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 $5 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 post comments on various MetaFilter threads.
(tags: MetaFilter newusers membership ) February 15, 2006 - back to questions

Yes, just use this link and fill in your friend's email address. They will be able to choose their own handle once they register.
(tags: metafilter gift accounts paypal ) November 16, 2006 - back to questions

There are very rare cases where this is appropriate, usually large scale disasters (like once-in-a-lifetime events). Updates to the latest political intrigue do not qualify. Generally speaking, if a breaking story isn't linked on the Internet yet, it won't make a very good post. If you're posting it thinking, "I'd better hurry before someone else posts this" — then it's probably not a good post.
(tags: breakingnews newsfilter metafilter ) March 6, 2006 - back to questions

According to the guidelines page "A good post to MetaFilter is something that meets the following criteria: most people haven't seen it before, there is something interesting about the content on the page, and it might warrant discussion from others." Posts shouldn't be terribly long, and they don't have to contain multiple links or end with a discussion-sparking question. The Best Post of the Day contest from August 2006 contains many examples of a wide variety of good MetaFilter posts.
(tags: fpp metafilter posts ) April 20, 2006 - back to questions

No. Many people do this as a courtesy, but it is in no way mandatory. Adding a [via] comment to someone else's post is often considered rude and/or annoying.
(tags: via metafilter ) April 23, 2006 - back to questions

Favorites are an internal bookmark system for MetaFilter -- a way to save a good thread or comment to a central place that you can come back to later to catch up or read again. To save a post to your favorites, you simply hit the [+] link. It should show up on your favorites page, which is linked in the header menu and on your own user page. You can remove your favorites from the Favorites page. Your favorites are public, so other readers will know what'd you've saved for later. If you want to keep things private, use your browser's bookmark functionality instead. If a comment has been chosen as a favorite, it will have a number in brackets next to the [+] link indicating how many people chose it as a favorite. You can mark your own comments as favorites.
(tags: MetaFilter favorites features ) May 10, 2006 - back to questions

MetaFilter was created by Matt Haughey (mathowie). He was the sole admin of the site until 2005 when Jessamyn West (jessamyn) started helping keep Ask MetaFilter on track. In March 2007 Josh Millard (cortex) started helping out around the place. Now they all watch the flagged posts pile up, delete questionable posts, occasionally post to the sideblog, and settle any disputes that might arise. You can email mathowie and jessamyn and cortex at the contact form.
(tags: MetaFilter admins moderation ) March 20, 2006 - back to questions

When a thread is deleted, it is closed to new comments and is removed from the front page but can still be visible at the permanent URL for the thread. There is a brief "reason for deletion" given when a MetaFilter thread is removed. The most common reasons are

- double-post - the exact link or one linking to nearly the same content has already been posted
- self-link - you posted something to MetaFilter that is on your own site or that you contributed heavily towards
- newsfilter - you posted a link to a news article without creating a post that would lead to good discussion
- axegrindfilter - you posted on a hot-button topic that you frequently post about and/or used heavy-handed editorializing language.
- broken link - you posted a link to something that is no longer available on the web

Please note: Your FPP is no indication of your value as a human being. (Unless you are self-linking, spamming, or deliberately causing a problem. Then, you suck.)
(tags: metafilter deletion doublepost thread ) April 20, 2006 - back to questions