MeFi Mall IRL

December 7, 2012 9:45 PM

Would there be any interest in a brick-and-mortar version of the MeFi Mall?

Since a fair number of us (myself included) own offline small businesses, would a listing be useful for people who want to direct their dollars to fellow MeFites in meatspace? I realize there might be privacy concerns for some.

posted by nonasuch to Feature Requests at 9:45 PM (8 comments total)

I would make it a point to visit IRL stores run by MeFites, sure.
posted by mintcake! at 10:00 PM on December 7, 2012 [1 favorite]

I wouldn't mind such a listing, as long as it were an opt-in thing and not an opt-out thing, which would probably keep those private who wanted to remain so.
posted by Rustic Etruscan at 10:37 PM on December 7, 2012

A business directory of Mefites is not really something we are inclined to pursue. Insofar as Metafilter is a site that features neat things on the internet, and some Mefites are creating neat things that can purchased on the internet, the Mall is a nice little page that fits within our raison d'être, and is manageable to offer without a huge amount of extra work, but extending this to a more Chamber of Commerce sort of listing doesn't really make sense for what the site is about.
posted by taz (staff) at 10:55 PM on December 7, 2012

Can't we just do it in the wiki on our own? No additional work for the mods, and we could have a rule that the only listings in the wiki should be things that the store owners enter themselves.
posted by andoatnp at 11:03 PM on December 7, 2012

I always try to shop local, I always try to patronize stores of people I know and I would much prefer to give my dollars to a small run business than a big corporation. Even if it is via the internet. Not sure how to arrange this or if it is appropriate for it to be incorporated into the site itself, but if you come up with a listing and post it somewhere, I will read it and use it. Some of this sounds appropriate for projects if you are opening a new store or trying new sales tactics or have a new line of merchandise.

A listing of user name, name of business and brief description with contact info would be useful to me. The mefi mall is very helpful, but it misses most service type businesses, it misses just local stores such as a hardware store owned by a mefite.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 11:17 PM on December 7, 2012 [1 favorite]

Yeah, I don't see any problem with creating a Wiki page for this.

Just a point of clarification about Projects, though: this is for web projects, especially of the sort that might be ordinarily featured on Metafilter. Because of the no self-linking rule, Projects was created as a space for people to post their own stuff... and if someone else thinks it's a cool thing they might post it to the front page. More info here and here.
posted by taz (staff) at 11:30 PM on December 7, 2012

Sooo... who wants to sell a record collection for cheap??? Got any cool salt and pepper shakers? Coffee paraphanalia?
posted by buzzman at 4:43 AM on December 8, 2012

Only if the bricks are blue.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:15 AM on December 9, 2012