It's definitely not for everybody.

mathowie 21:20 Yeah. It's not easy to describe. I'm not pimping it to anybody. So that doesn't come up.

Jessamyn 21:27 I sometimes wear the shirt and people are like, or what's that? Yeah,

mathowie 21:32 I still kicking myself is some guy in Oakland walked in the street, like the shirt and like, knew what it was. And I didn't stop them. I was like, No, so brain dead. I was like, you know,

Jessamyn 21:41 I'm that guy.

mathowie 21:44 I didn't want to be like, That, like, fucking guy, you know, important. I am dude. Like,

Jessamyn 21:52 I don't want to make T shirts.

mathowie 21:53 I wanted to be like, like, I'm a fanboy of the FANBOY ism. Like, wow, you know who it is like, what this is? That's fucking amazing. was the second part or the second question was about media?

Jessamyn 22:07 Oh, yeah. Does it affect anything?

mathowie 22:11 It doesn't, as much as it used to. It used to be night and day, like, something comes out New York Times a billion people show up. And it's chaos. These days? I don't know, sometimes. They'll last. I mean, sometimes a ton of people sign up one day, I know, it must have been asked Metafilter must have been mentioned somewhere as a resource of like, oh, that happened in a while. Oh, yeah. It's probably have at least probably once a month, for note. So I get a little Pay Pal notifications that someone's Yeah. And we get like five to 10 a day like people sign up. It's just normal. And then once in a while you get like 50 people sign up a day or 20. Even when it gets over 20. It's like, totally. Yeah, I'm like, and I have to go to Google News and search for meta filter and see what the hell happened. The biggest one ever. Just like in the recently, like past $5 era of metal filter was Kevin Kelly mentioned as metal there's this great resource on cool tools. Oh my gosh, uh, huh. Like to like a year ago? Come on it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And he sort of uses it and said, I've used it for for questions. I got excellent answers from very smart participants like this. He probably mentioned this a year and a half ago as a while ago. But I swear to God, maybe 200 people signed up that day or 300. It was insane. Holy crap. Yeah, it would just went from nothing to I was getting a Pay Pal thing notification every minute of the day. Like, yeah, I probably made $1,000 In one day off of mentioned from Kevin Kelly. And those people are all, you know, smart readers into gadgets and stuff. So I think they probably turned into a good ask Minnesota participants. What was the third question?

Jessamyn 23:57 The third question we kind of already answered, which is how do you trust these questions are from AskMe?

mathowie 24:03 Yeah, I knew so I joke around about that. Answer. We don't. Hey, we've got a lot of women calling. That's great. Now the boys.

Jessamyn 24:13 Oh, yeah. Good point.

Unknown Speaker 24:14 Hi, this is Carson, the BS silent. And my question is sort of a long one. it possibly could be six parts long. However, here it is. Okay. Given your godlike admin status and powers, what is one of the columns out the user experience for the entire meta filter universe and the user base or community with one thing you would change about the user experience and one thing you would change about the user base or community and then the second major party writing this down, giving your godlike admin status and powers, if everything else about metaphor change? What's one thing that you would keep about the user experience and about the user base? stir community. Okay, thanks for taking my question. And I enjoy listening to the podcast is

mathowie 25:06 not that bad. It's only

Jessamyn 25:08 like four parts to two partners. It's

mathowie 25:11 two questions. If you could change anything about the UI, right user experience, sorry. What would you do? What would you change? And then if you change anything about the user base itself, and then on the flip side of everything changed, where the two things you'd keep as a user experience in the user base. Okay, so user experience is easy. There's one thing the image

Jessamyn 25:38 tag said it. You're just gonna edit it out?

mathowie 25:49 No, I'll keep it in, keep me honest. There's one thing I could change about the user experience. It is like, as I've encountered, people seeing it for the first time, it is really confusing, it is really intimidating is just this wall of text. Just in a general, I mean, there's no specifics, but if it was friendly, or easier to read, easier to parse, you know, if it was just more easily approachable, it probably works to our advantage at this point that it's so that we're like a BBS you know, because it keeps out like everybody sort of that's not super technically aware and proficient and stuff. So I mean, just the interface feels and the experience of it feels like a huge barrier to entry. You sign up, you pay this to be there and you're not allowed to do anything for a week, right? Like that infuriates a lot of people, a small subset of it does. And it like when you compare it to like yahoo answers, you know, that's a ridiculous, you know, they let you sign up and ask 200 questions in an hour if you really wanted to, they don't even care, you know, it doesn't fill up in the way we designed it is that everything has a capacity and stuff. And it wasn't never, I never thought about that way. But that's definitely what's happening. Like why we have to limit everyone and every. So if you go through, you get to the point of like, you actually read the site, that's just a wall attacks, you actually find something interesting. And you actually stick around for long enough to actually pay to be there with few sites do. And then on top of that, you wait another week, just ask your question, like, because if you miss hurdles to workers crazy, yeah. So I kind of wish the user experience was, was much more welcoming.

Jessamyn 27:36 Well, and I'd love to see like user customizable, customizable, like whatever profile pages or style sheets, like I know why we took that stuff away. And I know sort of the point behind it. But it would be neat to like, I mean, I've seen people do some interesting stuff with grease monkey, it would be neat to see that be almost like a metal filter feature, instead of like a totally external feature. I mean, just like in a made up universe, it's not like I missed this on a day to day basis.

mathowie 28:02 No, no, it's a way to tap into, like user based creativity, which is great. What was the one thing we would change about the user base? I don't know, what the does he want me to ban someone? I don't know.

Jessamyn 28:15 I don't think so. I don't pretty nice.

mathowie 28:17 I don't think there's any problems among when you think of the user base as well. I'd like

Jessamyn 28:21 a more diverse user base, generally. I mean, I'd like more women there and more like older people and more people from different backgrounds. But like, that's just like, I mean, that's sort of what you I don't know, like, I'd want that about the world in general. It has nothing to do with metal filters. Specifically.

mathowie 28:38 Yeah, I would want more smart people of any stripe. Yeah, more

Jessamyn 28:42 fun, smart, interesting people with backgrounds and stories to tell, yeah, blah, what's wrong with the user base as it

mathowie 28:49 is, once in a while we do have like some super smart, sharp, old person sign up. And you realize they're 75 years old or something like, you know, in your, in my mind, I was pre judgment of, you know, 75 year olds being crazy and looking for their pills. So be great to have more smart people from all walks of life in all backgrounds, and that just have an interesting story to tell her help to give. Yeah,

Jessamyn 29:18 um, I mean, we were talking about sort of boys zone thing earlier, and I feel like we've gotten beyond that, then there's a lot of like, participating females of various ages and backgrounds, you know, so instead of just being like, oh, there's a whole bunch of like, mid 30s women, there's actually like younger women and mid 30s women and older women. And you know, I feel like that kind of helps everybody, especially in AskMe Metafilter, where a diversity of experience is kind of important for a lot of the questions that people ask. Yeah,

mathowie 29:44 yeah. What was the new killer option after everything's dead? What do we do? If we change everything, what would I miss? That's hard.

Jessamyn 29:56 Kept if we kept one thing I don't even know Like if the entire United States fell into the sea, which state would you say?

mathowie 30:05 I don't even know. What's the one thing I like about the user experience? I don't know. I love that. AskMe edit filters really useful. So if everything went away, I hope AskMe edit filters stick around its current state. I don't know. I guess.

Jessamyn 30:19 Yeah. But it's hard to play favorites, right? I hope my list of contacts stays alive so that I could still meet my friends in the apocalypse. Yeah, I'm not totally sure. I understand Carson. I'm sorry.

mathowie 30:34 After the apocalypse, I hope I have a personal information manager.

Jessamyn 30:38 I hope that my phone numbers are in print somewhere.

mathowie 30:42 What was the other thing that was user experience? What was a member base user base? What do we like about the user base? Most of all, now? I don't know. I think the meetup thing is really cool to see it codified as like, they're on five continents at once all the time, which is really cool. I just like the wacky wall of Tech's website turns into like people meeting and barn being nice to each other. And then eventually, you know, weddings and stuff. Great. Totally. Well, we're

Jessamyn 31:11 gonna write a book about metal filter. That would be like one of your metal filter dating books. Like here's the story of all these people that got married because they met on metal filter. Yeah, yeah. So So quit making fun of me and my nerdy website

mathowie 31:27 Yeah, I think that's about it for that one. What was the username? That was Carson? Last question be silent.

Unknown Speaker 31:34 Hey, guys, this is Melissa May. subside is going to be out of beta. Kisses. Bye.

mathowie 31:45 It was an alpha. M. to Melissa Mays on two shows in a row. I was just really listening to Melissa, my interview. And she had that. So such nice things to say to us. And I never even said thanks. Like I was so focused on what's the next question stuff, doing interviewees kind of stuff? That?

Jessamyn 32:10 Is this your way of saying? Yes. Thank you now.

mathowie 32:13 Thank you that does those kinds of stories and stuff from members is really like amazing. And really, like gets me out of bed every morning when people find something they like, and it really touches their life in every single way possible. So travel filter, I've sort of put it on the back burner. I'm doing a whole bunch of fixes with PV and we're doing a whole bunch of server junk. And we're in the middle of like a cold fusion upgrade, and which should make things better, but there'll be way worse for like a week, I'm sure so I have no, I mean, yeah, it was almost all ready to go in June. There's a ton of little bits to fix. And we haven't gotten around to them. So I would think in the next month or so. month or two. I don't know. I don't, I don't have a ton of motivation to crank out like little CSS fixes for eight hours a day. But whenever I get motivated, I can just crank it out in a day or two. So I think

Jessamyn 33:18 three 2007 Sometimes

mathowie 33:20 Sure. And yeah, that's why I put alpha to expect anything of anything. That's pretty good. Let's go. Hello, it's

Unknown Speaker 33:33 woodblock 100. Here calling from Tokyo might be too late for this. But anyways, give it a try. My questions about Google and meta filter. I'm curious what kind of deals you have done with the Google battle. The other day I was browsing AskMe. FYI. And notice that the top question didn't have an answer yet. I figured I might be able to help answer it with a bit of help from Google. So I went over there and typed in a phrase from the question. I couldn't believe what I saw at the top of the search replies the actual astral fi question itself was there. I see that a lot last year for I'm checking time and the post, it was 30 minutes ago, which is just a coincidence, or do you have a deal with Google where stuff is automatically added to their indexes just at the moment of Holy Spirit? And we're just curious about that. Thanks to everybody there for all your work keeping the site running by

Jessamyn 34:18 what block 100 is a newish member and I just added his amazing looking website to the Mi fi user sites blog. Ago printmaker woodblock print maker,

mathowie 34:31 so I noticed that too, though, it's 20 minutes. That's crazy. Getting the exact question back is insane. But I saw something. I was gone for a week at the beach last week, and I came back and I was reading like 1000 RSS things like in one hour. I was scrolling through and there was someone making a post about Google is super ramped up their Google bot nests with blogs. Specifically I guessed. I don't know high profile. allows for something, or people are showing that their posts are showing up and Google within 10 minutes is being Yeah, completely normal blogs now. So I'm doing nothing. Maybe it's because of Google Reader is tied into the Google bot. And like, when Google scrapes your site, it's also sending it off to the RSS reader. So I think it'd be smart. If that were the case. If it's checking RSS every 10 minutes or something for new bits and probably scraped the site again, or something I don't. I don't know why it's just somebody I can't think of who was blogging about it, but someone was blogging him out. blog posts on some blogs are showing up in Google within 10 minutes.

Unknown Speaker 35:39 Alright, this is me site number 25414. Rob 511 Calling from beautiful New Zealand. Hi, there. I'm thinking of changing my user name by adding 200 to it. That would make me Rob 711. So here's my question. Would that be against the Patriot Act? And could matter how we'd be contacted by the Feds and held liable Thanks, bye bye.

mathowie 36:07 Why doesn't he sound like he's in New Zealand?

Jessamyn 36:09 I had no idea he was from New Zealand.

mathowie 36:12 I was an ER Kiwi doubt.

Jessamyn 36:15 Is he really from New Zealand? No, it sounds

mathowie 36:17 like an American sitting in New Zealand actually. Seriously, username suck to change that because that's sort of your identity on the site. So we rarely do it and it has to be done my hands pay the house. So I usually tell people No, but that was funny. Yeah. Why was I think you actually isn't New Zealand it came in as an international number.

Jessamyn 36:40 It says Auckland, it's he's got a New Zealand email address. I'm looking at his photographs on Flickr right now. But you know, as Metafilter probably foremost, you know, knowledgeable person on the Patriot Act.

mathowie 36:58 Okay, let's do one more. The mosque

Unknown Speaker 37:01 day. This is Mayor peace, love and unity. And first of all, I wanted to tell you that I love the site. I was gonna say tell you guys, but it occurred to me that Jessamyn isn't like a guy, because a guy is a man and he is not a man. And I recognize

Jessamyn 37:20 you know who this is right?

Unknown Speaker 37:21 Who is it that is inclusive like that? And it's like really, really on their peace, love and unity. Wondering what is meant it's done to Free Tibet and nothing, maybe nothing, because some

mathowie 37:38 people don't smoke in college.

Unknown Speaker 37:41 A free on the

Unknown Speaker 37:42 front page. This is the sock puppet account. People who aren't logged in because I think Metafilter members are good people and kind of fit and they would probably are you know, free to bet. Maybe other people don't and that would totally remind them. And that would be really excellent. And I would read the site while I was logged out just see it back.

mathowie 38:12 Who was that?

Jessamyn 38:13 It is Mayor peace, love and unity. You probably also know him as mayor Curley.

mathowie 38:21 was funny.

Jessamyn 38:22 Do you have an opinion about Tibet?

mathowie 38:24 It should be free. I love Tibet. I love Nepal too. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 38:32 All right. This is anonymous. And I want to know why don't you give Johnson a gold star

mathowie 38:43 wow, I have so many. Why is everybody on

Jessamyn 38:45 drugs this morning? These are all the morning people they all like came into work and there were like

mathowie 38:58 yeah, Johnson really does need a gold star but is gold. Oh, he needs an invisible gold star. The gold stars in his head and you know all our hearts.

Unknown Speaker 39:08 Hey, stops calling from Toronto

Unknown Speaker 39:09 and I just want to know what time is.

Jessamyn 39:16 What is it with everybody in the morning?

mathowie 39:18 They just got into work. They got nothing to do they check their email. God that's the film guy in Toronto. Right?

Jessamyn 39:28 I like hearing I like hearing God's voice. I haven't seen him on the site as much lately.

mathowie 39:32 Yeah. What's up with that Dobbs if we can ask the question of you. Okay, last one.

Unknown Speaker 39:40 Hi, this is Harmon parman in Washington, DC. And I actually have a question, because I don't know I'm awfully terrible at getting people together for meetups, and I'm moving to Redwood City next Friday to take on a new radio show. I'm on commercial radio, a new daily show. And I'm just wondering if there's anyone in Redwood City, California who'd like to meet up and show me around the city because I'm totally new to the area. I lived in California all my life. And yet, I never went 40 miles south to go to Redwood City. So parman Parven would love to know if anyone's

mathowie 40:19 asking us

Jessamyn 40:21 a question for us at all. Yeah. Wow. So just to restate parman for anybody that lives in or near Redwood City, he would like to get you at a meet up because he has bad luck with meetups for some reason. No, I know people who have been to meetups with him, and they say he's very nice.

mathowie 40:39 But that's such, this is such an accessible format in like 30 minutes into an audio recording that you have to download. Someone might live in Redwood City. It's unlikely we'll probably post on metadata.

So yeah, that's it. Yeah. 13 questions that worked out pretty well.

Jessamyn 41:02 Your picture music for the beginning in the end? Yeah.

mathowie 41:05 No time for recaps. Do you want to do recaps later? Anything we can

Jessamyn 41:11 add if you want. Otherwise, we could just have this be a short one. And Scotty said she'd be interested in doing a upcoming interview. So I think it'd be fun to interview Scotty.

mathowie 41:19 Oh, cool. And I think it would be stoked if these questions became a permanent fixture.

Jessamyn 41:25 Yeah, once a month or something. Yeah. It's great to hear your podcast.

mathowie 41:29 Yeah. It's great to hear from new members and people we haven't heard from a long time or even people we read a bit read every day to know what they sound like. I enjoy hearing people's wishes for sure. Awesome. And ask us anything. I think we answered everything. All right, cool. That's the show.