MetaFilter site rebuild: project management updates April 11, 2025 10:59 AM Subscribe
introducing myself properly in the role, providing some context, setting some expectations.
(I tried to keep this as short as I can, but oops it's very long. keanu ain't reading all that etc)
first, a programming note: kirkaracha has been away this week. next week's update may be slighter, just to give him some time to re-situate.
Background
as some of you know, I volunteered as a project manager, with kirkaracha as lead developer, on the new site. kirk's been doing absolute yeoman's work both building the thing and providing consistent, open communication about what he's doing, but it's been unfair to him to have to essentially function as a one-man-band for this undertaking.
I spoke with Rhaomi via MeMail, who signed off on that volunteer offer. per that sign-off, I'm taking on project management and decision-making responsibility for this project, starting now at least through the initial launch of the new site in place of the current one.
we had a "kick off" meeting last Friday (in quotes only because, y'know, the project's been underway for months already). also in attendance were klipspringer (as a volunteer dev and supporter of the project) and loup (for support/advisement from the current admin team). we discussed my role and the overall project strategy in terms of communications and project tracking. the short version is that we want things to remain transparent and to make it clear we're making steady progress.
(starting around now, when I say "we" here, you can assume I mean roughly "the project team" that primarily constitutes kirk and myself but also includes other devs as they contribute.)
Project Tracking
with the above-stated goal in mind, I've built this master tracking spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bmR1E9saDri8jCB5OsfLzzyDMXPVBIqOcjd6TXTijPs/edit?usp=sharing
we'll link this in all new site updates moving forward. it is meant to give the MetaFilter community a single, living "source of truth" for the site rebuild. it includes concrete definitions of the project goal and scope, the status of bug fixes, and some initial prioritization and assessment of feature requests. it also has links to all related resources that kirk's put together up to this point and will include any future such tools or resources so that it can function as a hub for myself and anyone else who wants to observe or contribute in any way.
for now at least, use the same feature request and bug report forms you've been using. we may at some point transition to a model that lets those requests populate the Github repo, but for now I'm going to be that point of translation, which will help me parse feedback, cross-check bugs for duplication or overlap, and generally keep things tidy for kirk and any other volunteers who want to chip in.
Scope and Expectations
at this point, the project scope is clear to me: at launch, we will be providing a minimum viable product. there are two parts of that to discuss: timing and features.
timing: at the moment, this is a single-developer operation with minor contributions from other volunteers. much of the front-end user interface and experience – reading, posting, commenting, signing up and logging in – is at least partially working or functional, which you can see on the staging site now. but there are still many back-end and infrastructural components that need to be sorted out.
given our bandwidth, what I can promise is steady progress – but not, for now, a release window. our weekly updates are meant to communicate that progress no matter how visible it may be (a little more on that later).
features: there are a lot of potential enhancements and features that have been discussed and desired for a long time on MetaFilter. the point of this launch phase of the new site rebuild is not to implement all of that, but to create a foundation upon which we can implement those things in a rapid, flexible, iterative, and robust fashion.
this does not mean the new site will be identical to the old. you can already see distinct changes all over the place in the in-progress staging build. this is to be expected: the new site is being used as a model, but its codebase is being discarded, and new tools and packages have their own expectations and baseline settings that we're now using. accessibility considerations may demand that color schemes or other features be tweaked as well.
we will take a look at all feature requests, but not all of them will be added simply because a member asked for them (the vast majority will categorically not be planned for launch and may not be ready for a long time after that). some things will not be ready for launch despite being features on the current site, due to a judgment of complexity vs. usage or other factors. (Chat, for example, will be held for post-launch work and may look very different when it returns.) all of this will be communicated as clearly as possible in the "Launch Scope" tab of the master tracker.
regardless, when we launch, MetaFilter will look different and will work differently. the ways in which it will be different will be mostly, but not entirely, in the "arbitrary" or "not super important" categories. this was always going to be a necessary part of rebuilding, and it's a good thing! it means we're building a new platform to prepare MetaFilter to be not just a website that's barely maintained, but a platform that can be expanded and improved to meet the needs of its userbase.
Communication
so, moving forward we'll have a weekly cadence of new site updates resembling last week's. again, we want you all to know what's happening, whether or not the progress being made is going to be visible in the latest iteration of the staging site. (kirk's doing a lot of back-end work, work with integrating the existing user database, etc. that will collectively be a lot of work for no visible change; an extremely normal part of website development but an easy one to mistake for "no one is doing anything or saying anything" without some heads-up comms strategy.)
kirk will still be around, obviously – he's a member of the site first and foremost – but I'm now your primary point of contact for questions, concerns, shouting, etc. regarding the new site, and what I say in threads about the new site are authoritative insofar as decisions around this project go.
to that end, in the future I'm going to have a "contributor" badge on my posts here, to clarify that I'm holding an official (but not paid, or permanent) position in this project. just to be 100% clear: it is a tag next to my name only and conveys to me no additional permissions or access on the current site.
Help Us!
kirk's been great about asking for volunteer help. part of the problem with doing this when you're working solo, though, is that you end up doing multiple jobs: your own plus the job of onboarding and acclimating another person. basically, answering the question "how can I help?" can sometimes be an additional task unto itself.
well, I'm here now, so please bombard me with the question "how can I help?"! developer support is obviously top of mind, and to that end kirk's worked on developer documentation and plans to add more details about how to spin up a local environment to help with building and testing PRs for merging. we could also use thoughts or insights from those in UX/UI, design, accessibility, and anything else.
some folks have made mention of their willingness to volunteer for certain things via the feature and bug reporting forms; I'll reach out to them individually to follow up. for anyone else: if you want to help and think there's a way you could be useful but aren't sure exactly where or how, please let me know! I'll throw some things your way and keep things coordinated.
In Conclusion, MetaFilter Is A Land of Contrasts
just to end this on a personal and positive note: I've been doing digital strategy and project management for near a decade and I've been reading or posting on MetaFilter for nearly two. this place means a lot to me.
I've mentioned in other threads that I'm a government employee whose job (and agency) is on tenterhooks at the moment. being able to help with this and with the moderation oversight committee has let me do things that have kept me practicing my professional skillset while also contributing to a community I want to see as vital and vibrant as possible in the future.
speaking of the moderation oversight committee, I did some user interviews as part of that team a couple weeks back, and it was such a joy talking to some of you about how you feel about the website, ambivalent or mixed as some of those thoughts may be. we're all doing our best in year of our lord 2025; that so many of you remain optimistic and hopeful about at least this little corner of Internet is a big part of what energized me to volunteer for this in the first place.
the new site is an opportunity for a new start for an old love. like New Coke if it was good; like Web 3.0 if it was, uh, good; I'm going to stop doing similes now
(I tried to keep this as short as I can, but oops it's very long. keanu ain't reading all that etc)
first, a programming note: kirkaracha has been away this week. next week's update may be slighter, just to give him some time to re-situate.
Background
as some of you know, I volunteered as a project manager, with kirkaracha as lead developer, on the new site. kirk's been doing absolute yeoman's work both building the thing and providing consistent, open communication about what he's doing, but it's been unfair to him to have to essentially function as a one-man-band for this undertaking.
I spoke with Rhaomi via MeMail, who signed off on that volunteer offer. per that sign-off, I'm taking on project management and decision-making responsibility for this project, starting now at least through the initial launch of the new site in place of the current one.
we had a "kick off" meeting last Friday (in quotes only because, y'know, the project's been underway for months already). also in attendance were klipspringer (as a volunteer dev and supporter of the project) and loup (for support/advisement from the current admin team). we discussed my role and the overall project strategy in terms of communications and project tracking. the short version is that we want things to remain transparent and to make it clear we're making steady progress.
(starting around now, when I say "we" here, you can assume I mean roughly "the project team" that primarily constitutes kirk and myself but also includes other devs as they contribute.)
Project Tracking
with the above-stated goal in mind, I've built this master tracking spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1bmR1E9saDri8jCB5OsfLzzyDMXPVBIqOcjd6TXTijPs/edit?usp=sharing
we'll link this in all new site updates moving forward. it is meant to give the MetaFilter community a single, living "source of truth" for the site rebuild. it includes concrete definitions of the project goal and scope, the status of bug fixes, and some initial prioritization and assessment of feature requests. it also has links to all related resources that kirk's put together up to this point and will include any future such tools or resources so that it can function as a hub for myself and anyone else who wants to observe or contribute in any way.
for now at least, use the same feature request and bug report forms you've been using. we may at some point transition to a model that lets those requests populate the Github repo, but for now I'm going to be that point of translation, which will help me parse feedback, cross-check bugs for duplication or overlap, and generally keep things tidy for kirk and any other volunteers who want to chip in.
Scope and Expectations
at this point, the project scope is clear to me: at launch, we will be providing a minimum viable product. there are two parts of that to discuss: timing and features.
timing: at the moment, this is a single-developer operation with minor contributions from other volunteers. much of the front-end user interface and experience – reading, posting, commenting, signing up and logging in – is at least partially working or functional, which you can see on the staging site now. but there are still many back-end and infrastructural components that need to be sorted out.
given our bandwidth, what I can promise is steady progress – but not, for now, a release window. our weekly updates are meant to communicate that progress no matter how visible it may be (a little more on that later).
features: there are a lot of potential enhancements and features that have been discussed and desired for a long time on MetaFilter. the point of this launch phase of the new site rebuild is not to implement all of that, but to create a foundation upon which we can implement those things in a rapid, flexible, iterative, and robust fashion.
this does not mean the new site will be identical to the old. you can already see distinct changes all over the place in the in-progress staging build. this is to be expected: the new site is being used as a model, but its codebase is being discarded, and new tools and packages have their own expectations and baseline settings that we're now using. accessibility considerations may demand that color schemes or other features be tweaked as well.
we will take a look at all feature requests, but not all of them will be added simply because a member asked for them (the vast majority will categorically not be planned for launch and may not be ready for a long time after that). some things will not be ready for launch despite being features on the current site, due to a judgment of complexity vs. usage or other factors. (Chat, for example, will be held for post-launch work and may look very different when it returns.) all of this will be communicated as clearly as possible in the "Launch Scope" tab of the master tracker.
regardless, when we launch, MetaFilter will look different and will work differently. the ways in which it will be different will be mostly, but not entirely, in the "arbitrary" or "not super important" categories. this was always going to be a necessary part of rebuilding, and it's a good thing! it means we're building a new platform to prepare MetaFilter to be not just a website that's barely maintained, but a platform that can be expanded and improved to meet the needs of its userbase.
Communication
so, moving forward we'll have a weekly cadence of new site updates resembling last week's. again, we want you all to know what's happening, whether or not the progress being made is going to be visible in the latest iteration of the staging site. (kirk's doing a lot of back-end work, work with integrating the existing user database, etc. that will collectively be a lot of work for no visible change; an extremely normal part of website development but an easy one to mistake for "no one is doing anything or saying anything" without some heads-up comms strategy.)
kirk will still be around, obviously – he's a member of the site first and foremost – but I'm now your primary point of contact for questions, concerns, shouting, etc. regarding the new site, and what I say in threads about the new site are authoritative insofar as decisions around this project go.
to that end, in the future I'm going to have a "contributor" badge on my posts here, to clarify that I'm holding an official (but not paid, or permanent) position in this project. just to be 100% clear: it is a tag next to my name only and conveys to me no additional permissions or access on the current site.
Help Us!
kirk's been great about asking for volunteer help. part of the problem with doing this when you're working solo, though, is that you end up doing multiple jobs: your own plus the job of onboarding and acclimating another person. basically, answering the question "how can I help?" can sometimes be an additional task unto itself.
well, I'm here now, so please bombard me with the question "how can I help?"! developer support is obviously top of mind, and to that end kirk's worked on developer documentation and plans to add more details about how to spin up a local environment to help with building and testing PRs for merging. we could also use thoughts or insights from those in UX/UI, design, accessibility, and anything else.
some folks have made mention of their willingness to volunteer for certain things via the feature and bug reporting forms; I'll reach out to them individually to follow up. for anyone else: if you want to help and think there's a way you could be useful but aren't sure exactly where or how, please let me know! I'll throw some things your way and keep things coordinated.
In Conclusion, MetaFilter Is A Land of Contrasts
just to end this on a personal and positive note: I've been doing digital strategy and project management for near a decade and I've been reading or posting on MetaFilter for nearly two. this place means a lot to me.
I've mentioned in other threads that I'm a government employee whose job (and agency) is on tenterhooks at the moment. being able to help with this and with the moderation oversight committee has let me do things that have kept me practicing my professional skillset while also contributing to a community I want to see as vital and vibrant as possible in the future.
speaking of the moderation oversight committee, I did some user interviews as part of that team a couple weeks back, and it was such a joy talking to some of you about how you feel about the website, ambivalent or mixed as some of those thoughts may be. we're all doing our best in year of our lord 2025; that so many of you remain optimistic and hopeful about at least this little corner of Internet is a big part of what energized me to volunteer for this in the first place.
the new site is an opportunity for a new start for an old love. like New Coke if it was good; like Web 3.0 if it was, uh, good; I'm going to stop doing similes now
Thank you.
(And thank you for labelling my joke feature request as "Cute but feels a little insane?", that made my day.)
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 12:20 PM on April 11 [6 favorites]
(And thank you for labelling my joke feature request as "Cute but feels a little insane?", that made my day.)
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 12:20 PM on April 11 [6 favorites]
By the way, since this came up somewhere recently (I forget where), and I can't find any of it now:
Has there been any discussion of making comments on the new site threaded? I realize this is a big change, definitely not part of the MVP, and will require community discussion, but just a few notes:
* Threading definitely would make following discussions on busier posts much easier, and would also make it easier to ignore the parts of the discussion you're not interested in. This might, amongst other things, help make derails less of a problem, since they'd be more contained, less visible, and easier to ignore.
* It's quite possible to make threaded view optional. Just make the non-threaded view like it is now with chronological comments, and the quote links we just got added to the current site will work fine if used.
Just throwing this out there, but I think it's worth discussing. As a note, almost all sites with extensive discussions have threaded comments at least as an option (Reddit, Slashdot since way, way back in the day, Facebook (but only one level of indenting for some reason), most message board software).
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 12:31 PM on April 11 [3 favorites]
Has there been any discussion of making comments on the new site threaded? I realize this is a big change, definitely not part of the MVP, and will require community discussion, but just a few notes:
* Threading definitely would make following discussions on busier posts much easier, and would also make it easier to ignore the parts of the discussion you're not interested in. This might, amongst other things, help make derails less of a problem, since they'd be more contained, less visible, and easier to ignore.
* It's quite possible to make threaded view optional. Just make the non-threaded view like it is now with chronological comments, and the quote links we just got added to the current site will work fine if used.
Just throwing this out there, but I think it's worth discussing. As a note, almost all sites with extensive discussions have threaded comments at least as an option (Reddit, Slashdot since way, way back in the day, Facebook (but only one level of indenting for some reason), most message board software).
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 12:31 PM on April 11 [3 favorites]
Depending on how quoting is implemented on the new site, there are all sorts of ways to display related comments that we could play with!
posted by sagc at 12:44 PM on April 11
posted by sagc at 12:44 PM on April 11
Data point of one Gen Xer: I friggin' HATE HATE HATE threaded comments, and I hope that the new site has an opt out for that.
posted by Melismata at 12:52 PM on April 11 [10 favorites]
posted by Melismata at 12:52 PM on April 11 [10 favorites]
Melismata: "Data point of one Gen Xer: I friggin' HATE HATE HATE threaded comments, and I hope that the new site has an opt out for that."
It was a suggestion with a clearly outlined opt out plan. Gently, I don’t think the all caps hysteria is warranted, and I think it’s sad to come into such a positive update thread with that much negative energy.
posted by donnagirl at 12:56 PM on April 11 [14 favorites]
It was a suggestion with a clearly outlined opt out plan. Gently, I don’t think the all caps hysteria is warranted, and I think it’s sad to come into such a positive update thread with that much negative energy.
posted by donnagirl at 12:56 PM on April 11 [14 favorites]
Yaaaaay thank you Kybard!
posted by brook horse at 12:57 PM on April 11 [6 favorites]
posted by brook horse at 12:57 PM on April 11 [6 favorites]
Has there been any discussion of making comments on the new site threaded?
plenty of it in MetaTalk generally, but not in the feature requests that we've received so far. please submit one!
and re: implementation, opt-out, etc. -- you'll notice I flagged a decent amount of the feature requests in the spreadsheet as probably needing some kind of community conversation. establishing (or re-establishing) site norms for things like this is what I had in mind for many of those cases. not sure whether it'll be me or some future staff taking on the project of consensus-building and roadmapping for those features, but my intention is to tee things up as well as we can within the scope of the present project.
posted by Kybard at 1:00 PM on April 11 [3 favorites]
plenty of it in MetaTalk generally, but not in the feature requests that we've received so far. please submit one!
and re: implementation, opt-out, etc. -- you'll notice I flagged a decent amount of the feature requests in the spreadsheet as probably needing some kind of community conversation. establishing (or re-establishing) site norms for things like this is what I had in mind for many of those cases. not sure whether it'll be me or some future staff taking on the project of consensus-building and roadmapping for those features, but my intention is to tee things up as well as we can within the scope of the present project.
posted by Kybard at 1:00 PM on April 11 [3 favorites]
this does not mean the new site will be identical to the old. you can already see distinct changes all over the place in the in-progress staging build. this is to be expected: the new site is being used as a model, but its codebase is being discarded, and new tools and packages have their own expectations and baseline settings that we're now using. accessibility considerations may demand that color schemes or other features be tweaked as well.As someone who's been watching another of her seriously-old-school online communities die a slow death because enough people can't accept that technology has seriously changed in 24 years (hello, mobile devices and how one inputs text and formatting into them), I am grateful for this dose of reality, especially paired with "hi, accessibility is important." Thank you, and welcome aboard, Kybard!
posted by Pandora Kouti at 1:03 PM on April 11 [18 favorites]
Section 508 (the mandate for U.S. federal agencies to maintain accessible electronic and information tech) has been a central aspect of my career since it started; at this point accessibility really matters to me for a lot of reasons, though a big one is just "it makes websites better, for everyone" which should be reason enough!
posted by Kybard at 1:06 PM on April 11 [21 favorites]
posted by Kybard at 1:06 PM on April 11 [21 favorites]
This is all very positive! Thank you for the update, Kybard.
posted by ashbury at 1:08 PM on April 11 [3 favorites]
posted by ashbury at 1:08 PM on April 11 [3 favorites]
I am very excited for this update, as you may know because of the number of times I have talked about the need to provide some structure to this development process. Thank you for stepping up. Your efforts are appreciated, even when they won't seem like they are being appreciated.
posted by jacquilynne at 1:14 PM on April 11 [4 favorites]
posted by jacquilynne at 1:14 PM on April 11 [4 favorites]
Having worked with Kybard on the mod oversight committee, I felt some instant relief when he volunteered for this role. Seeing some clear, open communication so soon is even beyond my expectations, though. Thanks, Kybard, this is truly refreshing and gives me a lot of hope.
posted by donnagirl at 1:23 PM on April 11 [16 favorites]
posted by donnagirl at 1:23 PM on April 11 [16 favorites]
We definitely need threaded comments. reading a comment, that is a reply to someone 16 comments above, with no indication of what it's referring to is no way to run a website with comments.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 2:06 PM on April 11 [6 favorites]
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 2:06 PM on April 11 [6 favorites]
well i'll be damned
Great update kybard, really appreciate the communication!!
posted by phunniemee at 3:23 PM on April 11 [11 favorites]
Great update kybard, really appreciate the communication!!
posted by phunniemee at 3:23 PM on April 11 [11 favorites]
The new quote function here is site changing if people would give it a try.
Love this update, I feel SO excited about the direction, not since the user survey have I felt this positive. Thank you very much for stepping up, Kybard!
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:37 PM on April 11 [3 favorites]
Love this update, I feel SO excited about the direction, not since the user survey have I felt this positive. Thank you very much for stepping up, Kybard!
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:37 PM on April 11 [3 favorites]
tiny frying pan: "The new quote function here is site changing if people would give it a try. "
!!!! THIS IS AMAZING! I missed that update. This is wonderful.
Thank you, Kybard, for doing this. I'm really excited for the new site and am thrilled to see momentum.
posted by kimberussell at 6:07 PM on April 11 [4 favorites]
!!!! THIS IS AMAZING! I missed that update. This is wonderful.
Thank you, Kybard, for doing this. I'm really excited for the new site and am thrilled to see momentum.
posted by kimberussell at 6:07 PM on April 11 [4 favorites]
Kybard, by the way, the cells from row 30 down in the Feature Request Form (Responses) don't have the text wrapped so it's impossible to see all the details.
posted by ashbury at 8:03 PM on April 11 [1 favorite]
posted by ashbury at 8:03 PM on April 11 [1 favorite]
Thanks for such an informative update, and well thought-out plan.
posted by NotLost at 9:11 PM on April 11 [2 favorites]
posted by NotLost at 9:11 PM on April 11 [2 favorites]
Thanks, Kybard! I appreciate the very clear communication and really appreciate you setting boundaries around new requests.
posted by lapis at 9:17 PM on April 11
posted by lapis at 9:17 PM on April 11
Great to see! This looks far better than leaving kirkaracha by default to juggle all the roles - developer, project manager, communications. I appreciate your stepping up for this, Kybard.
posted by away for regrooving at 9:35 PM on April 11 [5 favorites]
posted by away for regrooving at 9:35 PM on April 11 [5 favorites]
I do have a non-fun proposal to lay on the table: prioritize voting over other site functionality.
The reason for this is that I believe launching the new site -- replacing the old site -- involves decisions that should be undertaken by an elected non-interim board that has had time to set up some governance process for taking community input and making decisions. Interim board members have expressed that they don't feel justified in making big judgment calls because they don't have a mandate (my recollection), which I get. And building governance will take decisions and time to work.
If you buy that, then voting is actually on the critical path to launching the new site.
What decisions do I think are such a big deal? Mostly in how closely the new site matches up with the old: in the UI, and in the data migration.
Changes to the UI, I don't feel like I have to sell you on the idea that there could be some contention around that. I very much do not want this to be argued out in MetaTalk with a thousand comments of strife and bitterness and people buttoning. Hard decisions will come up, we will not have consensus, and we need to have some better process than MetaTalk grar for hearing each other and reaching a decision.
The data migration is more subtle but in some ways more serious. We'll be migrating the old site's quarter-century of history, in data whose exact semantics has got to have some question marks by now, over to a new site with a new data representation. It's three-meteor-strikes-in-a-row impossible that everything will map over cleanly the first time. It could take a lot of retries, working through issues as they are found, and still leave issues remaining: these could look like missing or glitched elements in posts from the old site. Maybe I'm a pessimist (ok I'm an old software engineer, I'm a pessimist) and the migration can be 100% clean. But if that's not feasible it's going to be a tough call to make on what historical data to lose, especially since, unlike the UI, you pretty much don't get a chance to change your mind later on the new site.
posted by away for regrooving at 10:19 PM on April 11 [18 favorites]
The reason for this is that I believe launching the new site -- replacing the old site -- involves decisions that should be undertaken by an elected non-interim board that has had time to set up some governance process for taking community input and making decisions. Interim board members have expressed that they don't feel justified in making big judgment calls because they don't have a mandate (my recollection), which I get. And building governance will take decisions and time to work.
If you buy that, then voting is actually on the critical path to launching the new site.
What decisions do I think are such a big deal? Mostly in how closely the new site matches up with the old: in the UI, and in the data migration.
Changes to the UI, I don't feel like I have to sell you on the idea that there could be some contention around that. I very much do not want this to be argued out in MetaTalk with a thousand comments of strife and bitterness and people buttoning. Hard decisions will come up, we will not have consensus, and we need to have some better process than MetaTalk grar for hearing each other and reaching a decision.
The data migration is more subtle but in some ways more serious. We'll be migrating the old site's quarter-century of history, in data whose exact semantics has got to have some question marks by now, over to a new site with a new data representation. It's three-meteor-strikes-in-a-row impossible that everything will map over cleanly the first time. It could take a lot of retries, working through issues as they are found, and still leave issues remaining: these could look like missing or glitched elements in posts from the old site. Maybe I'm a pessimist (ok I'm an old software engineer, I'm a pessimist) and the migration can be 100% clean. But if that's not feasible it's going to be a tough call to make on what historical data to lose, especially since, unlike the UI, you pretty much don't get a chance to change your mind later on the new site.
posted by away for regrooving at 10:19 PM on April 11 [18 favorites]
(At least, I'm assuming the plan is to port the old database into the new site? If not necessarily, there are also some big decisions around that.)
posted by away for regrooving at 10:21 PM on April 11
posted by away for regrooving at 10:21 PM on April 11
ashbury: Kybard, by the way, the cells from row 30 down in the Feature Request Form (Responses) don't have the text wrapped so it's impossible to see all the details.
the form is owned by kirk so I'll have to ask him to make that change to the responses sheet once he's around again. in the meantime you can see the full content/details in the master tracker under the "Feature Requests" tab!
away for regrooving: prioritize voting over other site functionality.
we talked about this in our meeting last Friday. my main takeaway, and strong recommendation, was that voting should be decoupled entirely from this project. it's still in scope for the moment (and thus in the "scope" tab in the tracker) but I know klipspringer had specific thoughts on using third-party tools plus authentication from the current site. I told him to reach out to Rhaomi/the board with that info.
I can help with that separately if the help is strongly needed/desired, but ultimately, questions about voting need to be answered and prioritized by the interim board, not me or kirk.
away for regrooving: Changes to the UI, I don't feel like I have to sell you on the idea that there could be some contention around that.
for sure! this post is meant to set expectations around that probably more than anything. so, to be clear, we will not be litigating basic UI decisions in metatalk posts ahead of launch. people can state their complaints, as metatalk posts or bug/feature reports, but the staging site already reflects many little UI changes and will almost certainly have more as more functionality is added, and the plan is absolutely not to change every single one of those until they're indistinguishable from the current site.
I made this clear in my volunteer offer and take the board's OK as an agreement: regardless of the board's comfort level with their own decision-making, I am taking on decision-making authority for this phase of the site. things may be reopened for tweaking down the road, but we will not make perfect the enemy of the good, and I will absolutely be comfortable playing temporary dictator if it's required to get the thing launched.
away for regrooving: The data migration is more subtle but in some ways more serious. ... (At least, I'm assuming the plan is to port the old database into the new site? If not necessarily, there are also some big decisions around that.)
this is a thornier one, I agree. so, we have at least one volunteer providing some thoughts and support on how to port over the user database schema into the new site.
my understanding of existing plans re: whether and what content to carry over is fuzzier. I'll connect with kirk on that and see what the thinking had been before I hopped on, and we can communicate and clarify from there. I've done content migration before though and you're absolutely right that at any scale it's never simple, never lossless, and always leaves scars.
posted by Kybard at 6:40 AM on April 12 [16 favorites]
the form is owned by kirk so I'll have to ask him to make that change to the responses sheet once he's around again. in the meantime you can see the full content/details in the master tracker under the "Feature Requests" tab!
away for regrooving: prioritize voting over other site functionality.
we talked about this in our meeting last Friday. my main takeaway, and strong recommendation, was that voting should be decoupled entirely from this project. it's still in scope for the moment (and thus in the "scope" tab in the tracker) but I know klipspringer had specific thoughts on using third-party tools plus authentication from the current site. I told him to reach out to Rhaomi/the board with that info.
I can help with that separately if the help is strongly needed/desired, but ultimately, questions about voting need to be answered and prioritized by the interim board, not me or kirk.
away for regrooving: Changes to the UI, I don't feel like I have to sell you on the idea that there could be some contention around that.
for sure! this post is meant to set expectations around that probably more than anything. so, to be clear, we will not be litigating basic UI decisions in metatalk posts ahead of launch. people can state their complaints, as metatalk posts or bug/feature reports, but the staging site already reflects many little UI changes and will almost certainly have more as more functionality is added, and the plan is absolutely not to change every single one of those until they're indistinguishable from the current site.
I made this clear in my volunteer offer and take the board's OK as an agreement: regardless of the board's comfort level with their own decision-making, I am taking on decision-making authority for this phase of the site. things may be reopened for tweaking down the road, but we will not make perfect the enemy of the good, and I will absolutely be comfortable playing temporary dictator if it's required to get the thing launched.
away for regrooving: The data migration is more subtle but in some ways more serious. ... (At least, I'm assuming the plan is to port the old database into the new site? If not necessarily, there are also some big decisions around that.)
this is a thornier one, I agree. so, we have at least one volunteer providing some thoughts and support on how to port over the user database schema into the new site.
my understanding of existing plans re: whether and what content to carry over is fuzzier. I'll connect with kirk on that and see what the thinking had been before I hopped on, and we can communicate and clarify from there. I've done content migration before though and you're absolutely right that at any scale it's never simple, never lossless, and always leaves scars.
posted by Kybard at 6:40 AM on April 12 [16 favorites]
Thanks for taking this on Kybard, things are gonna great with your help!
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 6:42 AM on April 12 [1 favorite]
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 6:42 AM on April 12 [1 favorite]
Thank you for this update and for taking on this role, it's clear you are already making a big contribution.
posted by rpfields at 8:49 AM on April 12 [2 favorites]
posted by rpfields at 8:49 AM on April 12 [2 favorites]
I'm a government employee whose job (and agency) is on tenterhooks at the moment.
Same, I feel ya. Hang in there, we'll all get through it, and thanks for helping with MetaFilter despite the real-life chaos.
posted by ctmf at 8:53 AM on April 12 [4 favorites]
Same, I feel ya. Hang in there, we'll all get through it, and thanks for helping with MetaFilter despite the real-life chaos.
posted by ctmf at 8:53 AM on April 12 [4 favorites]
I love the quote function (also, nice post!), but um, mine seems to have gone away?
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:33 AM on April 12
posted by jenfullmoon at 9:33 AM on April 12
jenfullmoon: "I love the quote function (also, nice post!), but um, mine seems to have gone away?"
I had to turn mine on separately on each device that I read metafilter on, so once on the computer and once on the iPad and once on the phone. It IS nice. And it means threading is so unnecessary now that I’m sure we never have to have that metatalk argument ever again.
Sigh
/s
posted by Vatnesine at 10:02 AM on April 12 [1 favorite]
I had to turn mine on separately on each device that I read metafilter on, so once on the computer and once on the iPad and once on the phone. It IS nice. And it means threading is so unnecessary now that I’m sure we never have to have that metatalk argument ever again.
Sigh
/s
posted by Vatnesine at 10:02 AM on April 12 [1 favorite]
but we will not make perfect the enemy of the good
Glad to hear this is not a requirement!!
posted by Vatnesine at 10:05 AM on April 12 [3 favorites]
Glad to hear this is not a requirement!!
posted by Vatnesine at 10:05 AM on April 12 [3 favorites]
Thank you for this clear communication, Kybard! And many ongoing thanks to kirk’s work!
Kybard: "we talked about this in our meeting last Friday. my main takeaway, and strong recommendation, was that voting should be decoupled entirely from this project. it's still in scope for the moment (and thus in the "scope" tab in the tracker) but I know klipspringer had specific thoughts on using third-party tools plus authentication from the current site. I told him to reach out to Rhaomi/the board with that info.
I can help with that separately if the help is strongly needed/desired, but ultimately, questions about voting need to be answered and prioritized by the interim board, not me or kirk."
I hope the discussion with the interim board happens quickly. They’ve previously shot down the option of third-party solutions; perhaps a frank discussion with the dev team will make them open to considering such options.
posted by bluloo at 12:20 PM on April 12 [9 favorites]
Kybard: "we talked about this in our meeting last Friday. my main takeaway, and strong recommendation, was that voting should be decoupled entirely from this project. it's still in scope for the moment (and thus in the "scope" tab in the tracker) but I know klipspringer had specific thoughts on using third-party tools plus authentication from the current site. I told him to reach out to Rhaomi/the board with that info.
I can help with that separately if the help is strongly needed/desired, but ultimately, questions about voting need to be answered and prioritized by the interim board, not me or kirk."
I hope the discussion with the interim board happens quickly. They’ve previously shot down the option of third-party solutions; perhaps a frank discussion with the dev team will make them open to considering such options.
posted by bluloo at 12:20 PM on April 12 [9 favorites]
shouting
YOU'RE DOING A GOOD JOB!
except maybe with similes
posted by axiom at 3:52 PM on April 12 [4 favorites]
YOU'RE DOING A GOOD JOB!
except maybe with similes
posted by axiom at 3:52 PM on April 12 [4 favorites]
Looks like quote only works if you're in the page proper, it doesn't work off Recent Activity.
posted by jenfullmoon at 5:05 PM on April 12
posted by jenfullmoon at 5:05 PM on April 12
Yeah, RA doesn’t have comment a box, so Mefiquote can’t work there.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 5:09 PM on April 12
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 5:09 PM on April 12
Thanks for taking this on Kybard! It's going to be a huge help. Hopefully with both of you handling the work, both kirkaracha and you can stay sane.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 8:06 AM on April 13 [4 favorites]
posted by TheophileEscargot at 8:06 AM on April 13 [4 favorites]
Thank you very much for taking this awful role on, Kybard! The biggest gap in this project was an actual project manager and, while kirkaracha has done a good job of communicating progress, that's far from the only thing needed and must be a frustrating distraction from the actual development job. I knew this was in the works, but it's a breath of fresh air to see an actual, positive decision made by the people currently running MeFi.
Wow, one of my suggestions got a 'feels important to launch with this' note! That's like getting 1,000 favourites at once! Which reminds me - I should add a request to spell 'favourites' correctly on the site ;-)
Kybard: "I am taking on decision-making authority for this phase of the site. things may be reopened for tweaking down the road, but we will not make perfect the enemy of the good, and I will absolutely be comfortable playing temporary dictator if it's re to get the thing launched."
Hallelujah! Halle-fucking-lujah! If you need any help with 'encouragement' of users on this side of the globe, I have plenty of frequent flyer points and a bad attitude *crack knuckles*.
posted by dg at 3:57 PM on April 13 [4 favorites]
Wow, one of my suggestions got a 'feels important to launch with this' note! That's like getting 1,000 favourites at once! Which reminds me - I should add a request to spell 'favourites' correctly on the site ;-)
Kybard: "I am taking on decision-making authority for this phase of the site. things may be reopened for tweaking down the road, but we will not make perfect the enemy of the good, and I will absolutely be comfortable playing temporary dictator if it's re to get the thing launched."
Hallelujah! Halle-fucking-lujah! If you need any help with 'encouragement' of users on this side of the globe, I have plenty of frequent flyer points and a bad attitude *crack knuckles*.
posted by dg at 3:57 PM on April 13 [4 favorites]
(I'm not so sure that making flags/flag-comments publicly accessible and non-anonymous is necessarily a plus -- unless the goal is to discourage flagging by anyone who might feel it puts them in a vulnerable spot. Making them public also means we'd now, in effect, have a public downvoting system. The rest of that suggestion feels probably fine, but it seems like that part should at least merit discussion before being added to the MVP.)
posted by nobody at 9:01 PM on April 13 [5 favorites]
posted by nobody at 9:01 PM on April 13 [5 favorites]
bluloo: "I hope the discussion with the interim board happens quickly."
Yup, I brought up the topic of decoupling elections from the new site last week with Kybard and Kirk, and have passed some thoughts on to Rhaomi as it's a decision for the interim board.
posted by Klipspringer at 3:26 AM on April 14 [5 favorites]
Yup, I brought up the topic of decoupling elections from the new site last week with Kybard and Kirk, and have passed some thoughts on to Rhaomi as it's a decision for the interim board.
posted by Klipspringer at 3:26 AM on April 14 [5 favorites]
I'm not so sure that making flags/flag-comments publicly accessible and non-anonymous is necessarily a plus
I'll be honest, I misread the request on my first pass. Rewrote my notes about it accordingly. (sorry dg!)
posted by Kybard at 5:14 AM on April 14 [2 favorites]
I'll be honest, I misread the request on my first pass. Rewrote my notes about it accordingly. (sorry dg!)
posted by Kybard at 5:14 AM on April 14 [2 favorites]
Looks like quote only works if you're in the page proper, it doesn't work off Recent Activity.
Click on the timestamp for the comment. That will bring you directly to the comment in question on the page of the actual post, and from there you can use the quote function as usual.
posted by solotoro at 6:48 AM on April 14
Click on the timestamp for the comment. That will bring you directly to the comment in question on the page of the actual post, and from there you can use the quote function as usual.
posted by solotoro at 6:48 AM on April 14
Thank you, Kybard for your work and for this post. I think I agree with everything you have said and your work sounds very promising. While it all deserves a round of applause, I want to give a huge shoutout to:
my main takeaway, and strong recommendation, was that voting should be decoupled entirely from this project
Yes! Thank you so much!
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 8:27 AM on April 14 [5 favorites]
my main takeaway, and strong recommendation, was that voting should be decoupled entirely from this project
Yes! Thank you so much!
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 8:27 AM on April 14 [5 favorites]
Has anyone been able to create an account on the beta site within the last few weeks? I see there's a bug report about it (#44) but this seems like a pretty serious impediment to further testing?
posted by gwint at 10:23 AM on April 14
posted by gwint at 10:23 AM on April 14
we are aware of the issue, but kirk's been on vacation for the last week and wasn't able to sort it out before he left. definitely a top priority to fix and I'll flag it here if/when it's fixed before the next proper update!
posted by Kybard at 11:06 AM on April 14 [2 favorites]
posted by Kybard at 11:06 AM on April 14 [2 favorites]
Kybard, I appreciate you and your work. Thank you. I've been the project manager for significant changes to widely-used pieces of technology. It's a big big job and can require significant stamina and emotional resilience. If you want to grab a videocall with me sometime to vent for 20-40 minutes over beverages, I can listen and say "OH yeah" and "OF COURSE" and so on. This may be a more appealing offer after launch. Feel free to MeMail me about it.
Two things I want to mention, though I think there's a 90% chance they are already on your radar:
1. There's an ecology of other tools/sites/etc. that in some way interact with MeFi and depend on its existing syndication feed structure, CSS, etc. The Greasemonkey-type scripts, the deleted posts log, I'm sure there are like a dozen others. So, individually notifying some of them "this stuff is gonna break" is likely a good idea, somewhere in your communications sequence.
2. I know you want to gather praise and concerns and comments on the pre-launch site, including from folks who don't visit MetaTalk and don't notice the banners. As I asked about a few years ago: I believe, at least as of 2022, it was not actually feasible to systematically contact all MeFi users, active and inactive. But maybe there's a way to get close-ish? But, as I mentioned then: I know from my own past experience with other constituencies (and you likely also know) that doing that is generally a bit of a pain because you deal with:
* a ton of confused or annoyed "unsubscribe me!" requests to untangle
* bounced emails
* noticing a set of accounts that's in a weird limbo half-disabled state and deciding how to deal with them
* "hey, I just remembered I had an account, help me remember my password/deal with this support question?" tickets to work through
* sometimes even getting the institution's email account flagged as spammy by an ISP or big email providers like GMail
So, pluses and minuses.
posted by brainwane at 1:25 PM on April 14 [3 favorites]
Two things I want to mention, though I think there's a 90% chance they are already on your radar:
1. There's an ecology of other tools/sites/etc. that in some way interact with MeFi and depend on its existing syndication feed structure, CSS, etc. The Greasemonkey-type scripts, the deleted posts log, I'm sure there are like a dozen others. So, individually notifying some of them "this stuff is gonna break" is likely a good idea, somewhere in your communications sequence.
2. I know you want to gather praise and concerns and comments on the pre-launch site, including from folks who don't visit MetaTalk and don't notice the banners. As I asked about a few years ago: I believe, at least as of 2022, it was not actually feasible to systematically contact all MeFi users, active and inactive. But maybe there's a way to get close-ish? But, as I mentioned then: I know from my own past experience with other constituencies (and you likely also know) that doing that is generally a bit of a pain because you deal with:
* a ton of confused or annoyed "unsubscribe me!" requests to untangle
* bounced emails
* noticing a set of accounts that's in a weird limbo half-disabled state and deciding how to deal with them
* "hey, I just remembered I had an account, help me remember my password/deal with this support question?" tickets to work through
* sometimes even getting the institution's email account flagged as spammy by an ISP or big email providers like GMail
So, pluses and minuses.
posted by brainwane at 1:25 PM on April 14 [3 favorites]
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This fills me with dread. I've been a MeFite for decades, and one reason I've stuck around so long has been the consistency. I hope the changes don't trigger my metathesiophobia and drive me away.
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:19 PM on April 11 [6 favorites]