Site update #4, 2021 February 19, 2021 4:45 PM Subscribe
It’s been a busy couple of weeks since the last update, with a more comprehensive State of the Site update and some site dev progress as frimble’s had some more time available recently.
General
- We’ve taken some steps forward on formalizing MeFi’s privacy policy documents. We’ve retained a law firm specializing in data privacy law to help ensure we’re fully compliant with the changing legal landscape. This is a major overhaul, and we do expect it will involve more legalistic language than MetaFilter has used in the past (and more like privacy policies seen on other sites), because rules around privacy have gotten a lot more technical and complicated. But the firm has worked to understand our unique community and history to help keep the document in line with MetaFilter’s general ethos. Our next meeting with them is Monday 2/22.
- restless_nomad, who has been driving some organizational overhauls for the mod team since July of last year, is now heading back to other projects. She’s done fantastic work the last six months and is leaving us in better shape and with better processes (including these every other week updates!) than we had been. Thanks again for everything, RN.
- In tandem with the above, I’ll generally be putting these posts together from now on (including the previous one), which shouldn’t make a practical difference especially since they’re a team effort behind the scenes, but if you notice different style tics that’s probably the explanation.
- We posted a State of the Site update on Sunday, and we’re reading along and listening to feedback; there’s a lot to get through in there so there’s things not getting a mention here that we may cover in the next update.
- There’s a handful of old MeFi-adjacent usernames that we’ve closed the accounts of to do a little cleanup and avoid the possibility of weird impersonation situations. They all appear to have been long disused (if ever used in the first place), but if one of these was yours let us know and we can comp you a new account.
- The microaggressions page will be updated to include information specifically on names and trans people, as part of ongoing documentation work. We don’t have a timeline, but we’ll update when there’s more.
- As always the FAQ should have current up-to-date information and if you find that it doesn’t, please notify us at the contact form. The FAQ is currently editable by all staff.
Development
- frimble has built a little more functionality into the account wipe process so that we can convert FanFare posts to Anonymous rather than deleting them outright, as seen here, so that long or serialized discussions of specific books, movies, episodes, etc. don’t disappear unnecessarily with an account wipe.
- frimble has also improved the account wipe vs. standard deletion handling of Ask MetaFilter posts; out of an abundance of caution and to get things done more quickly, we were 404ing all deleted Asks for a while, but we’re now doing so only for wiped accounts and leaving normal deletions visible as they had been, so that the poster can access the thread after to see the deletion reason or review whatever answers they got in the meantime.
- IRL Online events now show date and time in the header of the thread, which should make it easier to coordinate those virtual meetups.
- Partial progress on adding IRL Online events to the MetaTalk meetups sidebar widget; we expect that to be done within the next week.
- Folks noted a spot or two on the site where the broken Google Maps were still showing; we’re in the process of getting those fixed.
- A broken link on the Projects posting page is now no longer broken! We have a broken link on the funding thank you page still to fix.
Global BIPOC Advisory Board
- travelingthyme is working on revisiting the current BIPOC board processes and looking at other possible communication methods that might fit a more proactive model that is less likely to be affected by folks’ collective scheduling challenges.
- A message from Thyme: To anyone who has made an effort to reach out regarding joining the board, my apologies if there’s been any missed communication. I do encourage you to reach out once again via email at travelingthyme@metafilter.com. I’ll be coordinating with board members about alternative methods of communication and plan to explore using a trackable and accessible google form for users to fill out if interested in becoming a part of the BIPOC board. I really hope more of us can work together on this!
- For updates on the google form (It’s on its way!), honorarium information and more, please email Thyme and/or staff directly. Thyme is working to get the content on the landing page updated as well.
- As a team we want to make sure we have a process that lets community members engage with this work regularly, and sorting out a satisfactory approach for that is still a work in progress. Thanks for your patience.
Thanks everyone! The next site update will be posted on 3/5.
General
- We’ve taken some steps forward on formalizing MeFi’s privacy policy documents. We’ve retained a law firm specializing in data privacy law to help ensure we’re fully compliant with the changing legal landscape. This is a major overhaul, and we do expect it will involve more legalistic language than MetaFilter has used in the past (and more like privacy policies seen on other sites), because rules around privacy have gotten a lot more technical and complicated. But the firm has worked to understand our unique community and history to help keep the document in line with MetaFilter’s general ethos. Our next meeting with them is Monday 2/22.
- restless_nomad, who has been driving some organizational overhauls for the mod team since July of last year, is now heading back to other projects. She’s done fantastic work the last six months and is leaving us in better shape and with better processes (including these every other week updates!) than we had been. Thanks again for everything, RN.
- In tandem with the above, I’ll generally be putting these posts together from now on (including the previous one), which shouldn’t make a practical difference especially since they’re a team effort behind the scenes, but if you notice different style tics that’s probably the explanation.
- We posted a State of the Site update on Sunday, and we’re reading along and listening to feedback; there’s a lot to get through in there so there’s things not getting a mention here that we may cover in the next update.
- There’s a handful of old MeFi-adjacent usernames that we’ve closed the accounts of to do a little cleanup and avoid the possibility of weird impersonation situations. They all appear to have been long disused (if ever used in the first place), but if one of these was yours let us know and we can comp you a new account.
- The microaggressions page will be updated to include information specifically on names and trans people, as part of ongoing documentation work. We don’t have a timeline, but we’ll update when there’s more.
- As always the FAQ should have current up-to-date information and if you find that it doesn’t, please notify us at the contact form. The FAQ is currently editable by all staff.
Development
- frimble has built a little more functionality into the account wipe process so that we can convert FanFare posts to Anonymous rather than deleting them outright, as seen here, so that long or serialized discussions of specific books, movies, episodes, etc. don’t disappear unnecessarily with an account wipe.
- frimble has also improved the account wipe vs. standard deletion handling of Ask MetaFilter posts; out of an abundance of caution and to get things done more quickly, we were 404ing all deleted Asks for a while, but we’re now doing so only for wiped accounts and leaving normal deletions visible as they had been, so that the poster can access the thread after to see the deletion reason or review whatever answers they got in the meantime.
- IRL Online events now show date and time in the header of the thread, which should make it easier to coordinate those virtual meetups.
- Partial progress on adding IRL Online events to the MetaTalk meetups sidebar widget; we expect that to be done within the next week.
- Folks noted a spot or two on the site where the broken Google Maps were still showing; we’re in the process of getting those fixed.
- A broken link on the Projects posting page is now no longer broken! We have a broken link on the funding thank you page still to fix.
Global BIPOC Advisory Board
- travelingthyme is working on revisiting the current BIPOC board processes and looking at other possible communication methods that might fit a more proactive model that is less likely to be affected by folks’ collective scheduling challenges.
- A message from Thyme: To anyone who has made an effort to reach out regarding joining the board, my apologies if there’s been any missed communication. I do encourage you to reach out once again via email at travelingthyme@metafilter.com. I’ll be coordinating with board members about alternative methods of communication and plan to explore using a trackable and accessible google form for users to fill out if interested in becoming a part of the BIPOC board. I really hope more of us can work together on this!
- For updates on the google form (It’s on its way!), honorarium information and more, please email Thyme and/or staff directly. Thyme is working to get the content on the landing page updated as well.
- As a team we want to make sure we have a process that lets community members engage with this work regularly, and sorting out a satisfactory approach for that is still a work in progress. Thanks for your patience.
Thanks everyone! The next site update will be posted on 3/5.
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