Frequently Asked Questions
This is a single FAQ from the MetaFilter FAQ.
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 Us 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 the web development team in February
(tags: mods MetaFilter admins moderation ) March 20, 2006 - back to questions
The best way to reach a moderator is to use the Contact Us 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 the web development team in February
(tags: mods MetaFilter admins moderation ) March 20, 2006 - back to questions