Timeline
From Mefi Wiki
This is a list of major events or milestones in the history of MetaFilter, along with the corresponding announcements.
| 1999 | |
|---|---|
| 14jul1999 | First MetaFilter post |
| 2000 | |
| 03mar2000 | MetaTalk launched |
| 01apr2000 | Neale coopts 1142 |
| 14sep2000 | First Kaycee Nicole post |
| 17nov2000 | Fred looks for a used car |
| 2001 | |
| 22jan2001 | The origin of 'pony requests' |
| 15may2001 | The first use of '.' in an obituary thread |
| 19may2001 | Is it possible that Kaycee did not exist? See also And so it ends, and The plot sickens, as well as a retrospective look back at Kaycee Nicole, Metafilter's first investigation |
| 06aug2001 | Matt and MeFi go on vacation |
| 20aug2001 | Vacation is over |
| 24aug2001 | Thread "9622" |
| 10sep2001 | ignu introduces MeFi to oolong the rabbit, unofficial Metafilter mascot for many years hence. |
| 11sep2001 | 9/11 unfolds live on MetaFilter |
| 12oct2001 | Posting limited to one per day |
| 20nov2001 | "we have cameras" |
| 23nov2001 | administrator!!! please hope me! |
| 2002 | |
| 22feb2002 | Suicidegirls ads on MeFi spark a heated discussion. |
| 15apr2002 | "I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords." |
| 09may2002 | Pepsi Blue |
| 26jul2002 | Signups reopen, limited to 20 per day |
| 29jul2002 | Threads over 1 month (30 days old?) are closed |
| 01aug2002 | WHAT. THE. FUCK. MATT? |
| 05sep2002 | "the toy broom... it vibrates?" |
| 06nov2002 | Matt contemplates closing or selling the site. |
| 08nov2002 | Signups closed. Last user #17318. Metatalk reference to closure. |
| 09nov2002 | Adrian Hon announces the MetaFilter wiki. |
| 12nov2002 | Metafilter threads get titles. Fixed link for mathowie's explanation. |
| 20nov2002 | The "giant horse cock" thread |
| 2003 | |
| 19mar2003 | The Iraq war begins. |
| 13apr2003 | Metafilter Music (mark 1) launches. Mathowie has to manually add songs. |
| 20jun2003 | son_of_minya offers to cut off his own hand if quonsar isn't lying. |
| 05jul2003 | The Metafilter server moves from apartment to apartment |
| 08dec2003 | Hackworth gets tired of waiting for Ask Metafilter -- and creates it. (First Question) |
| 12dec2003 | Matt first discusses Askme posting-limit ideas |
| 2004 | |
| 01apr2004 | User signups reopen, 20 per day |
| 02apr2004 | ...and closed again "I need to get the server back in shape so every new user isn't as much of a burden as they are." |
| 13jun2004 | supposed you killed somebody... |
| 15jun2004 | Contacts are launched |
| 12oct2004 | First anonymous Ask question |
| 18nov2004 | Five dollar signups begin |
| 14dec2004 | Askme 7-day posting limit first implemented, then also for MetaTalk |
| 2005 | |
| 12jan2005 | Metatalk thread closure added |
| 18jan2005 | Tagging added |
| 24jan2005 | jessamyn becomes second mod (MeTa) |
| 10feb2005 | Best Answers added to AskMe |
| 14feb2005 | Jim Jones Talks to himself. See also here and here. |
| 16feb2005 | HURF DURF BUTTER EATER |
| 17feb2005 | AskMe gets titles & tags & more fixes, temporarily breaks anonymous questions |
| 18feb2005 | The brief HaugheyCam misadventure. |
| 20feb2005 | Flagging added |
| 17apr2005 | Anonymous posting returns |
| 27aug2005 | Hurricane Katrina hits. Coldchef starts by jokingly taunting the hurricane, and ends up liveblogging the disaster. See also: paperpete links to over 80 Katrina-relevant threads here. |
| 22sep2005 | Mefi Music (mark 1) shuts down |
| 08oct2005 | AskMe questions stay open for a year, instead of closing after a month |
| 08nov2005 | Projects launched (First Post) |
| 12nov2005 | Mushroom Thread |
| 15nov2005 | Matt wields the BanHammer against dhoyt; and highsignal, hall of robots and jenleigh. |
| 2006 | |
| 09feb2006 | Titles appear on the page, rather than in the HTML header - Mefi & AskMe. |
| 10may2006 | Favorites added |
| 30jun2006 | MetaFilter Music launched (First Track) |
| 24aug2006 | MetaFilter Jobs launched (First Job) |
| 22oct2006 | IMG tag disabled |
| 18dec2006 | Askme posting limit changed to 14 days |
| 2007 | |
| 03jan2007 | (NOT RACIST) debuts |
| 01feb2007 | New URL scheme implemented (number/title rather than mefi/number) |
| 13feb2007 | Metatalk gets titles |
| 16feb2007 | Podcast #1 |
| 28feb2007 | cortex becomes third mod (MeTa), & deletion reasons get signed by the mod |
| 02apr2007 | HI I'M ON METAFILTER AND I COULD OVERTHINK A PLATE OF BEANS. |
| 06apr2007 | Askme limit returned to 7 days |
| 06jul2007 | A preview of TravelFilter is announced during podcast 11 |
| 06sep2007 | The [more inside] feature, originally only available on Ask MetaFilter, is rolled out to rest of the site. |
| 14sep2007 | Subtle but major HTML vulnerability discovered and subsequently repaired |
| 19oct2007 | MeFi Mail private messaging system implemented |
| 23oct2007 | Close Your Account functionality implemented (aka The Big Red Button). Matt discusses it a month later. |
| 02nov2007 | Contact activity sidebar launched |
| 08nov2007 | Meetup threads stay open for six months (earliest reference I could find) |
| 16nov2007 | Extensive discussions about sexism (see also Boyzone) |
| 12dec2007 | note: Everyone needs a hug. |
| 31dec2007 | The Givewell affair |
| 2008 | |
| 10mar2008 | Startling revelation that a banned member has been around for years under a different name. Longest MetaTalk thread in Metafilter history. |
| 02apr2008 | My Ask launched. The feature allows a site member to choose preferred tags and categories in order to display a filtered Ask MetaFilter page. The customized page also displays recommended AskMe questions based on the member's preferences. |
| 18may2008 | Vacapinta becomes fourth mod, the first not based in the United States. |
| 27may2008 | Projects switches to public comments, something that had been requested a couple times at least. |
| 30jun2008 | Boing Boing's "Unpublishing" of Violet Blue |
| 02jul2008 | Three new sections launched for MeFi Music: Talk, Charts, Challenges |
| 29aug2008 | Sarah Palin as McCain's Running-mate thread created, eventually becoming the longest thread in Metafilter history. |
| 16Oct2008 | Deleted threads made visible to the poster. This was rolled back at a later date (probably early 2009) for performance reasons. |
| 27oct2008 | Posting sends out an automatic form letter with links to those posts, "an easy way for people to find their own posts in case of deletion, appearance of lagging posting due to caching, or other mishaps." |
| 17dec2008 | Three minute editing to comments announced with a "beta-test". |
| 2009 | |
| 24jan2009 | A spammer/cracker exploits a SQL injection in some old pages. MeFi is down for about 4 hours, unstable for most of the weekend, and MetaTalk isn't back until Monday. TravelFilter taken offline. |
| 10apr2009 | First episode of the Metafilter Music Podcast |
| 05may2009 | Tenth anniversary meetup subsite launched |
| 12jun2009 | mefi.us utility domain goes live |
| 07jul2009 | Edgar Martins photoshopping outed; followup post |
| 10jul2009 | Metafilter store launches, with new t-shirts. |
| 14jul2009 | Tenth anniversary MetaFilter post |
| 13aug2009 | Infodump relaunches, with more data |
| 20aug2009 | cortex announces month-long meetup junket ( schedule) |
| 11oct2009 | "Interest areas" profile feature launched and unlaunched again after criticism. |
| 01nov2009 | Favorites behavior is modified for a one month test; followup discussions |
| 12nov2009 | mathowie's pituitary tumor revelation and a promising update |
| 20nov2009 | User #100,000 raffle raises over $12K for charity. |
| 18dec2009 | Updated "recent activity" feature launched |
| 2010 | |
| 08jan2010 | Data loss destroys a day's worth of askme answers, some of which are manually recovered. |
| 19may2010 | The Russian Incident |
| 24jun2010 | IRL launched |
| 02sep2010 | Job Availability feature unveiled for MetaFilter Jobs. |
| 30sep2010 | mathowie announces changes to ads displayed on front pages (beginning 01oct2010). The transition involves displaying ads from The Deck Network instead of Federated Media, and allowing members to hide the ads. |
| 12dec2010 | AskMe celebrates its 7th birthday and 10,000th Anonymous question |
| 2011 | |
| 07jan2011 | New Twitter/Facebook sharing options added. |
| 03feb2011 | Automatic "x new comments" inline alert rolled out to MetaFilter threads (more details about how it works). |
| 11feb2011 | MeFi Music (song) posts differentiated from MeFi Music Talk posts on profile pages and activity pages (parent MeTa). |
| 10apr2011 | restless_nomad becomes fifth mod. |
| 14apr2011 | Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, anonymously joined the site to defend and praise himself. A mess ensued. |
| 14jul2011 | Special site launched to commemorate Metafilter's 12th anniversary: Cat-Scan.com, containing user-submitted favorite memories and an explanation of how they found MeFi. Site url was highlighted in the very first MetaFilter post. MeFi announcement. MeTa announcement. |
| 24aug2011 | My MeFi introduced for testing and launched later in the day. The feature is similar to My Ask (introduced 02apr2008) and allows a site member to choose favorite tags in order to display a filtered page of MetaFilter; the member can also exclude tags in their My MeFi preferences. |
| 07sep2011 | Ask MetaFilter Travel Locations rolled out to the Travel & Transportation category as a pilot feature. |
| 30sep2011 | taz added to moderator team. |
| 04oct2011 | "(staff)" badges added to bylines of comments from official admins/moderators (only in MetaTalk). |
| 20oct2011 | Linked comment indicator (in the form of a triangle) unveiled for direct navigation to comments. (Original pony request thread and another thread with more details about the feature). |
| 03nov2011 | 200,000th Ask MetaFilter post. |
| 2012 | |
| 17jan2012 | MetaFilter puts up a black interstitial about SOPA/PIPA for 24 hours. |
| 24apr2012 | Matt Haughey announces the new Best Of MetaFilter blog. |
