Your MetaFilter profile, or user page, is your own personal space on the site. You can add images, links, and text. It used to be possible to use CSS to further customize the profile page, but that capability has been disabled by MattHaughey due to [security concerns]. Any profiles that had already been customized with CSS are "grandfathered" and retain their customizations. Once edits are made to customized pages, however, they revert to non-customised pages. Your profile page will be visible to anyone who clicks on your name whilst reading the site. Although MattHaughey eventually set the robots.txt to prevent Google from caching user pages, they are still indexed, making your Metafilter identity only scantily private. Your e-mail address will only be visible to other registered members, to prevent harvesting by automated spam bots.
If you place an URL in the questionnaire, it will be collected with all the others on the [links.mefi page]. If you tell a story in the questionnaire (whether or not you answer the questions), it will be collected on the [users.mefi page]. As of December 2005, if you enter the latitude and longitude of your location, [other nearby users will be displayed] on your profile page, in addition to a Google map showing their locations (and your ID will be displayed on others). This replaces the [previous system] which used U.S. postal ZIP codes to show U.S. users located near each other.
There are two ways to access your user page.
The following link displays all user pages with text in the "story" field: [http://www.metafilter.com/users.mefi]
These pages predate the Wiki and FAQ and collect Metafilter community information.
[metatalk thread for interesting user pages]
1. text size and font face for normal and small size text
2. links, whether to always underline them and whether to open them in new windows
3. "show DHTML titles" yes or no
4. theme selection: plain (black/blue text on a white background in MetaFilter) or regular (green/tan text on a blue background)
5. timezone, name, url
6. email address. This is only shown to logged in MetaFilter users, if you choose. It's a good idea to have a way to be contacted by other MeFites? to avoid flame wars and aid in SelfPolicing. Some MeFites? have a mailto link on a linked website instead. MattHaughey and Jessamyn can also see the email address you used when you signed up. If you do not provide any email address at all, you are still able to contribute on MetaFilter but you will not be able to be contacted.
7. Blurb area. This has historically been used to include other information but also to provide a custom stylesheet for the page. MattHaughey disabled custom stylesheets for security reasons. Users who have custom stylesheets will lose them if they update their user page information.
8. optional fields, used to add more personal information. The lat/long feature is still being worked out, but should be able to show you a map of other MeFites? near you. The occupation fields were once pulled out to show a list of the professions of all the MeFites? (anyone have a link) and the AIM/ICQ boxes will become links to those services when your profile is saved.
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