These P&L reports still don’t seem to make sense. For example, recurring revenue goes from $11,771 in February, to $29,800 in March, then back down to $13,414 in April. Also, what does the category “Sales of Product Income” refer to? It’s a huge portion of total revenue for some months, and it appears to be distinct from recurring donations, one-time donations, and advertising revenue.
posted by bunton at 12:17 PM on May 30 [5 favorites]

Thank you!

Can the board treasurer or volunteer (or Loup if they are still part of the accounting team) provide any context on what is included under the “Income” row, and why it varies so much month-to-month? Thank you!
posted by samthemander at 12:18 PM on May 30 [2 favorites]

Additionally, it might make sense to remove (or provide clearer context to) the link to the “draft of the proposed bylaws.” We have EXISTING, ADOPTED bylaws. It would be more helpful to show those to people for comment. That thread is too long to be useful for anyone new coming in.
posted by samthemander at 12:21 PM on May 30 [5 favorites]

Great to see lots of progress here! Cloudflare seems to have made a huge difference, the site is vastly more available now.
posted by TheophileEscargot at 12:48 PM on May 30 [1 favorite]

Yes, the financials still don’t make any sense. Presumably both income and expenses are being recorded at irregular intervals so it is impossible to see how much the foundation is losing and how those trends are looking. Balance sheet from February seems to show a significant loss since the end of year, and it seems to include the $10k left in the LLC account for taxes. If we try to extrapolate that decline to now, I would guess that the foundation may have spent a third of its savings since the beginning of the year. If the decline is accelerating, as it presumably is, then it wouldn’t be surprising to be broke by the end of the year. Heckuva job caretaking, interim board!
posted by snofoam at 12:49 PM on May 30 [3 favorites]

samthemander: "Additionally, it might make sense to remove (or provide clearer context to) the link to the “draft of the proposed bylaws.” We have EXISTING, ADOPTED bylaws. It would be more helpful to show those to people for comment. That thread is too long to be useful for anyone new coming in."

The bylaws listed as "draft bylaws" are actually the existing adopted bylaws. Rhaomi clarified that in that long thread.

Yes, the bylaws have been in effect since late last year, adopted via a circulated signed consent (not a discrete meeting) on November 20th. The text is from a local copy saved as an exhibit from the email exchange with our lawyer the day of incorporation (hence the fill-in-the-blank date), but the text is the same.
posted by Rhaomi (board member) at 12:22 AM on May 25

posted by lapis at 1:25 PM on May 30 [3 favorites]

I would suggest updating the text of this post to say "Here are the current bylaws of the site" rather than saying they're a draft of proposed bylaws. (There apparently is a draft of proposed revisions, but no one's shared it yet, as far as I've seen.)
posted by lapis at 1:27 PM on May 30 [2 favorites]

Minutes for this meeting will be shared to summarize what was discussed and any action items reflected.

Now that made me chuckle at my desk. If I worked in an office I'd gotten looks from coworkers. Good one.

Anyway, yeah the financials make no sense.
Also as mentioned we have Bylaws and boy howdy they leave a lot to be desired.
Alas, as others have pointed out, tracking a new MetaTalk about everything is hard, and then putting important things into a 100+ long thread is even worse.
All that said, I'm confused.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 1:32 PM on May 30 [3 favorites]

Man, of all the threads I'd hope the board is actively monitoring... this is one.
posted by sagc at 1:40 PM on May 30 [6 favorites]

Thanks for the update!


This got a bit long of course, and in the meantime the point's been made above. But to add more context for anyone coming in late to this nonsense:

Here’s [a] draft of the proposed bylaws for the site that anyone can review and/or comment on.

Correction: "This is a copy of the current bylaws drafted by our counsel based on feedback from the original volunteer group and used for incorporation." - Rhaomi (president of the interim board)

In other words, what was posted was a basic set of bylaws that the interim board approved way back just so that it could get on with incorporating the Metafilter nonprofit. These were and are meant to be temporary.

For around a year, the (unelected) interim board has been working on creating real bylaws. We've been told several times starting around 9 months ago that a draft would soon be posted for community input. After some serious community pushback about how this hadn't happened, we were finally told on Sunday that it would be posted "in the next day or so". After more pushback about how that hasn't happened, Rhaomi posted two days ago that he'd "caught up with 1adam12 earlier this evening and he was finishing up an updated draft, but wanted to run it by contributors first before publishing. More soon." What contributors and why? Unclear. (Though one contributor reports having already approved the draft as ready to be posted to the community.)

So yes, anyone can review and/or comment on the bylaws that were posted, but those aren't the draft bylaws the (unelected) interim board's been working on without allowing community feedback for the last god knows how many months. Still waiting for those. Not clear why.

(For anyone who hasn't been following all the conversations on Metatalk: Why the interest in the bylaws? Two immediate reasons: First, the bylaws define how elections for an actual community-selected board can happen, and until now the board never bothered posting the bylaws it's been operating under since incorporation so nobody outside the board knew what the rules for elections actually were. Second, a few months ago people began asking when elections for a non-interim board would take place, since there had been no word on it and it was the interim board's main responsibility after incorporation. It turned out the board had decided, on its own and without any announcement or discussion, to put elections on hold until the site rewrite is finished - despite lots of protest, despite the site rewrite being a complex software engineering project with no solid ETA, and despite the PM for the rewrite having advised the board that the rewrite and the elections should absolutely not be linked. They supported this decision with a notably dubious justification. This put a spotlight on how the board has been operating and making major site decisions unilaterally without engaging with the community at all - despite never having been elected in the first place, despite having a narrower mandate, and despite general expectations and hopes that the transition to a nonprofit would also be a transition to more community-inclusive management.

The current status on all this is that community members are trying to go ahead and plan the election ourselves, and I guess hope that the interim community gives in and agrees; to date Rhaomi has acknowledged that it might not actually be necessary to wait for the site rewrite to be done, but there hasn't been any commitment from the board to prioritize holding elections quickly, let alone any commitment to a timeline. Or actual comment from anyone but Rhaomi.)
posted by trig at 1:40 PM on May 30 [22 favorites]

As Brandon notes in the main post, here is the thread where the election planning discussion has been taking place. Among the questions discussed: how many members should be on a permanent board (and whether it should include current interim board members or members hand-picked by the interim board); how long elected board members should serve; which Metafilter users should be eligible to vote (near-consensus answer: all of them, regardless of account age or activity); how community members will indicate that they want to vote/be members of the nonprofit; what mechanism should be used to filter out sockpuppet votes; and how long the election period should be.
posted by trig at 1:52 PM on May 30 [1 favorite]

I'm starting to get the impression that I’m not the only person who is impatient for elections.
posted by Vatnesine at 2:11 PM on May 30 [2 favorites]

"and I guess hope that the interim community gives in and agrees"

Sorry, that should be "interim board".

I'm starting to get the impression that I’m not the only person who is impatient for elections.

I forgot to link to this!
posted by trig at 2:12 PM on May 30 [4 favorites]

The board has largely ignored any and all requests for information or faster progress on voting. The one exception in recent months was the sharing of the interim bylaws. This happened after comments were posted that highlighted the legal and fiduciary responsibilities of the current board members and the vulnerability of the foundation. There's no way of knowing what prompted the sharing of bylaws, but it seems possible that these two things are linked.

Obviously, it would be best, and in keeping in our shared quest for community governance, for the unelected interim board to respond to the request of the community for transparency and a speedy transition to an elected board. Since the unelected board are the sole members of the foundation right now, the foundation is under complete control of the board and the entire rest of the community have no say in anything. The general responsiveness of the board to community requests seems to indicate that the board is well aware of this dynamic.

Since responsibility for the foundation is the one corollary of the board's control of the foundation, the one avenue that non-board members have to motivate the board is the ability to, in good faith, report issues with the board, the foundation or the site to relevant agencies where the foundation is based, or in other parts of the world in which it operates. To be clear, I am not suggesting that Metafilter or its foundation have previous or current practices that are legally or financially questionable. I'm not suggesting that the foundation may have employment practices that could be questioned or that the site may not be complying with regulations about things like collection and storage of personal data.

I think it would be useful to identify these possible vulnerabilities for a couple reasons. One, for sure, is that it might motivate the interim board to move more quickly to elections. More importantly, though, any vulnerabilities should be identified, evaluated, and corrected if necessary, so that the foundation and the site/new site can be run on a solid foundation for the long term. I think it could be beneficial to start a committee where members with different backgrounds could contribute to the list of vulnerabilities and perhaps conduct assessments.

The phantom menace of a boyzone electoral coup was patently ridiculous: so complicated! so much work! so easily thwarted! On the other hand, a single person in their free time could surely grind the foundation to a halt and possibly bankrupt it, just by reporting things that may not be quite up to snuff currently. That's a huge risk that shouldn't be left unaddressed. I don't think it is going to happen, but we have seen how heated things have gotten with the continued intransigence of the interim board. The only thing that unites everyone right now is the belief in the future of the site as a community governed entity. If hope in that is lost, then the issues we are seeing in recent years may seem low-key compared to what could come.
posted by snofoam at 2:17 PM on May 30 [12 favorites]

Have let the board know that people have questions about the P&L reports and financials!

lol, lmao, etc
posted by sickos haha yes dot jpg at 3:10 PM on May 30 [7 favorites]

Stop it, snofoam.

Suggesting people report the nonprofit for noncompliance can only hurt the site and -- to boot -- won't help get what any of us want, because the nonprofit does not (yet?) have a legal responsibility to be responsive to the userbase.

(You can tell it's [stochastic?] blackmail when the thing you're threatening to report isn't related to the thing you're looking to have done.)

(And I understand that you're trying to be careful to make clear you won't be reporting these "vulnerabilities" yourself, but you're also making clear that you think suggesting that "someone" might cause legal trouble on these unrelated axes is the only reason we got the movement we did over the weekend, but 1) This isn't solid ground for community building, and 2) I also suspect it's untrue. Seriously, stop this.)
posted by nobody at 3:59 PM on May 30 [4 favorites]

Respectfully, I don’t think we need a committee to create a list of metafilter’s flaws. We need to apply all energy available to support Metafilter toward actively working on the election and financial issues. I recommend a specific MetaTalk thread and/or google doc if you would like to compile a list of risks.
posted by samthemander at 4:00 PM on May 30 [1 favorite]

you can tell it's [stochastic?] blackmail when

stochastic
blackmail
posted by sickos haha yes dot jpg at 4:17 PM on May 30 [3 favorites]

How incredibly disheartening that after such a long delay the new financials continue to be inconsistent and confusing. And that they are simply linked to without a single explanatory note offered to the community to help them understand the inconsistencies and confusing new categories (Sales of Product Income?), not to mention the amounts that vary wildly from month to month. Did MetaFilter really somehow turn a profit of $20,000 in the first four months of the year, as the financials indicate? How?

These financials do not allow members understand the site's finances. I think this is yet another reason to move immediately to board elections in order to give some new folks a chance to find out what is actually happening financially at this community foundation and to report out to the members.
posted by ssg at 4:22 PM on May 30 [12 favorites]

The legal threat is totally imaginary. Users have no legal rights with respect to the legal entity that operates the site. We are not shareholders or members or directors or anything. The most we could hope to do is get a state or federal official interested in investigating a small not for profit website for violations of [shruggy guy emoji]. Direct action like withholding money, organizing the user base, and ultimately threatening to leave are much more realistic ways to create change.
posted by Mid at 4:25 PM on May 30 [9 favorites]

snofoam: "The board has largely ignored any and all requests for information or faster progress on voting. The one exception in recent months was the sharing of the interim bylaws. This happened after comments were posted that highlighted the legal and fiduciary responsibilities of the current board members and the vulnerability of the foundation. There's no way of knowing what prompted the sharing of bylaws, but it seems possible that these two things are linked.

Obviously, it would be best, and in keeping in our shared quest for community governance, for the unelected interim board to respond to the request of the community for transparency and a speedy transition to an elected board. Since the unelected board are the sole members of the foundation right now, the foundation is under complete control of the board and the entire rest of the community have no say in anything. The general responsiveness of the board to community requests seems to indicate that the board is well aware of this dynamic.

Since responsibility for the foundation is the one corollary of the board's control of the foundation, the one avenue that non-board members have to motivate the board is the ability to, in good faith, report issues with the board, the foundation or the site to relevant agencies where the foundation is based, or in other parts of the world in which it operates. To be clear, I am not suggesting that Metafilter or its foundation have previous or current practices that are legally or financially questionable. I'm not suggesting that the foundation may have employment practices that could be questioned or that the site may not be complying with regulations about things like collection and storage of personal data.

I think it would be useful to identify these possible vulnerabilities for a couple reasons. One, for sure, is that it might motivate the interim board to move more quickly to elections. More importantly, though, any vulnerabilities should be identified, evaluated, and corrected if necessary, so that the foundation and the site/new site can be run on a solid foundation for the long term. I think it could be beneficial to start a committee where members with different backgrounds could contribute to the list of vulnerabilities and perhaps conduct assessments.

The phantom menace of a boyzone electoral coup was patently ridiculous: so complicated! so much work! so easily thwarted! On the other hand, a single person in their free time could surely grind the foundation to a halt and possibly bankrupt it, just by reporting things that may not be quite up to snuff currently. That's a huge risk that shouldn't be left unaddressed. I don't think it is going to happen, but we have seen how heated things have gotten with the continued intransigence of the interim board. The only thing that unites everyone right now is the belief in the future of the site as a community governed entity. If hope in that is lost, then the issues we are seeing in recent years may seem low-key compared to what could come."

I encourage you to run for the Board. There's a Meta up right now calling for candidates.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 6:27 PM on May 30 [1 favorite]

stochastic
blackmail

Is my new band name.

I’m not saying that people should file a bunch of claims to create hassles for the board. I honestly don’t think anyone should do that. I do think the foundation should evaluate the risks and vulnerabilities that may have accrued over the course of many years of dire mismanagement to make sure that the whole thing doesn’t get done in by a disgruntled former contractor or someone who truly loses patience with the interim board and decides to act in a non-constructive way. Without knowing the inner workings of the site, staff or foundation, I don’t know what might need cleaning up, but it just seems prudent to take a look. I honestly think bringing this up is helpful to the foundation, and even the current board, which I am not a big fan of.
posted by snofoam at 7:43 PM on May 30 [1 favorite]

Right, sure, but you were simultaneously -- explicitly this time -- saying that we ought to raise that fear/threat as leverage to get the interim board to act in our interests, which to my mind is like showing up at the co-op meeting and threatening to call the cops (or -- forgive me -- like saying "I sure hope nobody calls the cops; it would be terrible if someone did call the cops; there sure are a lot of disgruntled people out there who could call the cops; you better do the right thing about Thing A or someone else who, like me, is upset about Thing A, is likely to call the cops about Things B, C, or D").

In any case, I was a bit...alarmed is putting it too strongly, when you raised all this in the prior thread, but eventually decided I could maybe squint and see the darker reading as at least potentially unintended.

But in this thread, it sure seemed like you went and spelled out the whole logic of the thing.

But whatever. If all this is from a place of genuine concern for the site's continued well-being, and you really didn't intend the "who will call the cops on this meddlesome priest" implications, then so be it, and in that case I apologize for reacting so strongly.

(But also: apart from all that, I think we should just quit it with talking about calling the cops. All I care about -- out of all the disagreements people have here -- is the site surviving. And if there truly were real legal vulnerabilities, you yourself have spelled out precisely why a public forum might not be the best place to hash those out.)

(But also I'd bet Mid is right and it doesn't matter.)
posted by nobody at 8:43 PM on May 30 [3 favorites]

But in this thread, it sure seemed like you went and spelled out the whole logic of the thing.

I just want to be really clear: I would never do something like this. But I do think this kind of vulnerability should be taken seriously. I can honestly imagine a lot of stuff being done in a half-assed and possibly not totally legit way over the years. I feel like there has been a general level of complacency on the site that feels unnecessarily dangerous. Someone brought up the idea of responding to subpoenas as if it were some kind of normal admin work. I think that was just a user making up a possible thing that could keep contractors from accomplishing other goals, but the idea that people can treat possible serious issues so lightly is worrisome.
posted by snofoam at 9:00 PM on May 30 [2 favorites]

And that they are simply linked to without a single explanatory note offered to the community to help them understand the inconsistencies and confusing new categories (Sales of Product Income?), not to mention the amounts that vary wildly from month to month.

Yep, no explanation at all, and no one who's saying they're the person who'll reply to any questions about something that clearly raises lots of questions.

Brandon, is there anyone on staff or the IUB who is prepared to answer specific questions about the new financial documents? If so, who is that person? If not, why not?
posted by mediareport at 10:26 PM on May 30 [4 favorites]

Hey 9222, could you please stop with the huge block quotes? It makes these long threads even harder to keep up with. Thanks for reducing the noise.
posted by mediareport at 10:29 PM on May 30 [10 favorites]

(It would be considerate of the board, and helpful in reducing the length of this thread, if the board would either answer those questions in a timely way or post a quick "we'll get back to you on Monday" note (and then do that). It know it's a weekend, but it was the board's/mods' choice to post this thread on a Friday, and with no explanation of the financials. Which have been awaiting explanation since forever.)
posted by trig at 6:34 AM on May 31 [14 favorites]

If we're taking questions, I'd love to know how $5 of 'PayPal Sales' leads to $478.49 in 'PayPal Fees'.
posted by demi-octopus at 8:01 AM on May 31 [9 favorites]

(For clarity: that was in April.)
posted by demi-octopus at 8:07 AM on May 31 [1 favorite]

We absolutely need the interim unelected board in here answering questions about the bizarre financial statements it just released. And can we maybe get one of the accountants who's supposedly been helping to answer a few questions from the community as well? In the future, all of these unnamed lawyers and accountants and such definitely need to be known and identified to the community, if we're really talking about a community-run site.

As a side note, it would be nice to get a clear, specific, direct answer to this: Have any of the IUB's members received any compensation for their activities as allowed by Section III.13 of the newly released bylaws, "Compensation of Directors"?

No Director shall be compensated for services unless so authorized by a duly adopted resolution of the Board, requiring that: (i) such Director may only receive reasonable compensation for services rendered for the Corporation in carrying out its purposes as established by the Board; and (ii) such compensation (a) is consistent with the Corporation’s financial policies, (b) does not adversely affect the Corporation’s ability to qualify as a Delaware non-stock corporation...

Directors may be reimbursed for reasonable expenses in performance of their duties as Board members provided that such reimbursement does not adversely affect the Corporation’s qualification as a Delaware non-stock corporation or (in the event that the Board elects to pursue such registration) an organization exempt under Section 501(a) and described under Section 501(c)(3) of the Code or give rise to intermediate sanctions as defined in the Code. No loans shall be made by the Corporation to any of its Directors or officers.
posted by mediareport at 8:10 AM on May 31 [6 favorites]

1adam12 is on the road rn, but before he left last night I relayed him some questions about the updated financials and got some notes:

Most of the stuff I identified and fixed was from December and January. Some of the errors were years old and just never got reconciled. Mainly I was worried about the transfers to cover February payroll, which should now all be correctly tagged and labeled. One of the PayPal big transfers actually includes a $3000 shift of funds from the [old] account to [new] but it wasn't split correctly to reflect this, so it looked like it was all donations.

As for when things are being recorded, now that PayPal is linked up all transactions are logged as they are made. That didn't happen until March, when I realized that a lot of the donations were stagnating in the "old" PayPal account and there were no automatic transfers. So we moved everything over at the time I found the discrepancy in one big lump, which QuickBooks tagged at the date of the transfer from PayPal to [the new account].

Once I found the errors we changed our PayPal policy so transfers are made every day. This means that everything is logged as of the date it lands in the PayPal account. Yes, this means that the reporting before April is probably not amazing. Incoming PayPal transactions behind that March transfer number in the hundreds. I'm not going through and backdating them in QuickBooks.

We'd planned on having a more thorough debrief on the accounting rather than just updated reports, but shifted focus in the last week to bylaws stuff. If there are further questions not addressed above, please leave them here and we'll try to get them answered satisfactorily.
posted by Rhaomi (board member) at 10:32 AM on May 31 [1 favorite]

If every older P&L is hopelessly inaccurate and will never be fixed, just explain each of the line items on the April one so we know what they actually are.
posted by snofoam at 10:58 AM on May 31 [10 favorites]

The obvious question that has already been asked is: what is "Sales of Product Income"?
posted by ssg at 11:05 AM on May 31 [8 favorites]

Okay, now I am really confused.

1. Was 1adam12 the volunteer that looked at the financials and corrected them? I was under the impression it was a volunteer outside of the interim board.

2. That makes me wonder... was 1adam12 also the legal counsel in regards to the bylaws?

3. per 1adam12: Yes, this means that the reporting before April is probably not amazing. Incoming PayPal transactions behind that March transfer number in the hundreds. I'm not going through and backdating them in QuickBooks.

So... three months of financial data is just... incorrect? Three of five months that Metafilter has been a non-profit? And, it is known and not being corrected?

Rhaomi, 1adam12, Gorgik: Do you understand how really bad #3 is? Like, 1adam12 is an attorney. Certainly, he knows accounting should be accurate?

This is all deeply, deeply concerning.
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 11:57 AM on May 31 [5 favorites]

Old/unused accounts have been closed and disconnected from our accounting system.


Can we get more information on the reasoning behind this, please? I can't imagine they were costing much database wise.
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 12:13 PM on May 31

I suspect that means that, like, Quickbooks accounts for employees that are no longer working for Metafilter were disabled.
posted by sagc at 12:28 PM on May 31 [3 favorites]

I'm not going through and backdating them in QuickBooks.

y'all seem very willing to drive the foundation into a tree, so i'm not sure you should be picking board members

We'd planned on having a more thorough debrief on the accounting rather than just updated reports, but shifted focus in the last week to bylaws stuff.

and at this point, just stop telling us what you "planned" to do. it is absolutely not credible.
posted by sickos haha yes dot jpg at 12:54 PM on May 31 [13 favorites]

We'd planned on having a more thorough debrief on the accounting rather than just updated reports, but shifted focus in the last week to bylaws stuff.

I'm still trying to give everyone the benefit of the doubt here, but frankly, this little aside rubs me the wrong way. The questions that users are asking about both the bylaws and the financial statements are perfectly reasonable and should have been anticipated. Furthermore, if the Board had been transparent about the bylaws in the first place, we could have had that discussion months ago. It's difficult for me to feel much sympathy for your self-inflicted time management difficulties when you add little digs like this on the occasions you respond to our questions.

Nobody (as far as I have seen) is asking the Interim Board to do anything beyond the most basic remit of its job.
posted by easy, lucky, free at 2:36 PM on May 31 [23 favorites]

I'd like to thank the folks responsible for providing updated financials.

Having said that, as others have said in this thread, they are still fairly incomprehensible and I still don't know what the present financial state of the site is. The question that immediately comes to mind is "does anyone know what the present financials actually look like?"

I'll probably keep an eye out for the May financials... but honestly, this is tiring. It is tiring to care about this site. Which is silly and ridiculous, but it's still the case for me.

I am tired of being promised updates and then not getting them for months.

I am tired of getting updates, months after they were promised, and having them still be unreadable or nonsensical.

I am tired of the lack of ability (of anyone in charge, it seems) to decide something quickly.

I am tired of the seemingly constant issues that keep coming up -- whether it's mods who are being perceived as overreaching, interim board members who are perceived as delaying elections, etc, etc, etc ad nauseum.

So I'm taking off for a while. I'll look for the May financials and may comment on them (particularly if they're as poorly done as these ones), but it's really difficult to find the time and energy to care about MetaFilter right now in its current state.

Part of me is tempted to offer to help, and perhaps I would have, a couple of years ago, back when I had more trust and faith in the people operating the site. More faith that I could have pushed the needle towards a better outcome. As it stands -- and this really sucks -- I look at all of this and just have to say not my circus, not my monkeys.

Best wishes. I'll see you folks at some point a few months from now, assuming the site is still around and hasn't run out of money, and the members haven't run out of patience. ✌
posted by juliebug at 4:59 AM on June 1 [26 favorites]

I’m not sure if the board’s intention is to compile 4+ days worth of comments/questions before offering responses, but the current actions are playing out that way. I would argue that this is not helping you, but instead hurting you. It’s almost always better to nip questions in the bud quickly, before fears fester.

If you would like to have a volunteer join in calls/chats/conversations regarding the accounting issues for the purpose of taking notes and disseminating responses in a more timely manner, I can volunteer.
posted by samthemander at 10:31 PM on June 2 [8 favorites]

samthemander: "If you would like to have a volunteer join in calls/chats/conversations regarding the accounting issues for the purpose of taking notes and disseminating responses in a more timely manner, I can volunteer."

The protocol for that is to mention it 3-4 times in a thread. Then email the Board 4-5 times, and then 18 months from now stumble onto a comment from one of the Board in an unrelated thread lamenting they'd love the help but no one ever stepped up.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 6:29 AM on June 3 [17 favorites]

And also they think there are some very good ideas being shared now but it will have to wait until after the holiday season to address.
posted by phunniemee at 6:36 AM on June 3 [6 favorites]

What with 4th of July right around the corner…
posted by umber vowel at 6:46 AM on June 3 [4 favorites]

And then it's practically Labor Day.
posted by lapis at 8:08 AM on June 3 [2 favorites]

umber vowel: "What with 4th of July right around the corner…"

Don;t even need to wait that long, two weeks is Juneteenth, on a Thursday, so a super long weekend.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 8:39 AM on June 3 [3 favorites]

Move to Sri Lanka and you've got a public holiday every time there's a full moon 🌝
posted by phunniemee at 9:13 AM on June 3 [2 favorites]

This is so discouraging.
posted by samthemander at 9:42 AM on June 3 [7 favorites]

Is a representative of the Interim Board still reading any of the current MeTa threads?

At this point, I don't expect a comprehensive response, but some acknowledgement would be appreciated. The silence is starting to feel deafening.
posted by easy, lucky, free at 9:58 AM on June 3 [1 favorite]

What's more telling for me is that if it were literally anyone else I would have sent a memail and maybe even contacted the mods to try and do a wellness check to make sure they're okay. Someone asked a question a few days ago about having a bad headache and didn't check back into the thread, and I kept their profile open to watch if they were active again anywhere on the site (they were thankfully) because I was medium concerned they'd had an aneurysm and died. Welcome to how my brain works.

Not only are we being ignored but we're ignored on the reg so much that I've had to kill off the part of me that gets concerned about people's welfare. Rude.
posted by phunniemee at 10:08 AM on June 3 [5 favorites]

samthemander: "This is so discouraging."

It really is.
posted by Vatnesine at 12:30 PM on June 3 [2 favorites]

Is a representative of the Interim Board still reading any of the current MeTa threads?

People, please! I can assure you that the interim board, which is generously volunteering their time, is fully dedicated to serving the needs of the members*.

* As currently defined by the foundation: the three unelected members of the interim board.
posted by snofoam at 3:21 PM on June 3 [2 favorites]

> The P&L for May will be made available on the evening of Monday, June 2, once the month is over and the complete report can be run.

Well, the lack of the promised P&L for May, along with absolutely no news from anyone about when we can expect that one, combined with the lack of explanation for the P&L stuff we did receive, kind of sums up how I feel about the site at the moment.

- I cannot trust the site's admins/caretakers/mods/whatever to provide us with timely, accurate information.
- As a result of the above, I cannot trust the site's admins/caretakers/mods/whatever to properly guide the site, particularly when it comes to finances.
- As a result of both of those above points, I will not be donating anything more to MetaFilter for the foreseeable future, until such time that I am convinced that: a) someone knows what they're doing, and b) they are able to provide us with these details on a regular basis when they say they will.

I don't like feeling this way. I said above thread that I am tired when I think about dealing with MeFi. That should not be the case. But it is. It is tiring to chase after mods/whoever/etc and if they tell us something is coming, see them blow riiiiiiight past it.

I know it's a very difficult thing to do, to face what may amount to an angry crowd, but that's part of the job. Mods or whoever is the equivalent of customer service needs to do that sort of thing. I work in support and it sucks beyond the telling of it to tell a customer "sorry, I don't have an answer for you yet", but I SWEAR it is always better to say that than radio silence. I PROMISE.

That said (and I won't say that I speak for anyone else), I have lost trust in whoever's running the site. There's very little goodwill left on my part and that is a direct result of feeling like the people in charge are just messing with us. I know they're not. It feels like it, though. It feels like the people in charge don't care. Whether that's true or not, it's how it feels to me.

So I can't take anyone's word that X, Y or Z is coming soon. I can't take anyone's word that these P&L docs are, in fact, totally accurate. I just can't. Almost 22 years of goodwill and trust are basically gone. And I don't like that I've lost that trust. I don't like who that makes me. And I don't like how tired I get when I think about the stuff that's going on here. Caring about this place is currently exhausting and currently making me unhappy.

Be kind to one another, but continue to hold folks in positions responsible, okay?

I am just going outside and may be some time.
posted by juliebug at 3:57 PM on June 3 [22 favorites]

Is a representative of the Interim Board still reading any of the current MeTa threads?

Rhaomi posted in the bylaws thread around 2 hours ago, so... maybe. I'm assuming it's either an "I don't feel like talking with them for they are such ungrateful whiners" situation or an "I can't answer these questions without Adam who is traveling so I'll avoid making even a placeholder comment to show we're listening because all those bad-faith whiners will just jump on me anyway and who needs Communication 101" one. Though there was also a dig about "hundreds!" of comments so maybe they need some help catching up. That does happen when you don't keep on top of things.

* As currently defined by the foundation: the three unelected members of the interim board.

This is actually, astonishingly, true (it's defined in the current bylaws; in one of the neatest examples of missing the point I've seen lately, the Annual Meeting didn't even have to happen because the three Members signed a "unanimous" agreement to skip it.)

juliebug, please come back to vote, should we ever get there :-(
posted by trig at 4:10 PM on June 3 [12 favorites]

(To be clear, I think it is not okay to avoid basic responsiveness even if you believe everyone's a whiner who will come at you. And I think viewing the feedback here that way is not an acceptable option for people holding board positions.)
posted by trig at 5:15 PM on June 3 [8 favorites]

Coming back from years and years of silent reading to say...honest to God, if this can't be fixed in a way that satisfies the remaining users, and soon, maybe just wind it down before everyone sells their dignity and goodwill with each other trying to save it?
posted by rollbiz at 9:42 PM on June 3 [7 favorites]

The P&L for May will be made available on the evening of Monday, June 2, once the month is over and the complete report can be run.

Brandon, what's the status on this?
posted by trig at 8:36 AM on June 4 [2 favorites]

It is being worked on, no specific ETA at the moment other than soon. Apologies for that and the missed deadline.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 9:08 AM on June 4 [3 favorites]

Brandon, you’re doing great. Thank you. (This is genuine, not sarcastic.)
posted by samthemander at 9:49 AM on June 4 [1 favorite]

The P&L for May will be made available on the evening of Monday, June 2, once the month is over and the complete report can be run.

Where did that ETA come from? When was the staff made aware that it was going to be missed? Did anyone check before trig asked? Are you going to edit this post with the updated information?
posted by Diskeater at 9:49 AM on June 4 [1 favorite]

Did anyone check before trig asked?

Btw, juliebug had called attention to this yesterday and cited it as the last straw for her and the impetus for taking a break from the site.

I think many of us would find it less frustrating if there were at least a "we're not going to meet the deadline" apology/heads up ahead of time. That would at least let it seem like someone was actually tracking these things and trying to be accountable.
posted by trig at 10:52 AM on June 4 [2 favorites]

Diskeater: "Where did that ETA come from? When was the staff made aware that it was going to be missed? Did anyone check before trig asked? Are you going to edit this post with the updated information?"

Oh I probably should have written that the May P&L will be available by the end of next week, so I'll take the blame for that under the premise that it's good to have a deadline, but pad the deadline in case something pops up.

Will check back later this evening when I'm actually on duty to see where things stand and will update post then.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 11:36 AM on June 4

So the timeline wasn't set by whoever was doing or supervising the work, but was instead an optimistic guess? Is "the end of next week" (which is presumably now this week) at estimate coming from whoever's doing the work?
posted by sagc at 11:45 AM on June 4 [3 favorites]

Oh I probably should have written that the May P&L will be available by the end of next week

Where did the Monday, June 2nd deadline come from?

Is the new deadline Friday, June 13th? What is that (or whatever the new deadline is) based on?

it's good to have a deadline

It's not good to just "have" deadlines.
posted by Diskeater at 11:54 AM on June 4 [4 favorites]

Oh I probably should have written that the May P&L will be available by the end of next week, so I'll take the blame for that under the premise that it's good to have a deadline, but pad the deadline in case something pops up.

is .. is this what you think a deadline is for?

Is the new deadline Friday, June 13th? What is that (or whatever the new deadline is) based on?

"the May P&L will be available by the end of next week" would have been posted on Friday May 30 so "end of the next week" would be Friday June 6. That's 2 days from now in case anyone needed that spelled out for them.
posted by bowmaniac at 1:31 PM on June 4 [1 favorite]

Where did the Monday, June 2nd ETA come from?

When (and how) was the staff made aware that it was going to be missed?

Did anyone check before trig asked?

Is the new deadline Friday, June 13th 6th?

What is that (or whatever the new deadline is) based on?
posted by Diskeater at 4:44 PM on June 4

same thing everything else here is based on: vibes
posted by glonous keming at 5:26 PM on June 4 [3 favorites]

The Monday ETA came from me as mentioned here.

There currently is no dealine as the Board works to figure out the problem as mentioned previously.

Checked about the status late Monday night, held off mentioning anything until hearing the details of delay.
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 6:41 PM on June 4

Is it... common to make up delivery dates for things around here?

One of the things that's been wearying folks is self-set deadlines being continually missed. Was this May financials fake deadline a one-off, or have previous deadline dates also been completely invented with no basis or confirmation?

It's pretty stupid to repeatedly miss deadlines that you set for yourself but if you're missing a deadline that someone else pulled out their ass, that's. Dude I don't even know.
posted by phunniemee at 6:53 PM on June 4 [8 favorites]

I can't wait until October when the Board throws up there hands and says they can't figure out how money keeps going to the old account.

Something....fishy seems off with that. Maybe it's just a glitch but we're into June without a clear picture of P&L.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 7:31 PM on June 4 [2 favorites]

An old account, you say.
posted by Miko at 11:59 PM on June 4 [2 favorites]

Why is Loup doing this work? 1Adam12 is our treasurer.
posted by Vatnesine at 12:31 PM on June 5 [4 favorites]

Vatnesine: "Why is Loup doing this work? 1Adam12 is our treasurer."

Maybe loup has been picked as the new treasurer?
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 12:48 PM on June 5 [1 favorite]

The board is working to resolve the issue,
***
talked to loup a few minutes ago, they're still working on the issue

How is the board involved in this? Did the board ask loup to do this work for them? Can the board not speak for themselves?
I assume it's safe to assume the old account is an old MeFi account? Right?
posted by bowmaniac at 5:00 PM on June 5 [1 favorite]

Can the board not speak for themselves?

That's a bannin'.
posted by phunniemee at 5:03 PM on June 5

if there's an "old account" that people didn't know about, and it was somehow active, does that mean that all the past P&Ls need to be corrected to reflect the content of this mystery lost account?

Does everyone realize this is shady? Like, never attribute to malice what incompetence will explain, but at the same time, accounts people didn't know about are kind of a classic red flag. More details would be welcome.
posted by Miko at 5:59 PM on June 5

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