Mefi Mall, year round?

January 3, 2014 2:01 PM

Has there ever been any real discussion to keeping some sort of Mefi Mall link up year round?

I didn't get any sales, but I sure got a ton of traffic, which might...result in a sale someday. I liked browsing through the creations of various Mefites.

Is it a pain for the Squad to maintain? Perhaps via something in the profile?

posted by nevercalm to MetaFilter-Related at 2:01 PM (29 comments total)

My guess is that the URL (/mefimall.mefi) probably exists all year, it's just not advertised outside of the festive season. I'd shop at this pony stall.
posted by arcticseal at 2:05 PM on January 3, 2014 [1 favorite]

I wonder if it could be added as a link under the Links thing in the bottom bar, under MeFi Wiki?
posted by phunniemee at 2:12 PM on January 3, 2014

The page does exist all year so you can always browse it. And even if we don't do anything formal on profile pages you could link to it yourself on your profile page.

My hesitation with promoting it year round would be things going stale on the page in the form of people not responding to requests or 404s.
posted by pb (staff) at 2:13 PM on January 3, 2014 [2 favorites]

I did get a sweet Settlers of Catan clock for my brother from chrisamiller so I'm pro-MeFi mall stuff.

If you read this, thanks for the clock! It was great! He really liked it!
posted by Mrs. Pterodactyl at 2:37 PM on January 3, 2014 [3 favorites]

Promoting it all year would also get it less attention at the holidays - it would just fade into the normal site structure.
posted by maryr at 5:22 PM on January 3, 2014

I would not mind keeping it around in some respects but doing more active promotion around holidaytime. I always find neat stuff there.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 5:39 PM on January 3, 2014 [3 favorites]

Heh. Having it year 'round would be nice, if only to avoid the annual "Oh shit I meant to get something together for that oh well guess its too late now…"
posted by klangklangston at 6:07 PM on January 3, 2014 [1 favorite]

I'd more like to think that I personally would start with Mefites for stuff to buy for friends. I think it would be nice to roll the whole thing into Metafilter as a whole.
posted by nevercalm at 7:04 PM on January 3, 2014

I'd love it if it were around somewhere on Metafilter year round, especially if that encouraged more people to sign up for it. I just referred someone today to the site with the Dapper Animal shirts so it's not just seasonal.
posted by jetlagaddict at 7:16 PM on January 3, 2014

I think it should be a permanent fixture, with an opt-in profile option.
posted by oceanjesse at 10:26 PM on January 3, 2014

This is a real Hot Topic.
posted by nathancaswell at 8:27 AM on January 4, 2014 [1 favorite]

Year round linking would make sense; I forget about it except when I see it mentioned on MeTa. Maybe it could be a subheading under IRL as well as letting people link from their profiles?
posted by Dip Flash at 10:07 AM on January 4, 2014

So? I've rarely seen a pony so roundly loved.

BUMP
posted by nevercalm at 10:56 AM on January 4, 2014

So it's been less than 24 hours and it's a weekend and we're talking about how it would work.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 11:14 AM on January 4, 2014 [2 favorites]

I know the conversation is ongoing, but I'm worried about no-activity profiles being created by otherwise unaffiliated businesses, and using MeFi as just another advertising outlet. I like MeFi Mall as it stands because it seems to require at least enough engagement with the site to be paying attention to the actual UI and MetaTalk and request being listed on a yearly basis. It's a low hurdle, but it's still more than "create account, add listing, leave".
posted by TheNewWazoo at 11:24 AM on January 4, 2014 [12 favorites]

I would hug this pony fiercely.
posted by spinturtle at 1:54 PM on January 4, 2014 [2 favorites]

If this were to be a part of the site, maybe there could be a time limit as a buffer before someone could post, the same way as there is for the main subsites? It could be longer or have some other criteria.
posted by jetlagaddict at 3:08 PM on January 4, 2014

I've rarely seen a pony so roundly loved.

You clearly don't spend enough time on the Internet.
posted by nathancaswell at 5:10 PM on January 4, 2014 [1 favorite]

I've seen this happen occasionally on Projects

All Projects are manually approved by Matt. The fact that people very occasionally to this there (and on Jobs) is one of those thing that we basically figure we'll worry about if people abuse it and otherwise we feel like having a low bar is probably alright.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 5:19 PM on January 4, 2014

If this were to be a part of the site, maybe there could be a time limit as a buffer before someone could post, the same way as there is for the main subsites? It could be longer or have some other criteria.

Reasonably high bar- 6 months on the site, 50 + comments/posts?
posted by Devils Rancher at 7:59 PM on January 4, 2014 [2 favorites]

That seems awfully high to me. It sounds like it would just be a case of letting more MeFites know they can sell/buy stuff through it year round, rather than letting external sellers know there's another place to advertise. It's not like there would be any general announcement other than if someone already knows about this place. Is that right? And the high amount of comments or posts would exclude people who read but don't comment. Even if someone did sign up just to promote their venture, how bad would that be? If we wanted to make the choice to check someone's profile and only buy from "genuine" members then there's nothing to stop that.

I hadn't heard of the mall until Christmas and came across some really nice things - my Secret Quonsar present for one - so I think it would be good to have a permanent, easy to find link, but I don't feel it would need to be policed much.
posted by billiebee at 3:17 AM on January 5, 2014 [1 favorite]

I would like to have it up year-round also - my business is seasonal, so I tend to do a fair amount of shopping for the holidays at 'odd' times of the year.
posted by PlantGoddess at 7:12 AM on January 5, 2014

Wouldn't people sign up just to set up their market stall? Not sure how that might play out.
posted by Segundus at 8:11 AM on January 5, 2014

Strict posting criteria might also be an issue for any MeFite who would like to keep their business separate from their personal account. I'd prefer to see mod-approval required for addition to the Mall. Low activity or sock puppet accounts could be questioned via email.
posted by maryr at 8:21 AM on January 5, 2014 [3 favorites]

I like this idea, and think there are ways to get around any of the issues.

We only got a few sales over the holidays due to MeFi Mall, but we are VERY grateful to those people! Thanks!
posted by terrapin at 7:26 AM on January 6, 2014

I would ride the hell outta this pony.
posted by Sophie1 at 7:35 AM on January 6, 2014

This was my first year listing in the MefiMall, and even though I have a very tiny niche market I had two sales come from Metafilter. I think it's nice to be even more engaged with the site, like gift swaps, and it makes it feel like more of a community.
posted by sweetmarie at 4:31 PM on January 6, 2014 [3 favorites]

349 days till Christmas.
posted by Wordshore at 4:52 PM on January 8, 2014

terrapin - I want to touch and buy all of the soft things but I suck at crafts involving needles, so.
posted by spinturtle at 5:59 AM on January 9, 2014