

To put my own cards on the table: I think of myself as a pretty active member of MetaFilter. I look at the site multiple times every day. Over the last ten years I've posted a lot and I've commented a lot. I read MetaTalk.



On the other hand: I experience MetaFilter as a great place to read and write stuff, probably my favorite place on the Internet. I would be really sad if it went away. But I don't experience it as a family. I don't feel like I have any personal relationships with the users of MeFi, even the ones whose stuff I've been reading for years. I don't really have any picture of who you are, where you live, what you do, what you care about. I would be more likely to help out someone in my neighborhood, even someone I didn't know well, than someone on MetaFilter. When something comes up on MeTa about how user X is constantly being a jerk to user Y, it's always the case that this is something I didn't notice before, even though I've read the threads being discussed. But it's just as obviously the case that lots of people are aware of this, notice the conflict in the thread and attach it to their mental map of the community.





I don't think there's a right or a wrong way to be on MetaFilter. But I do wonder what other people's experience of the site is like, whether it's more like mine or more like fffm's, or something in between. Are we users or are we members? Is MetaFilter something we read, or something we belong to?

In one sense, of course, it obviously is. It says "Community weblog" right under the title! But there are other meanings of community. I was really struck by feckless fecal fear mongering's comment in the emotional labor MeTa thread: "You've got family here. Yeah, online never substitutes for someone who can touch your shoulder. And... there's thousands and thousands of people right here in this community who have demonstrated they'll give and give and give... Not that whole "I heard a thing and I care for five minutes." Real, true, love and caring for another human being; "shared pain is lessened; shared joy is increased. Thus do we refute entropy." Mefi? Mefi actually does that shit. Mefi actually cares--look at the whole NYC sex worker thing a few years ago, or really anything on AskMe. People here give a fuck." To what extent is this how we see MetaFilter?