Full MetaFilter FAQ > FanFare Questions

FanFare FAQ

You can always contact the moderators if you have a question.

How do I sign up for a MetaFilter account?

Who is in charge here? Are there admins and moderators like other sites?

What is FanFare?

What's the policy on spoilers in posts / threads at FanFare?

What do the "First Watch", "Rewatch", "Show Only", and "Books Included" labels in FanFare mean?

How soon can I post again after making a post?

Someone made a official-seeming comment in small type, with square brackets. What does that mean?

What does a single period in a comment by itself mean?

What does a single asterisk in a comment by itself mean?

 

How do I sign up for a MetaFilter account?

Go to the New User page to read about accounts and follow the link to sign up and pay for the account. The current sign-up fee is US$5; it's a one-time fee and is the only cost associated with using the site. Once the PayPal payment is completed, your account will be active and you will be allowed to make comments on various MetaFilter threads. Please note that there is a waiting period to create a post to the front page of MetaFilter, however you can create an Ask MetaFilter post immediately.

We enforce a strict rule against posting your own work or work you've contributed to or are posting about in a promotional capacity, except on MetaFilter Projects or MetaFilter Music. Posting a link to a site you're connected to, or posting for promotional purposes (except on Projects or Music), will result in a ban with no refund.

If the signup fee is a financial or logistical hardship, you can drop the moderation team a line via the contact form to ask about a complimentary signup.
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Who is in charge here? Are there admins and moderators like other sites?

Metafilter is run by a small staff of paid moderators ("mods"). The moderators are: taz, goodnewsfortheinsane, travelingthyme, Brandon Blatcher, and loup; web developers frimble and kirkaracha.

The best way to reach a moderator is to use the contact form, which emails all of the mods. The site is generally staffed around the clock, with regularly spaced gaps in coverage. The contact form will reach whoever is on duty.

All the moderators are also regular site members, so you may see them around participating just like anyone else. When a moderator leaves an official moderation comment, the comment will appear in the thread but enclosed by a box, or [in small type, in square brackets], and a "staff" badge will appear in the byline next to their name. (This text is searchable, so you can find moderation comments by using your browser's "find" function to find the word "staff" on the page.) You can confirm someone is a moderator by looking at their profile page, too -- they'll have a "staff" badge under their profile picture.

Some history:
1999: MetaFilter was created by Matt Haughey (mathowie); he was the sole admin of the site for the first several years.
2005: Jessamyn West (jessamyn) was hired; she was especially instrumental in establishing the culture of the new subsite, AskMetafilter.
2006, May: Paul Bausch (pb), our technical wizard, joined to keep the back end running smoothly and do bugfixes and feature builds.
2007, March: Josh Millard (cortex) started helping out around the place.
2008, May: vacapinta became the unofficial "Midnight Mod", checking in a few times during the North American night.
2011, April: Jeremy Preacher (restless_nomad) came on, originally to keep an eye on things over the weekend, although gradually shifting to weekday hours too.
2011, October: taz joined the team as the first regular non-US mod, bringing civilization to the formerly-lawless hours of North American night.
2012, October: goodnewsfortheinsane and LobsterMitten joined the team as part-timers, with a few regular shifts and some flexible coverage for other mods' hours.
2014, May: Layoffs. Due to a budget crunch, jessamyn retired, and gnfti and LM were laid off. Over the next months, site members contributed enough money to keep the site operating and even bring back the laid-off mods at sharply reduced hours.
2015, March: Mathowie retired, still the owner but handing nearly all site operations over to cortex and the remaining mods. Cortex took over most operational stuff, and LobsterMitten took over mathowie's on-site mod hours.
2016, January: Eyebrows McGee joined the staff as a part-timer and often weekend mod.
2016, May: pb retired.
2016, May: frimble joined the staff as resident tech person.
2017, July: mathowie transferred ownership of MetaFilter to cortex.
2020, Jan: restless_nomad retired
2020, June: new mods travelingthyme and loup joined the team.
2020, July: restless_nomad returned to help with administrative tasks for a limited time, jessamyn returned to a more active role
2021: restless_nomad stepped away again as planned; jessamyn reduced her role and schedule gaps were introduced
2022: cortex stepped down as owner, jessamyn took over as owner, loup took over operations, Lobster Mitten retired, Eyebrows McGee transitioned to a sub/fill-in mod
2023: Brandon Blatcher joined in February, Eyebrows McGee retired in April
2024: Kirkaracha joined the web development team
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What is FanFare?

FanFare is a site for discussing TV, movies, podcasts, and books and was launched in April, 2014.
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What's the policy on spoilers in posts / threads at FanFare?

We'd like the front page of FanFare to be spoiler-free, so please limit above-the-fold descriptions of a show or film to the basics. Inside threads, feel free to discuss any plot point in that that episode or past episodes (or that film), but please refrain from discussing events that take place in future episodes (or sequels, etc). Also, please be considerate and refrain from discussing future events from other book/film/tv/comic versions of the story. (Note, this policy is different in threads that are labeled "Rewatch" or "Books Included.")
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What do the "First Watch", "Rewatch", "Show Only", and "Books Included" labels in FanFare mean?

We have some optional special labels for TV show posts on FanFare. They are used sparingly on posts and each label is defined below:

First Watch - Applied to shows that have long since been aired, but the person making the post has never seen them. Please no spoilers about future episodes or events from later in the series.

Rewatch - Applied to shows being watched again by viewers that are up to date on the show and have seen them before, but are rewatching the shows again (usually from the very start). Spoilers about later episodes can be freely shared here.

Show Only - These discussions strictly for discussing only the show, when the show has been adapted from books or other media. Any discussion from the books should not be mentioned and if it is, will be removed. That rationale for this format is that discussion of the story from other media may reveal spoilers for those who have only seen the show.

Books Included - A second half of the special case above (again, with Game of Thrones as the example) where any spoiler already covered in books is fair game. Anyone viewing these threads is assumed to have read the books and seen the shows.
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How soon can I post again after making a post?

After you have posted a thread (a post in MetaFilter, a question in AskMetafilter, etc), you have to wait this long before posting a second thread in that same area of the site. There is no similar limit for comments.

MetaFilter - 12 hours
AskMetafilter - no limit
FanFare - no limit
Projects - one month
Music - 24 hours
Jobs - 24 hours between posting job Openings; you can only post one Availability total
Podcast - only admins post the podcast
IRL - no time limit, but you can have no more than 10 active IRL threads at a time
MetaTalk - one week

Note that these waiting periods are per-person, not per-account, so if you have two accounts you still can only post at these intervals. Using two accounts to get around the posting limits is against the rules and may result in your post being deleted and your second account closed.
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Someone made a official-seeming comment in small type, with square brackets. What does that mean?

It is probably a comment by a moderator. See here for details.
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What does a single period in a comment by itself mean?

It's MeFi shorthand for a moment of respectful silence and is usually used in obituary threads.
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What does a single asterisk in a comment by itself mean?

Similar to the single dot, the asterisk also signifies a moment of silence for an individual's passing, but notes that the person had problematic elements in their history. It is usually used in obituary threads and was first proposed within one.
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