ShadowyBackAlleys

This is a list of MetaFilter oddities; files, old pages, stalled projects, weird corners, and shadowy back alleys from various dead-ends in the site's evolution. There's a ton of cool nooks and MeFi-related projects off the site too, but this list concentrates on stuff hosted at MetaFilter.com (with the one exception of cortex's MeFi 2.0 research hub MetaFiltr).

The shadowy back alleys of MetaFilter:

Functions & Features

• badday - Log of a painful hard drive upgrade.
• LoFi
• 100 random MeFite websites
• Donate to MeFi
• Google Earth KML File (Instructions on using MeFi KML with Google Earth)
• Profile Photos - What do MeFites look like?
• Social Explorer - Where else do MeFites hang out?
• Recent Twitters - Say what?
• Recent Flickr Uploads - Say cheese.
• Recent LastFM Tracks - Sounds good.
• TextAds are phased out.
• Close Your Account. This is the page you see when you click the link at the bottom of your profile.
• Mobile MeFi for your portable devices.
• gopher.metafilter.com - November 2000 - June 2001
• Download/export your comments (relevant MetaTalk post)
• Ask MeFi Interest Areas (shows the most frequently occurring Ask MetaFilter tags on questions you have answered)
• Members Area (Members Only jacket required.)
• The Sidebar, before it was Powered by Blogger or wevs.
• Content of the Sidebar as a stand-alone page.
• The Sidebar Archives
• Browser Check
• MeFi is getting a massage. You don't want to see this page, ever.
• Javascript Required!
• Read-only mode. A new feature of server migrations.
• Random post redirects - Mefi, AskMe, MeTa, Music, Projects, Jobs.
• Go to a random post, comment, or post or comment chosen from the items that you have favorited.
• Feed of final updates to long-closed Ask MetaFilter questions.

Fun Stuff

• MetaFilter Taglines (MetaFiltr)
• taglines.gif (image, MeTa)
• Shop MeFi - $$
• Newer MeFi Mall - (ca. 2009)
• Kottke header and footer
• Give the gift of MetaFilter
• Capital and Stratification within Virtual Community: A Case Study of Metafilter.com by Quartermass
• The Best Posts of August, 2006 (3/day)
• The MetaFilter Scholarship Fund (2001)
• The Jabber Server (defunct)
• MetaFilter's Style Sheet (um, and another one?)
• dios vs. rothko fundraiser
• MetaFilter Redesign Contest
• MetaFilter goes on vacation.
• MetaFilter.com is 2 years old!
• Custom Baseball Shirts
• Happy Birthday mathowie Polka! (See MeTa thread)
• The Print PDF
• Says Who? - Think you know your mefites? Try your hand at the Metafilter identification game (see MeTa thread)
• 2010 - The Year in MetaFilter Infographic

April Fools

comprehensive listing at April Fools

• April Fools! (year?) There is no spoon...
• April Fools! (2007)
• April Fools! (2008)

Stats

• MeFi Labs: An experimental subsite introduced in January 2014 designed to contain experiments and interesting ideas. Includes 2013: The Year in MeFi Stats among other statistical and aggregated information.
• MetaFilter statistics: Infodump (includes stats on posts, comments, favorites, contacts, and users). Some analyses using the Infodump can be found on the MetaAnalysis & Infodump and Excel pages.
• MetaFilter corpus: Corpus (a collection of language data about Metafilter, intended as an adjunct to the Infodump). Metafilter Corpus - Frequency Tables.
• Metatalk thread closure status by month and per thread. (MetaFiltr)
• Flag Distribution (MetaFiltr)
• Threads containing at least one comment consisting solely of a single '.' character - (MetaFiltr)
• Initial image of MeFi user locations KML file from this introductory MeTa thread.
• Web Server statistics for MetaFilter ca. Feb. 2002, Mar. 2001.
• Warning: This page labeled zipcode data might crash your browser.

Images

• Your very own Gold Star
• Katrina Relief corner link
• Mattcupid/Siren dizzyingly put to use in this MetaTalk thread.
• What MetaTalk looks like for the mods.
• MeFi is On Notice.
• Vestiges of an April 1 buyout.
• The moderator spammerwatch interface.
• Google Analytics says
  • 77% of people visiting MeFi use Windows (as of September 2008, via)
  • more Firefox than Internet Explorer users (as of December 2007, via)
• Sirens (Beacons)
• 2010: The Year in MetaFilter traffic stats infographic by mathowie

Banners

see also Banners

• SpookyFilter
• MetaFilter: more addictive than crack.
• MetaFilter: Now wasting 12% more work time.
• I voted and it totally sucked.

Defunct links

Many of these items ceased working after the January 2009 server incident.

• TravelFilter was an experimental AskMe offshoot that never got off the ground
• User Word Clouds
• MarkovFilter - Come again?
• Banned For Life
• Banished won it

The Metatalk thread | Occasionally updated, as events warrant.