Support Metafilter

A cou­ple of years ago, I was asked to name the first five sites I vis­it each day. With­out pause, I rat­tled off Metafil­ter, a crowd­sourced blog where intel­li­gent con­trib­u­tors high­light inter­est­ing things and answer each oth­er’s ques­tions. Metafil­ter has been around since 1999, and it’s been the source of count­less posts on Open Cul­ture over the years. Do a search for “via Metafil­ter” on our site, and you will see what I mean.

Two days ago, Metafil­ter’s founder Matt Haugh­ey (see him talk about the his­to­ry of Metafil­ter above) stunned read­ers when he pub­lished a post about his site’s finan­cial sit­u­a­tion. His post begins: “Today I need to share some unfor­tu­nate news: because of seri­ous finan­cial down­turn, MetaFil­ter will be los­ing three of its mod­er­a­tors to lay­offs at the end of this month.” And it ends: “We may have to make hard choic­es in the future as they come up, but the goal will always be towards hav­ing the best place online to share neat stuff, to ask and answer ques­tions, and to have the kinds of thought­ful con­ver­sa­tions that make this place what it is.”

Encour­aged by its read­ers, Metafil­ter launched a fundrais­ing cam­paign today. Through Pay­pal you can sub­scribe to Metafil­ter for $1, $2, $3, $5, $10, or $20 per month or you can make a one-time con­tri­bu­tion. If you’re a fan of Metafil­ter, def­i­nite­ly con­sid­er giv­ing them your sup­port. If you’re not yet a fan, then spend some time at Metafil­ter and con­sid­er giv­ing a hand once you’re hooked.